The NEW Confident Grief Coach Show: Where Grief Transforms into Peace, Joy, and Purpose

Patricia Sheveland
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The International Academy for Grief has a vision: To Provide Accessible and Transformative Healing for Grieving Families Throughout the World. In this podcast, grief coaches Pat Sheveland and Cami Thelander, your cohosts explore grief, grieving and how to provide the best support for those who are grieving. It is for those of you who are the helpers for those who grieve. Take a listen as we dive into topics and real stories of real people whose journeys inspire and give hope. Coaches Pat and Cami also share how to use specific coaching tools to empower yourself and others to process and maneuver through the challenges of deep loss.

  1. 03/17/2024

    Episode 24: Anticipatory Grief Audio.m4a

    Contact us: Cami Thelander: www.bearfootyogi.com The Confident Grief Coach School: www.healingfamilygrief.com

    35 min

  2. 02/01/2024

    Episode 23: Pat and Cami on Grief and World Cancer Day . m4a

    In this episode, in honor of World Cancer Day on February 4, 2024, we are talking about our own experiences of having a loved one diagnosed and die from cancer. We chat about the journey starting with anticipatory grief and leading into a new phase of grief when our person takes his/her last breath.  If you like what you have heard and it resonates for you - please hit the "like"  and "subscribe" button so you can stay connected with us for future episodes!  To chat with Cami about her Embodied Grief Support Coaching - please head on over to her website: www.bearfootyogi.com to view her services and send her an email at: cami@bearfootyogi.com or give her a call at 651.322.0300!  If you are interested in learning more about becoming a certified grief coach - sign up for a time to chat with Pat about becoming a confident grief coach: https://bit.ly/GriefCoachChat  Download Pat's free ebook, "The Confident Grief Coach: A Guide For Helping Clients Process Loss" here: theconfidentgriefcoach.com Contact us: Cami Thelander: www.bearfootyogi.com The Confident Grief Coach School: www.healingfamilygrief.com

    33 min

  3. 02/01/2024

    Intro to the NEW Confident Grief Coach Show

    Welcome to the NEW Confident Grief Coach Show hosted by Pat Sheveland, Founder of the International Academy for Grief and the Confident Grief Coach School and Cami Thelander, Founder of Grief Embodiment Coaching.  Contact us: Cami Thelander: www.bearfootyogi.com The Confident Grief Coach School: www.healingfamilygrief.com

    1 min

  4. 01/03/2024

    Episode 22: Embodied Grief Support – An interview with Cami Thelander

    In this episode, our guest is Cami Thelander who is a passionate grief coach whose mission is to provide “embodied grief support” for those who are grieving. Cami experience deep loss at a young age. Her story is profound yet not uncommon – her grief accumulated over the years until she had the deep realization that she was holding her grief within her body. Her journey brought her to where she is today – an advanced certified grief coach who incorporates feeling into the grief physically in addition to emotionally. Cami Thelander is a Bachelor of Science, Advanced Certified Grief Coach, Certified Yoga Instructor, Death Doula, and Craniosacral Therapy Practitioner dedicated to holding space for grief and loss. She has created a unique approach to grief that she calls Embodied Grief Support, which combines Grief Coaching, Craniosacral Therapy, and mindfulness practices for a body-centered, whole-person approach to healing from loss. Grief activates the body stress response and can cause a variety of physical symptoms including fatigue, brain fog, body aches and pains, and compromises the immune system. Embodied Grief Support addresses the physical and emotional impacts of stress, provides a safe space to process grief, and offers techniques to self- regulate the nervous system to cope with waves of grief. Cami also offers virtual Grief Coaching sessions and online yoga classes for accessible grief support.  You can learn more about Cami and her offerings at www.bearfootyogi.com, or you can reach her by email: cami@bearfootyogi.com or phone: (651) 322-0300. #griefsupport #griefcoach Shownotes: [00:00:05.020] - Pat Sheveland, Host Hi.There. I am really excited to have my next guest. She actually is a colleague. I'm working with me and the rest of us at the International Academy for Grief, Tammy Thelander. Iwant to welcome Cammy. I just want to let everybody know a little bit about you before we dive right in and have a great conversation about all things grief. [00:00:39.810] - Cami Thelander, Guest Yay. I always love to talk. About grief. Thanks, Friend. [00:00:42.920] - Pat Sheveland, Host Don't we? We're those people. Yeah. Cammi has her Bachelor's of Science. She is a certified grief coach. She's actually an advanced certified grief coach, a certified yoga instructor. She is a death doula and a cranial sacral therapy practitioner. So she's really well-rounded when it comes to all things, body, emotions, connecting, all of that. And she is dedicated to holding the space for grief and loss. She has created a unique approach to grief that she calls, I love this, Embodied Grief Support, which combines grief coaching, her cranial sacral therapy, and mindfulness practices for a body-centered, whole-person approach to healing from loss. Grief activates the body's stress response and can cause a variety of physical symptoms, including fatigue, brain fog. I mean, all of us have experienced some grief. We've had this. Body aches and pains and compromises the immune system. Tammy's embodied grief support addresses the physical and the emotional aspects of stress, provides a safe space to process grief, and offers techniques to help self-regulate the nervous system in order to cope with waves of grief. She offers virtual grief coaching sessions and online yoga classes for accessible grief support in addition to people that are local to her. She lives in Minnesota with some of her other cranial sacral therapy, and someday I'm going to have you be doing that for me. I'll have Cammi's information in our show notes, but right now we're just going to dive in and have a great conversation. Okay, so welcome again. [00:02:33.400] - Cami Thelander, Guest Thank you. Yeah, it was just like taking all that in from the introduction was honestly really cool. I don't often hear other people introducing me like that, and just to really let it sink in like, This is what I do. I can make out the world. I had a little proud moment for myself there. Actually doing the grief work feels really proud. [00:02:55.400] - Pat Sheveland, Host Well, and it just sit in that accomplishment. When we have gone through it... And, Cammi, are you going to talk a little bit about the certification programs. But one of the things, how we start in the certification programs is we start doing a little breathe exercise because the coaching model is the breathe coaching model for grief. But then we go around the room and say, who will you today? Who are you? Not what you did, but who are you? And it's so cool when you can just sit in that and just go, wow, I'm doing good. I've got some great stuff going on inside of me and who I be. Well, thank you for being here. I guess my first question to you is you've done so much and the Death doula and the cranial sacral and all of that type of thing. What's your why? Why did you start really diving into all of this? [00:03:45.060] - Cami Thelander, Guest Well, I think all of these things found me. As I just kept going with my life in my own grief, I was seeking my own healing and stumbled upon all of these different modalities that I didn't even know were helping me in my grief. I started with essential oils, and that was really connecting with plants and allowing the healing medicine of plants to help calm me down from when I would have a big grief wave and not know how to handle it. It was like all of a sudden I just started finding all of these things that were supportive for me. So it just expanded into these modalities and cranial psychotherapy being the biggest one that was the most transformational for at my point in my life when I found cranial psychotherapy and I literally stumbled into it. And then from there, I just kept finding things that felt more and more aligned. I was in school for cranial psychotherapy, and a student there had told me that she was going to be starting a death doula training. That was the first time that I heard about that. I was like, Are you serious? That's a job? You can get paid to be with people while they die? Yes, please. I want to be that person. It just kept unfolding. That's how I found you and the Grief Coach School as well was just these happenstances that just me being open and receptive to what was next for me led me to all of these different things that would support me in my journey and then, of course, be supportive for other people as well once I got the hang of it. [00:05:14.530] - Pat Sheveland, Host Wow, that's amazing. And it is. I think that people will say to me, Well, that's got to be really hard. And why do you do what you do? And it's like, I didn't choose to be working in grief. Grief chose me from the time that I was a little girl. So if you're willing to just share, when did you really step into that world of grief? How old are you? And what were the circumstances of that? [00:05:37.690] - Cami Thelander, Guest Yeah, my grief started from a young age. I feel like I grew up on grief in some levels. My parents had a rocky relationship that I witnessed at home with them growing up, and they divorced when I was nine. There was just some conflict and separation that was happening in the household. And around that time as well, we lost our home before closure. Right away, there were some non-death losses and grief that I was experiencing just within the household. Not long after my parents divorced, my dad was diagnosed with ALS. Then I was 10 years old and spent the next year watching my dad slowly die. The disease actually progressed pretty quickly. Als can draw out for many years, but his was just about a year long. I was with him, seeing him on weekends, going to his house on weekends before he was too sick to be in hospice. I watched the disease slowly take him. That was really hard being 11. I was with him bedside when he passed as well. I remember that day being so chaotic. It was just like there was no communication as far as how this transition should go. [00:06:50.780] - Cami Thelander, Guest It was super rushed. I remember being very confused, being 11 years old, like what's happening? All of a sudden, I'm here now and walked into the room. It was literally as soon as we got there, he was hanging on for us. It was like, as soon as we got there, he was gone. That just felt crazy, chaotic, and hard to process being 11. Later, I realized that there was a lot of the confusion of it was because the adults were trying to protect me being a kid and were not sharing a lot of information with me about what was happening in that created conflict with processing my grief during that time. And then while all of that was happening, my mom met her boyfriend at the time, and eventually they got married. I had this new family that I was being opened up to while my dad was sick and dying. So that was interesting to have a whole new family and a new father figure to support me through all of this. I really did open up to him. His name was Greg, and my mom married him knowing that he had prostate cancer. [00:07:50.510] A good portion of my time with him was spent just knowing with this fear in the back of my head that this person could very much be another temporary father figure in my life. Although I opened up to him and embraced him as my new dad or this role of a dad in my life, I only had about seven years with him. He ended up passing from prostate cancer. I was 15 years old. He was at home. His death, compared to my dad's death—I was there at bedside with him too—was totally different. He had the good death that you could say of surrounded by family. They had the communication ahead of time as far as how he wanted it to go, what prayers to be read, what songs to be played, all of that good stuff. I saw a contrast with the dying process with both of my dads. That's partially what made me so interested in being a death doula, is being there for that process. I was 15 years old and had just gone through

    41 min

  5. 11/03/2023

    Episode 21: Adoption Series Part 4 Where Grief and Gratitude Co-Exist - An Interview with Leah Sheveland

    Shownotes: [00:00:05.160] - Pat Sheveland, Host Thank you for joining us back here for our series on adoption, Where Grief and Gratitude Co-exist. This series of interviews has been created to share the many faces of adoption to bring not only awareness, but I'm hoping some sense of community and support for those of you who are chosen as an adoptee, for those of you who have opened your hearts to love a child who needed a home, and for those of you who are interested in getting more involved by supporting those who have the lived experience that my guests have lived. I hope you enjoy the episode, and if you do, please hit the like and subscribe button so you can help us continue to do what we have been doing over here in the Healing Family Grief community. [00:00:58.050] Healing Family Grief. As a reminder, we will be holding a live panel discussion event on Sunday, November fifth at eight o'clock, US Eastern time, where you could join us to ask questions, hear more from our panel, and also learn how you can get support if you are struggling with grief due to adoption, or if you would like to learn how to become a coach to support those struggling with adoption grief. I'll have the link in the show notes. In our final recorded interview, we are talking with Leah Sheveland. Leah's story is pretty extraordinary given the circumstances of her birth. [00:01:37.780] - Pat Sheveland, Host And the fact that she was abandoned as a little tiny 1.2-pound infant in a Dropbox in Calcutta, India. Lea's story is different than the others in this series because she truly has no way of finding out about her biological family. We discussed how not having that ability probably shaped how she has never had that extraordinary, deep yearning to learn where she came from or the culture of her birth country. [00:02:08.360] Doing this interview actually spurned a new desire within her. Now she's been talking to me about We should create a coaching program through our Healing Family Grief platform that is a tailored for adoption. So give it a listen. I hope you enjoy the show. And if you're interested in getting onto our panel discussion, please check the notes below and there will be a link to sign up. Talk to you soon. [00:02:36.300] - Pat Sheveland, Host Hello, everybody. I am so excited because I have someone special. This is the last of our series of four interviews that I'm doing regarding Adoption, Where Grief and Gratitude Co-Exist. Today, I am interviewing my bonus daughter. I have lots of bonus daughters. Leah is one that I spend a lot of time with, live with her and the kids. My son is gone a lot, so I spend a lot of time actually in their home, in the mother-in-law suite and hanging out. Leah has a great story of adoption, different than everybody else that we've talked about. But again, my family is just immersed in adoption with lots of different stories. And so Leah is going to share a little bit about her story, and I'm just going to ask her some questions along. Hi, Leah. [00:03:24.000] - Leah Sheveland, Guest Hey. Good to see you again, and welcome to everybody. [00:03:27.130] - Pat Sheveland, Host Yeah. So if you would, could you just gives us, as much as you feel comfortable, a little bit about your adoption story? [00:03:34.750] - Leah Sheveland, Guest Sure. We're going to date ourselves here. I am 41 years old. So my story is 40 years old, but it actually started in the late '70s. My mother was engaged to somebody from Europe, and they had planned on starting a family living in the US. He was here going to school and they worked together. Then all of a sudden, his only sibling committed suicide and he decided he needed to go back to Germany to be with his parents. She was at the time already 30 and found herself single and decided there wasn't going to be a lot of time to find somebody else and start a family, and a family was something she really wanted. She explored lots of different options, and at the time, single women, and especially that had crossed the line to their 30s were not really what the US considered adoption worthy parents. They really wanted moms and dads. They really wanted younger folks, just things that she didn't qualify for. So she had had some friends who were in a similar boat and decided that they would look at international adoption. She started some of the research to find an agency and all those things through Children's Home, which still today exists in the US for replacing American children. [00:04:44.180] - Leah Sheveland, Guest But they had some connections with some international adoption agencies, one of them being International Mission of Hope, who was founded in Vietnam in the 1970s and expanded to India in, I think, '77 is what I heard, but started by an American who she was to a doctor. She was very well to do here in this country. They decided to move their family over to Vietnam to start this because there was a lot of Vietnamese children in the '70s that were looking for homes and then expanded to India. Right around the time, Mother Teresa started her adoption agency, any others out of there because again, there was so many children waiting and orphaned. She started the process of putting in a referral doing just like you do in the US. You have to get a physical, you have to submit your financial records, all these things to show that you could really feasibly take a child. If those of you that are old enough might remember this, those of you that aren't, there was a baby selling scandal that came up against Indian adoption in the late '70s, which shut adoption down for a couple of years. [00:05:40.650] There was a lot of controversy around was there baby selling, were people making money and profit off poor people's misfortune, things like that. She thought, Well, I don't know if this is the thing, but there's not really anything else. We'll just wait it out. By the time that was over, she was 35 years old, 1981. It started up again and there was adoptions both from Korea and India through IMH. She would put her name back on the list. How this list worked was basically the next baby that came in, if it was your number, it was yours. It was a referral system. You put your name on the list. Think of it like taking a ticket from a driver's license counter. When your number is called, you come up and that's your kid. You don't get to choose, you don't get to put in special requests for children as they come and as the next person is waiting. She went back on the list. In 1982, she got a call that I was born and that I was hers. She was thrilled, absolutely thrilled. She had finally gotten her family on board. My grandma was one of those that maybe didn't like a lot of change in her life, had this idea of what her family was going to look like, found herself as an older mother. [00:06:42.100] - Leah Sheveland, Guest She had my aunt at 40, so she was used to being older, but still thought it would look something like a picture perfect life. At the same time that I was born, my aunt married a man from Turkey who had dreadlocks and dark skin and all this. Between the two, my grandma was like, What in the world is going on with this family? But it all worked out wonderfully, and she got my name. All two moved here from Turkey in '82 as well, so we joke that we both came at the same time, but he aged much worse than me. That said, it was beginning of a different look in our family. They are all blonde hair, blue eyes, Scandinavian and German background. All of a sudden, all two and I come and we change what the look of this family and then from there on, grandkids and everything would look like. That was it's an exciting thing. But back to my story in India, and especially in the '80s again, there was a caste system, and it was very much considered if you did something that you shouldn't have, you got kicked out of your caste, which would change your economic future, your social future, all those things. [00:07:45.140] - Leah Sheveland, Guest At the time, many women who found themselves pregnant out of wedlock would either seek abortions or put their babies up for adoption. Calcutta is still today one of the poorest cities in the world, but again, at that time was extremely poor, dirty, people were dying in streets. I have heard stories that are just disgusting. In fact, all those stories have made me never want to go back to visit. But that said, they had these things called adoption drop boxes, and think of it like a library card or book return where you just open the door, conveyor belt comes, you put your book on and it goes back into the library. This was you put your baby on it and it goes into this home that was started by this Cherie who started International Mission of Hope. It was a hospital. They called it a nursing home, but a hospital that took in orphan to children or abandoned children were cared for by US doctors. There were also some Europeans there, I think. Then when they were strong enough, they were sent home via Northwest Airlines at the time to their family. I was born, they think, actually probably a late-stage abortion gone wrong because I was born very early, so I weighed a little over a pound. [00:08:49.670] - Leah Sheveland, Guest Probably would not have made it if my mom had not accepted that referral, but anyway, was dropped. We guess, I don't think you'd live that much longer, so probably the birthday is right, but we guess at a time or anything else because my birth certificate does say abandoned child. The way adoptions work, unfortunately, until it's a legal adoption in the US, your health insurance does not cover said to be child. My mom had to pay out of pocket for all of the care that I was going to need to be able to get strong enough, which by their standards was six pounds to be able to take the flight from India to the US. Most babies did that within a couple of weeks and came home around a month

    38 min

  6. 10/26/2023

    Episode 21: Adoption Series Part 3 Where Grief and Gratitude Co-Exist- An Interview with Tim Mackey

    In this interview with Tim Mackey, we get yet another perspective on adoption. Tim was relinquished at birth spending 6 months in an orphanage setting before being adopted by his parents. It wasn’t until an ancestry DNA test led him to his birth family in his early 50’s. Tim shares his thoughts on how to one should prepare themselves mentally if they choose to reach out and connect with their birth family. Shownote: [00:00:01.700] - Pat Sheveland, Host Welcome again to this episode for Healing Family Grief on Adoption, where we believe that grief and gratitude can coexist. In this interview with Tim Mackie, we get yet another perspective on adoption. Tim was relinquished at birth, spending his first six months in an orphanage setting before being adopted by his parents. It wasn't until an ancestry DNA test led him to his birth family in his early 50s. Tim shares his thoughts on how one should really prepare themselves mentally if they choose to reach out and connect with their birth family so that however that goes, whether they're fully embraced or there is resistance to meeting, that the adoptee can walk away feeling secure and as whole as possible and not have unexpected trauma occur when things don't go the way that they really think that they should go. It's a wonderful interview. Please take a listen. If you do enjoy this show, please hit the like and subscribe button. [00:01:31.400] That way we know if this is interesting information for you, you can leave us some questions. We'll be really thrilled to answer those questions and be on the lookout in early November for a live group chat about all that we've talked about in this series. Enjoy and I hope you have a wonderful day. [00:01:55.130] - Pat Sheveland, Host Hello, everybody. Once again, I am so excited to be here and to be able to share some stories from my family members with this whole piece that we're doing on adoption and where grief and gratitude really can coexist together. We know that there's a lot of both within this. Tim Mackey happens to be my brother-in-law, who we've got to meet each other. I don't even know how many years ago it was. It hasn't been super long, but we're just so happy that Tim found this part of the family and that we have this new member. Tim has an adoption story, and so we're just going to move forward with that. He's going to share a little bit about himself, and we'll ask some questions. Welcome, my friend, my brother. [00:02:50.630] - Tim Mackey, Guest Hello. Thanks for the invite. Glad to be here. Thank you. [00:02:53.480] - Pat Sheveland, Host What I'd like to do is just start out a little bit about your story. A little bit about maybe what you've heard, what you haven't heard, but your story of being adoptee in a family. [00:03:04.820] - Tim Mackey, Guest Yeah. I was born in Santa Clara, California, in 1968, and I was adopted when I was about six months old to Mark and Betty, Mackie, and they moved to Seattle, to Chicago, back to Seattle, where I started high school and finished college and got married, and now I settled in. My sister, I actually have a sister one year younger than I am and a brother two years, and all three of us are adopted. My mom and dad wanted to have adopted kids, but she bought a DNA test about four years ago, and just on a whim, I decided to take it. Lo and behold, I found out that I had a half brother that had just taken it. I reached out to them, to Ken, Matt's husband, and then everything just happened pretty quick after that. I went from being the oldest of three to the youngest of five in just less than a week, I would say. When I found out this... I'd always searched as a kid, not really putting too much effort into it, but just curious more than anything else. The reason is my adoption papers said that I was Cherokee and Blackfoot, and so I wanted to learn a little bit about tribal enrollment, if that was a possibility or anything along those lines. [00:04:35.800] And so it was not really too hard at all. At about the age of 40, I just said, I'm happy. Both my parents love me and I'm happy where I'm at. And then my sister, I took the test and then met Ken. And so it was interesting in that the whole time I didn't walk into it with any assumptions or expectations. And I think that's really the key for anybody that is looking for or that has found their adopted parents or whatever is you come into it with the ability just to walk away without it affecting you or having any remorse or anger or upset. That's how I approached coming into it. When I met with Ken and my brother and mom at their house in Arizona, of course, that trip down Friday, I was shaking like a leaf and then Saturday morning, really nervous. The hour and a half drive to the house was really… I probably turned around about 10 times just because I was nervous. Then saying to myself, Hey, if this doesn't work out, you're in a good spot with your life and where you're at, it's okay. That made it easier to make that trip. [00:05:43.510] Then walking out and meeting the family. Ken, we had talked a couple of times on the phone, and he just came over and gave me a great big hug and Billy as well. We talked for a little bit and went in and met my mom. That was just like looking in a mirror. I still remember everything about that with Joyce. She said, I've been wondering how long or how you've been doing forever. I think she was really happy to find out that her son was in a good place. We've visited for a couple of hours that day and I got a chance to spend some good time with Ken and Billy. Everyone was welcomed to the family. In that regard, it was really easy then to do the next things and do trips to meet people and know the extended family. At the same time, like my sister, she met her family and it was a complete opposite story. She's had the opposite, so it's been a lot harder for her than me. But I think coming into it, not expecting anything, and the willingness to walk away is really, really important. If you put too much into it, who knows how it's going to go? [00:06:52.510] - Tim Mackey, Guest So you have to be able to walk away. I told everybody that at the start. So you don't know me, I don't know you. If this causes any upset or hard feelings, then I'm done and I'll just back out. And everyone was, No, we want to meet you. And in that regards, it worked out really well. But if one person had said, No, this is too upsetting. I would have just said, okay, that's fine. Here's my address if you ever want to get in touch, you won't hear from me again. That was just my approach to it. [00:07:25.480] - Pat Sheveland, Host I know that Ken, and as Tim mentioned, is my husband. It was like, wow, it was a whirlwind. There was a lot of excitement, but again, a lot of questions and the story behind it all. But the beautiful thing is, well, Kim, I will always say, you got the great end of the deal because the family was very poor and education was not something that was really sought after and had a pretty rough environment from what my husband has shared with me and probably with you. [00:08:00.560] - Tim Mackey, Guest The other thing that was interesting is I didn't talk directly with my brother. When I found out I had a brother, I reached out to you. [00:08:09.610] - Pat Sheveland, Host Yes. [00:08:10.060] - Tim Mackey, Guest We had dialog a little bit before we even approached Ken just to make sure that it wasn't going to be too upsetting because here we are at 52 years old. I'm 52, and I think Ken is nine years older than I am or so. But all of a sudden, there's a new person in the family, and they had never known that I was up for adoption or that their mom was pregnant because they were too little at that point. Then how it came about, I didn't want any bad feelings from that either. I don't think there was. I think the family was surprised that my mom had given birth that they didn't know. She never told them. That's why it was really important for me just to talk with Pat first, with you first before reaching your husband and to make sure that that would even be okay. I thought that was important too. [00:09:03.920] - Pat Sheveland, Host Yeah. It's just been a joy. You two get along just the whole family. Just to let everybody know, Tim's birth mom, my mother-in-law, died in the fall last year, so it's just been a year. But I feel knowing what I... Working with grief and working with so many people, I knew once I found out that you had been on her mind every single day of her life. Because any parent, that's what's going to happen, especially moms. It's like thinking about that child and what a gift that mom, Sheveland, got to meet you. Yeah, I think so. That you have this relationship because what a weight off of her heart, always wondering what happened with you and did you do the right thing? Because relinquishment is not something that anybody takes lightly, whatsoever that bond. [00:09:59.190] - Tim Mackey, Guest I think that they probably really struggled with it. But I'm happy with the way that things had worked out. I don't think it... I don't know. I think there should be some hoops and hurdles in finding your birth parents if that's of interest to you. But I think maybe had known maybe when I was 30 or 25 or so might be a little bit different than at the end of life because I only got to know her for a year and a half or so before she passed away or two years. But it may be nice to maybe have a little bit better long term relationship with her. [00:10:33.210] - Pat Sheveland, Host Yeah. As you talked about you were adopted into this family, your siblings were also this is like parents that really wanted to have a family and bringing in children that could use love and great home and all of that. What would you say are the gifts that you see having been one of the chosen ones? [00:10:58.520] - Tim Mackey, Guest Well, I think that my

    34 min

  7. 10/23/2023

    Episode 21: Adoption Series Part 2 - Where Grief and Gratitude Co-Exist. An Interview with Caitlin Sheveland

    PART TWO: Adoption: Where Grief and Gratitude Co-Exist. An Interview with Caitlin Sheveland Welcome back to our next interview in our series of Adoption: Where Grief and Gratitude can Co-Exist.  In this interview with Caitlin Sheveland, we hear the story of what propelled her and her family into the world of foster care and adoption, ultimately bringing Caitlin into a soul purpose, a life purpose of serving children and their families in a formal social services role. She is a spit-fire and she makes things happen and it really totally changed her life and transformed her life and all those she served. She is the epitome of advocacy for ensuring a child's welfare always comes first through a safe and nurturing home environment whether that be with their birth family, a foster family, or a forever home as a chosen child for a family and she knows all about this intimately in her own lived experience and also her work in the social services. Please enjoy the show and if it appeals to you hit the like or the subscribe button, that's helpful for us to know what really is impacting for our listeners out there, and feel free to leave a comment. We are interested in hearing your comments and questions regarding this series. Thank you so much and I hope you really enjoy this interview with Caitlin Sheveland. PLEASE JOIN US ON SUNDAY, NOVEMBER 5 AT 8:00 PM US ET FOR OUR LIVE PANEL DISCUSSION WITH THE INTERVIEWEES ON ZOOM. A GREAT PLACE TO DISCUSS ALL THINGS ADOPTION! LINK TO SIGN UP: https://us02web.zoom.us/meeting/register/tZUodOyrrTIiGdZsTVPWCouBCdsDPQO5w4t3  I hope you enjoy the episode and if you do, please hit the like and subscribe button so you can help us continue to do what we do over here in the Healing Family Grief community. Shownotes: [00:06:01.110] - Pat Sheveland, Host Hi there, everybody. I am so excited because here is another one of our great interviews in regards to adoption. We have the International Adoption Day that's coming up in November. And as I said in my little preview to everybody, I am interviewing family members because we've had a lot of family members who have been involved in adoption. And today I am talking with Caitlin. Caitlin is my daughter-in-law who I just adore and love so deeply. She and I really have that hard space for children. We're going to talk a little bit about the story of what really got Caitlin and her family really involved. Our son, Tom, really involved in not only foster care but the adoption who is our granddaughter now. And so that's where we're going to start. So welcome, Caitlin. [00:06:54.360] - Caitlin Sheveland, Guest Thank you. [00:06:54.880] - Pat Sheveland, Host So glad to have you. [00:06:55.720] - Caitlin Sheveland, Guest This is so exciting. [00:06:57.040] - Pat Sheveland, Host So exciting. So why don't you maybe just start out sharing what happened several years ago that really brought you into foster care and bringing Rosie into our family? [00:07:12.010] - Caitlin Sheveland, Guest Yeah. So I started before we even knew about Rosie. I had a really terrible birth with our last daughter, Oliver, and knew that I wanted more kids, but that I didn't want to birth them myself. So I had been processing like, what does that look like? I had never really known anyone that or anything, so it wasn't really in my scope of mind. I just knew that I wanted more kids. And so that started my heart's pathway of what's other alternatives to having children. And then one day, several months later, we were washing the dishes. I remember it vividly. And we had heard from Pat that there was a family member that had had a baby in a different state. And that night, we had gotten a call from Oregon, D. C. F. And they had said my husband, Tom's cousin, had had a baby, and they were looking for family members that wanted to be involved and what their involvement would look like. And I remember me and Tom automatically wasn't even a question. Well, if she needs a place to stay, she's family, so she can come here. And that was where they were at in the point of the case, anyways, was looking for someone to adopt this baby. [00:08:25.900] And so I know that it was a lot of conversations in the family of what does that look like, because taking someone else's child as your own and then doing that so that she can remain in the family and so that grandpa can still be grandpa, and she can still grow up with all her relatives and just looks a little different. And so we began a long process of really fighting for her and her best interest and keeping her in the family. I want to say it took us five months of me calling every day bothering all the workers to just advocate for her best, which eventually in June, we got the call that she was ready to be picked up and that it was going to take about a week for them to figure out which worker was going to fly her to us. So then we responded, Well, can we just go out there and get her? And they said, yes. And so I spent 24 hours, flew all the way to Oregon, grabbed her in a parking lot, flew all the way back. And we have a video of the moment that she came from the airport and met Tom and the girls. [00:09:29.750] And I really cherish that because it was meant to be. And the girls just loved her already, and she was so sweet and a sweet addition to our family. And so that started a journey for me because it was so fulfilling to be able to be that role to a child that needed a safe place to stay. And then also just the advocating for her. I learned so much in those five months of the system and how much children people advocating for their best, otherwise they get lost. And so it really sparked this passion in my heart to help other children. And so I started by changing my career. I used to be a hairdresser, and my passion shifted. And I started working with families that were working with DCYF and trying to reunify children to their parents and doing a lot of in-home therapy with them. And then I just kept going down the line. And I eventually wanted to make the rules because I saw how many families were just not being treated fairly and how many children there really were. And so I now work for the state, and I am in child services investigating childhood, abuse, and neglect. [00:10:45.160] - Caitlin Sheveland, Guest So it's just saying that one yes, as nervous and as scared as we were of what that was going to look like, changed our whole lives and my whole career. And I now love what I do. I get to go into families and find out what are some safety concerns, what are some things that we need to work on, and how can we provide support to keep the kids home. And then obviously, if it's not safe, advocating for what is best for these children. And we still do foster care. We are on our sixth long term foster care child. So that has been really rewarding. Our first foster daughter, we were able to help reunify with her father, which was really nice. We got to invite him over for dinner, helped him interview for his first job. And then once they unified, it was able to buy some things for her room and set her room up. And we're still in contact with her dad today. So it's been a life changing event going from not really knowing anything about foster care or adoption or how that even looks. How can you love someone else's child as your own? [00:11:52.570] All those fears to now our daughter is going to be turning six. She's thriving. She's in kindergarten. It's like she was meant to be part of our family. And I like to say because we talk openly with our kids about adoption and that Rosie is adopted. But we like to say that the other kids grew in my belly, but Rosie grew in my heart because before we even knew about her, I was already in that sense of knowing that there is a child out there for me that I wasn't going to birth. [00:12:23.190] - Pat Sheveland, Host Well, and I can attest to the fact, having watched Kate, you were just a Bulldog. It was just like, this girl is our daughter. We're going to make sure that we get her. And you were just passionate and on the phone and pushing, pushing, pushing and advocating for her, knowing that jumping around because she had a few different foster homes and she was literally taken at birth. So the relinquishment, she was brand new baby and you knew that she needed to have that stability. [00:12:58.500] - Caitlin Sheveland, Guest I remember even fighting with them when they were she's ready to go, paperwork's filed, but it's going to take us a couple of weeks. And I just remember my mom being absolutely not if she's ready to be ours, we'll buy the ticket and go fly out there. I don't care. But yeah, I think the whole process took, they say it's supposed to take about two years for the process of going inter-state. And I was not having that. I was not having my daughter somewhere else. When I knew in my heart was mine. And so like I said, we called every day to remind them, hey, what's the status today? Keep them pushing. And I think they really did it in five months because they were annoyed with me. But I needed to do. [00:13:42.620] - Pat Sheveland, Host That's all right. Annoying is good. Doing is good, but it's making a difference to the lives of little ones and all of that. So one of the things that I like to just think about here, what are the gifts? What are the gifts for you as the mother and Tom as the father and as a family for choosing being able to choose Rosie? I mean, she chose, I believe that God works in these beautiful ways, but really, she is the chosen one. And what are some of the gifts for your family that you have seen over these past two years? [00:14:18.570] - Caitlin Sheveland, Guest I think the most important gift is just teaching my children that you can love people without roles. So I didn't birth Rosie, but we love her the same as our birth children, and our children love her the same as their blood siblings,

    29 min

  8. 10/16/2023

    Episode 20: Adoption Series Part 1 Where Grief and Gratitude Co-Exist - Barbara DeMers's Interview

    Summary: In this interview with Barbara DeMers, we will discuss not only her lived experience of being an adoptive child after being removed at birth from her mother and placed into an orphanage for 6 months before her adoptive parents brought her home, but we also touch on what some of the research is showing about the effects of adoption on the adoptee. Barbara’s passion is to provide support and healing for physical and emotional challenges through energy healing. She is an extensive learner - always developing herself through knowledge so that she may support others on their path to healing.  She is also a Certified Grief Coach through our Confident Grief Coach School where we help people become more confident in stepping out into the world as a professional support for those who grieve. Shownotes: [00:00:15.420] - Pat Sheveland, Host Hello.It is.Pat here. I am Pat Sheveland, if you do not know me, I am the Confident Grief Coach. I'm the founder of Healing Family Grief and the Confident Grief Coach School. I wanted to give you a little heads-up on a project that I'm working on with some of my family members. Here's a little bit about the background. When I was a little girl, not even school age yet, I had first-hand experience of the joy and excitement that arises from an adoption. When I was really, really little, I was at my grandparents' house on a Sunday afternoon when my aunt and uncle came in and my aunt was carrying a baby. This baby was a girl. I was so excited. This had such a profound impact on me because I was no longer going to be the only girl in this extended family where all I had are boy cousins and my brothers. I had no sisters. This was super exciting. But to be honest, I never really thought about the fact that she was adopted until I was at her wedding when I met some of her birth family. I have to be honest, I just couldn't wrap my head around the fact that she had other siblings and other parents because all I knew is that she was my cousin and my aunt and uncle's child. [00:01:28.830] Never even thought that.She was. Adopted the whole time that I knew her. Over the last several years, she and I have had a lot of conversations about her adoption story. Interestingly enough. We and my immediate family, with my husband and I have experienced a lot of adoptions and have grown our family, I guess, to be a family of many adoptees. My daughter-in-law, who's married to one of our sons, was abandoned as a premature newborn in India many, many years ago. She was adopted by a single woman in the United States after spending months in an orphanage in Calcutta. She needed to stay there because she was unviable to even get on a plane to come to her adopted mother and come to the US until they could really have 24/7 care to really get her to that place. We believe that she was held by Mother Teresa, and that's what got her here and helped her to be just like this magnificent woman that she is today. Also, my granddaughter, who was our great niece at the time, was taken at birth by Social Services because it was just felt that it would be better for her and safer for her to be placed into a foster to adopt situation, and we'll share a lot about that story. [00:02:49.990] But it spurned a passion within my other daughter-in-law to want to take this child, bring her in to foster and to formally adopt her. Our great niece is now our granddaughter. We're so happy and so thrilled that she can be raised in a loving home and be a part of our family. Then a few years ago, I gained a new brother-in-law through ancestry DNA testing. Who knew? But I'll tell you, we are so thrilled to have him as part of our family and that we were able to connect and really get to know each other and be family together. Because my passion is in the grief healing space, I kept getting this inner nudge to talk more about adoption. [00:03:36.820] What are some of the grief that shows up? What's some of that grief that shows up for the people who are being adopted and also for the adopted parents? Or for the parents who had to relinquish their child, feel that that was a necessary thing to do? [00:03:51.220] What goes on with genetics and epigenetics and all of these different things that can really play an impact? I really wanted to delve into this a little bit further, and I've asked these family members that I just spoke of to share their stories with me so that I can share them with you. Over the month of October, I will be sharing each of these interviews on the Healing Family Grief YouTube channel and on the Confident Grief Coach podcast show. I would love it if you could hop on over to either of these forums. Hit the subscribe button down so that you get notification when these are up and running. Give us a thumbs up if you like what you see and hear when you do listen to these episodes. Everyone has a little bit different story, has different beliefs about adoption, and that's the beauty of it. We're going to culminate this series on adoption with a live panel discussion with my guests, my family, on Sunday, November fifth, at seven o'clock pm Central Time. We're going to hold that over Zoom, where you can sign up and ask us questions and get more insight. My hope is that if you are adopted, this can bring some measure of, I'm not alone in this and my feelings. [00:05:10.720] - Pat Sheveland, Host If you are a parent who relinquished your child, you can hopefully gain some comfort through this series and this conversation. If you are adopted parents and you just want to hear what other people's stories are, our stories are powerful and can help not only heal ourselves, but also provide an avenue for healing for other people. [00:05:37.540] So please keep an eye out for this series, Adoption: Where Grief and Gratitude Can Co-Exist. I look forward to seeing you over the next several weeks. Oh, yeah, links to the Healy Family Grief YouTube channel will be in the comments below. I look forward to seeing all of you and hope that you can make it. Peace out. [00:06:02.330] - Pat Sheveland, Host Hello, everyone. I am just so excited because I have someone that's super near and dear to my heart that I've known since I was probably three, I guess. My dearly beloved cousin, Barbara, who is the first, kicking off the first of our conversations about adoption and what it means to the adoptee. [00:06:24.860] - Pat Sheveland, Host The Person who was chosen to be brought into a new family, but also has experienced the abandonment of not being able to be with their birth family. So this is we're kicking it off. We're going to do a whole series about this, and then we're going to have a culmination of it. [00:06:40.880] With the whole panel of all the people that I'm doing individual calls with. So I'm excited to do this, and I'm honored, my dear Barb, that you are kicking this off because you and I have had lots of conversations about this over the years for sure. So do you want to just tell everybody just a little bit more about who are and who you are today, and then we'll dive into your birth and adoption story, but just tell us a little bit more about you. [00:07:12.080] - Barbara Demers, Guest Hey, my name is Barbara Demers. I am married. I have two adult children and a grandchild, my first grandchild on the way. I have been a hairstylist for more years than I even like to say, for 43 years. I've owned a salon for 12 years. I've also been interested in energy medicine. I've studied and I've been doing energy medicine since 1998, and I've studied several modalities, and now I'm doing some teaching and collaborating with a group called Awakening Healing Access. I also doing Akashic record readings. And yeah, that's me in a nutshell as they say in a nutshell. [00:08:02.900] - Pat Sheveland, Host So yes, hairstylist, extraordinary. This energy work, I just wanted to chat a little bit about that because I'm sure a lot of that came from everything that you experienced, whether you do it or not to come into energy, healing and that type of work. And you were one of the pioneers in the area where we live. Not many people were doing that. So what was like your firststep into energy work? What that drew you to it? [00:08:31.170] - Barbara Demers, Guest What drew me to it? Well, it was after my mother passed away. I had a client, a hair client that I was seeing who she was a family therapist, and she also started doing energy work. So she started telling me about she was doing this energy work stuff where she studied Reiki. And I was like, at the time, I had never heard of anything like that. And my first thought was like, she's weird. And that doesn't even like whatever, weirdo. I didn't know what it was. I didn't understand it. I just cast it aside. But she kept mentioning it to me that it might be something that would be helpful for me through my grief. And then I started on that synchronicity thing where all of a sudden, every place I went, she was there. I went to get gas. She's pumping gas across from me. I go to the grocery store, I turn the corner and there she is. Literally, it was in one week, I think I saw her every day. Finally, I thought, fine, okay, hey, no uncle. I give up. I'll go see her. I made an appointment to see her. [00:09:44.950] Before I saw her then I had another one of our friends, another mutual friend of ours whose mother had passed away shortly after my mother had passed away. And they found, her and her sister found a medium. And at the time, I had no idea what a medium was, but she called me up. She was, We found a medium. Do you want to go with us? Because she can talk to our dead mothers. And so I'm like, Yeah. I'm like, Yeah, sign me up. Sure, let's do that. So the three of us made an appointment to go see this medium, which was literally a couple of days after I had made the appointment to go see this gal who did the Reiki. So I went and saw the gal

    49 min
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The International Academy for Grief has a vision: To Provide Accessible and Transformative Healing for Grieving Families Throughout the World. In this podcast, grief coaches Pat Sheveland and Cami Thelander, your cohosts explore grief, grieving and how to provide the best support for those who are grieving. It is for those of you who are the helpers for those who grieve. Take a listen as we dive into topics and real stories of real people whose journeys inspire and give hope. Coaches Pat and Cami also share how to use specific coaching tools to empower yourself and others to process and maneuver through the challenges of deep loss.

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