BW 110: Time Doesn't Heal All Wounds - with Saubia Fatemi
Aug 14, 2024[[ TRANSCRIPT BELOW ]]
Saubia became a widow at the age of 35 after the sudden loss of her husband.
We discuss her profound journey through grief, the cultural challenges she faced, and her transformative path towards healing through meditation and wellness.
Saubia shares impactful insights on navigating life after loss, reclaiming personal identity, and finding new sources of joy.
Watch the episode here: https://youtu.be/jRJ8fkTO2cA
01:58 Meet Saubia: A Journey Through Grief
03:07 Saubia's Story: The Day Everything Changed
06:00 Navigating Life After Loss
12:01 The Turning Point: Embracing Healing
17:50 Cultural Challenges and Identity
23:00 Rediscovery and Moving Forward
28:18 Advice for Widows: Embracing Emotions and Healing
34:23 Saubia's Coaching and Final Thoughts
35:41 Conclusion and Call to Action
The first 3 people who contact Saubia will receive 4 free coaching sessions taking place weekly over the course of 1 month.
You can find Saubia here:
https://www.instagram.com/innernorthcoaching
Sign up for the What's Next Webinar here: https://www.bravewidow.com/next
Saubia’s bio:
Saubia became widowed at the age of 35 after the sudden death of her husband of 12 years. With 2 young kids, she navigated the journey of grief in a culture where grief and widowhood is rarely discussed, let alone the idea of moving forward. Over the course of months and years, Saubia began the journey of healing through a focus on meditation and wellness. Today she works one on one with widows to walk with them on their journey of healing with grief.
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Hey hey, I’m Emily Tanner. I was widowed at age 37, one month shy of our 20 year wedding anniversary. Nathan and I have four beautiful children together, and my world was turned completely upside down when I lost him.
Now, I love my life again! I’m able to experience joy, achieve goals and dreams I thought I’d lost, and rediscover this next version of me.
I did the work.
I invested in coaching for myself.
I learned what I needed to do to move forward and took the steps.
I implemented the tools and strategies that I use for my clients in my coaching program.
This is for you, if:
- You want a faith-based approach to coaching
- You want to move forward after loss, and aren’t sure how
- You want to enjoy life without feeling weighed down by guilt, sadness, or regret
- You want a guide to help navigate this journey to the next version of you
- You want to rediscover who you are
For 1-1 Coaching: https://www.bravewidow.com/coaching-options
Find and take the next steps to move forward (without “moving on”).
FOLLOW me on SOCIAL:
Twitter | @brave_widow
Instagram | @brave_widow
Facebook | / bravewidow
YouTube | @bravewidow
Don't forget to give this video a thumbs up if it helped you today, subscribe to the channel, hit that notification bell so you don't miss a single question, and if you have any additional questions ask in the comments (I monitor them daily)!
#widow #widowed #widowhood #widowlife #widowsofinstagram #widowshelpingwidows #grief #griefcoach #griefshare #griefsucks #griefquotes #griefsupport #griefjourney #griefandloss #griefrecovery #lifecoaching #lifecoach
TRANSCRIPT
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[00:00:00] Emily: Hey, and welcome to episode number 110 of the Brave Widow show. You guys, next week, we are starting, if you're listening to this in real time, we are starting next week, Monday, August 19th, with our back to school bash for widows. The back to school bash is a week long of live events of me answering your toughest questions about widowhood and healing and grieving and moving forward and all of the things that maybe you're even afraid to put into words.
You're afraid to ask the questions because you feel like that makes you a bad person or you feel guilty in some of those trickier situations.
We are going to talk about so many good things during this back to school bash and we start with a workshop on Monday, August 19th, where I'm going to teach you what's next, where I'm going to teach you how to find out what's next for you on your journey as a brave widow. I'm going to teach you all the sneaky little grief things that are holding you back that make you feel like you're going backwards.
So Ways that you may be sabotaging your own healing and your own ability to move forward. And you are going to leave that webinar knowing some of the exact next steps that you need to take to move forward in your healing journey. So if you want to join me, go to bravewidow.com/next to sign up for this free live event Bring a friend, bring five friends.
It's totally free to the public. Anyone is welcome to join us. And I look forward to seeing you there again. It's brave widow. com slash next.
Welcome to the Brave Widow Show, where we help widows find hope, heal their heart, and dream again for the future. I'm your host, Emily Tanner. After losing my husband of 20 years, I didn't know how I could ever experience true joy and excitement again for the future. I eventually learned how to create a life I love, and I've made it my mission to help other widows do the same.
Join me and the Brave Widow membership community and get started today. Learn more at BraveWidow. com
Meet Saubia: A Journey Through Grief
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[00:02:33] Emily: Saubia became widowed at the age of 35 after the sudden death of her husband of 12 years. With two young kids, she navigated the journey of grief and a culture where grief and widowhood is rarely discussed, let alone the idea of moving forward.
Over the course of months and years, Saubia began the journey of healing through a focus on meditation and wellness. Today, she works one on one with widows to walk with them on their journey of healing and grief. You can find her on Instagram at inner north coaching, and of course, we'll have a link to her
instagram handle in the show notes. She's also offering a generous free gift of one on one coaching sessions. And the first three people who hear her on the episode and who contact her will receive four free coaching sessions that take place weekly over the course of one month. All right, let's dive in to Saubia's story.
Saubia, welcome to the show and thank you so much for joining us today.
[00:03:35] Saubia: Thanks, Emily.
Really appreciate you having me on and just giving me an opportunity to share with your audience.
Saubia's Story: The Day Everything Changed
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[00:03:42] Saubia: Just like going back of, I'm widowed now almost eight years. It's actually gonna be eight years this November. It's strange, right? Because in so many ways it feels like it was yesterday, but in other ways it can feel like a lifetime ago and you're like, Wow.
Like that version of me. I just like looking back. I was 35 when my husband passed. I was actually living overseas. We had been together since I was 17. So we met in In college, the second day of school he was literally the guy down the hall just down the hall for me. I didn't go very far.
We met that second day, hit it off, started dating. I want to say just a month and a half later And we were together since and it was interesting because, college sweetheart definitely had our like ups and downs roller coaster relationship as we journeyed getting older learning about ourselves, all of that kind of stuff.
But he was actually living overseas at the time. And so after college, I ended up moving back with him to Pakistan which is originally where I'm from, but I had coincidentally just never lived there very long outside of a year or two. So it was really my family was all here in the U S I left it, went, moved there with him and started life there.
And it was. It was so interesting because I really had to like, learn to like, navigate this new world of marriage, living in a new country. Like we started working together, running a business together and our lives were so intertwined. It was like, Shocking how much I think about it now, like how much our lives were really just intertwined together in everything.
Shortly before he passed, it was interesting. We started doing I don't know if like you've ever heard this, but people often say sometimes oddly enough, like things all come together right before this big thing. I remember the year he passed. It was like the first time we took like a family vacation, a friend's vacation.
We went to all these places we'd imagined ourselves to go. And oddly enough I remember the week before he passed, he said to me, he was like, it's like the perfect year. We finally got everything we wanted. And then a week later, he became unwell with what we to date don't know actually what happened.
Start off with just like an earache ended up going to the ER and then passed away 2 days later. My kids at that time were five and eight. I still remember the day he was unwell, like I dropped the kids off to school and the kids were like, daddy are we going to see you later? Cause he was in bed.
He was like, I don't feel good. He's yeah. Go to school. I'm going to be here when you come back. We'll play. And in that time, I ended up having to take him to the hospital, and so they never got to say bye to him which was just, it's like one of those things that, you always look back on, you're like, what could I have done differently?
Navigating Life After Loss
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[00:06:35] Saubia: But it was really sudden, and it came out of the blue, he was 36, we have an 8 year old, a 5 year old, life is seemingly perfect. We had been building our own house. We were actually moving into it that same weekend that he got unwell. So all our furniture was in this other place. And it was, I remember Being at the hospital right when he passed, just thinking, how did this happen?
What just happened? There's this absolute element of just incredible shock. You can't even just comprehend. And you're just sitting there being like, no? I feel like this is is this a movie? At any second is someone going to come and be like, haha, big joke on you. And I remember sitting there at the funeral and being like, no, he's going to wake up any second, right?
He has to wake up. This can't actually be happening. It can't be happening. I'm just thinking there this whole time. I remember it's awful, but I used to sit there and be like, Oh my God what if he wakes up? What if this is just all wrong? And now what? He's buried. Like, how does this work?
And I remember being like, okay, this is not logical. You're not thinking clearly, but at the same time, there's just like an absolute unacceptance. Like your physical being just cannot accept. Especially in instances where it's so sudden, like there's no warning. You're asking the doctors what happened?
And they're like we don't know we don't know what caused it. We don't know why it happened. And you're sitting there and you're like, but he was healthy. Like he ate a pizza like two hours before he came to the hospital. What happened? Like he was joking. And it's just no, this has happened.
And for me, like that element of like shock and surprise, like I just did not want to accept it. I was like, no, like he's going to walk in any second and someone's going to explain to me what crazy story took place and what bad joke was played on me, but this cannot be happening. And I remember for like weeks, like I was really in that place where it was just like, I think I was just so shell shocked by everything that had happened.
For anyone who's like listening, who's also just cultural, like as Muslims, the burial process takes place. Within hours of the death. So it's like you pass and then just a couple hours later, the burial takes place. And so everything happened so quickly, like he got her. He passed the burial took place.
And it's within what felt like minutes to me, I go from like our family of four moving into our home, like building our dreams. Everything's coming true to know you're 35. You're living alone in the house. You were supposed to be living with your husband with two kids. And you've just buried him and you're like No, none of this makes sense.
None of this this is not how it's supposed to be. And I remember I kept going back to them being like, this is not supposed to be like, there was supposed to be a different plan. And then there's a part of you who's really what did I do? What awful thing have I done in life? But this is not happening to me.
So there's almost There's this constant like back and forth of like you're trying to make sense of something that actually does not make sense. But I remember at some point when it's like finally Okay, no, this has happened. What now? I think what's interesting is for me, the next thing that really took place is, Okay if I just get through the next couple of months, somehow I'll feel better, right?
There's this illusion again of You're gonna get healed, and everything's gonna be fine again everything's gonna be good. You're just, you're sad, you're grieving, give yourself a couple of months, and people used to say this all the time to me, I remember, they'd be like, it's okay your husband just passed, you're allowed to be sad.
I remember actually hearing those words you're allowed to be sad. Give yourself a few months and you'll be okay. And you were like, okay, I'm just going to give myself a couple of months, like that's all I need. I just need a couple of months. And I remember just sitting there every day, doing whatever I could to make that day end.
So the next one would come so that way somehow like it was like, okay, I'm that much closer, right? It's like the finish line, like you're on this like marathon, which you're trying to sprint through because there's this end line and you recognize, like for me, I recognized. Like I was like, not okay, but somehow to again, make sense of it because I like I am that kind of person where I have to just very alpha I have to fix it.
I have to do it. This is the these are my tasks. These are my to do list. This is where I'm going to get to being that kind of person. The only way for me to make sense of the situation was. Okay, you're sad. That's okay. There's our logic. There is a reason. We just need to get here. And if we get here, it's going to be better.
Now, to me, what better was. It didn't matter. It was just like, okay, it's going to be better. You're going to stop crying. You're going to stop feeling like the world has come to an end. Like it's okay. And so I threw myself into work. I threw myself into kids. Like I started working like 12, 14 hour days. It was crazy.
I was taking care of the kids. Like I was going on two hours of sleep. I lost, I think like 40 pounds, doctors were just like, this is not normal. Like you need to start eating. And I was like no, I don't need to eat. I just need to get to three months from now. Once I get to three months from now, it's going to be okay.
And I kept telling these things to myself and a year went by. And I remember like at the one year mark, like I was like, oh my God, like I got lied to. I don't feel better. Everyone was just like, no, just get through the first year. You'll feel better. And I remember year two hit and I was like, This is worse.
Why is this worse? Somehow this is a lot worse than the first year. And I think it's really because the shock factor starts wearing off and they start oops, sorry. You start almost like realizing no this doesn't just end like after a couple of months. And so it was like, wow, like almost this grief just felt doubled and tripled.
And you're like, Okay, I'm in this all by myself. This is just really what it is. And I remember just going through that for like months and feeling so lost and isolated.
The Turning Point: Embracing Healing
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[00:12:36] Saubia: And for me, what's interesting is I think their change actually really took place like when COVID hit. And even though it was almost like three years later, but I think like I kept going, like I kept pushing and pushing.
And finally, three years later, when COVID hit and work shut down and everything shut down, I was like forced to be at home. There was this like reckoning of My goodness what the hell has just happened? It's he's died, three years of my life what have I done? My kids I, it was really interesting with my kids, because I was with them a lot I used to talk to them, we used to talk about their dad, and now eight years later, they're actually able to show to me their side, which I'll share in a couple of minutes.
And it's yeah, no, you're right. Like that, so it's interesting how you imagine yourself like in this space being like, Oh, like I got all my stuff under control, like I'm just doing it. I'm powering through this, but really what other people are seeing is you breaking and you don't even see it.
And it was only like when COVID hit for me that I recognize This is not okay. This is just not only and with the grief, there is like that absolute loss of just self, right? Like it's you don't even recognize who you are. But what I did realize with COVID is I had just become so disconnected with everything, including like just simple acts of happiness or simple feelings of happiness.
And it came from three years of just. numbing myself to like grief, like I will not face the sadness. I will not do it. Like I'm just going to power through it. And for me, the only way I was able to do that was I just, I had shut myself off completely. And so even though I'd be smiling, there was really like no joy.
It was just like, we're just, we're going to pass the days. And I remember my kids years later saying. Mommy so often you just said to us, like, how you just need to get it done so that the days go because you miss daddy. And I never realized at the time how much I said it. But again, when COVID hit and I was, like, forced to stop there was just this absolute unraveling everything just started crumbling apart for me emotionally.
And I started actually becoming unwell myself and it was in that a friend of mine actually came to me and she was like, have you looked into like meditation and things like this? Like at some point you're going to have to connect with all the stuff that you're going through.
You're going to have to see it through. And that's really where I started then doing that work, whether it was meditation or journaling. Or not even exercising because for me exercising had been like another must do like very like strong thing, but more just like sitting down in the garden and like stopping and being like, what's happening here?
And then just really allowing myself to be like, where does happiness lie now? Like, where does it lie for me? And it's interesting in that whole process because there is like this absolute slow recognition of the things that do make you happy. But there's the guilt of allowing yourself to be happy that you also have to see yourself through of it's okay to be happy.
You're allowed to be. And then this acceptance of, yeah he has died. You're still alive. What does that mean? And how do you want to live your days? And I think one of the Biggest lessons really for me started off about this idea of like duality of life, right? As a widow and I think that's something that I imagine a lot of widows probably feel is just like this constant like duality of feelings of like sadness and happiness like love of the life that you had as well as love of the life that you have now and like Really coming to terms with that and it took me a while Because there was a lot of guilt for me.
Guilt for what I should have done to help my husband, what I could have done why something happened again, living in the country and culture that I was at, there was just, there was never any conversation around grief nobody talked about being a widow.
Nobody talked about grief. It was a very silent culture around these things. And generally, as a widow also, culturally there was no concept of moving forward. And most people, what I perceived was most people's belief that, okay even though your husband passes, you still stay.
Okay. in that situation. And this could again be because like most of the widows, older, as my grandparents were the widows, I saw there was no one else. And so there was never an idea of what do you do with your life now? Like for most of them, I was like, okay we're just going to sit here and then our time's going to come.
And somehow I had embraced that this is my story now. And so this idea of no, like I'm still 35. I can actually like still enjoy life. Like I'm supposed to still enjoy life. I still have a life to enjoy. There was a lot of guilt around that. And then learning to just move away from the guilt, understanding where that guilt comes from.
And simultaneously recognizing that it's okay to have that duality of no, like I want to take a vacation with my kids. I can be happy doing that and still sad that I'm not able to have us do it as the family of four. We always did as before. And so there's this constant back and forth in that.
[00:18:04] Emily: Yeah.
I think so much of grief is about and so I'm glad you mentioned that whole duality of I'm going to move forward and I'm not leaving my person behind or I'm going to try to create a life I love and still Be grateful for and love the life that I had before these things happened.
Cultural Challenges and Identity
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[00:18:25] Emily: I am curious, being in Pakistan, I've worked with a couple of widows from there.
If you have any change in your rights as a widow versus rights, maybe that you had as a wife or if culturally, like you said, people just looked at you as your life's over now, just going to have to waste away until it's your turn to go. Like cultural differences. Have you noticed maybe that you experienced there when you were a widow?
[00:18:54] Saubia: Yeah, there is definitely. Something's as simple as like legality, right? I remember. So the way like identification cards, I believe it's changed now. So I don't want to say that's the case today. But I remember like when I was there, identification cards are always attached to a male figure.
So either it's your father, or then it's your husband once you get married. And I remember shortly after my husband passed, I had to go renew my ID card and they were like you have to bring your husband. And I was like, I can't bring my husband. He's passed. And they're like then you have to change your ID card.
You can't say that's your husband on your ID card. And I remember I lost it. I don't want to use any not appropriate language, but I lost it. Like I was like, you don't get to tell me when I get to Say I don't have a husband and I remember shouting and screaming that this is like unfair like why do you get to tell me how to define myself like if I don't want to define myself as not being his wife, you don't get to tell me, but like all these like tiny things like exist or existed legally that just forced you to be a certain way.
Or look at yourself a certain way and I just I refused to accept it. I was just like, no I remember it was like, a year or two after after he passed I was hanging out with some people, and even the idea of relationships with other people it's so much, there's so much a culture of you are for, your husband's wife.
Even though he's past, you are still his wife. In, in, in the terms of like relationship and sexuality and all these things and so the idea of moving forward making new friends like moving out to places like it's a very, I would say new concept, which definitely didn't exist. In terms of my perception because, my perception is my perception.
Again, I think this comes from the fact that, like, how many widows did I know who were my age? None. And when I remember when I started making friends with people where they were like, oh who are you? It's almost like a question mark. It's what are your intentions?
And what are you doing? And What does this mean? And the fact is in that society, you don't talk about dating. You don't talk about doing any of these things. And there is this whole silence around widowhood and grief, and there's just this sense of You just accept it. Like you're just supposed to accept it.
And the idea of just accepting it was very like this is the cards you were dealt with. And now this is just how you keep going. It's not the idea of okay what do you want now for your life? Like in terms of like, where does your happiness line, how do you want to create your life? It's very much just this is just the situation you're in and it's really hard because you're living day to day still as. The wife of a person who you don't see and you don't interact with and essentially you're not living that life with them. But in the narrative of everybody they still called me Sean's wife. That's how it was. Like, you're his wife.
You're his wife. And it was always this yes, but what about me? Like, where is my identity? Your identity is so attached to your late husband that it's it's almost stifling and it doesn't allow you to act. It didn't allow me to really start thinking about what do I want now?
What about me? And so I remember identity loss was a huge factor for me because I was just even Within, just, I think, for, again, most widows the idea of identity loss is so big you, you, for months, you're sitting there, you're like, You know who I am, I don't know what I'm supposed to do.
But definitely in that culture, where identity is so attached to your spouse, that they're, the idea of Okay where do I want to live now would be shocking because it's like, why wouldn't you want to keep living in your husband's home? And so there's a lot of these tiny nuances, which are like said without being said.
And they're like in the fabric of just how like culturally it's set up that I think it makes it very challenging.
[00:23:13] Emily: Yeah, that would be. It's really tough. I, every widow that I've spoken to, has gone through some sort of rediscovery of who they are and feeling that they're a new person. And it can be hard to do that when your identity is also so closely tied with your person and that's how everybody knows you and everybody refers to you.
Rediscovery and Moving Forward
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[00:23:35] Emily: What do you feel like was really the turning point, and how many years later was that when you started looking into things like meditation and journaling and some of those things that person had recommended?
[00:23:48] Saubia: I honestly, it was like three and a half years later. Like it took me and that's again, like every.
I think every widow has their own length of time and their own journey. For me, it took me about three and a half, four years. And like I said, it was the start of COVID. And I think it was like the universe's way of saying, okay, you just, you gotta stop. That's enough. And it was like forced.
So that's when I started looking into all of these things. And what's interesting is I didn't look into it with the goal of Oh, I'm gonna. Heal myself from grief. And I think had I looked at it in that way, I would have never done it because What also I realize now is that grief was my connection to him.
So I was in many ways afraid to lose the grief because I somehow thought that almost defined my love for him. Like it was like the only thing I knew. I recognized. So I think at that time if someone would come and said oh, like this will help you stop grieving or something along those lines, like I wouldn't have done it.
But what they did say to me is that, and it's interesting because this was the thing that did get it for me. They were like, you're not like, you're not enjoying your time with your kids. Like you need to go back to enjoying time with your kids and being able to be with them and taking care of yourself and this will allow you to do that.
And so it was like, okay, like that made sense to me from the, the mom perspective of yeah, I got it. I got to take care of me to take care of them. So I'm going to do this. And it's only Emily, if you're doing that. I got enough pause to start like seeing the emotions and then, and this is like where my like me as a coach and how I, how I really talk to people.
It's there is the emotion and then there's like the narrative of the emotion that you like get into. So it's versus I feel lonely I am alone I feel sad and so there's like that difference of okay, I feel this way versus I am this and years into grief I had changed the language through which I spoke to myself from I feel a certain way to I am this so I'm just alone.
This is my story. It was like this Victim mentality that I had put myself into that this is just my life and I can never get out of it. And this is just my story versus recognizing that I still have a say in my life. It doesn't look the way I had imagined it to be. But that doesn't mean it cannot look the way I would still like it to look.
And so like meditation and all these practices journaling, like I started reading what I would write and there was a lot of rather than I feel exhausted, I am exhausted. Like instead of saying I feel broken, like it was just like, I am broken. So it was like a very like definitive, this is just what I am.
Which then limits like your ability to be like how do you want to like, how are you really and how do you feel and how do you want it feel? And yeah, so I think it was like four years later that like the first kind of feeds were planted for me to start thinking about myself again and what I want and how I would like my life to look.
[00:27:00] Emily: And how did your kids, as they observe that change and they finally started opening up more about what they saw or what they felt, how did they also observe the change that you went through?
[00:27:14] Saubia: My kids talk about it more now. My daughter, she was five then she's 13 now.
It's interesting. Eight years later, she will say, I remember you'd sit there with us and you'd read books. But you never smiled with your eyes. Like they'll say things like that to me. And they say it like, it's funny because until now I do these like meditation classes, I do these things and the kids are like, they can see what I'm stressed.
They're like, have you not gone to your meditation class? Have you not done this? Yeah they will call me out. And they recognized they were like, mama, like COVID is the happiest we saw you. And they're like, it's when you started all of that stuff. And. And they can tell it's fascinating the stuff that they will call you out on, but they were like, when you got sick, because that's what had happened during COVID, I ended up becoming really unwell and I was on bed rest for months.
And they were like, it's only after that. And after you started all that work and you started working with Mr. So and so who is my meditation teacher? They're like, that's when you finally started sitting and not working all the time. They're like, before that you used to be daddy and mommy combined.
That's what they used to say. They're like, you became daddy and mommy combined where all you ever did was work, and you didn't play and you never had time and you never smiled. And so it's just it's shocking to hear because you don't want to hear that as a parent. Like you don't, in your mind, you're like, Ooh, I did it all.
Yeah. So yeah, but they definitely like, that's what they taught me.
Advice for Widows: Embracing Emotions and Healing
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[00:28:53] Emily: So now being a little further out from then when you were, making that turning point and you've had the opportunity now to really focus on healing and focus on putting yourself as a priority, What would you say to other widows that are toughing it out.
They're just being strong. They're just going through the motions Waiting for time to just magically heal their hurt. What would you say to them?
[00:29:23] Saubia: I would tell them that Honestly, the biggest bravery is being able to see your emotions. There's this there's this belief of I can just stop the pain, but I can still feel everything else.
And you can't like, once you close yourself off and you live through your mind, like that's literally what you're just living through. And the sad part is like, When you live only through your mind, you're really only living through your past because that's all that you really have.
And so really the bravery comes in and being able to see that and then being able to lean into the things that still bring you joy. The other thing I will say is that. It is absolutely okay to be different than the person you were before, and it's like scary to hear that as a widow, but you think about it we're not the same person we were in college.
We're not the same person we were 15. This is a really big experience that's happened to all of us, like losing our person, losing the person we had our dreams with, but losing our dreams it's not just that you lose your person. It's like you lose your beliefs in many ways. You lose your dreams, you lose all these different things that encompass who you were at that time.
And so what comes out of that. Is something new and the something new of what it can be really comes down to us. We do have a choice in that of what is this newness going to be? And I think that, when we can start, or when each widow, when I can start, like, when each of us can start looking and saying.
Where does my happiness lie in this moment? So yeah, it's not gonna be the same definition of happiness. Like maybe that vacation is not gonna be the ideal vacation that I thought I was gonna take with my husband at that time, but what can I make it to be the happiest that it can be in this moment, right?
When we can start leaning into that happy, those tiny moments of joy, like that's when like opportunities start arising to be like, oh yeah, there, there is something there. And before you know it that's really been where life starts opening up again. And I don't think for any widow out there listening there is no end goal.
That's the big thing. I grieve my husband today, eight years later. In many ways, as much as I did the first year, it just, it looks different, but we still think about him every day. We still miss him every day. But it's just like how we relate to that looks different. And so knowing that there's no end, For like grief.
And this is something that's going to be with you. Like, how do you want to carry it forward? And how do you want to like, have it become a part of your life in a way where life is good and life is positive and life is wholesome? And I think that there's like a certain bravery in being able to like, look at that and say, yeah, that's what I want.
I want my husband to come forward with me, but at the same time I want to have a life of Boldness and abundance and, like love and joy and all those wonderful things that each person deserves.
[00:32:30] Emily: I love that. Those are really great tips. And I think about when I was early on in grief and people would say there's no finish line.
You're always going to miss your person. You're always going to have grief. I was like that's the most discouraging thing I've ever heard. But I do want to reiterate what you said, which is that it just looks different. I'm certainly not crying my eyes out every day like I was that first year and it's not nearly as volatile and painful as it once was, but I think it's important for people to hear from their story is that.
You can't just sit back and wait for time to magically make it better, which is what people say, like time heals all wounds. But as you learned, you had to take action. You had to do the meditation, do the journaling, be open to what other people Had poured into you look at your children with your eyes wide open to actually start down that full path to healing and to regaining a sense of sanity.
If you had never done that, it could have taken, years and years more. And so I think it's just so important to reiterate that time compounds and makes more of whatever is happening in your life. So if you are starting down that journey, time will increase it. But if you're numbing and suppressing and avoiding and distracting and just thinking that time's the cure all, then you're going to waste a lot of time.
You could waste 20 more years just believing that at some point one day you're just going to wake up and magically feel better. So I think that's awesome that you shared that.
[00:34:13] Saubia: It's interesting you said which I agree when people initially were like, oh, grief will always be there.
It sounded like really daunting and just awful. I think society has taught us that grief is this really negative thing. And it's it's all, and granted, it comes from loss, but loss comes in so many different ways. And so many different through so many different experiences. But if we look at grief, not as grief, but grief is love would you ever want it to stop?
So yes, maybe when we say we don't want grief to always be there, but we want love to always be there. And so maybe rephrasing it that way, lens leads to looking at it through a different lens.
[00:34:53] Emily: Yeah, that's a really interesting way to think about it. I like that.
Saubia's Coaching and Final Thoughts
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[00:34:58] Emily: So tell us about your coaching and who's your ideal person that you work with and how people could find you if they really resonated with your story.
[00:35:09] Saubia: Yeah. So I do one on one life coaching. I work with widows generally widows of any age. Most of my clients that are younger widows simply because I think they've heard my stories that connects with them. But really, if anyone's interested I do a initial one on one where we can just get to know each other, have a cup of coffee.
I'm a big fan of coffee. Have a cup of coffee together. Just see, how that connection works. And you guys can find me on Instagram. My Instagram handle is inner north coaching. So if you go on that, you will see me just send me a DM and yeah let's chat. Let's see where you are. Best idea of like where you want to go.
[00:35:53] Emily: Awesome. Thank you so much. And thank you who are listening or multitasking. We'll have the link in the show notes of how you can find Sobia and how you can connect with her. So thank you so much for coming on the show and just being so open with sharing your story. I really appreciate it. Thank you.
I appreciate it.
Conclusion and Call to Action
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[00:36:16] Emily: All right, guys. I hope that you enjoyed Saubia's story, and I hope that it really stood out to you the importance of taking proactive action. action to move forward through grief and to move forward in healing and to creating a life that you truly love. Time is not a magic pill. Things don't just get better with time.
You must put in the work. You must take action. You must be proactive in your healing for time to do its magic with its compounding effect of what it is that you're doing.
Are you a widow who feels disconnected? Do you feel like you're stuck or even going backwards in your grief? Widowhood can be lonely and isolating, but it doesn't have to be. Join us in the Brave Widow membership community and connect. We teach widows how to find hope, heal their heart, and dream again for the future.
Find your purpose and create a life you love today. Go to bravewidow. com to get started.
