Welcome to Life After Losing Mom With Kat Bonner. We’re joined by Intuitive Grief Guide and fellow podcast host, Shelby Forsythia, who shares her story of losing her mom to cancer while they were going through a rough patch in their relationship. With things left unresolved, grief has not been an easy process for Shelby, but she’s here to share her journey with us.

What To Listen For

The argument that changed Shelby’s life forever
What Shelby calls her “four years of hell”
The story of Shelby’s mom’s battle with breast cancer and how it went into remission, only to tragically return
Shelby’s self-identification as gender non-conforming nonbinary and how it affected her relationship with her mom
Shelby’s bitterness over how her own grieving process differed from the rest of her family
How she deals with the big conversations that she’ll never get to have with her mom
How Shelby receives her mom’s energy through dreams and communicates with her through life’s experiences, and how she learned to put the work in to be able to recognize these moments
What her grief triggers are and how she copes with them
What Shelby calls “lightning bolt moments” and how they’ve changed her life
Her analogy of grief being like an angry wolf caged in a dark basement and how she works with it
How to manifest love for yourself when you lose someone who used to provide love for you
How a phone call with God allowed her to surrender to her grief
How her family members honor her mom’s memory on a regular basis
Shelby’s realization that death doesn’t stop the relationship
How her podcast and Grief Growers Garden Facebook group has given her a voice on a bigger platform where she can communicate with others to gain insight into loss.

Shelby’s story is unique in how the events unfolded around her mom’s death and their argument before she died. No matter the circumstances, she’s learned that losing your mom is heartbreaking for everyone, but with things left unsaid and issues left unresolved, it can get even messier. Her work as a grief coach and podcast host gives her the ability to connect with others on a broader level and to honor her mom’s memories in ways she had never anticipated when she was first blindsided by her loss. As Shelby says, “because even through grief we are growing,” and her personal story shows us how to realize our own growth in the face of our own loss.

Resources From This Episode:

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Follow Shelby:

ShelbyForsythia.com
Grief Growers Garden Facebook Group

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Transcript

Shelby: 00:00:00 I wish someone would've told me while I was grieving is like, hey, even if you don't recognize it, you're growing

Kat: 00:00:08 Welcome to life after losing mom with me, Kat Bonner on this podcast, you'll hear from other women who have lost their mom and discovered the exact coping strategies that you need to get through the day and being the best place you've ever been. Don't miss another episode of life after losing mom. Subscribe today. More information can be found at katbonner.com/podcast. And if you'd like to join a group of likeminded women had to Facebook and search for the life after losing mom community. I just want to apologize in advance for the choppiness of this episode. I have had my fair share of technical difficulties, so yeah, I apologize. And thankfully my podcast manager is the best and hopefully thrown episode together and it sound somewhat decent. Ladies, we have a very special yes on the show today. A fellow at Greif-caster, and she is also from North Carolina. I would like to welcome a Shelby Forsythia,

Shelby: 00:01:17 Dah, Dah, Dah. I'm like, do my own intro music. Yes. Uh, born and raised in North Carolina. Everyone appear in Chicago asks me why I don't have an accent. And I always throw in some joke about how coming from the south and now living in the Midwest, they kind of just even each other out. So I don't have an accent only when I'm on the phone. Every now and then we'll I dip into, hi, this is Shelby and you can really tell like where I'm from. Um, which is amazing. I'm so excited to have you here, especially because, uh, I've had you cat over on my show coming back, conversations on life after loss and I just love spreading out in the podcast sphere and seeing more people talking about grief in the form of podcasts because there's so much more approachable to grieving people, I think, than books because books you have to like sit down and focus and concentrate on. Whereas a podcast can just be on in the background and if you tune in, great, you might hear somebody's story, you might hear a tool or something that resonates with you, um, or a a book. Where's the book? You kind of have to be paying attention or you miss the content. Uh, so I'm excited to be here and on this format with you today.

Kat: 00:02:29 Shelby, if you don't mind starting the show off with a little bit about the story of how you lost your mom.

Shelby: 00:02:38 Yeah, that's perfect. Um, my last story kind of begins pre actual loss. Um, I always like to tell people I had this really idyllic childhood. I didn't have a lot of exposure to death or dying. My, you know, childhood was not dramatic. My parents were not divorced, like no major upheaval really happened. It was kind of, um, like a typical white suburban piano lessons, you know, buy the uniforms for marching band kind of household. Like that's just the format. A family of four, like how, how I was raised and then church on the weekends. Um, and then when, when crap hits the fan, it like really hit the fan. So the last story that I tell is about what I have affectionately referred to as the four years of hell. And this is when I went off to college. And what kind of kickstarted this instability or season of lost in my life was, uh, first my dad lost his job of 19 years and this is, um, in 2010 when a lot of layoffs and things were still happening from the great recession.

Shelby: 00:03:55 And so it was kind of a bit of a shock to our family, but an upheaval and stability, something I had never seen before. So all of a sudden kind of we stopped eating out, we talked about money more, there was more stress in the household, there are a lot more, um, kind of like whispered conversations or things behind closed doors and there's kind of this sense that we were generally unstable. Um, and then pretty shortly after that, my sister and I witnessed my dad having like a low grade seizure. I'm not sure if this is the medical term for it. Um, but we had finished watching a movie in the living room and like making popcorn and stuff and we were all getting ready to go to bed and he was looking into one of those like, um, plastic tumblers that you can put like ice strengths are like iced tea or something and, and carry it in your car.

Shelby: 00:04:40 And he was talking about seeing my great grandfather, his grandfather, and like some relatives that he had farmed cotton with in Tennessee is a boy. And my sister and I were looking at him, we thought he was joking at first, but he was really insistent in looking into this plastic cup. He's like, why don't you see them? They're standing right there. And so that was this hallucinatory s like low grade seizures, some kind of like brain slippage activity that was happening. And it scared us. And I was, uh, I believe I was 18 or 19 at the time and my sister's about two years younger and we both went upstairs and I walked over to her bedroom and I was like, that was kind of weird, wasn't it? And she said, yeah. And so we went back downstairs and we told my mom what had happened in my dad was like, oh, I'm just tired.

Shelby: 00:05:26 I've been having headaches for awhile. Um, kind of these other excuses came up. Uh, but then a few months later while I was in school and he experienced, I believe he experienced a full blown seizure. Something else happened that got him admitted to the hospital. And I just remember getting a phone call at the women's center where I volunteered in college go app state, um, where I got a phone call and they said, we scanned your dad's head. And he has two brain aneurysms and they're symmetrical one on either side of his brain. And when they put them through the machine, I don't know if it was a CT scanner and Mri, something, an imaging test. Um, they were like some of the biggest recorded aneurysms. They're like, we don't know why you're alive right now. Duke University, it was like, we don't know why you're alive and do, is a pretty reputable hospital in the south.

Shelby: 00:06:17 And, and that was absolutely terrifying. So not only was this like instability of job loss happening, it was like your dad might be dying and there was this suspense kind of all of a sudden hanging in the air of this could happen at any moment because of an aneurysm ruptures, like more or less, it's game over. And so I was living with this perpetual anxiety while I was in school. While I was doing my first semester while I was taking classes and every single time the phone rang and it was a member of my family, I was like, oh my God, he's dead. And this was my very first exposure from my shelter, childhood to living with anxiety and like mortality awareness swirling around. And within the next two years or so, he had surgeries for both of his aneurysms. They did one and then waited for it to heal and then flipped him over to the other side and did the other one, waited for that to heal.

Shelby: 00:07:05 And I watched my father become a different person. It, um, he became, so, I mean, they're digging around in your brain, so how could you not be? But he became somebody who could no longer drive, who couldn't remember who members of his family were, who became angry, who was really tired, like, and traditions that we have. Things like thanksgiving, things like Christmas, things like holidays all became very drastically different. And then of course there's that community support that comes with grief to have meal trains and casseroles and Carpool and all this other stuff where the community rallies around you. But at the same time you're like, I really love you guys, but I just wish everything would come back to normal. Um, and that was our reality for probably about the first two years of the four years of hell. Uh, and then in 2012 we thought we were out of the woods.

Shelby: 00:07:51 My Dad had gotten an all clear from his doctors with, you know, sustain medications for the rest of his life. Please don't work up on roofs or anything on high buildings or Tom Machinery or anything like that. Again. Um, but you've been cleared. You're healed, you're ready to go. The meal train stopped. The car pools stopped. The prayer circles stopped for, you know, for good reason. Um, and then in the summer of 2012, my mom called a family meeting, which in our family was never a good thing and she got test results back from a mammogram that detected that she had breast cancer. And so immediately, like all over again, we were flung into this world of hospitals and medical testing and you know, all this equipment and stuff being in the house and carpools and meal trains and prayer circles and all of this stuff just happening again and again.

Shelby: 00:08:40 And I was like, am I living in the twilight zone? It was the craziest thing. And we thought we were out of the woods, like we thought we were done and then we weren't, we were just getting started. And so she went on this journey of receiving chemo and, and, um, radiation and losing her hair and getting neuropathy in her fingers and toes. And, and she also became a different person. So within the course of these four years, I watched both of my parents who for all intents and purposes, we're very stable people throughout the course of my childhood become two totally different people as a result of what they had gone through. And um, about a year later in 2013, she went into remission and was declared cancer free. And the actual loss story that I experienced happened in November of 2013 when what doctors thought was advanced pneumonia or allergies or just low immunity ended up being my mom's breast cancer returned, uh, metastasized into her lungs in her chest and this was something after one surgery and they're like, we could do preventative stuff but nothing anymore.

Shelby: 00:09:39 We'll cure or fix or fend off this inevitable reality that she's going to die from this cancer. And it absolutely like getting that knowledge and continuing to go to college throughout the course of this and coming home for winter finals and my mom being like, I've decided not to have any more surgeries. I've decided to die to participate in this dying process and call hospice in and, and do that whole thing. Like, I cannot convey into words still almost six years later, like how far open this blew my world. And she kind of made this declaration to us on December 19th and we were like, okay. And hospice came in and started setting things up and we had spoken to her doctors and kind of gotten word and we thought like all of us thought everyone thought we were going to have weeks to months, maybe if we were lucky.

Shelby: 00:10:33 And she died in a week. She died the day after Christmas 2013. And like it, when I say the entire bottom fell out from my world, like there was just no way to explain how life shattering. And Megan Devine, she's an author who wrote, it's okay that you're not okay. She used this, uses this word, uh, universe rearranging like literally my mother's death and rearranged everything I knew to be true about life in a split second. And that remains true, uh, to this day. And that loss at the age of 21 is really, I mean, it's the worst thing that has ever happened to me and has also been the catalyst for my life in the aftermath.

Kat: 00:11:25 How was it like mentally preparing yourself for the reality that your mom was going to die, but she seemed to just get sick really fast and you thought you had more time? Like how did you handle that? I mean, whether you're your mom's death is expected or unexpected. Like one person cannot train their mind to think like, hey, my mom's gonna die. Like, was there one thing that helped you with this realization knowing that this cancer is going to take your mom's life because I can't even imagine. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, at 21 years old, I'm like, how,

Shelby: 00:12:12 how in the world am I supposed to prepare for the death of my mother at 21? Um, and, uh, the only thing that really kind of helped, and I'll give Kudos to hospice for this, if anyone's considering hospice care, get it sooner rather than later because they were really communicative about what death would look like. They're like, usually the order of things is, you know, they, they stopped being mobile and so they stay in their bed and her eyes will close and so she will no longer be able to see, like she won't go blind, but she won't be able to open her eyes anymore. The last thing to go was her hearing. So keep talking to her, keep singing to her, keep sharing memories and things like that because up until the moment she dies, she'll be able to hear you. And it was really neat too to kind of hear from them, these are the ways in which it will happen.

Shelby: 00:13:00 So at least we knew what to look for, um, in her dying process. But that, that did not make it an easier, um, and also to some kind of weird twist of fate that happened as well. When she decided she made this decision, she's like, I'm not going to have any more surgeries to try and hold this off because it's not. The doctor said that there's nothing more they can do. Um, she knew exactly the type of pain that she was going to be leaving my sister and I and because her mom died when she was 22. And so for her to know like with eyes wide open exactly what she was about to do to her children, the life that she had lift, not having a mother when she became a mother and, and into her, you know, midlife and things like that, she's like, I know exactly where I'm about to put you. And it absolutely took her to pieces and like how do you prepare your kids for that other than saying, I'm sorry that I'm about to do this to you with my deaf. Um, yeah, it, it was, it was wild to walk up to that and still fascinates me that that's something that she would think of even as she, as the dying person was who all the focus was on was that her focus was still kind of on, um, on her babies, on her kids.

Kat: 00:14:17 Wow. I'm just going to say, first of all that your mom is a great mom to think about you and your sister and how this is going to affect you and to like literally think about her baby as while she is dying. I don't know if I can ever do that, but yeah, that just blows my mind. Like how does it make you feel knowing that your mom thought about you and your sister in the midst of this and you know, y'all were in the middle of a fight before she passed. How does that make you feel?

Shelby: 00:14:52 You know, what do you think about all of that? Um, I think part of it because of my age, but just the fact that there were so many things left unresolved. Like we, I had a guest on, on coming back, uh, I think a couple of months ago. Her name was rabbi and Brenner and she studies Jewish texts and uh, makes them relevant to today's audiences. And she has a book called morning and Mitzvah and she has this phrase that she says that another great podcast or reminded me of and sent to me. And it's that everyone dies in the middle of a conversation. And I don't think anybody exists in the world who feels like they have it all wrapped up. When somebody dies, there's always something that's left unsaid, whether it's I'm sorry or I forgive you, or thank you, or I wish you would have, or I hope you could see, or I want you to be here for x, y, z.
Shelby: 00:15:45 There's some kind of like communication that's not said because you just can't, um, you can't get everything said and done before somebody dies. It's impossible. And the biggest pain point for me still is that I came out to my family in 2010 as a woman who did not discriminate based on sex, genitals, gender, anything like that on who I loved. So I have dated Trans People. I have dated men, I have dated women. I've Jadah, gender nonconforming nonbinary, I mean across the spectrum of, of human gender and sexuality. And that's not something that sat well with my family. I was raised not very strict Christian per se, but like nondenominational Christian in a Christian household. Um, with that kind of box rigidity around it. And I think my mom died believing genuinely, like very, very truly. And I've come to see this in her that I was going to hell and I would not spend eternity with the rest of my family.

Shelby: 00:16:52 And she saw my sexuality as a phase or a decision or a choice, um, where I did not. And, and she and I were in the middle of fight when she died, essentially. We still have not made peace with that. And actually about a month or two before she died, we had our last big fight in a mall and it was about who I was going to marry because I was dating a woman at the time. Uh, and we had talked about getting married after college and I was looking kind of offhandedly, like with no commitment at all, but I was looking at wedding dresses and she just, she just kind of flatly said, you know, if you do marry the girl you're dating right now, your father and I won't be there. And in one sentence she just took me down to such a low level.

Shelby: 00:17:34 And, and I engaged. And so I was hurling Bible verses at her, like, why don't you believe in the mix threads in the shell fish thing, but you do believe in the gay thing. And that's not even really a gay thing. It was about not assaulting angels who were visiting the village and like all this other, like I was coming at it with logic and anger and she was coming at it with religion and fear. And we had not learned how to see eye to eye with each other before she died. And I don't doubt now that she loved me, but I think when she died I was like, she never really saw all of who I was. So how could she possibly love me? And that was the biggest, yeah, the biggest pain point that remained after her death. And I felt really bitter because I feel like a lot of my family just got to be sad when she died, like angry at her death, but then sad that she died and I was angry that she died.

Shelby: 00:18:29 But I was also angry that we were fighting when she died. Um, and it's still the hardest thing because it's a conversation that she and I will never get to have in person. We've gotten to have it a little bit kind of, and this is a great area through dreams and through me just feeling like I feel her energy through the six years that she's been gone and through conversations with her sisters and my dad and my sister and you know, all people who support me and the people that I date. But um, but it's still really hard and things like as we're entering into June and like pride month is coming up, but that's really hard for me, um, to, to celebrate something that still wasn't fully seen by somebody I really, really love. And even dating is like tricky now cause I look at my, my partners that I date as I date them and I'm like, when my mom, if liked you and I can't just ask her, I can't pick up the phone and ask her.

Shelby: 00:19:19 And I wouldn't know even now if she would have come around or would want to meet them. And so it's just always this gray area. And then often the distance, like way far somewhere are things like marriage and moving in with a partner and you know, growing old with somebody, I'm like, man, like I'm almost like, damn, I wish my mom could see this, uh, or, or kind of would offer me some reassurance that I've chosen well or that she's still here, that she cares or has been a part of this or, um, just like recognizes the way in which I love and express love. So yeah, that's been the hardest part by far. And what really helps is helps as much as it can, cause I won't say it helps entirely but helps as much as it can, is hearing stories from other people in the LGBT like party who are struggling with this.

Shelby: 00:20:11 So people who came out to their parents and then one of them died or, um, came out to a family member and they fought about it and then they're estranged from each other or um, came out to a partner even in a divorce happened. And that's still unresolved in some way. So hearing that there are other stories like this that exist in the world is really comforting. But then also just hearing stories of what it's like to be queer in general because it is, you know, we have a lot of luxuries in the United States that for the most part as somebody who is queer and white and straight presenting, I'm not killed for my sexuality or gender presentation. Um, and we, I have that kind of good in America. Um, other countries I would've been dead already for who I love. Um, but it's still just so powerful to hear stories of people who are struggling with this no matter where they are.

Kat: 00:21:06 Wow. You are brave. I would at first off like to say, but how did you like cope with knowing that your sister and your dad got to just be angry that she died and you were angry that your mom passed and that y'all were still in a fight? I mean, I can't even imagine that like was there, you know, one certain thing that really helped you cope with that realization knowing that this is how things were left off? Like, how did you, you know, get through that? Because it's definitely, I'm sure it's definitely not easy knowing that like this is the last thing that I said to you. Like I don't even remember, you know, if I said I love you to my mom before she passed. So did you maybe try to resolve things, I guess with her before she passed? I don't know if that was on your mind.

Kat: 00:22:09 Sorry, I feel like I'm rambling at this point. But yeah. Like was that on your mind knowing that she was gonna pass and that there were still so many things unresolved? Like did you maybe try to resolve them as much as you could? Like was that even on your radar? Um, yeah. I would love to hear your opinion on that. Like, was that ever in the back of your mind that, that your mom didn't love you before she died? Like did you question that because she didn't believe what you believe and she wasn't accepting of who you loved. It's like, okay, I know my mom loves me, but did she do anything to try to show you that despite your differences in beliefs?

Shelby: 00:23:05 Yeah. Um, I can't, I think it goes back to this, everybody dies in the middle of the conversation thing, but in a perfect world we would know how much we're loved and how much others love us before their deaths. And there would be some magical cosmic way to like continue that reassurance even after their bodies are no longer alive on the planet because what, what happened when her physical body was gone as I like, my brain made this weird connection of now like, oh all the love must be gone now too. Like if her physical body is not around anymore, her love must not be around either. And that connection was severed for a while despite I, despite weird freaky deaky things like I did a whole episode on the show about the [inaudible] intuitive in the supernatural, in the unexplainable things that happen after loss.

Shelby: 00:23:53 So, like after my mom died, our electric tea kettle in the kitchen would turn itself on and she was the only person in the house that would use it. And so that was really funny to us are like lights would go on and off and I broke a ton of light bulbs after she died. Like they blew once I put them in the lamp and I put in another one and that would blow too. I was like, what the hell is going on here? Um, and so like I believed in my own ways and my family believed too that she was showing up, but it's hard to, to like manifest love for ourselves when we been receiving it from another human for so long who is now dead. And so to believe that their love still exists for us, even though they're no longer physically on the planet and to like conjure that up when previously all we had to do is receive it.

Shelby: 00:24:40 Dude, man, that's really hard. And especially if it's something related to, to like my struggle, like with something difficult where I didn't really feel all that loved when she died. I'm like, not only do I have to remember that I was loved and her death, I have to, to feel that love, edit an intensity as if she didn't die in the middle of a fight. And so it's like I have to figure out how to, I don't know, produced like this electrical current that I can actually feel in real life. I don't know if I'm making any sense, but, um, but it's like all of a sudden the responsibility to remind us that we're loved, it's on us. It shifts to us after someone we love dies because they're no longer here to say it or do it or, or hug us or, um, say it to our faces.

Shelby: 00:25:24 Yeah, you're exactly right. And I think it's important to point out, like with grief comes love because there's like this thing, it's like a verbiage just says, you know, grief is the price that we pay for love. So how did you like, I guess, cope with, you know, you and your mom being in a fight in the midst of her leaving this earth? Like, you know, it I'm sure made you question her love for you to a certain extent. Like, was there one Aha moment where you just kind of realize that, okay, this is it. This is how I'm gonna deal with me and my mom being in a fight in the midst of her passing? Um, I like that, that comparison because I did have kind of an oh my God moment. Uh, it's, it's a combination. So there's like, there's like a soup that was made of like this ingredient and that ingredient.

Shelby: 00:26:29 And then there's like a base and then you put in the meats and stuff. So like, it's, it's been a coming back as a process. It's not, um, not a lightning bolt, but I think there are these lightning bolt moments that happened that like up level you really quickly. Um, in the course of, I don't know if I'd call it recovery, I'll just keep calling it coming back. Um, one of the very first things I remember was a conversation with my aunt and my aunt is a, she has her master's in spirituality and as a medium or an intuitive and she doesn't necessarily like have conversations with a debt, like not like a Tlc, the TV show. Um, but she's really good at like holding space and bringing in energy and like asking these types of questions that really make you think about your belief systems essentially.

Shelby: 00:27:20 She's really good at being like a spiritual editor for your story. And if anyone wants to reach out to her, email me, Shelby Shelby for cynthia.com and I'll connect you because she's over in California and she loves working with people in person, but she was my mom's sister and she and I would have conversations on the phone probably like once or twice or three times or four times a month after my mom died because I could not wrap my head around her loss. I just couldn't do it. And I, I remember too that if my mom lost her mom when she was 22, my aunt, uh, probably would have been like 18, 17 or 18 when that happened. And so that kind of storyline lives in her too. And so she knew my mom and could express her and channel her and sessions in ways that I could not, and it was really fascinating, but one day when we were having a conversation, she's like, Shelby, I think this goes beyond your mom.

Shelby: 00:28:08 I think you need to have a conversation with God. And I was like, Oh shit. Like I was not looking forward to this. I was mad at God. I couldn't stand him. I was like, how dare you? And like what was happening in my grief was that because of the way everything played out, I was more than happy to see myself as a victim of circumstances. I was more than happy to wallow in self pity and be pissed and lash out. And I have this analogy that I use for my grave called the wolf in the basement. And it's kind of like this visual of I have captured a wild wolf who is very hungry, who was wounded, who is snarling and mad and disconnected from their pack. And I've put it in a cage and I put it in the basement of my house, a very dark basement, uh, with the doors are closed and the cage is tiny and there's no lights on and I'm giving it no food at all.

Shelby: 00:29:02 And this is what a lot of people do with their grief. I think as they make it something that they put on the lower levels of the house and they try not to engage with it and they're kind of afraid of it at some level. I was very afraid of my grief. Like I would, uh, allegorically walk up to the basement door and like, here are the cage shaking and be like, oh no, I'm not touching that today. But then what would happen is I would hear these snarls in these house of pain from the basement. I'm like, oh, that's my grief. Like that's my grief. And then when my grief would come out, it would be explosive. It would be huge. Like I was practically biting my own arm off and my grief, and so I was mad. I was not ready to talk to God.

Shelby: 00:29:38 And so my aunt's like, I'm just going to bring God into the space and you say you need to say to him, and this is not me, that you're speaking to this as God and you just have your conversation. I was like, all right, we're just going to play this game and see how this goes. Um, and I let him have it. I ranted at God probably for like five minutes, 10 minutes. I don't know how long I went on, but I was sobbing. I was like, my aunt was in California, I was in Chicago. We were connected by a phone line, but I was like pounding the bed. I had a trunk at the foot of it. I was hitting all over that. I was really angry. I was screaming, I was crying. And then my aunt came back into the space. When I was done, I was like heaving. I was like sobbing and heaving and at the end of it she's like, I want to pretend right now that your God, what would you say to you? And the only phrase that came to my brain, I shit, you know it was, oh baby, I wish you'd just let me hold to you.

Shelby: 00:30:30 And it was this moment of collapse. Like I literally felt my shoulders go down in my whole body, go limp and I'm like, Oh my God, here I am so pissed and so angry and trying to like hit at anything that seems solid when all God, my mother, the universe, whatever forced that is larger than me, literally just wants to hold me and support me in whatever I'm going through. Like nothing in the world is trying to make me a victim. Nothing about my life has ever had the intention of making me a victim. It's a story. It's a story that I was telling myself about my loss in my grief and in that moment it broke and like that was probably the very first lightning bolt that happened in relation to the loss of my mom. My relationship with my sexuality kind of a little bit.

Shelby: 00:31:28 Also my relationship with faith in God, although that's still being worked on, that's still under construction for lack of better phrasing, but that was like one of those very first moments. And then to your point of you know, looking for this love in, in my dad and my sister and other relatives and things like that. Yeah, they have come around in their own ways and they have been able to support me in the loss of my mom and I've been able to support them in the ways that I've been able to and my sister and my dad and I actually have like weekly phone dates. That's something that I cultivated probably about two or three years after my mom died. And so now we talk at the same time every single week and whether or not we really have anything to say. It's just like a life update and ways we still stay in touch and especially around holidays, which have historically been hard for our families at the times when crabs going on, whether it's my dad's brain surgeries happened around Thanksgiving and new years and my mom died around Christmas.

Shelby: 00:32:20 Like we just get to be present for each other and interested in each other's lives and the ways that my mom would have been. And so in those ways, even though we've all moved forward with grief in tow, um, we still get to kind of honor her memory and honor her wish for consistent family checkins and just to know how we're all doing all the time that way too. Um, and then to get into like a larger picture like soup ingredients of coming back. So, so much of what learned about grief and loss and about myself as a grieving person, again, came from the stories of other people. And this goes far beyond the LGBT spectrum. This goes into books, into memoirs, into, mmm. Even like other podcasts especially, I know I said at the beginning, podcasts are great and really accessible for grievers because you just listen, you don't have to like read anything with your eyeballs and your brain hurts a lot when you're grieving.

Shelby: 00:33:18 And so to just get to absorb through audio instead of focus on something, it was really helpful. Um, yeah, so I, it's really been a combination of a great deal of things, but that first lightning bolt moment on the phone with my aunt slash God was really what tipped me from this place. I said this on another podcast, uh, interview I believe the podcast is called. Yeah, thank you. Heartbreak. Um, another interview I did over there, I tipped from this point of helplessness in just surrender and it's a very, very fine line between helplessness and surrender. I'm just going to let those words thinking of for a minute and let them resonate with me. Um, yeah. First of all, I think it's really cool that your aunt is a medium. I've never been to one, but shoot, I guess I should try it.

Kat: 00:34:17 Now. Going back to the conversation that you had with your aunt on the phone, um, and that phrase that came to your mind like, honey, let me just hold you, or something like that. Do you think that that was God saying that to you or that that was like your mom saying that to you through God? Um, I would definitely be interesting to see what you think about that because it's like, oh, if my mom said this, then I know that like, she really loved me no matter what,

Shelby: 00:34:54 what, and no matter how we left, you know, her life and no matter how we left things off before she left this world, like Abbott, that was a really nice realization. If it was, um, I don't know. I don't think you're wrong at all. I think, um, I think it's hard to distinguish. It's hard to draw the line between where does my mom start and God begin because for as much as, um, for as much as I don't necessarily adhere to like a Christian faith anymore, I believe this is my personal belief. Anybody who's listening, you have the right to your story. And your experience as well. Um, what our loved ones died. They join the realm of the spiritual. And so, um, I don't, I don't really know. I believe that the voice that was speaking to me in that moment was God, like the, the Almighty universe, the life force that keeps everything going, the thing that wants to support and hold me and everything that is alive in the world and like keep it safe and close and, and creative and loved and wonderful.

Shelby: 00:36:05 Um, but I do believe also that the message was universal. Like, Oh yeah, that could totally be applied to my mom. Um, and she came through and other and other readings and other experiences with my aunt as well, um, with her own messages and she's, she's found her own way of communicating with me over the years as well. So I know it's her when she shows up, I'm like, we've developed, we've had to relearn how to communicate with each other, which is like the weirdest thing. But kind of similar to how we have to learn to supply our own love. When somebody we love dies. It's like we have to relearn how to communicate with loved ones after they die because death doesn't stop our relationship. It just like changes the language that you have to speak in with the person who dies. And so my mom, when she shows up, she was lefthanded and she was the only person in my family who was, she shows up now on the left side of my body, like in my shoulder and my arm.

Shelby: 00:36:55 I'm like, oh, there you are. Um, or my sister and I will find money a lot pennies. And my mom was a person who would always pick up pennies off the sidewalks. Some people are like, oh no, that's trash or garbage or whatever it is. And she always valued like these little lucky penny moments. Um, and so we see her a lot through those. I see her a lot in birds and music. And then sometimes just the way that other people will tell a joke or we'll get a kick out of their own sense of humor, I'm like, oh my mom would like that. Or she would really like you. And seeing her and those spaces too. And then I actually just wrote an article a bit ago about how my biggest trigger for my own grief is my own face because the older I get, the more I start to look like my mom and like my sister and I are her spitting image and it's wild.

Shelby: 00:37:39 But every single time I pass by a mirror I think it's my mom and um, it's incredible just like the way is that she continues to show up and I think this is, this is for two reasons. I'm not lucky. I don't get these magical symbols because I'm special or because I am a great worker or whatever. I think I'm, I've put in the work to look for them. I think you have as much of a relationship with your person who died as you choose to have a, and I've chosen to really go full bore to the point of like straining my eyeballs to look for pennies on the streets, sometimes to continue a relationship with her. I wake up every morning, I'm like, okay, where are you? How are you showing up for me today? And I don't necessarily ask those questions outright, but there's this low level hum in the background all the time of like, okay, where's my mom? I'm going to show up and where is she? She like has never far from my consciousness. Yeah. I love

Kat: 00:38:35 how you were like saying trying to learn how to talk to your mom because there are still ways that you're going to communicate with her even if she is deceased. I mean that's just like how it's going to be, but obviously you can't talk to her. So you know, you have to figure out how am I going to see her in my life today? You know, some days it can be a matter of trying and some days she just shows up. But that's still learning how to communicate with someone who is no longer alive. So I love that you mentioned that facet of it. Going back to the whole like surrendering thing, do you think that you know your conversations with your mom and how you converse with them and how that changes? Do you think that that's like you surrendering in your grief and was it like, okay, like I am, can't grieve by myself.

Kat: 00:39:43 Like I need help grieving, like I surrender and then you started finding all those paintings like without trying, that's kind of how I'm thinking about the situation. I'm not really sure if that's, you know, accurate, but yeah, I gosh, surrendering to grave. I love that you said that because that's so important. Sorry. I know you said that and you know, previous statement, but it's so important to surrender in your grief because we cannot like grieve without help or support or anything like as much as it is an individual process, I mean it's literally impossible to try to grieve on your own. At least that's what I think. I mean it would be 20,000 times harder, so I'm definitely gonna work on surrendering and my grief. That's, yeah, that's going to be interesting.

Shelby: 00:40:44 I should probably correct myself a little bit here because I feel like I'm constantly surrendering. It's not like there was one moment of surrender and it's like, okay, now I've surrendered and I'm done with that. It's like every single, not necessarily every single day, but probably weekly. I need to surrender. I need to just have these moments where like I am not as in control as I think I am. This is not going how I want it to go. There's a picture of something happening here that is not what I want it to be and I start churning these like victim gears again and telling the story and sometimes, and this is just now coming to me, I have never used this visual before in my life, but I think I have this visual in my brain literally right now of the kind older gentleman who's standing to my left and he's a little balding and he's got some glasses on and acute like little wrinkly face, but he's got these pants on like old school church pants with suspenders on them in the pockets are huge and his offers like here, let me take that and just stick it in here for a while for safekeeping and he has no intentions to do anything with it.

Shelby: 00:41:44 He has no power to transmute or alchemize whatever the pain is. He just wants to carry it for a while. And sometimes I, I can picture myself just getting to this point where I'm like, oh, I'm so sick of carrying this, can someone else please just take this? And I'm like, okay, here you have this. And so even if it remains to be a warrior, an issue in my life, I'm like, okay, I'm not carrying that. Um, which is really neat. And Yeah, I aligned with this idea of having these moments of surrender. And they also come to, I mean, again and hearing the stories of other people and you say, grief is something that is an individual process. And I say, yeah, grief is unique and individual and we can't do it alone. So it's like, yes. And, um, so yeah, again, looking to these stories of other people, whether it's through podcasts, like having you on, coming back, um, or books that I read or bloggers or Instagram, people that I follow, I'm like anyone who can give me any shred of insight about what it's like to surrender in grief over and over and over again.

Shelby: 00:42:50 Even if grief looks like depression or eating disorders or divorce or breakups or the loss of a parent or the loss of a baby or whatever the loss is, it doesn't necessarily have to be death, death of a parent, death of a mother. It doesn't have to be that specific, but anyone who can be, uh, a model of that for me on a regular basis. I want you on my team. Like I want you in my club. I want you in my feed. I want you showing up in my email inbox. I want you anywhere I can find you. Because if I keep telling myself these messages of, look, other people are out here surrendering, you can do it too. You're not alone. Um, it also reminds me that I have some kind of power. I'm like, I have the power and decision to surrender as well.

Shelby: 00:43:33 So render is not a passive process for as much as people think, like in war analogies and stuff. Especially like, oh, they've surrendered. They've given up, they've, you know, no longer have any hope, blah, blah, blah. I'm like, no, no. You have to make an active choice to hand over something that's really bugging you, are pissing you off or weighing on you to something larger. Whether it's the analogy of the Nice old man who just has really deep pockets and wants to carry things around for you. Um, or if it's something as large as like telling God how pissed I am at him and then for him to be, can I just hold you for a second? Like can we just hang on to you for a while? Um, it comes in small and large scales, but surrender is something that's incredibly, incredibly conscious and powerful that is extremely important to point out. It's 100% not an active, I mean not a passive process. It is very active and you have to like continually work at

Kat: 00:44:32 it just like you have to continually work at your grief. But it is definitely helpful not being alone in your grief and finding someone who can relate to your loss and, or you know, someone that you get comfort from. For me it was, you know, finding other women that I've lost a mom. But for you it could be, you know, just somebody who's grieving in general. Um, yeah, I mean they can't do it alone. So sometimes you just have to admit that you can't do it alone and that you need support and you need help and that's okay. That doesn't mean anything. Like that doesn't mean that you're weak or crazy or anything like that. But yeah, you bring up a very good point. Like that's just how grief works. And when you talk to other people and you see that like you're not alone, which is crazy how much comfort that brains and like how much you realize like yeah, this sucks, but it sucks a lot less knowing that somebody else is going through something. Just a Sucky, I'm sorry, I just said sucks a lot or multiple versions of it, but yeah. How do you feel about that? Like what are your thoughts? Like were you actively looking for the support in your grief or did it just kind of happen? Like, was it just a sign that like, hey, my mom is here and she is and she is telling me that it's okay to surrender and to essentially get help. It almost seems like she was showing up when you receive like, like

Shelby: 00:46:27 your support. Um, I kind of received a sign, which is a weird thing. Again, this has to do with me always being on the hunt for signs, uh, from my mom and one of the very first books that changed my outlook on grief and loss or made me recognize how much power I have within loss as not a victim. I have at least 1% responsibility in what happens for the rest of my life as a book called the grief recovery method. And it was written in the 1980s by these two guys, one who had gone through a pretty catastrophic divorce and the other one who had experienced a death. And it takes you through this framework of laying out your entire relationship first with grief, then your relationship with loss over the course of your life and then your relationship with one person. So it gets gradually more specific and eventually at the end of the course, you, you right, uh, you essentially complete what was left in complete by the loss, whether it was death, divorce, any of a list of like 40 something odd losses you can experience within your life. And these statements are really simple. Like, I'm sorry for this, I forgive you for that. Thank you so much for teaching me this. But these statements or things that you didn't get to say before your loved one died. And um, they're really powerful ways to kind of,

Shelby: 00:47:50 to close the circle. But then a reminder too that as life continues, things like milestones of graduation or getting married or having kids or whatever, you're going to need to have like ps conversations with your person, like the conversation doesn't actually ever end. Um, but it was really, really helpful and powerful tool for me. And I was just on their website one day and I was kind of poking around, uh, looking for more of their history in the book. And I found out that I could be trained to lead this course for other people. And I'm like, oh, interesting. I could connect with other grievers in that way. Um, I could lead workshops in the city of Chicago, whether or not people would actually want them, but like I could do like a scholarly level grief study. And I joke on my podcast coming back that, uh, my loss has made me a student of grief. So I feel like I'm always learning about what it means to be in this experience. And I looked for the closest training program to Chicago and literally the day that I was on the website, uh, I clicked over to the training page. I found the closest training to the city of Chicago. I was going to have to take a train out beyond the suburbs to get to it.

Speaker 3: 00:48:55 MMM.

Shelby: 00:48:57 But it was the last day to register at early bird pricing and the city where the course was taking place was the city where my parents got married. And I was like, if this is not a sign that I should at least pursue this for my own selfish interest and to connect with other grievers, I'm going to do it. And so I dropped the cash to do it and it was a four day weekend with a bunch of other grievers from around the Midwest actually. And we were all trained in this modality together. So now I am trained to lead courses in the grief recovery method. And um, beyond that, it was an opportunity for me to tell my story again because for all intents and purposes, the grief recovery methods should happen over the course of like seven to 12 weeks or so. And this was expedited where you experienced what you're going to be teaching clients within the course of three days. And to release my mom again in that kind of relationship structure format in the presence of other human beings who could witness for me, Oh my God, I literally had a breakdown in the middle of this room as we were sharing our, our letters at the end of this course. And I was held and witnessed in a way and my partner was a woman who had lost a child and so it was so incredible. But to just be sitting across from her and having this experience with her specifically.

Speaker 3: 00:50:14 MMM.

Shelby: 00:50:16 Oh my God. It was so incredible to be trained in that process. And that kind of kickstarted this thing of Oh my God, I could be doing something more with this. And that slowly morphed into me continuing read books about grief and memoirs and things. And I started sharing them on Facebook, like all these little quotes and snippets I would find cause I was interested in them. I thought other people might be too. And some, and people started approaching me saying, hey, you should do something with this. And so I started a Facebook page just called Shelby for Cynthia. My name is Shelby Forsyth, but I added a, the I and a onto the end because I like flowers a lot for Cynthia is like a plant that blooms yellow in the spring. Um, and I was like, if I ever publish a book, I want it to be close to by name, but not quite my name.

Shelby: 00:50:57 And I didn't even think I was going to publish a book at that time. But I'm like, if there's anything about me publicly, this is what I want it to sound like. For some reason I was just very attached to this. And so I started releasing, this was probably back in 2016 so three years out from the loss from my mom, I would do Facebook lives every single Wednesday. And this intuitive coach came up to me during a business coaching session and she had heard me speak during the session and she was like, I don't know why, but I just got this message for you. You need to use your voice. And I was like, holy crap, that's the kick in the butt. I need it. And the next day I went live on Facebook. And so I started doing Facebook lives every Wednesday and I was sharing this dream with people and talking about, um, kind of these things about grief that fascinated me.

Shelby: 00:51:37 And everyone came back to me like, why don't you start a podcast? And that was another kick in the butt that I needed. And I heard it from enough people that I was like, okay, I should start doing this now. And create that bigger platform. And it was amazing. It kind of crossed my mind before and I leaned on podcast in my own grief. But the process of doing it, it's like, I don't know what you think about that. And so I literally self-taught through youtube courses and research and, and joining a bunch of Facebook groups and asking experts there. I'm like, what Mike should I use? How do I edit this? What server platform do I use? I don't know. The first thing about it, I self taught the whole thing. I put up my very first like rickety little episode in May of 2017.

Shelby: 00:52:16 Uh, and then just this past year, I celebrated two whole years of coming back being on the air and kind of when I say grief work, the work that I do is, it's threefold. So I offer tools like these practical things like the grief recovery method, um, things like the wolf in the basement, like these visual analogies that help people latch onto, oh, this is what grief looks like for me. Or even tools like calling in your inner child or making anxiety, a person that we can talk to and have a conversation with in the midst of loss. So tools come in. Uh, the second thing that I do is space massive space holder for people, whether it's witnessing somebody loss one on one through coaching, which I also do, or through the grief recovery method or through Reiki, which I also got trained in the spiritual energy modality.

Shelby: 00:53:04 Um, and just providing space for people to share their stories and having that space be non-analytical nonjudgmental noncritical. Like I'm not out to diagnose or fix anybody, that's not my job. Just put your story here and I, I use this analogy of the dining room table. Like just dump all your shit out on the dining room table and we'll sort through it together. Like that's the kind of space you can expect with me. Um, and then support, and this involves a community level. And so with the podcast, I started a private Facebook group called the Grief Growers Garden where people can come in and share their stories and photos and really hard days are questions about estates or feeling helpless or talking about death with kids. Just like any topic, you can come in and share. And we're constantly sharing things with each other, which is really cool.

Shelby: 00:53:48 Um, so beyond getting support from me, they can get support from other people who've been listening to the show and tuned into these tools and tuned into this idea of what it's like to hold space. And so now they know how to do these things for each other. And so I can kind of step back and be like, you guys know how to do this, you know, file a little birdies, fly little grief birds. Um, and, uh, and it's never where I'm totally hands off, but I can, I can step back with this knowledge and faith that okay, now that they have heard the stories from me and from the guests that I bring onto the show and from the work that I do, um, they can kind of take their grief into their own hands and have their own coming back experiences and journeys with it, which is really cool. And so that tools space and support framework in the aftermath of loss, I mean it's what helps me. It's what I found. I found my own tools. I found my own space where I was welcome and I found my support where I needed it. But to be able to offer it all inclusive in this one space, through a podcast, through coaching, through just like exposure to the stories of other people is really incredible. And, and to just

Kat: 00:54:50 okay

Shelby: 00:54:51 be the host of that platform or to be the liaison between somebody else's story and a grieving heart is like wicked. Cool.

Kat: 00:55:00 Yeah. I was about to ask how you got into podcasting. Um, it seems to be kind of by accident. I mean, isn't that how we all get into it at this point? But yeah, you took the words right out of my mouth. Um, but yeah, it's so important for a griever to find, um, you know, their space in their group and community is so, so, so important and a lot of times they don't know how to like create it. So the fact that, you know, like you're able to create that for your type of griever and like we're able to create this like, I mean you, it goes to show like you're not alone. Like I never thought that I would meet so many women who've lost a mom until I started talking to other people and I realized like, wow, like we automatically had this connection because we've both been through basically the same thing and we both experienced the same loss. And that right there just makes a community and there's just something so comforting and reassuring about that. Um, yeah, that's all I really have to say to that. But is there anything else that you would just love to leave with the listeners, you regarding how to cope with this loss, knowing that your mom left the world in the midst of Y'all being in a fight because a note, you're not the only one who has gone through that.

Shelby: 00:56:41 Um, well, the tagline of my podcast is because even through grief we are growing, and this is something that I wish someone would've told me while I was grieving is like, hey, even if you don't recognize it, you're growing because you're, everything is literally a new experience for you right now. So you're literally learning how to life again after loss has happened. And then as, as time goes on and as you continue to pull in tools that are useful to you in space and support that is useful to you, you start to look back and you're like, oh yeah. Even when I thought I was stuck, I was growing. Even when I thought it was over, I was growing. Even when I thought the conversation was over, I was growing. And the system. This is something that gives me chills when I talk about, um, because it's what I needed to hear.

Shelby: 00:57:34 There's something that Sheryl Sandberg covers in her book. Option B. Uh, it's called the three p's and I don't ever remember what all of them are. I think its pervasiveness, permanents and personalization. But the one that I remember the most is permanence because when we're in the aftermath of loss, our brands are so freaked by everything that's just happened. The story we tell ourselves as this is the way it's going to look for the rest of my life, like this is awful and horrible and horrendous and I can not see a way out of this. So this must be what forever looks like in my life. And that is absolutely soul crushing. And I was in that place of like, I'm going to be mad forever. I'm not going to be loved forever. I'm not accepted forever. I am helpless forever. I'm a victim forever. And for me to receive this message of even through grief, we are growing to know that even when I believe all of these things, if I'm going to be loveless, helpless, victim, whatever, for the rest of my life, even to know and I am growing in some way through this, it just releases the tiniest bit of pressure.

Shelby: 00:58:38 And I'm like, just a little bit, I can breathe in this space and that to somebody who is craving just a tiniest breath of fresh air, I'm like, that's all I need. I can make it till tomorrow to know that I am growing through this in some way that I cannot understand yet. Um, it's incredible. And so I think if I were to leave anybody with anything, it's like no matter where you are in your grief right now, if you believe that this is going to look exactly like this forever, wherever you are, you're growing. And you don't have to be consciously growing. There are people who are consciously growing with it. They're pursuing the books or the podcasts or the communities or the tools or whatever. They're actively reaching for it. But if you're actively reaching for nothing and you're like, how can I possibly be through this? Just know that you are by being human and alive and experience something new in this moment by having the experience of grief, you are growing already. So like it's okay, you don't have to work so hard. You don't have to try so hard handed over to somebody or something else that can carry it for you because you're already growing. You're already doing the work. Absolutely right. Yeah.

Kat: 00:59:42 Um, I used the word permanents a lot when it comes to grief because it's so easy to get high down in your permanents and you're like, okay, like this is my new normal. You know, you get so stuck in it and it's super duper hard to get out sometimes because you have your mind wrapped around the fact that like, Hey, this was permanent. You know, my mom's not coming back. Which yeah, you're like, you need to have that realization. But also to a certain extent, like you have to be realistic. But yeah, 100% like your face of grief is not permanent and that is very important to realize that like, hey, even though this new normal is like a permanent situation, like I can't 100% grow through my grief, I'm not going to be miserable forever. Like I will be happy. I will somehow eventually be in the best place that I've been since my loss, regardless of how I get there. But like I will grow through my grief and I will be happy and I will live a good life despite the hand that I have been dealt.

Kat: 01:00:55 Yeah, I just wanted to thank you so much for being on the show. Ever since I started like the grief work in podcasting, I was like, oh my gosh, I have to have Shelby. She is like my grief idol and I'm just so glad that you said yes. So this is so much fun. Yeah, I am so glad you enjoyed it. Hey friend, I hope you enjoyed this episode. Before you go, I have three favors to ask you. First, I wanted to let you know the [inaudible] Group for women where we share our day to day stories, challenges, and victories. If you want to come along for the ride, head to Facebook and search for life after losing mom community. Second, if you don't mind leaving me a review and telling me how I've helped you in your grief journey, I would greatly appreciate it. Finally had to cap on our.com forward slash podcast to access previous episodes and subscribe for episodes in the future.

Speaker 4: 01:01:49 [inaudible]

Speaker 4: 01:02:09 this has been an OutsourceYourPodcast.com production.