The Live Lightly Podcast

Jessica (00:00)
Hello and welcome back to the Live Lightly podcast. I'm your host Jessica Franklin and I just want to thank you for joining in and also I want to welcome you if you are new to the podcast. Today we are going to have a conversation about grief and how it relates to all of the environmental challenges and just stuff going on right now globally and locally.

I'm joined today by Reverend Jen Cormier, a dear friend of mine now for over a decade. She's a grief guide who brings 20 years of.

expertise in somatic healing and the arts to clients who are moving through life transitions and grief. She is committed to the evolution of how we relate to death and walk with our grief, not as something to get over, but rather as an opportunity to go on a transformational healing journey. Jen is the creator of the Walk Through Grief with Grace podcast and the Grace Collective, a unique comm...

And I'm sorry, the Grace Collective is a unique community for those who are ready to step into living, loving, and creating more fully in their lives than ever before. All right, thank you so much for being here today with me, Jen, and welcome.

Jenn Cormier (01:15)
Thanks so much for having me. really excited that we get to have this conversation today.

Jessica (01:21)
Me too. This is a conversation that has been kind of in the works for several months now. And I think that it's coming at a very perfect time.

Jenn Cormier (01:30)
Yeah, thank you. It's a time of great upheaval and people are all experiencing their own challenges, personally, collectively, whether it's the tragedy of the fires or floods or whatever is happening in their lives. It's not necessarily an easy time.

Jessica (01:32)
Mm-hmm.

Jenn Cormier (02:00)
And we don't want to take that lightly. And I also want to bring in that there is always an opportunity for growth and for healing and for connection whenever we're going through a tragedy. So not to make light of anyone's major losses that they're going through. There's a time to just be doing triage, which is, you know, in Southern California, people are just getting through just

literally putting out the fires, right? And I think it's important to note that whenever we go through a loss, and I'll just preface at the beginning of this conversation, I tell people I'm a grief guide, often folks will ask, you know, I'm not going through any grief or I can't relate to that because both of my parents are still living or I don't know anyone who's grieving. And the way that I see grief is it's an experience that

that we all move through whenever we're having to let something go. And that might mean the death of a beloved human in your life. It might mean the death of a pet. It might mean the loss of a job, the loss of a house, the loss of a way of life, the loss of... So there's all flavors of loss and heartbreak that we can all relate to. I just heard Dr. Ken...

Jessica (03:23)
Mm-hmm.

Jenn Cormier (03:28)
speak at a film screening and he said, you know, we come into the world crying, you know, like our very first experience as a human in the air, you know, when we're born is a grief process because we were just in the womb and it was cozy and warm and we had all of our needs met. And now here we are, you know, physically detached from our mother.

Jessica (03:41)
Thank

Jenn Cormier (03:55)
and we're crying, you know, like that. So we all know grief at a very deep level from the moment of birth. So I just, it was so poignant the way he said that. So I just wanna preface that we all have experienced different types of loss in our lives.

Jessica (04:15)
Yeah, I love that you just said that because it's definitely something that when you started this work, I think I didn't quite understand all of that, right? Like when you started this work, I was like, well, yeah, I don't know anyone who's just had a recent loss that.

you know, I could refer to you as a client, but I'll keep you in mind for when I do come across someone who has just had a recent loss. And it doesn't even really have to be a recent loss, right? Like, I didn't even realize that grief can, you know, come in waves. And maybe someone didn't process the loss of a loved one when it happened. And then like 10 years later, it's still affecting them, right?

Jenn Cormier (05:08)
Yes.

Yeah.

Jessica (05:09)
So

thank you for prefacing it with all of that, because I think even just now I'm starting to realize when you say all of that, like, okay, yeah, there's a loss in all different areas of life in some way, or form. And even as a mother, as you go through all these different ages and stages and transitions and new grades.

You know, like right now my son is in his last year of middle school and then he's going on to high school. It's like there's grief through some of the things that you're no longer going to be able to do with your child because they've gotten older So even just as being a mother, there's some grief happening. the first time it really hit me was

when I had to leave him at preschool and he's like crying and like, why are you going? You know? Oh yeah.

Jenn Cormier (06:01)
my gosh, it's so painful that moment.

for any of those of you listening who are parents, those moments of leaving your child for the first time, if you think back how painful that is to separate, that is one of those crossroad moments that's a real challenge. And then every developmental expansion.

Jessica (06:11)
and who's

Jenn Cormier (06:27)
going off to kindergarten, going off to college, all those things in between can bring up lots of grief. And we don't necessarily label it as that. And we like to look on the bright side. And I'm not saying positivity is not fantastic, right? To really be an optimist, that's good for your health, right? That's not what I'm saying, but more of looking at, gosh, there are all these letting go moments.

in my life that if I don't feel my feelings.

then those feelings get bottled up, those emotions get bottled up. I'm closing down around them, at some point they're gonna come to the surface. And it might be, like you said, eight years, 10 years, I've talked to folks 18 years later that they verbalize, I'm still carrying around a bag of bricks, I'm still feel like, right? So it's really powerful to just have the understanding that our feelings

our energy, right? Everything is energy. Energy is not created or destroyed. We know that basic law. We learn that in science. to remember that and go, if I don't move through this process and complete this cycle of emotion and I store it away in my system, that's going to lead to illness.

Jessica (07:38)
Mm-hmm.

Jenn Cormier (08:01)
And we can really look at all the roads, like all of the challenges. Now that I've been working specifically with grief for years, I can see, wow, that's the unexpressed grief, unmet, all the unmet emotions of a grief cycle that wasn't moved through lead to depression, lead to autoimmune disease, lead to cancer, lead to sickness.

Jessica (08:20)
Mm-hmm.

Jenn Cormier (08:29)
lead to decreased immune system in general, lead to addiction, alcoholism, prescription drug use, all of these things. Well, if we look at like what's at the root of them, it's pain, right? People are in pain. They look for ways to get out of pain. And then some of the easiest ways might not be healthy for us. then it begins a cycle.

Jessica (08:51)
Hmm.

Jenn Cormier (08:57)
And at the root of that is pain that we didn't allow ourselves to be with. And that pain is often a grief. It's a loss that we didn't have support around. Our nervous system didn't have a community, didn't have holding for, didn't have a process to move through. So I just see everything as everything we can trace back to a loss and grief cycle that didn't get.

acknowledged and moved through and met.

Jessica (09:32)
Yeah, and so in listening to that, it brings up a few different questions. So I think the direction that we were, you know, planning on going in is, you know, how to handle grief when it comes to the loss of the world that we grew up in, because it, you know, is nothing like what we experienced as children.

there's a lot of things right now going on in the environment and just in nature in general. And so, you know, that's gonna be the highlight of our discussion. But as you were talking, it brought up for me, the question, how can people decipher whether their grief is at the root?

Jenn Cormier (10:28)
So that's a good question. I think that it might not matter so much to know where things are coming from. I think that that's a really mental approach, a cognitive approach to, well, I'm experiencing depression or I'm experiencing anxiety or I'm experiencing worry or overwhelm or some discomfort or disease on a regular basis.

let me figure out where it's coming from. I don't know if that's necessarily necessary. Do we need to know? Maybe we do, but maybe we don't. Maybe no matter where it's coming from, whether it's the hormonal chemical imbalance, whether it's the death of our mother when we were four, or the fire that just happened to our community last week, or...

you know, they're going to be all of these layers that affect us, right? And we have, they're just, they're just so many layers. So instead of trying to think, you know, I think that's kind of a Western mind cognitive therapeutic approach to kind of like, let's get to the root and, you know, figure it out. I think that how I might approach it a little differently is, you know, how can we come back into our center? How can we come back to the sacred center of ourselves?

no matter where it came from. Right. And maybe there's some processes we can go through. We might go through some, some therapeutic processes. We may go through artistic processes, journaling, and we might go, I forgot about this thing that now is coming up. And there may be some, you know, some trail heads we might want to explore some answers. You know, we might want to go down some of those pathways, but I don't think we, we have to necessarily know. So I think the, the

the way forward would be the way forward no matter what. So, and I think the way forward is inward first. So I think how I would approach it is, if you're for example experiencing, you use the example of depression. If I'm feeling depressed, first what I need to do is,

turn inward and reconnect with my own center, with my own heart, with my own being. Reconnect with the earth underneath me, reconnect with spirit, with what's greater than me, and really find my vertical plane of connecting with the earth underneath, the sky and spirit and whatever you conceive.

creator to be. I'm a non-denominational minister. I work with people from all backgrounds and belief systems. So it doesn't matter what that is, but I think we can all, most of us can agree that there's something greater than just the small mind that I would call gen cormier, right? So how can I, how can I reconnect first and start there? that's, so awareness is the beginning. Presence is the beginning.

Reconnection is the beginning, remembering is the beginning, and then we can start our healing process no matter where the roots came from of our suffering.

I think is how I want to answer that question. If that makes sense. that make, does that? Yeah.

Jessica (14:01)
Yeah. Okay. Yeah, totally.

Yeah, you don't have to know where something is coming from, but rather just take a moment to reconnect and, you know, all the things that you mentioned to connect to when you take a step back, and take that deep breath, right, is essentially reconnecting to.

the earth and mother nature and the air that we're breathing and right and just kind of taking that pause that sacred pause to then be able to, reconnect to your own inner guide or higher self or whatever, you know, energy that is some might say it's the soul or the spirit. So yeah, whatever that word is for you. so just kind of, you know, again,

reminds me that there's no separation between us and our physical being, even though it feels like we're separate from each other and from nature and the planet and the environment, but that essentially, when we take time to just slow down, we can feel that connection with all.

That is, the entire creation.

Jenn Cormier (15:22)
And when you, I wanna highlight that you just said slow down because that is part of our healing. When we're moving too fast, we can't heal. So slowing down is essential in the healing process, being able to pause, being able to move more slowly. Grief does move slower than our technology. Our world sort of is sped up to the tempo of technology.

which is very fast. It's faster than our mammal bodies can really handle. slowing down is essential. And I really see the bridge between my work and your work around sustainability and around caring for the Earth because it's an essential part of my spiritual practice. have a lineage. One of my root lineages is

through the Andes of Peru and the Pacos and the Quiro people. And this nature medicine is remembering that we are literally born from the earth. And we have human parents, we have a mother and a father, a biological mother and father that are human, but we also have a nature mother and a nature father from the place that we were born. And we get all of this love and support from the actual place on the earth.

where we were born. And this is part of my daily spiritual practice is to connect to the panchamamita that I am on. So like that's like the small panchamama, panchamama is the earth, panchamamita is I live in Encinita. So every morning I go out and I thank this little patch of earth that's supporting and sustaining me. It's giving me light, you know, giving me air and food and water and

the ground that I'm sleeping on, know, everything, I'm getting all that support from the earth. We're 100 % always taken care of, you know, if we look at it that way, like what day was I not taken care of by the earth every day? Every day I eat food that comes from the earth. Every day I drink water every day. so we're, always being held and supported by the earth. And when we, when we remember that on a regular basis, it seems so simple, right? But, many of us,

practice different gratitude practices, where you're writing down, am I grateful for today? But coming to that gratitude of the earth itself, we are earth ourselves, we are. And remembering that can connect us back into, I am part of this earth. I am not separate, I am not alone, I am always connected, I am always cared for. And that can really relax our system to get out of.

overdrive, you know, to get out of that.

that

underlying fear that we may have.

around that really comes out of needing to belong and needing to not be alone and needing to feel supported. So that support can come from, you know, our families around us, our friends, our communities, our, you know, those human layers. can come from our pets. It can come from the food we're eating. It can come from the earth itself. And the more we recognize and are awake to all these connections.

the more we can realize we're not alone. And then that's the next phase of our healing process. And that's gonna help heal you no matter what, whether you had a loss from a natural disaster, a fire, a flood, one of your parents died, whether your partner died, whether you lost your job, no matter what that loss is, that kind of reconnection is...

going to be healing for you.

Jessica (19:35)
Yeah, I like that, the slowing down and taking time to reconnect and to acknowledge. Thank you for the air that I am breathing, the food, the water, all of it that supports me in my daily life and doing what I'm here doing, And I think that that ties in

as a good segue for talking a little bit about what we're here to talk about, which is how to process all of the changes that are happening and all of those elements, the air, the soil that grows our food, the water that provides, you know, what we are drinking and growing our food in. All of these things are now being impacted.

in different ways by human consumption and behavior. And it's a lot to process, especially as mothers. think that we are not so concerned for ourselves, right? Because we have to put a child first. We brought this child onto the planet and we do all the things to love and nurture and teach and care for and protect our little baby who

you know, is going to go out into the world and need these resources to be available, to be clean, to support their health and not only their life, but their life is being healthy because the quality of these things are just degrading before our eyes really. We did not grow up.

with all of these problems

And I think it's overwhelming. And there's a sense of like, what can I do?

And there's also that almost resistance that comes into play when it feels overwhelming. So with all of that being said, what advice can you give to listeners who are feeling a little overwhelmed

Jenn Cormier (21:43)
Yeah. Yeah. So you bring up a good point, you know, that there's that there's that feeling of overwhelm is common. I hear a lot of people talking about how they feel overwhelmed and that can that can stop the energy flow from being able to take any action. Right. And your podcast is all about, what are small actions I can take for the health of my family and the health of the planet. But when we're collapsed and

Jessica (21:55)
Mm-hmm.

Jenn Cormier (22:12)
frozen or because of overwhelm, it's hard to take any action. So what I want to speak to, have this work that I do with folks. It's really helping people come into daily little baby steps of many daily rituals that you can do to come out of that feeling of overwhelm.

Jessica (22:16)
Absolutely, 100%.

Jenn Cormier (22:39)
So when I say daily ritual, there's no spiritual or religious connotation to ritual. When I say ritual, it just means something that you're practicing again and again with intention. Like my intention is to heal or to nurture myself. And I'm to do that by drinking this healing herb tea every morning or by adding an extra glass of water to my day, by flossing my teeth, things like that.

of flossing our teeth is a daily ritual. there are different general.

categories of things that we can do. And I have, and I was going to mention this at the end, but it's appropriate to mention it now. I have a guidebook that's very simple, and it's called The Seven Steps to Walk Through Grief with Grace. And I want to preface that, that when I say walk through grief with grace, it's to walk through grief, loss,

overwhelm any of those moments when life is the hardest and you're like, I don't know what to do and I don't know how to get through this. So that guide is appropriate for you, whether or not you've had a death in your family. If you're just feeling the overwhelm, it's appropriate. And it breaks down seven little things. depending on your personality and your season of life or what you're going through, different ones will be appropriate for you. So just picking one.

one step that's going to help you move through that overwhelm. For example, a simple step is using sound. So sound, you know, there's the vibration of sound and that has an energetic quality that shifts things. As I say that, my cat is walking through the room going, ROW, ROW. Yes, that's sound, right? So, so,

Both of us have a background in yoga therapeutics, right? Using mantra, using different techniques to shift energy flow, to open up energy flow. And to look at it in a real, like a broad perspective, basically when things are feeling good in your life, often you'll hear people say, I'm in the flow. And it's because all the energy channels are open.

Jessica (25:00)
Mm-hmm.

Jenn Cormier (25:07)
When you go to acupuncture, that's what we do. They put needles in different channels to open up the energy flow. And that's what we want. We want to be an open system where energy can flow through. Whenever there's a block in the system, that is like a dam, and that's going to create some kind of health issue, mental challenge, right, whenever there's a block. So that's just how I look at things from a bird's eye view is how can we keep opening up the energy.

So in that guidebook, seven steps to walk through grief with grace, there are these seven different ways that you can open up your energy to feel, to bring you more energy if you're depressed or to settle your system if you're feeling anxiety or overwhelmed, right? Whether you're at either of those ends of the spectrum. So I'll just mention one of the steps is sound. So.

When folks are feeling, if you're feeling that overwhelm, if it's bubbling to the surface and you're hearing yourself in your head or you're saying, gosh, I feel like I could just scream, right? I'm so overwhelmed, I could just scream. Well, go in your car and go scream. Right? So let sound out of your system. That is healing. And that's going to help bring you out of that.

that state of overwhelm. So if you feel like you need to scream or yell or make a loud noise, go and let yourself do it. And I think as many of us listening to this podcast are mothers and we've been sort of trained to be nice and be cute and be sweet and be perfect and be all these things that we've been trained up from our parents and grandparents and be seen, not heard and all of that. So that's a new way of being. So it's uncomfortable to make sound for many of us.

I hear a lot of people say, I'm not an artist or I'm not a singer or I'm not a this or I'm not that, you know, we can all make sound. And when people go through a loss or something challenging, often, you know, there's a there's an impulse to cry or wail or make a sound and we shut it down. no, I'm in public. I shouldn't be crying. Or I can't tell you how many people apologize for crying. If we can let the tears out, let the let the

Jessica (27:21)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Jenn Cormier (27:30)
out, let the wailing out, let the screaming out, let the any sounds coming out. It's good because it gets the energy to release. gets the emotions to move and then. You know, singing. Any song, any song it can be. It could be a spiritual song. It could be mantra if that's part of your practice, but it could just be your favorite rock and roll song.

Jessica (27:42)
Mm-hmm.

Jenn Cormier (27:55)
It could be, you know, if you just had a loss and you're feeling pretty frozen, you're like, not really, I feel like I want to cry, but I'm not. For me, it's listening like after my dad died, listening to his favorite music, some of his favorite songs, guaranteed at Waterworks, you know, I would cry. So just leaning into allowing for tears and allowing for sound is very, very powerful and very healing.

So I think that's the first thing that came to my mind that feels important to say.

Jessica (28:28)
Okay, yeah, thank you. something that came up as a question while you were saying that is could laughter fall into that category as well? Okay, yeah.

Jenn Cormier (28:36)
Absolutely, absolutely, absolutely. Laughter,

crying, wailing, singing, humming, all of it. Anything that is sound coming from you is fun. And if you're feeling really inward and you're feeling quiet, humming is super healing to the system. You could just hum.

Jessica (28:44)
All of it. Okay.

Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Doesn't that also kind of help regulate the vagus nerve? Okay. Yeah. And did you... So before, I would like you to go into that just a little bit because I think that that's maybe a new buzzword term that possibly the listeners haven't heard or if they have, they're like, huh, what's that? And or just want to know more. So I'd like to go a little bit more into that. But a couple of things that came up

Jenn Cormier (29:02)
Yes. Yep. Absolutely. So it's your.

Jessica (29:26)
while you were talking first off is I'm that person who I'm just like, I don't know, I don't really like to sing out loud. so when I very first went to the practice of yoga that we do, which the very first class when you have to like.

basically like laugh and shake, right? Like, ha, ha, you know, at the end of whatever movement you're doing. I was so uncomfortable with that. I was like, what? I don't know if I can do that. And also the mantras and all of that was very uncomfortable for me because I'm not a singer. I'm not a voicey person. And once I was able to kind of overcome and move through those like,

discomforts, you know, I felt like, okay, this is why we're doing this because sound is so powerful. And especially when done in a certain tone and with certain, you know, words that have high frequency, it's it's I just want to second that, yes, it can feel uncomfortable. But just find what works for you. And, you know, let's

Let the sound show you the way because it really is a very impactful, powerful, it sounds so simple, right? Just like, really? You know, can that act? But think about it, like if you hear your favorite song or something that just reminds you of a time or a place in your life where you were, you know, having a great day or happy or whatever, like it can shift your mood immediately, right? Just.

Jenn Cormier (31:17)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Jessica (31:17)
just hearing a song and

yeah, so there's that. I just wanted to add to what you had to say. But also if you could go a little bit deeper into the vagus nerve

Jenn Cormier (31:28)
Yeah, I think that there's lots of research being done. There's lots, people are really tuned into the nervous system right now. And I think that it's important, I don't wanna go too deep down that rabbit hole, but we think of the autonomic nervous system has the parasympathetic system and the sympathetic system. And one way that you could look at that is parasympathetic

we hear, right? It's rest and digest. Sympathetic is fight or flight. And neither one is good nor bad. So it's not like, I need to always be in parasympathetic nervous system because sympathetic fight or flight is bad. No, we have to be awake and aware. And like, we need that up regulation and we need the down regulation. So we need both. We need to be balanced. We need to be able to move fluidly.

Jessica (32:18)
Mm-hmm.

Jenn Cormier (32:24)
And we're when we're moving through the day back and forth all the time, like the body is the body is brilliant. So I think part of the one thing that I want to say, because I know we don't have that much time left, is that the anything that I the things that I'm saying are all good to bring you back into balance in your nervous system. They are all healing and affect the vagus nerve, like laughing and sound.

And also movement is the other, is the one other thing that I want to bring in here. especially if you, you know, feel collapsed or depressed that you, that you may have that, gosh, it feels like too much to go to the gym or to go to a yoga class or to go do the big thing that you always do. If you experience any loss, things feel harder.

thinking feels harder, making decisions are harder, everything is moving slower. So it's, a lot of people go, my gosh, I feel like a failure. I can't even do these basic things. To give yourself a lot of grace and to go, okay, I'm not, I can't, I just can't carry on the way I quote unquote normally would. I'm gonna have to give myself more spaciousness, more time.

And I might not be able to drive to that gym and do that hour and a half class like I would normally. Maybe I just can, you know, be at home and give myself five minutes, you know, of a stretch and a shake. And that's good enough. So really, you know, for all of those, you you mentioned perfectionism a couple of times, Jessica, that, you know, I, you know, I want to get things right. if we come from that lineage of women that felt like we have to be an A plus plus kind of

Jessica (34:01)
Mm-hmm.

Jenn Cormier (34:17)
student to just soften into it's good enough. And that's a real healing thing to do too. When you're in overwhelm or depression or you've gone through a loss to be like, this is good enough. Like I'm just going to roll with the, I'm going to be a C student. It's going to be satisfactory You know, the fact that I ate today and I walked around the block, it's good enough.

Jessica (34:37)
Thank

Jenn Cormier (34:39)
You know, it's good enough. just letting go of some of those expectations of yourself and giving yourself grace to do less, to move slower and just go back to the least common denominator. And that's what I want to do with in that guidebook. It's like just three minutes. Try this three minute movement. Try this for just a minute, the sound, three minutes, keeping it really simple, really bite sized.

Jessica (34:45)
Yeah.

Jenn Cormier (35:09)
so that we can feel like, I just did that three minutes and I feel different. And I'm not asking too much of myself. Yeah.

Jessica (35:17)
Yeah, I like

It has to be simple because we've already got so many things going on. And so I like that you're keeping it into bite-sized things that we can fit into a morning or an evening or maybe even the middle of the day if you have a few minutes and you're feeling overwhelmed. I can take a moment to step back for three minutes.

So I love that you have that guide available as a tool. And before we direct people in that direction, I just wanted to ask, so those are some tangible things. Is there any type of perspective advice that you could give when people are facing these overwhelming feelings about...

you know, just what, like we talked about what's going on in the environment when they feel, you know, overwhelmed, maybe they see something in their feed that gives an overwhelming statistic or whatever. Like, is there something that, you know, perspective wise that you can give some advice to when people are just hit with something and in the moment they're just like, Whoa, you know, that just really shook my nervous system up. And now I have to go get my

know, son from school or daughter from, you know, kids from practice or whatever.

Jenn Cormier (36:42)
Yeah, I think the first, I think that I'm going to answer this in a couple of layers. The first thing that comes to mind when you, when you mentioned that it's what I, what I kind of heard was, the doom scrolling, right? When, because we have so much access to visual stimulus of, of traumatic events, like war, like fires, like floods, you know, and we can see, video after video, right? Even though it's not around our

Jessica (36:52)
Yeah.

Jenn Cormier (37:11)
vicinity, it's halfway around the world, we can sit and get really stuck in that. So the first thing I want to offer is to really limit your engagement with the news and with scrolling For example, those are just the examples that I can think of off the top of my head. So some people keep the news on, know, just really be aware. Is that benefiting me?

Jessica (37:16)
Mm-hmm.

Jenn Cormier (37:37)
Is that benefiting anyone? Like I can get the gist of what's going on without watching 90 minutes or without scrolling. Right, so we can really get sucked into that. having some awareness around that and giving ourselves some boundaries. For example, I'll give a couple tangible things. One thing that I do is I turn my phone off at night and I put it on airplane mode. And what I do in the morning that's really essential is I...

Jessica (37:50)
Mm-hmm.

Jenn Cormier (38:06)
Like many people, I don't have a clock in my house. It's become my phone, right? My alarm clock is my phone. So I'll put, if I need to set an alarm, I'll set an alarm, but I'll keep my phone on airplane mode. And I have a really strong policy with myself to keep that phone on airplane mode till after I've gotten out of bed, after I've gone outside and I've done some.

Jessica (38:10)
you

Jenn Cormier (38:30)
prayer practice and I put my feet on the earth and I've been in the sun and I've taken some breaths and I've set up. Then then I'll turn my phone back. I'll turn my phone off of airplane mode. So having something like that, I know a friend who told me a while back that her whole family had an 830 PM policy and everyone took their phones at 830 and put them in a basket. And and that was it. And so that everyone could have a good hour and a half to read.

or crochet or do something that was absolutely off screens for the last hour and half of their day. So my suggestion is implementing something like that is really helpful to give yourself some spaciousness away from the current events that may be harsh and traumatic, right? So that would be the first layer. And then the second layer would be

Jessica (39:06)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm

Yeah.

Jenn Cormier (39:28)
you know, coming back into whatever practice it is for you to remember, to get into sort of an eagle eye view of any situation. and that can look like a lot of things. For example, one of the one of the therapeutic practices that I engage in is parts work, internal family systems, parts work. That's got a lineage with Dick Schwartz. And that practice is, you know,

you're remembering in a nutshell your self energy and then there are all kinds of parts of you that are managing parts and you you that got stuck you know at age five and age 13 and you know different ages and then there's the firefighters trying to make things better and you forget about that and drink a beer turn on your phone so there's all of these parts of ourselves how can we unblend from those

and just kind of unravel and remember that, okay, I am this age, I have a soul and a spirit, I'm not all of these parts that are kind of fighting for my attention. And then how can I take just a step back? And that's what meditation does, right? No matter what tradition, if it's a Buddhist tradition, a yoga therapeutics tradition, Christian mysticism.

prayer, in any tradition, anything, That gives us, that meditation practice gives us a step back so that we can see what's happening like it's on a screen instead of like it's actually happening to us right here, right? So any amount of spaciousness we can take, whether that's through a therapeutic practice, an artistic practice, painting, dancing, know, anything that you do artistically.

Jessica (41:04)
Mm-hmm.

Jenn Cormier (41:19)
through meditation practice, prayer practice, all of those give you a step back, any kind of therapy, right? It kind of gives you some space so your perspective can be from more of an eagle eye view. And then you can go, okay, I can move a little bit now and I can see it from a different angle. And now I can maybe be free to take action or see that that's not really actually mine to do. That's another thing we could ask, know, that's a question that came up

Jessica (41:25)
Mm-hmm.

Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Jenn Cormier (41:49)
I'll finish answering your question with this last piece that's asking the question, what's mine to do? Because I think we can get really caught up in like, oh, I've got to do this and that. And then there are all these problems and I want to sign a petition and donate. And yeah, yes, sign the petition. Yes, get involved. Yes, make a donation, of course. But there can be so many pieces. So to come back into ourselves and ask, what's really mine to do?

Jessica (41:56)
Mmm.

Hmm.

Jenn Cormier (42:18)
Then it can give us a more one-pointed focus, like with the fires, like what is mine to do? I'm like, I don't need to watch a bunch of Instagram feed about the fires, but when a neighbor says, my best friend lost her house, what's mine to do is I can clean out my son's room and my room, and they asked for clothes and kids books. I can actually do that. That's something that's mine to do. I can fill my car and drive it three minutes away and drop it off. And that felt like a tangible thing.

that's mine to do. So if we can come back and let that question be like, it can be like a prayer and then, and then it can simplify things for us.

Jessica (42:53)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah, I love that. Because sometimes it can just feel overwhelming to do anything because it feels like I want to do all these things and nothing gets done or you just, you know, put 10 other things on your checklist and overwhelm yourself. with that being said, great tips. I'll just add one little thing to that is that if you're feeling exhausted,

Jenn Cormier (43:05)
Yeah.

Jessica (43:24)
take a step back and, maybe use some of these tools and take a break and then come back when you're ready and you're well rested and you're feeling regulated again. don't try to do it while you're exhausted and feeling like it's draining your energy, right? it shouldn't be a drain. should be something that feels fulfilling when you are able to do that thing that you can do.

So yeah, all right, well, our time has come to a close it goes so fast and you had so many amazing things to offer and thank you so much for sharing. Please, you know, let us know where we can find you and connect with you and how to get this guide.

Jenn Cormier (44:07)
Yeah,

yeah. So the guide you can find, my podcast and website are the same name. It's walkthroughgriefwithgrace.com or Walk Through Grief with Grace podcast on Apple, Spotify, all the places you listen to podcasts. And then you can also find my guidebook at the top of the fold. There's a, yes, get my guide, yellow button.

on the walkthroughgriefwithgrace.com website. And that guide will be, I think, really beneficial to you no matter what challenge you're going through. yeah. Thank you so much for having me. It was really a joy.

Jessica (44:48)
I agree. Thank you, Jen.

And I will link all that up for the listeners in the show notes. I just want to put that out there and let you know it's there. Okay.