In this Follow-Up episode, Dr. Mona sits down with Lynda Cormier-Hanser, an author and coach, to discuss navigating grief and finding joy. They explore how personal growth and purpose can happen alongside life’s hardest moments. They emphasize seeking help, staying connected to gratitude and embracing life to honor what has been lost.

They discuss:

– How grief and gratitude can exist at the same time

– That trusting the process helps through painful seasons of loss

– How people can choose to seek treatment and proper support

– That healing allows people to grow and choosing joy honors lost loved ones and past dreams

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00;00;00;00 – 00;00;22;20

Dr. Mona

Welcome back to the follow up. It’s Doctor Mona and this is a series on the wait for it. Award winning PedsDocTalk podcast, where we revisit a past episode in less time than it takes you to rethink all of your life choices in a chaotic time. But first, I have some exciting news about that award winning comment.

00;00;22;23 – 00;00;49;04

Dr. Mona

The PedsDocTalk Podcast just won two Signal Awards. Okay, we received the Gold Award in the Family and Child Rearing category and the Listeners Choice Award, which is voted on by you. Oh, thank you. Thank you. Thank you. This podcast is my passion project and to have it recognized with a trophy too. It means so much to me. Please keep subscribing, downloading and sharing because your support is what helps the show grow.

00;00;49;04 – 00;01;07;16

Dr. Mona

And stay tuned because I have two exciting surprises coming before the end of the year. Now, I wanted to bring this conversation back because I think so many of us are trying to find joy and purpose while life keeps throwing things at us that we never expected. And here’s something I’ve learned through my own experiences with grief trauma.

00;01;07;16 – 00;01;32;08

Dr. Mona

And I’ll be honest, not so great times. Finding joy again doesn’t mean what happened to you didn’t matter. Sometimes we think being positive means always looking on the bright side, pushing through difficult emotions, or finding a silver lining as quickly as possible. But grief doesn’t work that way. We can grieve the loss of someone we love, a relationship, the birth experience we thought we’d have, or even the life we imagined for ourselves.

00;01;32;11 – 00;01;53;25

Dr. Mona

And we can feel gratitude and grief at the same time. Today’s guest is Linda Cormier Handler, a business owner, speaker, trainer, author, nonprofit founder, wife, and proud mom of two adult daughters. Linda has built a life and career around helping others find purpose. And one of the things she’s most proud of is the quality of her relationships with her family and community.

00;01;53;27 – 00;02;17;06

Dr. Mona

In this conversation, we talk about finding purpose during chaos, why positivity is often misunderstood, and how we can redefine grief so that we can make room for joy without feeling like we’re leaving our pain, or the people we lost behind. And I love Linda’s reminder that grief and gratitude can coexist together. We don’t have to rush the process or pretend we’re okay before we are.

00;02;17;07 – 00;02;38;14

Dr. Mona

If you’re in a season of life that feels heavy, I hope this conversation reminds you that finding joy again doesn’t have to happen on anyone else’s timeline. Go download the full episode wherever you get your podcasts. Because reminder this is just a snippet of a longer episode. Make sure to share this on social media and tag PedsDocTalk the PedsDocTalk podcast and Linda Cormier.

00;02;38;14 – 00;02;49;25

Dr. Mona

That’s l y and a c o r MPR when you do. Now let’s get into it.

00;02;49;28 – 00;03;11;21

Lynda Cormier-Hanser

Several years ago, I did a podcast on the ten greatest gifts that I had learned in that year. And for whatever reason that year, one of the things I learned is that everything is a process. And to have faith in that process. So even when you are in the hardest moment, even when you feel the depths of despair, which I did, I lost my mom this year and it was devastating.

00;03;11;23 – 00;03;31;02

Lynda Cormier-Hanser

And there was a good few weeks that I felt like I didn’t know if I was going to get my smile back. I didn’t know if I was going to feel alive again, but I just kept reminding myself, this is a process and I have to have faith of what’s on the other side of this process. And so that again, it’s a choice.

00;03;31;04 – 00;03;44;28

Lynda Cormier-Hanser

And I hold on, you know, I encourage people hold on to those beliefs, even if they’re not if and if it’s not true that just because I’m saying everything is a process that doesn’t make it real. But we can choose that serve us.

00;03;45;01 – 00;04;06;03

Dr. Mona

And I resonate with this because I also have that same mindset that how we approach life is the choices that we say, how am I going to approach it, but also the story that we tell ourselves. Do you ever run into situations with clients or with people you know, and your speaking, or your personal coaching that just don’t understand that, that don’t understand that choice, that feel?

00;04;06;04 – 00;04;23;08

Dr. Mona

Because I’ve heard from people sometimes on my own social media or, you know, but like, no, it’s not a choice. Like when we talk about things like obviously severe things like depression and anxiety and I think there’s a nuance there. Obviously that’s chemical. That’s not a choice per se. But how do you talk to those people who say, no, it’s circumstances.

00;04;23;08 – 00;04;26;10

Dr. Mona

It’s not my choice. It’s me. Circumstance, yes.

00;04;26;12 – 00;04;54;20

Lynda Cormier-Hanser

Yeah, yeah. It’s so 100% difference in life. If you as an individual are feeling sad, you know, you have not been diagnosed with a clinical depression or general anxiety disorder or you know, you’re just not your normal self, then the choice that you’re making is different. Because if you are somebody who struggles with general anxiety disorder or depression and you know that you struggle with that, how you treat that is also a choice.

00;04;54;20 – 00;05;20;14

Lynda Cormier-Hanser

I mean, I have really, really good friends who wanted to, like, deny the fact and were not wanting to choose a medication that could help them. And then when they did, their life turned around completely. Yeah. So choosing a treatment course, if you have something that is like diagnosed is very different than somebody who has a different set of circumstances that it is.

00;05;20;16 – 00;05;26;24

Lynda Cormier-Hanser

Yeah, it’s just two different things, but both are choices in how you deal with it or how you treat it. Does that make.

00;05;26;24 – 00;05;45;01

Dr. Mona

Sense? Yes, and I love that you brought that up, because the choice in this situation, the choice is not saying that you get over. Like I think when people hear choice they think that, well, no, like I don’t you’re not getting it that this is a real thing. No, of course it’s a real thing. But your choice here is getting the help, getting not dismissing it.

00;05;45;01 – 00;06;15;21

Dr. Mona

Right. That’s the choice that you’re making. Your choice is saying that this is a reality. And I need to get help, whether it’s through therapy meds, whether it’s through personal coaching, whatever the help is going to come, however it’s going to come. But you are right that the choice is on you to get the help. And that’s what I hope that people understand on this episode is like, yeah, you are in control of how the outcome is going to be in terms of how you’re going to get there is to be determined, but you will get there with the right help and the right tools and that right mindset that’s going to help you get

00;06;15;21 – 00;06;16;25

Dr. Mona

that help. You need it.

00;06;16;27 – 00;06;37;27

Lynda Cormier-Hanser

I mean, and the way that I look at it and this again, I’m not a doctor, but the way that I look at it is I’ve worked with a lot of people who find themselves in a position where they think, for example, that they maybe have ADHD and or maybe they have anxiety that feels different than somebody who doesn’t have a diagnosable type of anxiety.

00;06;37;29 – 00;07;15;18

Lynda Cormier-Hanser

And there’s a process of, I don’t want to say denial, but once somebody comes to the realization of their particular individual unique being, yeah, that those things can really work in their favor. One of my favorite people on the planet, finally, it took, you know, in his 50s to realize. But once he realizes, oh, this is what also gives me the ability to focus, this is also what gives me the ability to do these things while it can also, you know, be hard to deal with sometimes.

00;07;15;18 – 00;07;26;15

Lynda Cormier-Hanser

Again, it comes back to just being really honest, honest with ourselves and then recognizing that we have choices in how we either treat or deal with whatever the situation is.

00;07;26;18 – 00;07;46;10

Dr. Mona

Yeah, the honesty, you know, helped me so much during some very, very traumatic times in my life. But we’re, you know, and I think so much of this is accepting and understanding that you don’t have to push it away. You know, I think so many people feel they need to find the joy fast, like I need to find my purpose and joy quickly or but the grief looks so different.

00;07;46;10 – 00;08;08;15

Dr. Mona

Like, you know, you lost your mom. And thank you for sharing that on this episode. But how you grieve with your mom in that process may look different than someone else, right? But oh my. The ultimate goal is to grow around the grief. The ultimate goal is not to forget that that happened. I think people think that when you finally find joy and purpose, it means that what happened to you wasn’t important or what happened to you doesn’t matter.

00;08;08;15 – 00;08;29;13

Dr. Mona

Of course, it’s going to be a part of your life forever. You know, losing someone you love so dearly or losing some dream that you had or whatever it is that you define as grief. Oh man, it hurts and it’s never going to completely go away. But you can continue living a fulfilling life and purpose. And I think, do you do that with, I mean, this reality of your job, right.

00;08;29;13 – 00;08;37;27

Dr. Mona

Like creating a business that helps motivate others, does that do you ever find that you use your own grief and own experience with grief to help others correct.

00;08;38;01 – 00;09;01;11

Lynda Cormier-Hanser

Yeah. It was so ironic. I did a women’s retreat in January. It was the ninth through the 12th, and one of my best friends suddenly lost her fiancé in August of last year. Young like it was really traumatizing for everybody. He was like a brother. And then. So in January when I was doing the women’s retreat, I did a section on grief specifically because helping her navigate what she had gone through.

00;09;01;11 – 00;09;21;14

Lynda Cormier-Hanser

And one of the things I talked about is that we can grieve a relationship, even if it didn’t work out. It. Grieving is associated with death. We can grieve what we anticipated that we thought a marriage was going to be. And it’s not that or our relationship with our children or whatever. We’re going to grieve the loss of things in our life.

00;09;21;17 – 00;09;41;26

Lynda Cormier-Hanser

And then part of what? That was really crazy ironic that I did this whole thing on grief, and I had just written a blog about how I have not lost anybody during the pandemic and how grateful I was. And then less than two weeks later, my mom passed. So I had to step into all the things that I was trying to teach to everybody else.

00;09;41;28 – 00;10;15;08

Lynda Cormier-Hanser

But the thing that I found that has been very beautiful, and it speaks directly to our topic of staying connected to joy and purpose in the face of chaos is that there is a merging of the grief and the pain that is a reflection of our capacity to love, which is so gorgeous and huge and infinite. But it’s the merging of that kind of gratitude for what we have had with the newness of stepping into life and so it’s this merging of gratitude and grief.

00;10;15;08 – 00;10;38;01

Lynda Cormier-Hanser

I shared that with you as we were just getting started, that that really enhances our whole being. And if we can connect that to the appreciation that we have for every breath we take, just being alive gives us, in my opinion, if we can stay connected to that appreciation for life and the glory, even to feel.

00;10;38;03 – 00;10;56;08

Dr. Mona

And grow, right? I mean, like I was watching like the celebrity, Chrissy Teigen. So she’s obviously I think you know who she is. And she suffered an instant loss, meaning she was far along in her pregnancy. So she had a late miscarriage. And I saw her share the pictures, and she was very vulnerable and sharing all these things.

00;10;56;08 – 00;11;15;05

Dr. Mona

And people judge people for what they share, right? You they judge. If you don’t share, they judge if you share. I mean, I can’t imagine being a celebrity and what they you know, what they have to deal with. But what I got from her and I want to bring this up because I thought it was very beautiful, is that when I saw that picture, you know, I haven’t suffered a miscarriage, but I suffered grief in the sense of, like I said, a traumatic birth.

00;11;15;05 – 00;11;40;16

Dr. Mona

That was very, very traumatizing. I mean, it was exactly what we’re talking about. I had to find my purpose again, and Joy and I found it, and a lot of it was helping others and also just finding the small things in life that make me want to wake up every day, like, really helped. But when I saw what she was going through, you know, I saw her grieving and I told my husband I was like, God, I’m so sad for her, but I can’t wait to see the person she’s going to become on the other side.

00;11;40;16 – 00;12;00;25

Dr. Mona

And I say that in a very uplifting, positive way. And I know people may be like, what do you mean? Like to know that someone’s going to grieve? I know that if they can process that grief and learn how to make something out of it, whether that’s growing her relationship with her partner or learning about something she didn’t know about herself before or advocacy or something.

00;12;01;01 – 00;12;19;01

Dr. Mona

I mean, when you can get to that stage where you can turn that grief into something beautiful and oh, it’s so powerful and you grow from it, right? I don’t like the negative things that happened in my life. I don’t wish negativity on anybody. It’s the worst feeling to be in, to lose a loved one or to have, like I said, all these things.

00;12;19;01 – 00;12;29;26

Dr. Mona

But I also know that through the processing and if you can process it in a healthy way, you can learn something new or help someone else in the process.

00;12;29;28 – 00;12;54;03

Lynda Cormier-Hanser

Yeah. And I think just two quick things that come to mind when you’re saying is like what people may think as you move on, right? All give way too much power to what other people think. I mean, and there usually, yes, really concerned about their own you judging us. But I also think that it’s how we honor the love that we had that is reflected in that grief is by living, it’s by overcoming.

00;12;54;03 – 00;13;19;12

Lynda Cormier-Hanser

That’s how we honor the people that aren’t here with us anymore, or that even the dreams that we may have lost or the like you said, the birth trauma, the way that we honor, the depth of the emotion that’s connected to those experiences, is by choosing life and joy and hope and the positive things, because there’s going to be enough negative things in the world.

00;13;19;15 – 00;13;42;09

Lynda Cormier-Hanser

We might we yeah, we can be, you know, beacons on the other side really holding on. And I think that so much of that comes from recognizing that we just have beautiful, incredible natural gifts that the world really needs. And we can’t express those gifts if we are confined by our grief.

00;13;42;11 – 00;14;03;23

Dr. Mona

And that’s your follow up. Just a small dose of the real, relatable and eye opening conversations we love to have here. If you smiled, nodded, or had an moment, go ahead and download, follow and share this episode with a friend. Let’s grow this village together for more everyday parenting wins and real talk. Hang out with us on Instagram at the PedsDocTalk podcast.

00;14;04;00 – 00;14;19;12

Dr. Mona

Want more? Dive into the full episode and more at PedsDocTalk.com. Because parenting is better with support. And remember, consistency is key. Humor is medicine and follow ups are everything. I’m Doctor Mona. See you next time for your next dose.