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What if the most loving way to honor someone you've lost isn't to remain in your grief, but to choose healing?
When Rachel Tenpenny McGonigle lost her infant twin daughters, Aubrey and Ellie, her world was shattered. In the depths of unimaginable heartbreak, she encountered a message that terrified her: Once a griever, always a griever. You will never be okay again.
But Rachel refused to accept that her daughters' legacy would be a lifetime of suffering.
In this deeply moving episode of Lioness Women: Rooted in Christ, I'm joined by Rachel, author, grief coach, and founder of The Grief Gal, whose remarkable story is featured in my book, Lioness: Stories to Awaken Your Roar Within, in the chapter The Woman Who Chose to Heal the Impossible.
Together, we explore what it means to choose healing when everything within you feels broken, and why moving forward doesn't mean leaving behind the people you love.
Rachel challenges some of our most deeply held beliefs about grief, identity, and loss. She shares how she began reclaiming her life, not by denying her pain, but by discovering that her heart, her future, and her capacity for joy were not beyond restoration.
In our conversation, we explore:
- Why healing is not betrayal — and how we can honor our loved ones more through our healing than through our hurting.
- The danger of making grief our identity — and what becomes possible when we stop allowing our most painful experiences to define us.
- Why the body matters in healing — including simple, restorative practices that help us begin again.
- The power of small, intentional choices — and why healing begins with self-awareness, grace, and the courage to ask for help.
- Moving from enduring life to embracing it — discovering that there is still purpose, beauty, love, and joy to be found in the life we have today.
Perhaps most powerfully, Rachel reminds us that while we cannot always choose what happens to us, we can participate in deciding who we become through it.
This conversation is for anyone who has experienced devastating loss, is carrying grief that feels impossible to overcome, or loves someone who is struggling to find their way forward.
It's an invitation to consider that your story is not over. That you can carry love without carrying endless suffering. And that the God who created you has not exhausted the possibilities for your life.
Because healing doesn't mean forgetting. It means learning to live fully while carrying love forward.
Connect and learn more:
Rachel Tenpenny McGonigle — The Grief Gal www.thegriefgal.com
Rachel's book: The Truth About Healing After Loss
Read Rachel's story in Lioness: Stories to Awaken Your Roar Within: https://www.amazon.com/dp/B0H3G2TKVM
The lioness in me sees the lioness in you.
Creators and Guests
Host
Guest
Rachel Tenpenny McGonigle
Rachel Tenpenny McGonigle is no stranger to grief. In 2008, she experienced the unimaginable when both her baby daughters died just six days apart from each other, just weeks after their birth. The pain was overwhelming, and like so many grieving mothers, she was met with well-meaning but unhelpful advice, limiting beliefs, and outdated grief support that left her feeling more lost than ever. But despite being told she’d never truly be okay again, Rachel refused to let grief define her. Instead, she chose to take an active role in her healing—and that decision changed everything. Determined to find a way forward, Rachel immersed herself in the study of grief, healing, and the emotional complexity of life’s most difficult transitions. By integrating evidence-based tools with her own lived experience, she developed a holistic, practical, and deeply compassionate approach to grief recovery. This unique framework empowered her to rebuild a life grounded in purpose, peace, and joy after profound loss. Today, she is the founder of The Grief Gal—a thriving coaching practice where she guides others through grief with clarity, intention, patience, and empowerment. For the past 17 years, Rachel has supported thousands of individuals—from those grieving the loss of a loved one to those grieving the loss of their marriages, health, or even the sale of their company—helping them process their pain, reimagine their identity, and rediscover meaning when life looks nothing like you imagined. Through coaching, speaking, retreats, and writing, she offers a proven path to healing that’s honest, empowering, and deeply human. Rachel now lives in Northern Virginia with her husband Jason, their blended family of four healthy (and hungry) boys, and their sweet one-eyed dog Nala. What once felt impossible is now her daily reality: a home full of love, a business full of impact, and a heart anchored in peace. She’s living proof that even after the deepest loss, a beautiful life is still possible—and she’s devoted to helping others find it too.
What is Lioness Women: Rooted in Christ?
Welcome to Lioness Women, a space for faith-fueled women to connect with their purpose and amplify their voices. These Lioness Conversations highlight purpose-driven women who share how their faith in Christ shapes their leadership, courage, and calling. 🦁
Hosted by Jen Porter, leadership and empowerment coach, this podcast shines a light on women who are leading with wisdom, strength, and grace — in boardrooms, businesses, ministries, and movements around the world.
Through raw, inspiring conversations, we explore how women of faith are building legacies, overcoming fear, and transforming their industries with bold vision and unshakable belief. If you’re ready to rise higher, lead with purpose, and stay rooted in Christ — this is your community.
Faith-Based Leadership | Christian Women | Women of Faith | Christian Podcast for Women | Kingdom Leadership | Spiritual Growth | Eternal Impact
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (00:00)
Hey friends, welcome to Lioness Women, Rooted in Christ. I'm your host, Jen Porter, leadership and career coach for ambitious and heart-centered women who want to put God at the center of everything that we do. If you're a woman of faith, you're in the right place. And even if you're not, I invite you to stay. Because what we share here is rooted in wisdom, hope, courage, and peace. And who couldn't use more of all of that?
I'm especially excited about this season of the podcast because we're spending time with the incredible women whose stories are featured in my recently released book, Lioness: Stories to Awaken Your Roar Within. Each of these women has walked a unique path, faced extraordinary challenges, and discovered something powerful about who she is and who God created her to be. And now we're going beyond the pages of the book to hear from these lioness women themselves.
We'll explore the moments that shaped them, the faith that sustained them, and the wisdom they've gained along the way. My hope is that as you hear their stories, you'll begin to recognize something of your own story too, that you'll be encouraged to rise above the expectations and limitations of this world, embrace your God-given identity, and live and lead with greater freedom, courage, and purpose. Because that's what being a lioness is all about.
Not becoming someone else, but awakening to who God created you to be. If you'd like to learn more about my coaching work, the Lioness Community, or get your own copy of the book, you can find it all at jenportercoach.com. Today we're hearing from one of those remarkable Lioness women, Rachel Tenpenny McGonagall. What happens when life brings a loss so devastating that you can hardly imagine moving forward?
When everything you thought you knew about your life, your future, and even yourself is suddenly shattered. My guest today knows that kind of heartbreak. In her chapter, The Woman Who Chose to Heal the Impossible, Rachel shares her deeply personal journey through the unimaginable loss of her twin daughters, Aubrey and Ellie. But this is not simply a story about loss. It's a story about courage, about faith.
About choosing to participate in your own healing, even when the path forward seems impossible. Rachel's story reminds us that we can honor what we've lost without allowing grief to define the rest of our lives, that joy and sorrow can coexist, and that God can bring beauty, purpose, and new life from places we once thought were beyond restoration.
Rachel has turned her own journey of healing into a calling to walk alongside others through grief, helping them rediscover hope and wholeness. I'm so grateful to welcome my friend and fellow lioness, Rachel Tenpenny McGonigle to the conversation today. Rachel, welcome.
Rachel McGonigle (03:08)
Thank
you for having me. I always love to be here.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (03:11)
And I love our conversations every time. I learn something from you every time we talk. And it's such deep rich conversation that real that really matters. I'll share with the audience how we connected. So I put out requests for nominations for the book. I I know that most women need a prompt to they they're not going to nominate themselves, but we see in our friends and our network just how incredible.
you know, the people around us are. And we can sing their praises more easily than they would sing their own. And so that's the concept of the nomination. And so you were nominated. We didn't know each other. And you were nominated by Mindy Honcoop because you had shared an experience together. I think a a leadership program of some sort. And so she nominated you. We had a conversation and I thought, my gosh, I I have to have you in the book. We did a we did an episode
And then you were a chapter in the lioness book. So let let's just start there. What was it like to be nominated and and considered for the book?
Rachel McGonigle (04:23)
It was meaningful and touching to be nominated, you know, to realize that the people that you know you're doing life with are you know, and this was a like a work related entrepreneurial sort of like cohort experience. and so it didn't actually have a lot to do with my story, my grief work, like people knew what I did for a living, but it was more about how we're re building our businesses and how we were growing as leaders and things like that. And so to feel that someone got that
from just being a normal human building their business and felt,
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (05:00)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (05:01)
you know, that it was you know, that it to nominate me felt really meaningful. You know, and Mindy's a w a wonderful person. She got nominated too. So I guess it was mutual.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (05:10)
Yes. Definitely.
Yeah. She has her own chapter. She is a super connector. And yeah, I'm so glad that she introduced us. I've been really amazed by your work and your courage in the work. so I you know, just so the others understand, you started your business. You are the grief gal, and you found a way to heal, and you actually promised your girls.
when you lost them, that if you ever found a way to heal that you would share with anyone else who wanted to know and you made your your life's work about that. So first of all, how did you how did you find your path to healing, you know, healing?
Rachel McGonigle (06:03)
Well,
first of all
I would have given anything at that time in my life in those early, early grief, that early grief season of my life for somebody to have been able to come alongside me, whether it was to hand me a book, to show me a podcast, to guide me, whatever it might be, to the healing that is available after loss. Because I did not have that. What I had instead was the narrative.
in the messaging that once a griever, always a griever. Grief is forever. A mother who loses a child will never be okay. And quite honestly, it terrified me. I remember thinking, no, is this going to be the rest of my life? I had a two and a half year old son also at the time.
And I would look at him and think, this cannot be all that is left for him. Like just a broken, sad mother who can just attempt to keep him alive until he turns 18 and leaves his miserable life, right? Like that was not what I wanted for him. But it also wasn't what I wanted for myself. And I didn't want that to be my girl's legacy either. I didn't want their short time on earth, right? Their precious little lives to be about how their loss ruined their mother.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (07:21)
Mm.
Rachel McGonigle (07:21)
Right. Like they didn't ruin me. They had nothing to do with what happened. They were innocent and they lived and their lives matter and they died and their deaths were heartbreaking. But they were not responsible for what happened to me and I was not going to allow their legacy to be my ruin. Right. Like I wanted their lives to mean something and I was the only you know, we were left, they died, so they could not
stand up for themselves anymore, right? They we had to do that for them and I wanted it to be a legacy of healing, not a legacy of sadness and grief and permanent sorrow. And so I decided one, I was not going to let grief be the boss of me. And I was not gonna let anybody else tell me what I could expect or was capable of or what was going to happen. Like it was up to me. And I think part of that was a bit of a healthy rebellion
To just say,
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (08:22)
Mm.
Rachel McGonigle (08:23)
you know, you don't get to decide. Like it's I get to decide. My inner world is my responsibility. So ultimately, I get to decide what happens to my heart. Other people's opinions, the situations I can't control, the life that happens around me. That impacts me certainly, but it doesn't get to decide what happens to my heart. That is 100% up to me. And I took that very seriously. for my girl's sake, for my son's sake, and also for my own.
sake. And that's a little bit of a touchy subject because I have had other grievers tell me, well, if I had a son to heal for, or if I had, you know, people who cared about me, or if I went on and had another baby, or these things that we sort of try to convince ourselves are the reason we decide to pull through or
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (09:13)
Sure.
Rachel McGonigle (09:13)
heal, when in reality it always comes down to the decision you make out of your own value system.
You have to decide for yourself the way of which you will go. And whether you have children or a spouse or no spouse or no children, or you're old, or you're young, or you're rich, or you're poor, or you have a lot of people to support you, or nobody, and you're all alone, none of those things ultimately determine if your heart is going to be okay. You decide that.
And I think that can be really hard for grievers to hear at first because it feels like the grief is more powerful than you. It feels like the pain is more powerful than you. But I early on sort of had this instant rebellion that nobody was going to tell me what was gonna happen to my heart. I would decide that. especially when what are people clairvoyant? They don't know. People don't
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (10:08)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (10:09)
know what's gonna happen. That's one thing we know about life. It never stays the same. Ever.
So
how could how we feel in that moment in our grief, what we believe is true in that moment in our grief, be permanent and unchangeable? It's impossible.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (10:23)
I'm reminded of how people are we're always speaking out of our own experiences. And so if we've never reached a certain point or experienced a thing, we don't know that it's possible. And so everybody's just operating out of whatever they've experienced. And if you've never seen it modeled to have a little bit of that rebellious spirit.
To say, you know what, I don't know that that's right. I don't know that that's true, or I don't want that to be true for me. So there was a part of you that had this like this fire inside of you to pursue something more than ruin and an identity of grief for the rest of your life, and this legacy for your girls that was something more than just devastation.
Rachel McGonigle (11:18)
Well, if you talk to my parents, you know, they I they did not raise us to be rebellious. They raised us to be good good people. But they did raise us.
To not let somebody else tell us who we are, right? Like
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (11:33)
Mm.
Rachel McGonigle (11:34)
it was God who called out our identity, right? It was not other people or other things. And growing up, I have two sisters, two younger sisters, but we're all very close in age. My parents had three girls in three years, so we're stair steps, we're very close. and we would have certain sayings in our sister relationships, especially if we were, you know, spatting or getting on each other or whatever. And my middle sister would
Always say, Don't put me in a box, right? Like she did not want to be pigeonholed into some assumptions, she wanted to be her own person. And my youngest sister would always say, You're not the boss of me. Right. And those were like these themes growing up. It's like, you're not the boss of me, don't put me in a box. And I feel like when my daughters died, that was my initial reaction. It's like, you're not the boss of me, don't put me in a box,
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (12:20)
Mm.
Rachel McGonigle (12:21)
right? Don't tell me what I can and can't do. And don't limit me, right? That I can't go beyond those limits.
And so that what I call a healthy rebellion of saying like you don't know, right? And I didn't even know. It wasn't that I was so sure. I wasn't sure.
I just wasn't any more sure that healing was impossible than I was that it was possible. I wanted to test it out and I figured I deserved the chance to find out for myself, not just believe what someone else was telling me. And what I discovered in my my journey of what actually helps us heal, what doesn't help us heal, I made a lot of mistakes along the way, it was a lot of trial and error. What I discovered though is the people who say grief is forever, right? There's you'll once
A griever, always a griever. That narrative is what protects them from having to go and try and figure it out, right? And then they recruit other people who share that same belief and they say, see, look at all of us. We have not been able to heal. Our grief is overwhelming. We're changed forever. Nobody understands what we've gone through. And so that collective belief becomes a fact when really it's just a feeling.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (13:38)
Hmm.
Rachel McGonigle (13:38)
Right, because th there's exceptions to that. If if one person steps out of their grief to have healing in their life, then they have just broken the once a griever, always a griever fallacy. Right? Now imagine you set out and you find many, many people who do not define themselves by their grief, who have peace, joy, healing, and fulfillment in their life despite unbelievable tragic loss.
you find out that those people came before you and they will come after you and you realize this idea of this, you know, healthy rebellion is not rebellion at all.
It was a totally normal expectation, right? I didn't know how exactly, but just believing that I could try and that nobody could take away my chance to try meant something. And other people that's my messaging is I say, I don't know what will happen to you. I don't know if you will heal. I know that it's possible to and that
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (14:38)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (14:38)
this path helps you achieve it, right? But ultimately.
it's your decision. I can only right you can lead a horse to water but you can't make him drink sort of situation. I can only show you right that this narrative that once a griever always a griever is not true. There's a different path. But I can't make you take the path.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (14:58)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (14:58)
And not everybody wants to and that's a that's okay. I'm not again
I'm not boss of you. You get to choose
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (15:01)
I love exactly. Yeah.
I love your intentionality. What what you're calling out there is decision making, like owning, being accountable for ourselves and our decisions that we make and the intentionality around it. And I think most of I mean, I don't know if most people, but a lot of people want to be intentional with the way that they live. there are people who get stuck in their grief, in their loss in the devastating experience that they've had.
And they have a really hard time moving forward. And I think I'm curious how you how you help people like this. What you know, how what you share with people who are in that place. Cause there's I've heard you say like the grief can feel more powerful than they are, right? That so the grief feels so all-consuming that we don't feel like we have power over it. But also there's this sense that if we stop being sad, or if we
If we move beyond grief, if we if we move toward healing, that somehow it can feel like a betrayal. Like that somehow due to like Yeah. So that's what I'm pointing to that
Rachel McGonigle (16:09)
absolutely. That's yeah, that's the number one hang-up. Yeah. Is it right? It's this belief that
our love is reflected in our pain. When the person is
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (16:18)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (16:19)
no longer here to be in physical relationship with on this earth,
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (16:23)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (16:23)
that the only representation we have of how much we loved them and how much we missed them and how much we are impacted by their loss.
Is
with the depth of our pain. And letting go of that pain and entertaining
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (16:35)
Yes.
Rachel McGonigle (16:36)
an idea of healing, of ever being happy again, having joy again, having good moments again, not being defined by that grief feels like betrayal. It feels like leaving our person behind for our own selfish interest. Right. And
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (16:50)
Okay, yeah. Mm-hmm.
Rachel McGonigle (16:52)
I don't know of any healthy, good human being who wants to leave their loved one behind.
Right. That's a real need. That's a real thing to say, I still want to carry their memory with me. I still want people to know about them. They didn't just disappear, they mattered. Right. And so their pain is the only external thing that they feel like represents the significance of this loss.
And I have a ton of compassion for that. I worried about that myself, right? My girls died as infants. They had very little time to make an impression on anyone other than me and their father and my, you know, my parents, their little brother.
So if I didn't carry them forward, if I didn't help the world know that they existed, who would? They would disappear. They were going to be but a vapor. Right? So as a mother, I was terrified that these little girls would never be loved and appreciated the way that they deserved. They didn't have their shot.
And so what did I do at first? Grieved to the depth of that worry, of that pain point of going, how do I let people know? Like I told my mom I wanted to make a shirt that said, My baby's just died and wear it everywhere I go. Right. I at one point I wanted to shave my head because I thought, what external thing can I do that shows the internal
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (18:14)
Mm.
Rachel McGonigle (18:15)
anguish that I'm experiencing? Right. I I love that other cultures and even past, you know, more ancient cultures have
These rituals that basically notified the community that you're grieving, right? Because we don't have those in our culture. We're expected to move on to being productive humans as quickly as possible. And grief makes other people very uncomfortable, so you need to kind of deal with it yourself and then hurry on. And I didn't want to do that. I wanted to shave my head and wear a shirt that said my baby's just died, and just walk around and let everybody know how devastated I was. And although I'm glad I didn't do any of those things, my mother was instrumental in talking.
Me out of those things, the pain that I was feeling and the need for my grief to be recognized was real. And so when I have clients that say, right, how do I heal? What what do you mean, Rachel? Healing is possible. Like, no way I'm not leaving my loved one behind. I can say, understood, and I'll never ask you to do that. That's not a requirement. No one gets left behind.
But you honor your loved one more in your healing than you ever could in your hurting. So we're not asking you to separate yourself from your loss and move on from it. We're asking you to carry it in a different way. Carry it
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (19:31)
Mm
Rachel McGonigle (19:31)
with you and weave it into your story in a different way. And that doesn't require permanent pain to do it. Right? Like I had.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (19:39)
I love the way
you say that. I, you know, the word integration comes to mind. I don't know if that's exactly it, but okay. Yeah,
Rachel McGonigle (19:45)
use that word all the time. Yeah, integrate. Process and integrate. Yeah.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (19:49)
I love that imagery, even of carrying your loved one forward just in a different way. I love that. So will you talk more about the legacy? You see, you're saying we can honor our loved ones.
more through healing than we ever could in our grief or pain.
Rachel McGonigle (20:14)
In our hurting yeah.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (20:15)
In our heart. Can you say because I think that you obviously you deal you you talk you help people every day. So you know this. But there's a lot of listeners where this is going to be a new concept. So how do just talk about how you think about that.
Rachel McGonigle (20:29)
Right.
Well,
the goal then becomes, you know, the big question I guess is how will people know how much this loss impacted me if I don't wear my grief like a cloak, right? If it doesn't become part of my identity. And this is where the process is so important because it helps us re examine and understand.
How that relationship has made us who we are, so that we can then discover who we can now be, now that that relationship has changed. And we still are ourselves. And if that person impacted who we are, then just being ourself carries them with us.
Like we would have to get a frontal lobotomy to forget that they existed in our life. But a lot of this is just the healing and the courage behind we also don't at a certain point it's we evolve if if we're on a healing track into realizing we don't need other people's acknowledgement of our loss for it to be significant to us. And we can do our own inner work and be accountable to our own inner world. And it no longer matters what other people believe about our.
pain or our loss or relationship or our loved one. It only matters what we believe.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (21:54)
How does one get to that place?
Rachel McGonigle (21:57)
it's a process, but we start. So the way I take all my clients, we do the same like first four things. The very first thing we do is we start with greater self-awareness. We learn about ourselves. Like so much grief work is focused on the loss. Memorialize the person, do things that are about them, you know, redefine relationships where people aren't understanding of your loss, cre do causes or create.
activity around care, you know, keeping them remembered, right? All these things. And there's nothing wrong with those things in and of themselves. It is okay to be inspired, to help others because of your loss, to have things in your home that still honor and remember the person that you lost. Like these are all valuable. And the list is much longer than that.
But when it comes to healing, we don't start with the loss. Okay, we start with you. We need to gain self-awareness around who you are.
And who you want to be and how big that gap is, so we can close that gap. So I put my clients through personality profile tests. We look at what their grief grip is. So I've developed an like a don't know what you call it, an assessment that I can look at their natural personality profile. So this is what God gave them their DNA. This is before they were nurtured into things, it's just their nature. And I can show them based on that personality type where
They're
likely in the grip of grief. I call it being in the grip. Our underdeveloped functions show themselves the most under extreme grief and duress and emotional pain.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (23:36)
Can you give an example of what that would look like?
Rachel McGonigle (23:39)
Yeah, so so in my my personality type, I'm an ENFP. Do you know what you are, Jen?
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (23:46)
Yeah, I I know it starts with an I.
Rachel McGonigle (23:48)
Okay, and then so for example, okay, let's just say, even as an introvert, okay, I'm an extrovert, you're an introvert.
Just in that alone, understanding what it means to be introverted or extroverted. Okay, we're mistaught this. We're told that all introverts are shy and quiet, and all extroverts are gregarious and outgoing, and they love to be with people, and introverts love to be alone. It's not at all what extroversion and introversion means. Okay, because those are just personality traits. You can be a gregarious introvert and you can be a shy extrovert because introversion and extroversion represent how we refill emotional energy. Okay, it's when our emotional energy tank.
Is low, how do we refill? Introverts need alone time, time away from people. It does not mean they don't need relationships or they don't value time with people, but it fills them in a completely different way and requires a different kind of energy. Okay. Introverts need alone time. Extroverts need quality face time with humans. Okay, they need interaction with people.
That does not necessarily mean they just need to be at a party or something. Like this has to be quality interaction. And depending on where you fall in the spectrum, because you can be very introverted, very extroverted, or you can be somewhere in the middle, like an ambivert, right? But we have to understand how we are wired that way so that when we're grieving, we protect it. Because, for example, as an extrovert, grief is very isolating.
You worry about making people uncomfortable. You don't want to require too much of others. You often feel misunderstood because people talk about your grief and your pain in ways they have no idea or understand. And you don't want to bring it up because you don't want to be the person who, you know, bums everybody out.
An introvert, right? They lean towards that that alone time, which can become isolation if they're not careful, which is not a healing modality, right? So in my grief, understanding my extroversion meant I had to be intentional about cultivating those relationships and having that face-to-face time with meaningful people in my life. It couldn't just be randos and strangers and stuff. It had to be safe people, but I
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (25:58)
Yeah. Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (25:59)
had to initiate it.
And you know, one of the things that happens to all grievers is the people we think who will be there for us are often not. And the people we never imagine will show up for us often do.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (26:12)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (26:12)
It's not a value statement that it does not mean any of those people are better or worse than others. Just grief is really complicated. And we often have this belief that like, man, I thought this person would be there for me, and then they're not.
I had to learn that it didn't matter who was there for me or not there for me. I had to take full advantage of those who chose to be there for me because my emotional energy depended on it. So instead of being angry and resentful and going, I can't believe this person didn't show up for me. my gosh, I said, okay, I'm not like that's their choice.
I'm my own person. I have no idea what's going on. I barely even understand myself. I don't even right. I'm not gonna make them try to understand me.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (26:53)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (26:54)
But this person is showing up, or this situation is creating relationships, or this is someone who is understands me or offers me that one-on-one time. So I'm going to take it. I'm not gonna no, no, it's okay. It's you know, I'll get through it on my own. Extroverts do not get through grief on their own. They just don't.
Right? Humans don't in general, but especially extroverts. They need that FaceTime. Extroverts are external processors. They need a chance to download that. Introverts are internal processors. They often have to think through how they're feeling before they will let it come out of their mouth. External processors can't think through how they're feeling until it comes out of their mouth.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (27:36)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (27:37)
Right. And so understanding some of these basic things about ourselves is how we develop our self-care plan and our support plan by understanding what we need. And that's just one, let's just if we're extroverted or introverted, now you look
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (27:50)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (27:51)
at a bigger personality, right? You look at all the variants and you know, there's sixteen main personalities and none of them are identical, right? They're just guidelines. Then you can look at, you know, like I'm my under most underdeveloped trait is I can ignore my physical.
the messaging my physical body is sending me. So if I'm super tired, if I'm hungry, if I'm exhausted, I right which this served me really well when I was young because it made me tough as nails. I could push through sports. I could be the last man standing. I could do some things that I could kind of be like, yeah, just because I'm uncomfortable, just because I'm barfing, just because whatever, I can still push through to the next thing. It's a terrible trait to have underdeveloped when you're grieving.
Because what happened is I would disconnect and I would I put my body through a lot. I pushed myself. I demanded a lot that I didn't actually have to give because I'm good at turning that off.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (28:48)
Will you talk about some of those body rituals that you found for yourself and now you share with others? Particularly I'm thinking about the tea ritual, but other ways that you intentionally nourished yourself to
create some stability.
Rachel McGonigle (29:03)
Right. So yes. So no matter
what your personality is, all grief is more physical than it even is emotional. All grievers are experiencing grief more in their body than they are in any other capacity. And this is not
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (29:18)
And just real quick,
say on say a point on that, like pain in their body, tightness.
Rachel McGonigle (29:23)
Yeah, so the physiological toll, and it shows up in many ways. It can be they lose their appetite, they can't sleep, they have achy joints, they have a lump in their throat, they're having hard time breathing, taking deep breaths, they their energy level is low, their brain is foggy, they lose their motivation, their hormones become different or imbalanced. Like you we could just the physiological toll we could just go on forever on just what's happening. Now it's
Often accumulative. So it over time, if it goes if it's left unaddressed, it will get worse and worse, as you know, ignored things usually do. but yes, grief is emotional, it's mental, it's relational, it's spiritual. Like it takes a toll on every aspect of our life, but it like bombards our physical body more than we talk about.
And
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (30:17)
Yes.
Rachel McGonigle (30:17)
I always point my clients back to this. I go, are we doing those basic things to help rebuild the toll it's taking on our body? Right. Are we doing restorative things, not depleting things? Because grief is depleting us in the background all the time, especially in those early grief times. So no matter what kind of personality, I always walk them through grounding rituals so that they can bring themselves back into connection with their physical needs. So these things don't go under their
radar till it's a major problem.
And often it is, like I've seen people develop autoimmune disorders, mental disorders, organ failure, like hormone imbalances, like you name it, all kinds of things. And when I work with them long enough, I can basically trace it to the unresolved grief that they have. Like it's just wreaking havoc in their body. So grounding rituals help us connect back to getting that physical temperature, like where am I at? Right? What's really going on? What do I need? So the T ridge.
Ritual is the first one. whenever I say grounding ritual, what I mean is anything that engages your five senses. Okay, so we have to actually return to our physical five senses. Tea is excellent for this because it has an aroma. It has like it look, you can look at it, you can touch it, you can smell it, you can taste it, right? Can you hear it? Sure, when you're pouring the water and you know.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (31:48)
It's also very
warming, like it's very soothing to
Rachel McGonigle (31:51)
Yes, and
warming so warm things are essential for grievers. So when I talk to them about their nutrition plan, you want to eat warm foods, broths, soups, stews, slow cooked meats, grains that are cooked in water, like rice and oatmeal, root vegetables that are baked slowly in the oven. Like this is not a time for juice fasts, for acai bowls, for protein shakes,
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (32:15)
Raw vegetables.
Rachel McGonigle (32:16)
for raw for salads, right? Grievers who are living off salads are just
Overextending their central nervous system tremendously. I also help them adjust their macros. And we don't do some crazy diet because I don't want to add like more rules to them, but I do
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (32:31)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (32:32)
help them understand that you do not want to go on a low-carb diet. You need your carbs. Your brain uses 140 grams of carbohydrates just to do basic functioning.
So if you have anything beyond basic brain function, you are burning through carbs. And grief is exhausting to our mindset, to like we are bringing in data at a rate that we can't even fathom. We're overloaded with beta waves. All this is going on that does not help us make good informed decisions. So we have to address all of that first, right? So those grounding rituals, get sun on your face, walk. One of the most important things about walking is it's low toll on your essential.
Nervous system, but it uses both sides of your brain, right? That movement, and it helps move your thoughts, your feelings, all the things through your whole brain from one side to the other so it can come out. So it actually helps process emotions. So walking is huge. I also get them to avoid or at least temporarily pause really intense exercise and working out. And in the grief world, for whatever reason, really in the emotional
Emotional wellness space, there's this belief that like exercise is this cure all. If you feel bad, exercise more. If you're depressed, exercise more. If you're grieving, exercise more. Well, to a point, we do need to move our bodies, but over exercising or putting too much physical load is a depleting activity. It is not a restorative activity. And it becomes self medicating. We're just waiting for the endorphins. We're not actually creating healing patterns in our body. And so now
It's
just, and this is what I learned the hard way. It's just a test of willpower. And willpower
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (34:18)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (34:19)
never wins. Ever. We will come to the edge of ourselves and we will tap. It's what humans do. Right? I learned that from my Navy SEAL coach. He said, Navy SEALs are not effective because they're tougher and stronger.
They're effective because they have tested their limits so repeatedly, they know what they are. And when they plan a mission, they don't ever go outside of their limits. Right? You're not trying something new. You're not figuring it out, right? So grief is the mission. We function within our limits, not outside of them.
But the world tells us that grief is a test. It's right, it's helping us become a better version of ourselves, right? It's making us stronger. It's revealing strength we didn't know we had. Right? We're gonna learn something about ourselves. Everything happens for a reason, and we're sort of told that all of this ache and depletion and hardship that we're experiencing is for our good. When in reality, it will break us if we let it.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (35:25)
Wow. So how
Rachel McGonigle (35:26)
Right. It isn't for our good. It's for our destruction,
actually. We have to turn it for our good.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (35:32)
So if someone is finding themselves in that place, I'm thinking about two things, like, you know, what what what do you recommend someone do if they're in that place where the grief is is so consuming, they're having a hard time functioning, keeping their job, taking care of their kids, you know, much less taking care of them of themselves. But I'm also thinking about this concept of layered loss, like so many.
compiled losses on top of each other that it's almost dizzying, disorienting because it's like, which grief am I dealing with? Am I am I grieving with one that's decades old? Am I grieving with one from six months ago? Because there's so many losses that we can experience. And if we don't do the work, then it just compiles. So I'd love to hear your thoughts on both of those
things.
Rachel McGonigle (36:24)
Yeah.
Yeah. So first of all, we are allowed to ask for help in our lives. We are allowed to call a timeout. We don't have to have everything figured out today. Okay. The goal is we open ourselves to the possibility that this is figure outable, but that doesn't mean we figure it out today. And so sometimes the first step to making something figure outable is asking for help.
I need someone to bring me a pot of soup. I need help with the baby. Can someone else walk the dog for me? Right? Bills are an issue. Right. We have to get our baseline safety and needs met in order for anything else to grow from there.
Right. It's just how it works. Right. It's just science. We cannot develop some kind of grand plan for our internal soul healing when we don't even have enough to eat. We can't get out of bed. Right. And and we see this in the Bible, you know, when Elijah ran into the woods to hide under the broombrush trees after that enormous display of God's power, you know, coming down onto the altar, like he was terrified and he ran away the whole time saying, Just kill me, God. It'd be better.
If I was dead, like living in this amount of stress, knowing she's hunting me down, knowing she wants my head on a pike, seeing that display, right, and knowing that you are real and everyone is mad, right? Just take my life. I just right, and he curled up under a broombush tree, apparently with no intention to ever climb out. And what did the Lord do? He sent him help, he didn't chastise him, he didn't anoint him with light and power.
He sent him an angel to feed him and give him rest and stay with him. And for three days,
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (38:10)
He needed to eat and sleep.
Rachel McGonigle (38:11)
yes, he needed to eat and sleep. And the angel tended to the fire, and the angel gave him water to drink, and the angel had food for him, and the angel was there when he woke up, and the angel watched over him as he slept. Right? That's the first step. We have to just call time out for a minute and go, all right.
First things first, let me even get to a place where I can have bare minimum functioning. Right? It's when we try to push past that and we ignore those needs that we actually go backwards. And that's when I see suicidal ideations, true despair and hopelessness. Right. Humans are actually quite capable of doing hard things if they believe there's a way to do hard things.
If they don't actually think there's a path, it can despair is a real thing. And then it's like, why try? And then if you have the messaging of the world saying, well, there's nothing you can do anyway. Once a griever, always a griever. That becomes a filter, right? A lens that goes over the grief experience. And all it does is cloud the possibilities.
Right. And it's not like, there's just a million ways to heal. I hear that all the time too, right? Everyone's grief journey is unique. Everyone can grieve their own way. No one gets to tell someone else how to grieve. I don't tell people how to grieve, but I do tell them that the way that we heal is very similar. There are not 900 paths to the same destination. We all start with our body. Then we all move into self-awareness. Then we move into communication skills so we can express our needs and rebuild our
relationships. Then we start attending to that gap I talked about between who we are versus who we want to be. We start realigning to our values. Then we start executing right the healing in our life. We start, you know, the fruit starts to show we we get a crop. And it works that way for everyone. There's no other way to do it. You can't
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (40:04)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (40:04)
just wait time doesn't heal. This idea time heals all wounds. Yeah right show me proof of that.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (40:11)
Mm-hmm.
Rachel McGonigle (40:12)
I
had seen the exact
opposite.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (40:15)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (40:17)
Right. So we can't just start eating it up like it's all truth. We have to be go, hmm, I need to take that thought captive. I need to measure this before I give it full reign, right? In my life. But we do that in very measurable physical steps. This is not ethereal. This is not just an idea. We don't just manifest it. We don't wait for enough time.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (40:40)
Mm-hmm.
Rachel McGonigle (40:41)
Help, you know, fix it. We don't need someone else to come along and do the work for us. if I just had a better spouse, or if I just had a more supportive church, or if my boss just understood what I'm going through better. All of those things are the lies that eventually convince us that grief is forever and that there's no hope for grievers.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (41:00)
think
another reason that some that women may struggle with
Pursuing their healing is because we're nurtured to think of others. And so there's this natural desire to just think about the person we've lost instead of looking within. Cause like I'm hearing you say that you you encourage people to like this is about you. And that that can be scary for people.
Rachel McGonigle (41:27)
Yes. And when I say yeah. And when I
say yeah, this is about you, I don't mean become a selfish, horrible person who stops caring about others. But yes,
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (41:33)
Right, of course.
Rachel McGonigle (41:35)
that is a shift. And so in part of that self awareness work that we do,
We don't just explore the next steps or we also look at what's blocking us. Do we have certain beliefs, certain limiting, you know, beliefs, certain ideas, certain conclusions we've come to in our life that are actually a barrier to taking the steps that put
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (41:58)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (41:59)
our own heart first? And so if we have messaging that says, good people aren't selfish people, you're not allowed to put yourself first. We need
To unravel that we
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (42:11)
Mm.
Rachel McGonigle (42:11)
have to replace that lie with the new truth and start practicing right looking through a different lens. And we all have them. We all have things that we say, I see how that works on paper, Rachel. That makes a lot of sense in my head. But when it comes to applying it to my life, I'm not going to because it contradicts some value I have or some place where I get my worth from, or something like that. So there's a lot of little baby steps along the way. And that's fine because that's all revers really handle. It's like we're just taking one baby.
Step at a time. Biting off more than you can chew almost certainly throws you back three steps, even though you just got two steps forward, right? And it's slow, and we have to learn to be patient with ourselves. Grief is always harder than we want it to be, and it always lasts longer than we want it to.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (42:54)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (42:54)
But that's not the same thing as it being a permanent forever experience.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (42:59)
I wanna
talk about grief as an identity before we wrap up. Can you talk about what that means and how people can find themselves in that place?
Rachel McGonigle (43:10)
It's
very easy to do. And so if there's anyone out there who is listening who feels like, that's me, like grief is my identity. Nobody gets it. Losing my son, losing my husband, losing my sister, my parent completely redefined me. This is not meant to sound like judgment. It's incredibly easy to internalize the most painful experiences of our life and feel like they've become who we are.
Right, especially if we're afraid that our healing isn't abandonment. Okay,
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (43:41)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (43:42)
so we're gonna double down on that and go, yeah, I'd like to see you take it from me. Right. So I'm not I'm not here
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (43:49)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (43:50)
to tell you how to think, how to feel, or what to do. I am here to push back on this idea that if we don't become our grief, we are betraying who or what we lost.
That's where I will push back because when we realize there's no betrayal, staying in miserable agony suddenly seems pointless. Right? We were doing it for a really important reason before, that was to honor our loved one. But once we realize we can honor them in our healing, it's a lot harder to die on that hill. Right? And in this idea that we don't want to become terrible selfish people.
I agree with that. I did not suddenly become completely self-absorbed to say, like, I'm healing and no one's gonna be the boss of me and I'm gonna do what I want.
I did it so that I could show up for the other people in my life the way I really wanted to, the way I believed that they deserved. Right. And we hear, you've heard a million times that story, you know, of like you have to put your own oxygen mask on first before you can help someone else. That story is an awesome story, but it is constantly taken out of context all the time. Okay. People often refer to that as you have to choose yourself first. Okay. You have to do it for yourself first.
That is not what that story means. Okay, the oxygen mask analogy is basically a perfect analogy. Is that if you want to be able to save your loved one's life, right? The oxygen disappears on the plane,
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (45:29)
You have to be able to
Rachel McGonigle (45:30)
and you don't want them to die, you have to put yours on first. Because if you don't, you will pass out and you won't be able to put it on them.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (45:40)
Mm-hmm.
Rachel McGonigle (45:40)
Right.
The goal is how do I put the oxygen mask on my child? That is not a selfish thing to say, I get to go first. It's about me first. It's going, no, I see the end result. The goal that I have here, the value that I adhere to is I want to be able to help my child. This is part of the path to helping my child. And that makes it a non-negotiable.
If you go down too, you both go down. Nobody nobody's saved. It's not
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (46:09)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (46:09)
I save myself first and they're second. It's in order to save them, I have to save myself. Right? In order to be a good mom to Destin.
I had to be willing to not allow grief to be my identity. In order to be a good wife, in order to be a good daughter, in order to be a good sister, I had to entertain the fact that if I allowed my grief to become my identity, I would not be able to do those things.
And I wanted to do those things more.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (46:37)
What's your
what it okay. Identity work. I do the same.
If s if the if we've taken on an identity of grief, what is the alternative? 'Cause we have to move towards something different. How do you help people find their identity? Outside you know, separate then grief.
Rachel McGonigle (47:01)
Yes. So interestingly enough, usually it's not actually the grief that sets our identity. We've tr sendered we set our identity early on. We had a misunderstanding of our identity, and grief just puts it under a microscope. Grief just amplifies it. Okay, so grief itself, tragic loss does not cause new problems. It simply reveals ones that are already there.
Okay, if you have cracks in your marriage and you lose a child, it will simply reveal those cracks. It does not create cracks between couples. Okay, if you already had a unhealthy or strained relationship with your parent when your other parent passes away, it will likely magnify that.
Okay, so when we say grief is our identity, it's often not this new identity we've decided to absorb. It's usually confirmation of the way we already see ourselves. And that is powerless against our pain. And we likely have a history.
Of feeling like I don't actually have power over my emotions, the world is not showing up for me the way that I want. I am misunderstood. Nobody sees me or gets me. It's different for me than it is for other people. I usually see that kind of thinking and mentality even before a significant loss. The significant loss is just amplifies that, right? So the way into healthy identity is we have to unravel all of that. So one of the first things I do is.
What I just simply ask. I don't attack the identity. I don't say it needs to change. We simply ask, what is this costing you? Right? Because maybe you're like, I don't care what it costs me. I want to stay here. I'm like, okay. That's
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (48:51)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (48:52)
right. But let's acknowledge that it does come with the cost. It isn't happening to you. You're choosing it. And what
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (48:58)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (48:58)
is that choice costing you?
Right. And then the next big question is, does this align with your values? And that's why grief is often a complete values redefiner, because it often
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (49:11)
Hmm.
Rachel McGonigle (49:11)
exposes that what we said were our values aren't actually. And once tested, we have to redefine them.
Sometimes it's a little kick in the gut. Other times though it's an enormous relief. Like the freedom that you can find in the ability to actually define your own life is phenomenal.
Like really bad things can happen to us that are not our fault. We didn't cause them, we didn't deserve them, and we can't undo them. That's a reality of life. And even in the midst of that, we still get to decide who we become. Right? I did not
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (49:51)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (49:51)
choose that grief changed me, but I chose how I was changed by my grief.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (49:59)
I would love to what you you had shared something with me earlier about how the one of the challenges that you had was how do you endure this life once you lost your girls until you get to see them again? And how because some people may relate to that. you know, I think being separated from our loved ones is is excruciating. And all we
desire is just to be be with our people. And so I think a lot of people experience that where I just want to I want to see them again. I want to be with them again. And so how have you learned or how are you learning how to endure this this time before you are reunited in heaven?
Rachel McGonigle (50:49)
Right.
I mean it it can be very disheartening as a griever when people tell you things like, They're in a better place, you'll see them again, they're you know, they're whole and healthy now, they don't want you to be sad.
Because the question for me was never, are Aubrey and Ellie okay? It's like I knew they were okay. The question for me was, how do I endure the meantime between now and when I'm re reunited with them? And that felt like a really long time. I was twenty-eight years old and I thought, if I live a normal, healthy lifespan, we're talking
60 years before that happens realistically. And that felt like an enormous amount of time to be in that much pain. And that's what
scared me, right? And so my first goal was how do you endure? Okay. We have to address the meantime.
That's where I started with the body, the grounding, right? Basically just basic functioning. How do I get back to basic functioning? But then something started to happen, and I've seen this happen to almost every griever I know who's decided to choose healing. The survival phase, the basic functioning, the just do the next thing, right? Just get through the day kind of mentality. It doesn't sustain.
And they all wake up one morning, have a some sort of moment, some type of like a place they can actually pinpoint, a day, a time, a moment, when they say to themselves, I want more than this. This isn't enough. I don't want to just endure the meantime. I don't want to just sustain until I die and get reunited. And there's something like this hunger in us that says, I want more.
And that is usually the moment where we make a choice. Do I pursue that more, even if I don't know how to do it, or if if it's even possible? Or do I shut it down and say, no, this is it for you. You're once a griever will always a griever, right? Now we have to contend with a choice. Right? And it was saying yes to that, I want more than this, that shifted from just enduring the meantime.
To actually embracing the meantime. What can I do with the life that I still have left for however long I have it?
Because yes, I lost my baby girls and they are not with me in heaven. But my two boys still are here, right? I have one foot in and one foot out. And I have really meaningful reasons to be all in with this
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (53:20)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (53:20)
realm, with this life, with these boys, because this is what was given to me. You know, I I talk about Amy in the chapter
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (53:27)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (53:28)
and she's an amazing human and she's one of the first people I got to actually talk with this about.
was this idea that like, you know, a lot of grievers say, Why me? Why my children? Why my family? Why my mom? And we were the first people that ever said one of our earliest conversations we had with ourselves was, why not me? Why not my children? Why did I ever expect that I would be some exception? No one is the exception. And people that are, it's just pure luck. Like it's not like they're not superior. They didn't make better choices. Like it's just it's random and it's difficult.
And when you start to look at your life as if you're not the center, it everything isn't about you. You're actually part of something bigger than you. It is much easier to let go of that why me and turn it into a why not me and see where you can contribute instead of what you didn't get to keep that you think was owed to you. Right. And I know people who have said, well, I don't want to live in this world if it's not with the person I love. And I say, that breaks my heart.
Because there's other people who are worth loving here.
Right? They might need you. It might not just only be about you and how you feel. I have sat with families whose children have said, Am I allowed to be hurt that my mom keeps talking about how my brother was the only reason for living and was gave her all her meaning and without him, she has no, you know, reason to live. And me and my sister are still here. Don't, you know, aren't we a reason to live? Right? And I've sat with families who have needed to talk through.
How much a grieving mother's actions and behavior is breaking the hearts of her living children and her husband. In that case, her husband left her. He was too late to repair the marriage. But she eventually regained relationship with both of her children. Right? But grief does not give us a reason or it is not an excuse to mistreat the people who are still here with us.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (55:31)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (55:32)
Right? And these are big things. And this doesn't get a lot of
airtime in the grief
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (55:37)
Yes, right.
Rachel McGonigle (55:38)
culture because it requires accountability and it requires a value system and it requires us to take ourselves out of the center of our own pain. And when you're grieving, one that can feel like betrayal, but two, it can feel like a lot of work when you're already exhausted and you don't want to do any more work.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (55:58)
Mm-hmm.
Rachel McGonigle (55:58)
And that's
which is why we do this in phases. We do not dive in and come to all of these conclusions in one session or in one day. We batch it out in little micro steps. And that's one thing where I actually think why I have excelled at helping grievers heal is because I really help them do one small thing at a time.
We are not pushers and strivers and like we do the small manageable things that keep us away from the edge of ourselves. And as they compile and we start to feel a little bit more capable, we just add one more thing. And what we are able to do over time is so much more significant than if we try to go all in too fast, too hard.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (56:47)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (56:49)
Right.
Like we're talking this is a what are those hundred mile races, like a mega mariner or whatever. Yeah.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (56:53)
Yeah, the endurance.
Rachel McGonigle (56:55)
Like this is a hundred miler. Nobody sprints
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (56:59)
Mm.
Rachel McGonigle (57:00)
the beginning of a hundred miler.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (57:02)
You'll burn out.
Rachel McGonigle (57:04)
Right? But we also have to work on the things that are preventing us from giving ourselves permission to do that. We have to give ourselves permission to struggle, give ourselves permission to fail, give ourselves permission to try again, give ourselves permission to ask for help. We have to do a lot of really humbling things, all in the name of healing, all in the name of believing that offering the best possible version of ourselves.
and hiding behind the worst possible version of ourselves just because it's justifiable, because grief is logically like we can wrap our head around that a mother losing a child is a unfathomable thing.
But yet we can do unfathomable things.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (57:51)
Yeah.
What would you love to to give as a takeaway to people who are listening and if they just like a micro a micro action?
Rachel McGonigle (58:03)
Yeah.
Be kinder to yourself.
Right. Kindness to ourselves is not only patience and resisting like the push and the striving and
ref you know refusing to ask for help so that we don't burden other people, right? Like we just deserve to be nicer to myself, our ourselves. But it also means we entertain the thought that things that are unfathomable to us now can be fathomable to us later. Right? It is unkind to decide right now in our pain that we know what we're capable of, what the rest of our life is going to be like and that can't possibly change.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (58:49)
Hm.
Rachel McGonigle (58:49)
Right.
It is unkind to say once a griever, always a griever. And for those of you out there who are trying to support a griever, do
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (58:57)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (58:57)
not say those kinds of things. It is cruel.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (59:01)
Hm.
Rachel McGonigle (59:02)
Right? It is a limiting belief that is undignifying to humans. Don't tell
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (59:08)
Mm-hmm.
Rachel McGonigle (59:09)
people what they can or can't do. Just simply ask them: can I help? Stick around, show up.
Pay attention. You don't have
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (59:18)
Mm-hmm.
Rachel McGonigle (59:18)
to be perfect either. You get to learn as you go too. Right?
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (59:22)
Yeah.
Rachel McGonigle (59:22)
But don't make unkind statements about what the human heart is capable of. Because we are capable
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (59:31)
Mm.
Rachel McGonigle (59:31)
of far more than we even know.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (59:33)
Yeah.
Beautiful. Thank you for sharing. I encourage everybody to follow you, The Grief Gal on all the socials to reach out to you if they need help, if or they're just curious and want to learn more about your strategies and how you support people. The Grief Gal, you have your own book. Tell me that right.
Rachel McGonigle (59:58)
The truth about feeling after loss.
Jen Porter - Leadership Coach (1:00:00)
The Truth About Healing After Loss. It's a beautiful book. I have read it.
And then you can read Rachel's story in my book, The Lioness, Stories to Awaken Your Roar Within. Rachel, thank you. Thank you for sharing and for your heart.
Alright, until the next time, the lioness in me sees the lioness in you.