Hello & welcome to the Grief Unplugged podcast. I am your host, Heather D. Horton.  Grief Unplugged is a podcast that frees professional women from the blockages of grief to find purpose in their pain.  This episode is Part 2 of a 2-part series detailing my own story of my grief journey.  Part 1 focused on the accident/death that rerouted the trajectory of my life.  Today, Part 2 will take you through my 13-year grief journey and how I was able to transform my trauma into triumph and shift from grief to gratitude.

While moving to Phoenix, AZ seemed ideal at the time.  What I didn’t realize was that I had to start my life all over again.  I had a support system in Louisiana, but now in AZ, it was just me.  Anything or situation that has a beginning and results in grief that must be processed, or it will chip away at your joy constantly.  Joy is something no one can take away from you, unlike happiness which can fluctuate on a whim.  While I had a job, I had no family in Phoenix.  I had to establish new friendships, find a new church, a new hair stylist, and learn my way around a city that was completely foreign to me. 

That was a lot for me to take on when I was already dealing with one of the most difficult situations in life, losing my mother suddenly in a tragic accident.  I had left the one place that I had known for more 30 years of my life.  I had lived there all but three years of my life at that time.  Were my silence and solitude worth moving all the way to the other side of the country away from everyone and everything that I was familiar with?  As daunting as it seemed, my answer to that question was a resounding yes, because challenges are what I lived for.  This was the opportunity to start my life anew, and I was going to chart my path, create my new “normal.”  I began to immerse myself in seeking therapeutic support after moving to Phoenix.  Time spent alone processing my grief only moved me forward so much. 

There were a number of ways that I sought therapeutic support over the last 13 years on my grief journey – I tried a number of things because I felt that life was too short and I never imagined the day I would live without my mother so I wanted to live and thrive every moment thereafter.  I engaged in physical therapy and massage therapy to recover from my injuries, seeing a psychologist/therapist, traveling the world, season tickets to sporting events, spa retreats, broadened my horizons by white water rafting, ziplining, feed my soul with Bible Study Fellowship International, using essential oils for physical and emotional support, leadership/empowerment/grief coaching, yoga and most recently The Dinner Party. 

I will briefly share my experiences with mental health support, essential oils and the Dinner Party in this episode. There is much stigma around seeking mental health assistance, therapy, and coaching, in this country and particularly among marginalized communities and communities of color.  When my mother passed away suddenly, it was like I lost my best friend.  I needed to talk to someone, or I thought I would burst.  I didn’t want to talk to anyone in my family because they were all still trying to process their grief in their way. It was in Phoenix that I first sought mental health assistance. 

I have to admit I was more open to seeing someone in Phoenix because I was new to the area and no one knew me there or what I’d been through.  I saw my therapist or psychologist biweekly for almost five years, or the entire time I was in Phoenix as she diagnosed me with PTSD as a result of the accident.  I thought I had worked through my grief and that I was done with it once I left Phoenix in 2010 and moved back to Washington, DC.  What I didn’t realize is that the last time I lived in DC (2004), I spent my final week in the city being a tourist with my mother.  When I came back to DC in 2010, I started to grieve all over again as if I had never seen the psychologist. 

I didn’t try to find another therapist immediately. Years later when I finally began to shift from focusing on the loss of my mother and began to focus on her life and legacy, I realized that I still had grief left to unpack and that I needed to heal my relationship with my father if I was ever going to move to a place of gratitude.  So in 2016  specifically sought out a therapist/psychologist who also happened to be a coach that focused on healing that relationship, as it was affecting my adult relationships with men and my heart, is now open to love again. 

In 2016, I was introduced to essential oils and started using them to maintain my emotional health, as well as my physical health, in lieu of relying on prescription and over-the-counter drugs. The results were so phenomenal that I became a doTERRA Independent Wellness Advocate. doTERRA, meaning "Gift of the Earth," offers an Emotional Aromatherapy System specifically formulated to provide targeted emotional health benefits and promote self-care whether used aromatically or topically – the six blends are Peace, Motivate, Cheer, Console, Forgive and Passion.  If you would like to know more about how to incorporate essential oils into your life, please send an email to [email protected].  I will also share the most recent jewel that I was introduced to called The Dinner Party.   It is a community of people of diverse ages and backgrounds who’ve experienced significant trauma/loss that get together over dinner parties to talk about their trauma/loss and how it continues to affect our lives. 

The intimate dinner parties work to turn our most isolating experiences into sources of rich community, empathy, and meaningful conversation.  There are tables located all across the country.  They are so inundated with demand right now that the organization recently hit the pause button on accepting new dinner partiers.  However, if you are interested in hosting a table as I have done, please apply at www.thedinnerparty.org.  As of February 2018, I now host the first Women of Color table in Washington, DC.  I have been blessed beyond measure by the fellowship and sharing each month that we gather together to break bread.

In 2012, I participated in a coaching program that offered one-on-one coaching as well as group coaching for managers to assist me in leading my team of attorneys at work. My coaches created safe space, listened intuitively and asked powerful questions that allowed me to shift my focus from feeling powerless to walking in complete power in all areas of my life, including the grief bursts that I still experienced years after the tragic loss of my mother.

In 2016, I began training to become a coach to help foster more diversity and inclusion at my workplace.  What I didn’t realize was that I truly had to work through all of my issues before being able to coach someone else - the remnants of unresolved grief - it never goes away. My training with Coach Diversity Institute (CDI) took the shame I felt about my traumatic experiences and brought my voice to light.  CDI placed the microphone in my hand to begin to share my story with others and make the choice to live an abundant and purposeful life by leveraging my emotions to find my power. 

I was reminded that I already knew how to overcome any challenge that crossed my path. My story of resilience in the face of adversity is redirecting the trajectory of individual lives, empowering communities from diverse backgrounds and ultimately changing the world by shifting human viewpoints and actions.   When I began to release the pain, guilt, and shame that I carried around with me daily (the masks I wore) through the transformative power of coaching, this professional women realized that I could help others create systemic change in their lives and in the world. 

My training to become a grief coach not only helped to discover my purpose but opened my eyes to the reason I survived the accident – to help others navigate through the wilderness of grief. In August 2017, I stepped out on faith, resigned from my Federal career after 18+ years and committed my life to empowering communities and changing the world through grief coaching, education, and support.  I coach and support professional women who are ready to find purpose in their pain. 

My mission is to dispel the myth that grief is limited to death.  As a Certified Professional Diversity Coach and Certified Grief Coach, along with years of personal experience navigating through the wilderness of grief, I create safe space for professional women to give themselves permission to grieve.  Through my transformational coaching program, they can freely remove the masks they wear in the world daily, work through their blockages of unresolved grief, and fully embrace meaning and purpose In life again or for the first time. 

I want to thank you for listening to my story and learning more about me.  I hope you will join us for our next episode where I will focus on giving yourself permission to grieve.  To stay engaged with the podcast or learn more about my products and services, access my website at www.heatherdhorton.com. Also, please subscribe to the podcast, so you know when the next episode is available and feel free to post a review and share the podcast with your tribe.  Until next time, keep moving forward.