Geneva Livingstone is a transformational grief coach who prefers to be called "Coach G". She considers herself a different type of healing coach who specializes in helping women in leadership overcome the constant trigger alarms after having experienced the excruciating pain of deep loss. It is her hope to help you learn to trust yourself with your heart and new emotions so that you can not move on but instead lean in and LOVE FORWARD.

If you are interested in learning more about the Confident Grief Coach Certification Program, please go to www.healingfamilygrief.com

Download my Amazon Best Selling books "How Do I Survive: 7 Steps to Living After Child Loss", "Living Life in the Middle: The Caregiver's Guide to Healing, Hope and Harmony Through Multigenerational Living, and "The Confident Grief Coach: A Guide For Helping Clients Process Loss" for FREE at: www.healingfamilygrief.com

Shownotes:

[00:00:00.000] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Hi. There. I am so excited to have someone who I love so dearly be a part of our interview today. Geneva Livingstone is this beautiful, heart centered... I tell her I just want to sit in her lap and be coached all the time. She just has this just lovely face that she holds. She likes to be called Coach G. So that's generally how I'll call her. She is a graduate of the Confident Grief Coach school. And how she describes herself is that she's a different type of healing coach specializing in helping women in leadership. That is really cool. Speaks to me tenfold or more. But helping them overcome the constant trigger alarms that have having experienced the excruciating pain of deep loss. She knows about deep loss. We know that there are so many people out there in the workforce and women in leadership that sometimes it feels like they might have to tamp it down a little bit. So I'm really anxious to hear from Coach G what that looks like in some of the work that she's done. And her hope is for everyone who's listening and who works with her is to learn to trust themselves with their own hearts and new emotions so that they cannot just move on, but instead lean into it and love forward.

[00:01:42.890] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Love forward. Isn't that beautiful? I'm always loving forward. Let's talk. Let's chat. You'll see on the screen, she calls herself your Fairy Godmother of Hope, Coach G. Let's just start off from the very beginning. You and I met, was it in early 21?

[00:02:07.980] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

Yes.

[00:02:08.930] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Okay. Let's chat a little bit about how we got connected and how you came to the school.

[00:02:15.640] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

Awesome. What happened was I had just finished a master's grief certification, but I wanted a program. Like things always happen for me, magically, you appeared in my world talking about your confident grief program. I was like, Finally, because having something solid step by step instead of people just getting on the phone and just talking and talking and talking like that talk therapy that you and I are not so excited about. It has a place, but we want to see people go through a process, learn how to navigate their emotions, learn how to live in their now. And that's exactly what the Confident Grief program brought for me.

[00:03:05.290] - Pat Sheveland, Host

That's so wonderful. I remember you came on a... I think I was doing a little webinar or some little thing, and you were on there along with another person who's been with us since the very beginning too. To date, we've had 20 people into the program, and it's still a fairly new program. But you were one of our groundbreaking members at the very beginning and have really helped me to shape the school and really lean into what is it that coaches can really use for support to go out into this terrain of grief. So I thank you. I'm always honored to be with you and have you a part of my tribe.

[00:03:50.350] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

Exactly. I love it.

[00:03:52.120] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Yes. You have done some amazing stuff. We're now in early 23. Not even two years. We haven't really been gathered together for two years. I mean, a full two years. Talk a little bit about you, whatever part of your story you want to share, and really what you have been up to. Then I'll ask you some questions as we go through that.

[00:04:21.770] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

For sure. A little bit about myself. I suffered three losses in a period of 22 months. Every single one of them was 11 months apart, not by date, but very close. I first lost my cousin, then I lost my son, and then I lost another cousin. In my family, we had three mothers having to bury their young. I was like, What is the word for this? And the word is called Voloma. Whether you're a man or a woman, it's a Voloma. And that means against the natural order of things.

[00:04:58.620] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Okay.

[00:04:59.120] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

Yeah. So I'm like, I'm a Voloma. Okay. Because you know, you're a widow, a widower, so orphan. But what is it for a parent who's lost a child? So that was very comforting for me to find that out. Interestingly enough, I had not wanted to touch grief at all because I thought, I'm not selling my son. I am not selling the memory of him. I am not going to constantly talk about it. Forget it. But when I lost my cousin, Death and I, we were fighting. We were fighting. I'm like.

[00:05:31.410]

E-nough. Enough. I threw my hands up in the air and I'm like, All right, you and I are going to battle. The only way for me to battle death, really Geneva, but come on, the only way for me to battle it was to really bring awareness to help people navigate through it. That's when I went down the rabbit hole. I didn't want to just listen to all the grief platitudes. I didn't want to just hear grief from a religious perspective. I wanted to walk through it, like the grit of grief and the recovery and the healing and the freedom, which was the process.

[00:06:19.500] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Our relationship has been watching you in this transformational process because there's been ups and downs and swirls arounds and all of that type of thing and trying to, okay, who am I serving? What is it that I'm really doing here? And you just have always brought such energy to our group in terms of, I am so passionate. And you are one of those people that when you get your teeth into something, it's like, Okay, I'm not going to let it go. So over these last couple of years, you've shifted a little bit like, Who are the people that are coming to you? Because that's what we find is our energy, who we be, and the energy that we have almost is like a beacon of light for certain people. It's like we're that lighthouse in that stormy sea. Just share a little bit about who are some of the people that come to be with Coach G and just be enveloped in your beautiful love and comfort.

[00:07:31.710] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

Thank you. Very interestingly, I've had retirees. I've had stay at home entrepreneurs, a stay at home mom, a mom who lost her husband and her son at the same time through a car accident. I've had sisters who've lost brothers. It has been a smorgasbord of people who have come, which I think was so the cause of the pivoting because they were looking for something. Immediately off the beginning, you think, Okay, it's because of grief. But the more I'm in this, what I'm finding is happening is that they're looking for emotional support. That has changed everything because through the layers of grief, as we understand it, you might not have even lost somebody, like two of my clients, well, parents, but that's not why they came to me. It was they lost pieces of themselves. They had that reoccurring grief story in their mind over and over and over again. I think because they know a little bit about me losing my own child at the age of 25, they're like, Okay, maybe you can help me.

[00:08:44.460] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Yeah, you get it. You get it. You understand grief. But we know that everybody's grief is totally separate and different. We've read and talked about the grieving brain, which I've now incorporated into the school, the certification program. Our grief is as unique as our fingerprints. And the one thing I love about you is you're always finding that what's that unique piece for that person, that client? Because we know grief is... We know that grief is there. It could be the death of someone. But like you said, the death of pieces of ourselves. I just had an individual who reached out to me last week. He's an old co worker of mine and we haven't seen each other, gosh, I think I was eight years now since I retired from that company. And he reached out to me in the blue because he saw my newsletter or whatever. And he said, Pat, I had a stroke in November.

[00:09:49.950]

And so we got on a call because he wants to use this for good. And he's recovering, he's doing well. But he said, I didn't want to live. I didn't want to be a burden to my wife and my children. And now I have a whole different thinking process around that, and I want to make a difference for people and show them that there is life after that trauma to the body, the psyche, the spiritual work. Let's talk about those different types of grief because you articulate this so well, all these different forms of grief. I would just love to hear how you see it and what you see.

[00:10:32.650] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

For sure. The one thing I really stand for is that grief is not just about the loss of a loved one, but it's the loss of anything that you deem important, anything that's important to you. Because you know in our space, people love to compare their grief stories. Who has it worse? The person who lost a pet that they've had for 17 years. Feels.The pain of that loss. Just because it's a pet does not mean that it doesn't warrant support. That person doesn't warrant being listened to and going through that entire grief process. I really, really stand for everybody has the right in their grief to be heard because nobody wants to listen. Six months, we're done. You're not over it yet. Yeah. What? She's like, Excuse me?

[00:11:23.360] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Yeah. Two years later and you're still talking about this and still we're uncomfortable. We don't want to have to have that conversation. When you first came and we connected, you had something and you called it the death etiquette. Yes. Talk to us a little bit about death etiquette.

[00:11:45.840] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

Death etiquette came from sitting at my girlfriend's bar in her kitchen. I had lost my son, and she's a very close friend to me, and she had lost her dad, her brother, and just recently her mom, who I knew and loved and adored. We were just talking about the things that people say to us that they're clueless with what they're saying. She's like, You do a video. I was like, You do a video. She's like, You do. I was like, Okay, the day after my son's birthday, the first one I had to be without him, I couldn't do it on the day of, so I gave tips the next day. I was broken on his birthday. I was like, Mom, what's going on? She said, It's because you gave birth to him. I went through just talking about the importance of asking the griever what they want. I know sometimes you'll see posts that say, Don't ask us what we want. We don't know what we want. But that's not true for everybody. Instead of treating us like a child where you're making decisions for us, ask us what we need. Do I need space?

[00:13:01.260]

Do I need you just to sit with me and not talk? Do I need you to make me laugh? It's the whole part of the building of the tribe that we have in our curriculum. That's why I loved it when you had that in there. I was like, Yes. Because nobody teaches death etiquette. Nobody teaches us how to really, truly relate. What you get is a lot of grief platitudes, and that's not good enough. We have to do better, and we can only do better if somebody has a big mouth and says stuff.

[00:13:36.970] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Yeah. Okay, me too. Together, we have a mission. We're here to... It's a mission of that death is not a dirty word, that this is a part of life, that there is certain things that are really powerful, certain ways of being that are very powerful that you can be for someone who is grieving a deep grief, a deep loss. And then there are other things like, Don't do that. Please don't say that. Don't minimize it. Don't tell them, Oh, you're strong. You got this. Oh, yes. He's in a better place. Maybe the griever believes that, but it's like, Don't flip and tell me that. No, don't. You don't know. You're not in my shoes. And that's the thing that I think is just so important is there is no comparison. Our grief is just so unique to ourselves. But there are some commonalities, and that's how the breathe program, Coaching Model for Grief, came to be is because I saw commonalities among people who I would call successful grievers versus failed grievers. They knew they could take it and there was these commonalities of things that worked for them. And so that's all we do, right? Is we share here some tools, here are some thoughts, but we're coaching. And talk to me a little bit about, and our audience, about how you see... What is coaching for you?

[00:15:15.810] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

It is being your cheerleader, whether I am on the sidelines cheering you through a successful day or moment that you had, or whether I am on the ground with you. It's me showing up for you how you need, but with the concept that we will always move one inch further today than yesterday.

[00:15:36.760] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Yeah, little forward movement. It doesn't have to be big. It could be an inch, it could be a millimeter, it could be whatever that is, one little bit at a time, which is so incredibly awesome. You talked about tribe. So for you, when you look over, has your tribe changed from the time that your son passed to today? Has anything shifted with who's in your tribe or how they show up, the support that you need?

[00:16:10.010] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

No. I think for me, because after I went through that moment of making that decision to get into coaching, you guys became part of my tribe. But my family has always been there. My friends have always been there. I've had a friend since grade one. I don't know how many people get to say that, but I've had a friend since grade one. I was in the hospital and she literally just showed up with a coffee and looked at me. I had assistant managers that worked with me. I was their boss. They showed up for me. Everybody came out of the would work to support, and they lasted way beyond six months. I think part of it is because for me, my love language is quality time. It's not quantity time. You and I could get together maybe once a year, but when we're together, it's like we've never left each other. I don't rate our friendship on how often you reach out to me. It's when you are available to be than you are, and that's how my people are. I think that I'm different in that dynamic where other people require the constant attention. I just don't. It's not my personality.

[00:17:24.330] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Right. Well, we talk about that, the many phases of grief and how we cope. I'm one that I could coon in. I don't want people bothering me. I just want to reach out. If I need to reach out, I will reach out, but I need to be in my own space. And there's just a couple of people that I feel comfortable coming in and being a part of that. And I think a lot of times, but our communities are so large, they all want to help. So for those that maybe are not in that close inner circle, right? The two to three people that are right there. What advice would you give a friend, maybe a family member that's not an immediate family member who is just as deeply grieving as you may be because it's a significant loss for them. But what would you give, just some helpful tools as far as how to be a support to someone and finding out how best to support them?

[00:18:33.090] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

It comes in a few different ways. So we'll ring it with your intimate circle first, which you look at your best friend whose heart is probably going to be just as broken as yours. However, your best friend is not the one who got the direct hit. Your best friend could be the person that shields your calls because you will have everybody calling you out of the woodwork asking you what happened, asking you for funeral arrangements and doing all of that. If you are a best friend of somebody who has just lost somebody, like they're at the hospital, they're at that time when they know they're coming to a close, it would be really great for you to sit down with your person and say, Can I take the calls off of your plate? Can I be the contact person so you don't have to constantly reiterate that story a hundred times? I can do that for you. It offers such a beautiful protection so that that person and their family can grieve in peace on the funeral day or the life celebration. You're going to see everybody. You probably don't want to have those calls if you're that type of person.

[00:19:42.600] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

If you are a manager and it's been somebody on your team, yes, you send the flowers and stuff, but you ask the person, do you want us to call you and listen to what your person is saying to you? Because for my mom, she was like, I don't want phone calls. I will give one person all of the information. Again, because everybody wants to know what happened, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah, and you relive it. I think that that's the thing nobody understands is that every time we tell the story, we're back there and that's not where we want to be. We want to just be in the moment of what we're feeling. Having that conversation with your boss or your manager sets the stage for your team, as well as when you're coming back into work, you need to have a conversation with your boss or your manager needs to pull you aside and say, Hey, listen, I know this is going to be a bit hard for you. Let's set up a word that you need. If you look at me and say, butter, cream, coffee, I know you need to leave the floor for a moment.

[00:20:46.120] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Excellent. Stay and slept, right?

[00:20:47.730] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

Exactly. Whether it's sit in my office in a chair and cry for a moment, get yourself together and go back out. It's hard, but we have to go back to work. Sometimes some of us never return and we lose everything because of that. But if that's not your way, if it wasn't mine, the best thing is to have that communication so that the team understands because they want to support. You also have to show up at work and do your job to be paid. We have to show our face to the company. They can't keep us and we're not doing our job. That's the fact. It's a hard reality. But if we have the communication happening, it allows for a moment you feel supported and nobody's like, Oh, she's left again. She's left again. I think depending on your circles is how that support shows up for you. But I think the employee-employer support is really, really important because we're off for what, three days and we're back.

[00:21:49.480] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Yeah, we've talked about that. It's like, Oh, my gosh. Even if you've been preparing for the loss and that anticipatory grief, you know that this is going to happen. I'll use my mom for an example. I mean, for years, she graduated hospice twice and was going back on for the third time when she finally died that night. I just lost where I was going with that. That's me. Geneva knows me. This is what happens. Anyway, we'll get back to that. It was something about the...

[00:22:23.680] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

It was about having to go back to work.

[00:22:26.270] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Having to go back to work. How do you do that? We just can't. Three days, we're in... Oh, that's why I was going is in that acute phase, the brain is not working. The brain is not working. We're doing the best we can, but you're in a fog and everyone will tell you that. It's like I just felt like I was just sludging along. I don't know how that first year even went by. I don't even remember anything that happened. It was almost like driving your car and you get on a familiar road and then all of a sudden you got to your destination, you have no clue how you got there. That can be that acute phase of that grief journey. And so really having that support in the workplace. And I think it's probably getting better, but I don't know. I mean, three days of bereavement, I mean, seriously. And then employers will say, well, we'll give them more if they need a couple of weeks to just... A couple of weeks? My son just died. A couple of weeks? You know?

[00:23:31.020] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

Honestly, I was spoiled. I was spoiled. My company, I've had a 25, 23 year relationship with them and they were amazing. The VP of my company was on the phone while my son was coming off life support. My supervisor was the first person I called after I left the hospital. She's like, You take your time. You do what you have to do. I mean, if it was vacation, mine happened just before COVID, so Yay for me. But they were amazing. The phone calls, the text messages, checking in, How are you doing? They were phenomenal. But I know that not everybody has that. I'm the exception to the rule. As coaches, that's what we get to be for others. That's what I get to be for my client is that support for the person that has nobody and is walking through the fog with their eyes closed because that's how you feel.

[00:24:32.060] - Pat Sheveland, Host

And helping prepare. Helping to think, Okay, so you're going back to work next week. What are some of the things that might be for that safety net for you? And who is that person in your tribe, your inner circle at work that can... And how do you bring forth what are the things that you need? Where else can they go? And I want to go back to the sitting at the hospital. We talked about this. Geneva and I were part of a math through program that we gather every week because this is how we support one another. It's brief coaching with other pre coaches. We use acronyms for this reason why some of these acronyms are in. One of them is faith. Even the people who are working in the hospital may not be able to provide. For me, faith has many different faces and colors and shapes and sizes. I don't want to say barrier because it's really not a barrier, but really that cushioning so that you can be wrapped in cotton batting and feel safe without having to answer those questions. And then you talked about answering the questions and telling the story over and over.

[00:25:38.300]

And I shared this with you. But when my brother died a little over a year ago, everybody wanted to know, how did that happen? What happened? What killed him? Oh, my gosh. And my family and I never realized how much that is a question that people will ask. I've done it myself. But the bottom line is I didn't have the answers. My other brother, we didn't have the full answers, and we weren't quite sure how we were. We didn't know. But it was an uncomfortable... People want to go right to the detail and I don't know what that is. I think it's just human nature and they're feeling supportive and they're shocked and all of that thing when it happens unexpectedly. But that was one of the things that I walked away with. My one brother and I said, Well, we'll never... Even if we catch ourselves, we'll never know what happened when you didn't expect it? I mean, when you expect it, if someone has cancer or some other chronic illness, that type of thing. Or a car accident where it's got displayed all over the papers and the news, that type of thing. But a lot of times I've worked with so many families where their loved one died by suicide, their loved one died by fentanyl poisoning, overdoses, different dependencies like that.

[00:27:03.270]

And it's like, they're not ready to just get the bullhorn out and say, yeah, this is what happened, because they're trying to grapple. When we talk about those many phases of grief, they're trying to grapple with how did this even happen? I don't even understand. I don't understand. And I certainly don't want to go out there because how are people going to look at me that my child did this or my spouse did this? Are they going to think I created this? There's just so many thoughts that go on. I appreciate that you brought in that really finding that one person you said, Oh, how many people have someone from first grade? I have one. Her name is Bethy, and she shows up for all of us. She shows up for our tribe from that age group. But she's always the first one that she'll get on the phone and call. What can I do for you? When my brother died, she was the one making sure that she was helping to coordinate getting food for the gathering that we're having and things like that always. I feel comfortable with her. I trust her implicitly to be that that spokesperson and that buffer.

[00:28:09.260] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

They're so, so important. So important. But again, just ask us. Just. Ask. That's the biggest thing. And if somebody says to you, I don't know, then I think that it's important for you to let them know what you can offer because if they want things that you cannot do and you try to commit and you let that person down, they're grieving that, too. It makes them feel even more alone against the people that are supposed to be there to help and support. So if they say, Hey, listen, I don't know, then you're like, you're a mom who's lost her husband and you've got small children and somebody steps in and says, Hey, listen, I'll take the kids to school Monday and Tuesday for you, or I'll pick them up from school, or I'll do dinner with them, you take some time, or Saturday I'll take the kids. You're making an offer, then she could say yes or no. The other thing, too, is if we say no, please accept it.

[00:29:10.610] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Yeah, it's okay.

[00:29:12.730] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

It's not personal. It's not personal. But everybody feels offended. And they're really.

[00:29:20.300] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Then as the griever, you're trying to make other people feel okay when it's like, No, this doesn't... What about me? I'm the one in the middle of it. I think that's such a key thing is when someone says no, thank you, accept it, and know that that's not the end of going forward, then you wait for the next opening. Maybe you check in in a couple of weeks. Okay, you've gone through all of that. So can I start picking up the kid? Can I help you? Would it be okay for me to take the kids and bring them to school for you? Would that be helpful for you? They said no. Then it's like, Is there anything that you think that might be helpful for you right now? Because I'm there to do it. Then as you go through the grief journey, you have different thoughts and all of a sudden things start showing up. And the confusion, I could really use someone to just look through this paperwork, just look through the paperwork for me. I don't understand it thing. So the other thing I wanted to talk to you about is because you are a master, a queen, the Fairy Godmother. You use tools. I mean, you use some assessment tools. You love it. That's the one thing I remember. When you and I had just our first call before you came into the program, you're like, Oh, you do assessments. Yay. Okay, I'm in. I'm in. Because you love to do assessments. So talk, share a little bit with us. What are some of the tools that you use and how have they been helping your clients?

[00:30:50.260] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

Oh, my goodness. Okay. I love the combination of three weeks personal development. The course that we did in Positive Intelligence, I use the assessment for them there. We know what saboteurs are talking, but what I really love is the EQ assessment, which lets me know what percentage of time they're in positive or negative thought process because that will show me how I need to coach them, whether I can be more of a, okay, let's go. Let's go. Cheerleader rock star. Or if I have to slow it down for them and let's just take a breath and just get them to breathe. Then we have the assessment that I love. I don't get them to do it in the graph, but I just ask them for their numbers. With the one woman who was a retiree, she had some that were in the negatives. When we hit four weeks, she was just hitting positive. By the time we were done in our eight weeks, all of her markers were positive. The reason I love assessments is because I feel people need to have a baseline so that they know where they're headed from where they were.

[00:32:08.930] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

When I can say to you, Oh, my goodness, in intimacy, you are now not negative 10, but you're at zero, you're at level. That's incredible because they're just like, But I'm just at zero. And it's like, but you were negative 10. Right. And they're like, oh, was I that bad?

[00:32:31.230] - Pat Sheveland, Host

And that's what I love about it, too, is that it's something that we can celebrate because as coaches, we're all about helping our clients feel empowered to live their lives and not be dependent on us or other people, but that they can walk with their heads held high like, I got this. I got it for today. I got it for this hour. I've got it for the next five minutes. And showing those assessments over a period of time. And you brought in the PQ. We did it as a group. We have a little study group, some of us did, and went through that. Now with the breathe coaching model for grief, I don't have that in there. We have some other assessment tools that are given to you. But that's the beauty of any model that you work with. You have to make it your own. It's got to be you. It's got to be Coach G, or it's got to be Pat. It's not about we just follow cookie cutter process because bereavement, death, all of that is... The stages of grief are... No, you couldn't even name them all, right? And certainly not in a linear fashion.

[00:33:43.520]

We throw out that the five stages of grief was not about people who have experienced the death of a loved one. It was actually talking to the people who are dying, the dying person and saying, Okay, now it's... Well, that's a whole different thing. Yeah, you're going to do bargaining. You're going to do all that. But when you are really walking the grief journey after a significant loss, because I don't always want to say that's the depth of a significant loss. It could be a divorce. It could be your beloved pet who is just like your child. Certainly, it's any member of the family from that perspective. I've had a friend that her house blew up. Big grief there. All of her tangible memories. Boom. In one fell swoop. Lost a job. I remember when I was with my company for 25 years, and we got purchased. And so it was time for me to exit. I knew that it was a perfect time for me to exit. It was beautiful. But even when the actual day came where I didn't go into the office anymore, I went boom into deep grief. I really had to use the tools that we all talk about to help me maneuver, like, okay, so what does this look like?

[00:35:06.510]

What does this look like? Because you go through like, Oh, I'm not wanted, or I'm not smart enough. You do all these depending on the face of grief and what we're dealing with. That's just so beautiful. Can we just touch on a little bit about human design? I don't talk a lot about it because I'm not an expert at it, but you just grabbed a hold of human design and just became a sensational student and can articulate so well what's going on. So just do you want to give just a little what this is all about?

[00:35:44.290] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

I love knowing what a person, what their design is, because, again, it helps me to coach them. And it's funny because my business clients, my stay at home business people, they're manifesters. And we were talking how manifesters usually don't call out for help. But we knowing that they're manifesters and how their minds work, 150 miles an hour, the ideas are coming, then the overwhelm can come, then all of a sudden the avoider saboteur shows up, and then they don't want to do anything because there's just too much going on. But it's all in their head because they've kept it inside. So at least knowing that when I have my client talk to me about how overwhelmed they're feeling, it's like, did you write it all out? It's like, that's all I had to do it's like, yeah.

[00:36:33.080]

But she needed her coach for that little moment. And then knowing if I have a projector, her work is probably going to take a little bit longer to get done. It's not that she's lazy or she doesn't want to do it. But understanding that unless she's got energy source around her, she's in done mode. I can pop in and I can support her, and then we can just move the needle just a little bit until we have to move it again. I've really loved the human design part of this in the biggest way. Then for me personally, I'm a 4 6, so community is important to me and being a role model is important. Those are my lines. The moment I actually stepped into that and it was like, what I do is for more than just myself, it just exploded my soul. That's when all these other people started to come into my space because I didn't go looking for them. They gravitated. That's beautiful. I love human design.

[00:37:36.820] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Human design, if you don't know what it is, Google it. We have a lovely person by the name of Robin Wind, who actually I trained with her. And so then when I do one on one coaching, I love to run the human design for the clients. But that is part of what we do for the confident grief coach, because we've all had our lived experiences. And so I hire someone to do a human design session with each one of you, which every time someone like yourself goes through it, they're just blown away because it's just based on the day, time, and location of your birth. So you're not answering any questions. But then you get this and like, Holy smokes. This is just like, how do you know all of this stuff about me? But it is so beautiful because it helps to be better coaches. It helps us to be better family members. It helps the griever to understand a little bit about them. When we're out of alignment, which is what happens in grief, right? There are things that can show up really sideways and people may not understand. It's like flipping a switch almost.

[00:38:51.900]

It's so helpful to be able to share with our clients and support them that this is how you came to be. Once we get you back into that alignment a little bit more with what we're doing and our conversations and the support and all of that and coaching, you're going to see that the strengths are just going to show up so beautifully. I do love that. Okay, darling.

[00:39:21.760] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

I don't want to be an expert, but I do enjoy it.

[00:39:25.420] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Right, it is. It's fascinating. And that's what I love about it. You are the most curious coach, and that's what coaching is all about. It's all about the curiosity, the excavating, the wanting to really understand. So we ask lots of questions and you're there and you have this aura of love that is just so deep, that comfort and that depth that I know every time I'm with you, I just feel like, oh, I could just sit and just hang out with you forever and ever and ever. And I'm lucky because I get to do it every week. Thank you. And things like this. And when you have a lovely mama who is your biggest cheerleader and support, she's got your back always. And that's the beauty of this. So we're getting about to time. Tell me, what is one thing you want our listeners to walk away with, whether they are working in an organization and a leader in an organization, whether they are the homemaker, whether they're an entrepreneur woman, whether they're friends or family. What is one thing that you say is, I just want to leave you with this?

[00:40:45.200] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

It'll be two. The first one is that hope is the beautiful side of grief. That needs to be a really big banner. And then the second thing is the more you know you, the stronger you are.

[00:40:59.410] - Pat Sheveland, Host

That is so beautiful. Hope, other side, and the more you know you, the better it is.

[00:41:06.590] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

It's a beautiful side of grief. When that landed on me, I was like, Yeah, it is.

[00:41:13.690] - Pat Sheveland, Host

What is that? Isn't there a poem like an Emily Dixon Center, something that hope is the thing with feathers? I can't even remember right now. Thank you. I just got distracted by a little tiny being over here because this is what happens sometimes. What I'm going to do is I just thank you so much, Geneva. We're going to have all of your contact information in the show notes. And of course, all they have to do is go to healingfamilygrief. Com. And there is your beautiful face with your bio and your contact information so that people can reach out to you. And if you are grieving, sorry, we just had a little moment. See, this is life. This is life, folks. This is life in the big city. And as coaches, we just go with the flow. We just go with the flow. We don't cut things out. We just go with the flow because this is life. And of course, when we, many of us are working from home all the time, that's even more so life. But I just wanted to say that if you are grieving and you're finding it hard to take that step forward, Coach G, honestly, just get on a call with her and just talk through it.

[00:42:31.360] - Pat Sheveland, Host

She's not pushy, she just is here to listen and she can give you the space to make some decisions on your own, like where you want to go. But absolutely reach out to her. And as I said, all of her contact information will be in the show notes here and also on the website in the find a coach page. I love you so much, darling.

[00:42:57.390] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

I just feel that way, too.

[00:43:00.860] - Pat Sheveland, Host

So much. I feel so good about this and can't wait to talk to you very soon again. But go out there and yeah, Fairy Godmother, just sprinkle that fair dust, please. Because our mission is to provide the accessible and transformative healing, which I know sometimes you don't like that word healing, but healing for grieving families throughout the world. Whatever healing is for you. We all have a different definition, but sprinkle your Fairy dust, Fairy Godmother, and I just know that everybody's hearts are just going to light up because of that. I love you.

[00:43:38.520] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

Thank you. I love you too. Appreciate it.

[00:43:41.700] - Pat Sheveland, Host

Bye. Bye.

[00:43:43.140] - Geneva Livingstone, Guest

Yes. Bye.

Contact us:

Cami Thelander: www.bearfootyogi.com

The Confident Grief Coach School: www.healingfamilygrief.com