Thank you for being here, for finding this podcast and for sharing your time with me. I'm so grateful to welcome you into my grief journey and to offer any little bit of help, as it helps me, too.
Who am I?
I'm just a girl on her grief journey hoping to build connection and community during the worst...everything. I prefer the "guise" of anonymity as I believe it creates a sense of freedom from the daily life that requires the grief mask. Here, we, you and me, are free to be who we now are a citizen of grief. It's as though though grief is its own land, on its own planet in its own universe. At least, that's how isolating it can feel.
Isn't that the great irony of the experience? Here we are, forced into the hardest experience of our lives and the only thing we know for sure is that everything we're feeling is intended to be a private experience, It is meant to be shared with yourself, your support network and your family. It is not for the world to see, lest we upset others and drive the community way, or be perceived as not healing, growing and only perseverating on the tragedy and not "being strong and marching onwards."
Well, I'm here to tell you, that haberdashery belongs to a bygone era and I'm here to shift the conversation and bring the hard stuff to light.
Walk out of the darkness with me, hear your pain. Acknowledge it. Cradle it with care and love what it teaches you. I promise it's worth it.
My Why...
Any type of loss alone is impossible. But, navigating extreme loss during the prime of our life adds another layer of trauma. Without resources for connection, often 20-to-40-somethings are waffling through their school days, their workdays, their family dynamics, and rapidly evolving relationships without a hand to hold, someone who is like them in age and experience to assure them that loss is only the end of one chapter. Not the whole book.
I never wanted to be here, but the friends I've made, the conversations I've shared and the healing I've experienced helps me know that I am not alone. Grief isn't a family "thing." It doesn't belong in the privacy of a home, or under flickering fluorescent lights in a church basement as often support groups are located.
It belongs at the dinner table. Nourished, acknowledged and free. It belongs in a conversation with questions like, "how you're doing?" and "What's been happening in your life?"
Our topics will range from the early days, when you're launched into an unknown world without a map and a brain that can see beyond a fog, to returning to work and how to build new family dynamics. We'll explore the South Asian American experience and the cultural implications that compound traumatic grief. We'll even find moments to laugh and recognize that there is still a full, and complete life ahead. If it is nothing short of impossible.
I never wanted to be on this journey. I never wanted to build this blog, podcast and need support. I never wanted to discover others related, understood, and felt-to-tears the depth of my sorrow. But my goodness, I'm so grateful that I'm here. With you, dear reader, listener and partner in loss.
Important Disclaimer
I am not a licensed therapist, counselor or grief expert. Please consider the content to be little more than a friend talking to you about her own life, her day, her experiences on a journey she never wanted to be on, but is teaching her a lot about herself, life and the world. If something you hear or read doesn't fit, or doesn't match with your knowledge or experience, check me. Let me know. I'm here to be your partner and learn with you on this journey, certainly not preach.
Thank you and feel free to get in touch. I'd love the conversation.
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