SPEAKER_00 0:00

In this episode, I'll be interviewing Nicole Haugen. She is a Catholic grief coach. She is going to share her story about the loss of her parents and other things that went on during that time. I'm so excited to have her on here for you guys. And I think you'll really enjoy this episode. Welcome to the Catholic Grief Podcast. I'm Jenny Berba. After walking through profound loss, I discovered that grief and faith are not enemies. In this space, we speak openly about grieving. We bring our grief to the foot of the cross, anchor ourselves in Scripture and the sacraments, and gently rebuild with Christ at the center. If you are carrying sorrow, you are seen here. Let's walk this path together. Hello, Nicole. Welcome to the Catholic Grief Podcast. Thank you so much for coming on and being a guest. Um would you go ahead and tell our audience a little bit about who you are and what you do?

SPEAKER_01 1:25

Yeah, so my name is Nicole Haugen. I live in North Dakota with my husband Will, and we have six beautiful daughters. And I am a grief coach. And um part of my story is I lost both my parents about four and a half months apart. And so that kind of led me on a journey with grief and deciding and feeling God calling me to helping others with their grief.

SPEAKER_00 1:51

That's beautiful. It's funny how that happens during grief, where we're able to, as we walk through it, help other people journey through their grief process. Okay, so let's start with prayer. Name of the Father, Son, Holy Spirit. Amen. Heavenly Father, thank you so much for connecting Nicole and I for guiding her to say yes to this interview. Please bless those that are here listening. Help those that you want to reach to find this podcast, be with them in their grief and through their journey. And help them to feel seen. Help them to see your light and know that they are not alone. In your name we pray. Amen. Okay. So Nicole, you lost both of your parents in 2019. And I think that you just said about four and a half months apart from each other. Yeah. So can you walk us through that time?

SPEAKER_01 3:12

Yeah. So we my dad had had cancer. He had um prostate cancer, and he was diagnosed with that in 2010. And so he had lived with that, you know, for almost 10 years. And um, which, you know, was beyond his prognosis, I think, because when he first got diagnosed, it was already metastasized to his bones. And so we knew it had already spread a decent amount. And so getting that extra nine years with him was, I think, a miracle in its itself. Um, but that spring, um, he he was getting a little bit worse, like he was having more pain. And and then it was like the Tuesday before Easter that year, my mom called and was like, you know, your dad woke up this morning, he can't walk, like he can't move his legs anymore. And so I'm like, well, you know, I was a hospice nurse at the time. And so I was like, well, do you, you know, does he want to try to go figure this out, seek treatment, or is he looking to be like, no, like, let's go to hospice and hospice services? And so she's like, no, he wants hospice. And so um I went out there, I helped get him lined up on hospice services, and and um, I was pregnant at the time, so we had five daughters. I was pregnant with my six at the time, and so my dad, he got on hospice the next day. The priest came out, and my dad, who always said he was gonna become Catholic on his deathbed, became Catholic. The priest gave him last rites, and like, and you know, kind of my dad had been baptized, but he gave him the other um, the other sacraments then, and so he became Catholic. And my husband was also joining the church on Easter Vigil in a few days from then, and so he was upside. He's like, I knew it. Your dad was gonna jump the line, he didn't have to take all the classes like I did. So it was kind of funny and like a blessing within that time. But so he went on hospice. Um, that was April, and we had Easter, and then he passed away the end of July that year. I'd had my daughter um about six weeks before he passed away. So newly pregnant or newly um postpartum. Um, dad was imminently dying. So then dad passed away, and then yeah, about four and a half months later, um, my brother called and he was like, Hey, mom's missing. Have you seen her? And we were like, No. And she was supposed to have an appointment in town that day, and she missed it. And so my brother went up to the farm. He lived about a mile away at the time, and he went up there and realized, like, okay, our car is gone. It doesn't even look like she has been here recently. So called the the police and they came out. We kind of searched for her. Uh, Alzheimer's runs in my family and my mom's side, especially. And so, you know, that was kind of the first thought was like, okay, she's been under a lot of stress. Um, did she take a wrong turn somewhere? Because it had kind of been storming that night that, you know, she went missing. Um, but you know, there's a lot of different miracles within that time. And one of them was the wind shifted that evening, and we could very clearly see where her tire tracks went out onto the water next to her driveway. And so what had happened was it was storming blustery, wind was blowing across the road, which was equal to the water, so you couldn't see and just all looked white. And so she accidentally turned too soon, and her car went into the water. And again, we didn't know till the next day that she was missing. And so then they came out to search in the water and they found her car a few days later. They were able to retrieve her car and pull that out, and her bar body was not in the car, so then it took a couple more days of them searching in the water there to find her body. Um, wow, yeah, and so that was like right a week or so before Christmas that year. And so that was you know, extremely difficult. It was just very traumatic minute by minute of waiting to see, like, okay, where is she? Okay, we've we have a pretty good idea where she's at, where her body's at, then it was waiting, you know, just a waiting game. Um, so just a lot of yeah, trauma, just a lot of grief, a lot of trauma, a lot of stress. And and then too, in that time, um, again, I was newly postpartum with six young children, and so just a lot of different dynamics that way, and trying to figure out then like how do you grieve while having very young children and helping them through that, and also working as a hospice nurse, and then about a month later, my marriage like drastically changed and a lot of things came to light, and so just a lot of trauma and grief within a very short amount of time.

SPEAKER_00 7:58

Yeah, it sounds like it almost like it probably felt like your life was just falling apart.

SPEAKER_01 8:03

Yes, absolutely, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 8:07

That that sounds uh indescribable. There are no words, wow. So, um so your dad's passing was somewhat expected, not desired, obviously, because we don't ever want to lose the people we love, even though that's part of life. Um, but your mom's passing was sudden, like very sudden and unexpected. How um how did those two losses feel different from each other?

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Yeah, so with my dad, like you said, his was more expected. Um and of course there was sadness, but there was also somewhat of a relief because he was in so much pain at the end that it was like, okay, yes, we we wish he was here. We would prefer him here with us, but we know for his sake, like we don't like we want him to be, you know, in heaven, hopefully. We want him to be there. We we want him to just feel like be pain-free and not have to worry about things anymore. And and so there was that relief that came with it, you know, like kind of a bittersweet with that. Um, and with my mom, it was just yeah, it was so sudden. We saw her the day before, or I did. Um, it was just like she was there, she was alive, she was healthy and well, and then the next second she's gone, and there's no closure to it. There's no, hey, like, I want to say these things, I want to ask these questions. You know, like we kind of had that time with my dad. We had about three months where we could ask questions, or you know, we could talk about things that were on our mind, and we could say, like, hey, I love you, and I'm sorry about this thing. And with my mom, there wasn't that. And so it just felt like like a part of you just got removed, and now you're trying to figure out how to live with like your leg being amputated, you know, like it's just it's such a drastic change overnight, and and so it just was I I don't I don't know if I want to say it was harder. Both of them were hard in their own sense. Um, both of them there was a lot of guilt, and like, what could we have done differently? So there was a lot of the same kind of feelings that came up, but with my mom, there was a very much more intense anger that came with it. Yeah. That I would say wasn't there as much with my dad.

SPEAKER_00 10:45

That makes that makes total sense. I totally understand that. And uh I think I said this when I was talking with Teresa Matters in my last interview, but I've heard, and actually maybe I said it in one of my I think I actually said in the the episode where I shared about my husband, is that you know, all grief is the same, but all grief is different. Yeah, like it's it's it's pretty wild how it is. Cause I've I've lost several people in my life, one being my son, one being my husband, and then grandparents. I've been very blessed to not have lost my parents yet, but I know that that is going to happen one day. Um, but it is, it's like you still have all of the same emotions and all the same feelings. It's just the relationship, I think, and the time that you've got changes how intense it feels. Maybe that's the way to say it.

SPEAKER_01 11:43

Yeah, yeah, I think that's a good way to say it.

SPEAKER_00 11:47

Um, so uh during I don't know if it was more during but or right after, you know, you talked about having um uh a loss of sorts within your marriage during that same season. So you can share, can you share a little bit about that with us?

SPEAKER_01 12:06

Yeah, so about a month after my mom died, I there was a a letter came in the mail and the postman, I had to sign for it. And I was like, well, that's kind of odd. Like, what is this? And here it was a collections agency um showing that we had a large amount of debt that I was like, we don't have this debt, you know, like we pay the bills, we like, what is this? What's going on? And it was in my husband's name. And so then he came home from work and I confronted him with it, and I found out that he had basically been unfaithful, financially unfaithful in our our whole marriage. So we've been married about 10 years at this point, or we yeah, it was like just 10 years, and so um the whole time we had been married, he had been kind of taking out different credit cards, and it really had spiraled the last um year or so at that time, and so there was multiple credit cards out, and he was trying to use them to pay off the other one, you know, to hide it, so I wouldn't know. Um, and basically it was is for his he had like or has kind of an addiction with um like sports memorabilia, training cards, that kind of stuff. And so he'd he would be up at night and he would be kind of hiding, or he was hiding, sneaking, he would buy them, pay with these credit cards I didn't know about. So just a lot of again, grief around the loss of trust. The lot like it just felt like a huge betrayal. Um, it felt like everything that we had talked about and shared, like we we would talk about finances a lot. We would sit down and do the bills together. We would, you know, and everything. I was just like questioning everything we ever talked about because I felt like every single thing we talked about had been a lie. And not only a lie, but that I was manipulated then to believe that things were better off than they were, so he could, you know, hide it a little bit more, or believe, like, well, no, like, you know, I remember him one time being like, well, no, inflation, like things just cost more. That's where the money's going. And it's just like, okay, you know, and of course, like at the time, I trusted him because I had no reason to believe that he would lie to me like that. And so that was just again, it was very traumatic just to begin with. I mean, just that again, that lots of sense of trust and that betrayal and manipulation. But paired so closely with my parents' death, I felt like the one person that I was gonna be able to lean on, now I didn't want to be around at all. Like I couldn't stand him, I didn't want to talk to him. I was so angry at him as well. And so that that has taken a lot of work to rebuild and and reshape and rebuild the trust and to learn and grow through that together and and for both of us to want to choose that as well.

SPEAKER_00 14:50

Yeah, that is so important to to make that choice to continue to work at it and make it work again because it's hard to rebuild that trust once it's lost. Yeah, you know. So uh where did you see God in the middle of all of this?

SPEAKER_01 15:11

Yeah, I would say, like, you know, shortly well, like while my dad was sick, um, you know, there was a lot of faith around that. Um, my mom would do like prayers. Um, we my siblings and I, and my mom, we were all there as my dad took his last breath. And my mom like instantly pulled up like these prayers um set you're you should pray at the bedside of somebody who's died. And so just a lot of that, like a lot of connection. We would do like the Divine Mercy chaplet. Um, so just there was a lot of beauty in that. And I relied on my faith a lot during that time. And you know, just kind of you're in when somebody's dying, there's a lot of unknowns. And so it's just like kind of minute by minute some days, hour by hour, trying to be like, okay, like, where's you know, how to figure this out or do work here? Okay, well, if he changes, you know, if something happens, if they progress, okay, then I could do this. You know, like a lot of shifting, moving parts. And so um, just a lot of faith during that time. And then when my mom died, there again, there was just so many good people that were neighbors of my parents that they were out searching for my mom. They would just drop by, they would just bring paper products or food, like they wouldn't even ask what do you need, they would just bring us what we needed, and so it just was so loving. I just we all felt so held during that time. There were so many people praying. Um, and my mom's kind of favorite saying was, Jesus, I trust in you. So I just that kind of would go through my mind all like constantly while she was missing. Um, so a lot of that, and like I said at the beginning, like how the wind just shifted, so we could even see where to begin looking for her, just little miracles within it. And then when the dust kind of settled, you know, and things kind of slowed down. And then with my husband's stuff, like with our marriage on the rocks, like I I really struggled. I had faith, but I was pretty upset with God. I was pretty angry. I felt really betrayed. I felt like I did everything right and I was constantly being punished. And I just didn't understand, and I was really struggling with it, but I also didn't really want to talk to God about it, or I didn't know how to do it in a way where, like, you know, I just felt like okay, like I just gotta kind of keep showing up just day by day, like figure it out, forge ahead, like just nope, you're a good Catholic. Like, and I wouldn't ever say I I lost my trust in God. I still like I knew that he loved me, but I didn't feel that. It was like I knew it in my head, but my heart didn't feel it. And so, really trying to figure that out. Um, and my husband and I, we had been meeting with our priest, and he had said, you know, like God is a big boy, he can handle everything that you have to tell him, all your emotions, all your feelings, he can handle your anger, but he wants us to turn to him. He doesn't want us to keep trying to control it or figure it out our own, you know, or just, you know, kind of willpower our way through it. He's like, he wants us to turn to him. So he's like, you know, he's like, because he was like, I've had to do this before. Just take a time where you just like lock yourself in the vehicle, or if the kids are napping, or like, you know, a place where you can just like vent. And if you have to cry, cry it out. If you have to yell, like yell it out. So I did that, and it just felt like such a relief. Like, oh, like I can be myself and God can handle it. I can be angry and God can handle it. And at the end of it, I just felt so, so much better that then I was like, okay, Lord, like I love you. You know I love you. I just like I'm so I'm struggling. Like, I need help. I need your help. And so that was really a pivotal moment for me. Where I was like, oh, like I can have all these feelings, yeah, and I don't have to figure it out on my own. God is there with me, He's given me those feelings, right? We always think like to be always like, okay, we want to always feel good and happy and joyful, but God also gave us sadness and overall, like we have all these emotions which are beautiful, which is part of the human experience. Yeah, and I'm over here trying to just bring God the shiny part to me. And when I'm happy and like, it's like, no, he wants all of it. He wants all of it. So I finally did that, and that was like, oh, so relieving, such a weight off.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

Yeah, yeah. I think it is it's so important to remember to to take these emotions to God and and to understand that it's okay to be angry at him, you know, just like just like with your own human parents, you know, you get angry at them when they discipline you or make decisions that you're that you don't like, but that doesn't mean you don't love them anymore. And it's the same way with God. Um, and I also, you know, I I don't know if you watch The Chosen, but I've been watching The Chosen a lot and reading the Bible a lot. Um, like a whole I started watching The Chosen with my first husband, and that was a whole thing on itself. It took me a while to get back into it to watch the rest of the seasons, but my now husband, um, he was not Catholic when we met. Like he wasn't he wasn't even Christian. And um, and I can't even remember where he learned about the chosen, but he wanted to start watching it. So I'm like, okay, sure, let's do it. Um, but the way, like in in the Bible itself, when you read the Bible and in the chosen, the way that Jesus is depicted, and you can see Jesus go through all of those same emotions. He goes through anger, he goes through sadness. So I really think that Jesus, God in human form, was God's way of showing us that yes, all of these emotions are real. These are the way that I've created you, and it's okay to feel these emotions. Just stay close to me and I'll help you through them.

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Yeah, yeah, absolutely. And that's what I've come to learn too is like God so loves our humanness. And I think that's something that, like, again, grow I I Cradle Catholic, you know, I just I heard about it, you're like, God loves you, God loves you, but it's like, no, God loves you so much that he chose to be human, like he chose that because he loves us so much. Like it just when you really sit with that, it's like so mind blowing. And yeah, I I do think like grief has led me down a path to a Appreciate that more to appreciate my own humanness and where I'm failing, and even in my marriage, right? To be like, okay, like it's not all my husband's fault. You know, like not dismissing the the behaviors, but it's like he also is a broken human. I'm a broken human. So how can we work this out together instead of just like, you know, because I could, I could have very easily become very just bitter and angry and resentful and just you know, moved on. And you know, sometimes I'm like, maybe that would have been easier. I don't know.

SPEAKER_00 22:32

No, I get it. I mean, my first husband and I, we had we got married at 18. We had a pretty rocky marriage for a long time, but there is there is something so beautiful about staying together and working through those issues and getting to the other side of those issues and being able to rebuild it. I've heard people call it almost like a second marriage with the same spouse, kind of a type thing, you know.

SPEAKER_01 23:02

Yeah, it is. Yeah, because my husband and I too, we I mean, we went to high school together, so we've been dating since we were like 16, you know, and it's like we're completely different than we were when we first started dating. But but too, it's like to realize like, but I want that, I don't want us to be two 16-year-olds forever. I want us to now be almost 40-year-olds together, so like, yeah, it is a relearning and yeah, it's almost like a second marriage of re-figuring out, and then I'm sure when the kids go off and leave the house, it's gonna be figuring it out and all over again.

SPEAKER_00 23:34

Right. Yeah, because you do you you're always evolving as you grow up. Um gosh, I was gonna say something else. Um, oh, and that is uh that's another thing about marriage, is that when you go through those situations, I think it sometimes it's hard to um hard to not put the blame on yourself and what did you do wrong. I think we have to recognize that there's also a lesson that that other person needs to be learning through all this as well. And it's a grow, a growing opportunity for for our spouse. Um, and maybe we had to suffer through that so that they could grow into a better person. Does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 24:22

Yeah, and I think that's something I've probably only come to realize or recognize, like in the last, I don't know, year is really like because again, at the beginning, when all this came out, and you know, again, my husband with his own hurts and and wounds and trying to just protect himself, like, you know, would say things like and so I believe it, like, well, this is my fault. I'm too controlling, I'm too, you know, whatever. Like, I if I change, then he'll change, right? Like, if I if I just do this, then he won't do that to me anymore. And then as time went on, I started to realize, like, no, okay, like I am changing, I am showing up how he's asking, and these things are still kind of going on. So that has been really, really hard for me to realize like what it means to say no, to have boundaries. Like, boundaries is something that I think it's just it's just really hard for me. Um, I think a lot of women are people pleasers. I think they want to nurture and help, and and that is good, but it's how can we help in a way where just like you said, that person also can learn and grow from things. Yeah. There's a while where I would just read so a friend sent me um like the the daily prayer for um, or just it was just like a paragraph or something from like Alan on where it was like, okay, Lord, please help me. Like, how can I step back today and let you, you know, show up for them instead of me trying to do that for them? Like I'm trying to be that in their life when they don't need me, they need God. Like I'm trying to feel out for them. So that that has been a hard one for me to learn. But uh, you know, I'm still a work in progress. So yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:11

No, all of us are, but yeah, it's definitely so important to make sure that your marriage is centered around God and that you bring him into it. Um, so like I I I can't remember I heard it from, but basically marriage is like another form of the Trinity between God, husband, and wife.

SPEAKER_01 26:29

Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:33

Okay. So you were a hospice nurse for over 10 years. How did walking with others through death shape the way that you experienced your own grief?

SPEAKER_01 26:47

Yeah, so I think for me, like the hospice side of it, like and being a nurse, and I think for me, like the the good part of it was I knew what to expect when my dad was dying. I knew, you know, kind of that progression of when people are, you know, the last six months of life, the last three months. Like I knew to kind of what to watch for. And so part of it, like I would, you know, talk to my siblings on different things and kind of educate them on that. Um, so that that was helpful. On the flip side of that, I would say it was also not helpful because you're kind of waiting for that other shoe to drop all the time. Like, you know it's gonna come, you know, like, and so I'm like, yes, the knowledge, knowledge is power, but it was also like, okay, it was kind of, I don't, it was just tricky. It was just tricky. Um, but I also think it was it was it was a good thing. I'm glad that I could use that knowledge share with my siblings, um, and kind of help them, you know, like be like, oh no, like, you know, let's watch for this or this is what's coming next. Um I also felt like working with families over the years, like, you know, it is completely different when it's your own family. But I really did love, I love being a hospice nurse. I think if I ever went back to practicing being a nurse, I would, I would go back to hospice 100%. Like I just think there's something so beautiful in it. There's something so beautiful in that transition, and when people are um letting go of the things in this life, and you know, like you can almost feel it, like there's just something more that they're looking forward to, and I love the beauty of that. Um, I just yeah, it's just such a beautiful ministry, a beautiful thing. And another thing too is I did feel like being the hospice nurse that I was since my dad was in so much pain. I also felt a lot of failure and shame and guilt around him being in so much pain and then being like, okay, for a living, I help people like not be in pain while they're dying. And so there was a lot of tug and pull on that for me. But then I've I've come to the realization as well, or like, I think God is gifted with me the with the grace of being like, okay, but like his suffering was for something. Like that wasn't for me to take away. Like, you know, we tried to keep him comfortable. We, you know, we've given them meds. For one, my dad was very stubborn and he a lot of times didn't want to take medication. Um, you know, so that's on him. And I try to I would try to remind myself of that. But the other thing was too like his pain was just so severe, I don't know if it ever would have a hundred percent been taken away. And so with that, I've come to understand suffering more and be like, okay, but that God gave that to him almost as a gift or something to unite, you know, closer to Jesus with our redemption, the redemption of suffering, and be like, okay, like I don't know why, but dad was meant to have pain. And I almost in hindsight, I do think it was so my mom had a swift death. I mean, I literally think my mom probably would have had Alzheimer's, I think it would have been a drawn-out thing. And so I'm like, I think that dad suffered so much for mom. I think that was and again, I don't know that for a fact, right? I don't have a way to like see that. I not God, but like I really think that like was part of it. Yeah, knowing what I know how close their deaths were and just how swift mom's death was, and you know, rel I mean relatively painless, I would say, probably you know, for the most part.

SPEAKER_00 30:36

Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a really way a really interesting way to think about that. So, because I've had thoughts about that before too, with um with the way my grandparents have passed away and my husband, and it's just it almost seems like part of that that suffering, whether that is like like we don't know what God's timeline is, um, or or what time in the other realm is, so to speak, but that their suffering during those last days or whatever of life could very we well be a part of purgatory, yeah, you know?

SPEAKER_01 31:18

Yeah, yeah, and I I believe that. I think that that's closer related. I think that that is kind of a final, like, you know, choice that we get to make with our human will, that God gifts us that choice again and again. Like he's always there for us, right? And so we're the ones that pull away or draw closer, he's always there, and so I just think he's just in his mercy, he's just like always just giving us a final gift, whether it be a moment, probably like my mom had, or a few months or more, like my dad had. So I don't know. I just I I do find comfort in that, yeah. Thinking that that, yeah, that is a final kind of moment of kind of purgatory somewhat.

SPEAKER_00 32:00

So now here's another question for you, because this was my experience, and I experienced it with both with losing my son and losing my husband, is there there came to be this moment where through all the praying that I was doing, that I got this sense of peace, and I and it allowed me to let let go, so to speak, in that moment. Obviously, after the actual death moment was over, that's when all the other emotions came up and stuff. But I did both times have this period of peace come over me. Did you experience anything like that?

SPEAKER_01 32:43

Yeah, I think I think around like very early on with my mom's death, I think I felt a peace. Um, you know, and then again, that kind of fade away where like the anger started to come in. But I like later on, then with all of it that had happened, um, everything, I I really have felt a piece around that. And and I won't I don't think it was so much like a one moment. I think that it's been little moments throughout where like when I remember, you know, and this is the thing, like right, it's like if you're raised Catholic, you're like, you hear offer it up, offer it up, like a lot. Yes. And I mean, you know, in our humanness, we get that wrong because I was told offer it up when you're younger, but usually it's because I was whining or tired, and my mom was just like, okay, offer it up. I don't want to hear about it anymore, you know, like right. So I think for me growing up, I learned that like offering it up meant just suck it up and just shut it down, pull it together, Nicole, like figure it out. But really, when I truly was like learning throughout all this, like, no, what is suffering? What is redemptive suffering? What does it mean to offer it up? It's like, oh, anytime I turn to God instead of away from him, that's when I'm offering it up. Yeah, and that's when I would feel moments of peace, like extreme peace.

SPEAKER_00 34:13

Yeah, that's such a way, a great way to describe it. Exactly. So tell us how losing your parents led you into Catholic grief coaching.

SPEAKER_01 34:26

Yeah, so it's been kind of a journey. So I found a coach shortly after my parents died. I I decided I wanted to lose weight. You know, I had six babies, I was like, okay, I'm gonna lose weight. I am and I was listening to Sterling Jake with, she used to have a podcast called Coffee and Pearls, and I would listen to that when I would fold clothes. And I was like, What is it? Like, where'd she go? Her podcast is gone. Well, here she had gone through like coaching certification, she'd lost a bunch of weight. So I started listening to her and I was like, oh, like this is what I need, you know, at that, and especially at that time, I like again, all the stuff with my husband came out. So I was just like, I'm gonna spend money on this, whether he likes it or not, because he spent all this money. So I'm just like, this is what I'm doing. Like it was kind of out of anger and retaliation. But it led me down a path of really learning so much about myself. Like, especially I realized like I was using food as a crutch a lot of times because I really didn't struggle with my weight until I started having kids and then and kids back to back to back to back. And it was like the stress of the noise and the overwhelm and working full time, and my husband was working, like I would just cope with food. And once I started removing the food, I was like, Oh, what do I use to cope now? So I was kind of figuring out that. And again, like God is just so good because then he led me to be like, oh, well, I want to help nurses. And then it kind of was like, Okay, I guess I don't want to help just anybody, I really want to help Catholic people because I'm I'm so Catholic, like it just kind of oozes out of me. And I'm like, I don't not want to talk about God. Um, and then I kind of debated about doing like marriage, marriage coaching. Um, but at the time too, like my marriage was still really struggling. It was really raw. And I was like, I don't want to be talking about other people's marriage. Cause like I'm like, I'll probably side with the wife. I'll be like, yeah, no, you're right. He's awful. So I was like, that's probably not a good fit. And then I was like, okay, like I love hospice nursing. I'm like, I love that so much. And then I took a called and gifted workshop, and I really realized like one of my gifts is the gift of counsel. And I was like, oh, like this makes so much sense. Why I love hospice nursing, why I went through all this grief, like on different accounts. Like, I really love helping people. I like just everything kind of lined up. And I was like, oh, like I think that God is calling me to help people in their grief, just in like not physically as a nurse, but the emotional, mental side of it.

SPEAKER_00 37:14

Yeah, that's awesome. So'd you specifically switch to grief versus the marriage and the um nursing?

SPEAKER_01 37:25

Yeah, I think it lined up more with just what I thought, like or what I felt called to help people with. I was like, okay, grief kind of covers all the things because so much of life is like we are grieving something, you know, whether it be like we're grieving uh a loss of a job that or a loss of a promotion or like physically like death, like somebody died, we're grieving that way. And that's the most of the people that I help is like grieving the loss of you know, a child or a spouse, or like a death of a person is usually what my coaching is around. Um, but really grief is anytime that we we experience a loss, and so it really helped me see like, oh, like I really think a lot of the struggles that nurses go through in general is because this job is hard and it's not what they expected. Marriage is hard, it's not what we expected. Life is hard, it's not what we expected, and so that's all grief, and then to me, too, like with grief in itself is like I really think grief just magnifies all of the emotions, yeah. And we like in our society, we're not really taught how to deal with emotions or we're overly told to give into emotions and feelings, and so I don't think most people have a healthy realization of even how they feel most of the time. Um, you know, because when you're asking me, well, how are you feeling? They're like, Well, I feel like you betrayed me because right, they don't actually give you an emotion word. It's like they don't know how they feel. Nobody's like, Well, I feel frustrated, I feel betrayed. I've right, like those are feelings. And so I really realize like I think people are missing that. And when we're grieving, those emotions are just thrown so much into our face that it's you can't even a lot of days, like you you don't even know. It's just so overwhelming.

SPEAKER_00 39:25

Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 39:26

So I I just felt really like, oh, that if we could understand that, if we could start to understand, like we can almost like get heal in a way of our grief, like it's still gonna be there, but we can heal through it.

SPEAKER_00 39:42

Yeah, I I talk about it a lot, like how um how grief is a wound, and you'll always have the scar, but the scar can heal or the wound can heal.

SPEAKER_01 39:54

Yeah, absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 39:56

So can you um can you share with us what is the difference between coaching and therapy? Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 40:06

So I I don't know if I heard this explained somewhere one time, or I was like, oh, like this makes a lot of sense. Like, so therapy is like going to the doctor, and counseling is like going to physical therapy, and then coaching is going to like a personal trainer. So if you broke your leg, you wouldn't go to a personal trainer to get help. Now, you might go to the doctor, they might, you know, set your leg, might start healing. Okay, then you're gonna go to physical therapy because you want to work on it. And while you're going to physical therapy, you might go to personal training to get some of those muscles a little stronger. So that has really helped me under like just even see the difference, understand the difference is like you can do them at the same time, right? Like I have some people like, well, I talked with my therapist, and then I'm coaching them. Um, another difference quite a bit is um therapy and counseling, they want they like to look at kind of why you got there or like the past things. And a lot of with coaching is looking at here and now and how do we move forward.

SPEAKER_00 41:13

Okay, yeah.

SPEAKER_01 41:14

So it's different in that way, like just just the the questions that are asked or how it's kind of guided is a little bit different.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Yeah, I love the way that you that analogy that you came up with or heard. That's that's a great way to explain it. So as we are wrapping up, what do you want someone to know who is right in the middle of grief right now and can't see through it?

SPEAKER_01 41:41

Yeah, I just for one to know that I it feels so lonely. And you know, you might even reach out to family and friends and they don't respond how you expected or thought they would. Um, you know, for a long time I thought my husband, who I've again I've been with since 16, right? He knows everything about me. I really thought he'd be able to be like, oh, she needs a hug today, she needs a background today. And he didn't. And I just was like flabbergasted on why he wouldn't help me through this. But then I pause and it's like, oh, I don't even know what I need. How is he supposed to know what I need? And so I think just to have compassion for those around us, that like what I have noticed is people really truly haven't experienced loss, they don't know what to say, or they have experienced a loss and they're trying to say something because they don't they don't want their own feelings to come up, they want to kind of keep shoving down that wound, and so they don't want to look at it. And so just to try to be like, okay, to have compassion for those around you who say things that you know are so unhelpful, and then to have compassion for yourself of this is extremely hard, this is life-changing, but you don't have to be you don't have to be alone with it, you know, to talk to talk to somebody. And sometimes that does take some shopping around, you know, like to find a therapist that works or counselor or coach, but or a friend, you know, it might take a little feeling out different friends be like, oh no, okay, I don't think I'll confide in that one, maybe just yet, but maybe talking to this one. Um, I really I think too to just, yeah, like I do think that grief is a wound that we want to just put a band-aid on and move past it, but we really it's not gonna heal unless we dig up like all the pus and the dirt and the grossness of it. And it's not fun, right? Like it's not fun to go through all that, but it it really is worth it. And and healing can happen so much. Much faster when we do that instead of trying to keep putting a band-aid on and wondering why it's not getting fixed.

SPEAKER_00 44:07

Yes, I completely agree with that. That's awesome. Thank you so much, Nicole. Um, so where can our listeners find you?

SPEAKER_01 44:16

Yeah, they can find me at CatholicGriefcoach.com and I have a free grief consult on my website for the for anybody. I was like, anybody just use the free consult. Like you would like just to talk through anything, like use that. And and I also have a podcast called the Catholic Grief Coach.

SPEAKER_00 44:37

Awesome. Thank you so much, Nicole. Yeah, thank you. Uh, I hope that you all have enjoyed listening to Nicole and her story and how she can help you. If this episode has touched you, or if you know someone else that would be able to get something out of this episode, please like, share, and subscribe. And we will see you all next week.