Ep. 19: You Make Your Path by Walking with Suzanne Anderson

Suzanne Anderson, an author, psychologist, coach, leadership consultant, transformational teacher and founder of The Mysterial Woman, joins us on the podcast to tell the story of losing her beloved husband David to suicide. After that tragic life, the beautiful and magical world she had shared with David came crumbling down and she was left to navigate the brokenness. She walks us through how she did that, and shares some insights and anecdotes from her upcoming book "You Make Your Path by Walking: A Transformational Field Guide Through Trauma and Loss", available in June 2023. To learn more about Suzanne and her upcoming retreat, or to purchase one of her books, visit her website MysterialWoman.com.

Transcript

0:00

Hello and welcome to the grief Charles podcast. I'm your host, Amanda. Kernaghan with remember grants. A place to send personalized and meaningful grief support to others. Today on the podcast. I, Suzanne Anderson. Author psychologist, coach transformational, teacher and founder of the mysterial woman. Susanna's here to share with us the story of her shattering as she puts it. When the love of her life, her husband, David died by suicide. Her story is part of her upcoming book. You make your path by walking a transformational field guide through trauma and loss that will be released in June. Suzanne. And David had an almost magical life together, living in an Oasis that David had created on Vashon island outside of Seattle. Suzanne talks with us about the tsunami of grief That followed his death. And her steps forward into her new life. But first she brings us back to when they first met.

Suzanne: 0:56

In many ways I feel, that my life was a winding path on the way to meeting David in a very strange way. But, but he lived on the same island that I. Lived on off the coast of Seattle and when my first marriage was in the disintegrating process I, I met him. And it's a kind of interesting story actually, how we met. Because we met in the, in a way that's just so quintessential island living in the Pacific Northwest, which is, I was late at night and I was coming back. I just had a. Dinner with girlfriends and had realized and talked about the fact that I was going to be divorced, that I was gonna be a divorcee, you know, that this was gonna happen and that was really fresh for me and I was rushing to get the last boat back to Vahan and I. If you see somebody speeding on that little road you know that they're going for the ferry too. And ideally you get behind them. So if anyone gets stopped, it's not you, you know, they get stopped. And so that's what happened. I got behind this gray SOB and we zoomed along and we just, you know, he went through yellow lights, I went through red lights that And I, and we got on the boat. I was the last car on and I thought that was good driving. Remember that driver is, that was great driving. And he walked by and, and I rolled down my window and I said wow. That was, that was great driving. And so we ended up going up and having a conversation in the, in the boat. And that was our meeting. I was still very much in the process of, Divorcing. So it wasn't like that wasn't an instant thing. But over time he, because we live nearby, he became a good friend. And then also, you know, I have to say from from when I first met him and connected with him, I did feel this incredible sense of familiarity. Like maybe others have experienced that sense of. I've always had that actually with any significant relationships where there's this little kind of signal that goes off in my body, it says Familiar soul or something like that. Mm-hmm. And he really was like the the young to my yin. We really were incredibly compatible and We had 10 wonderful, wonderful years together, and in many ways, I, I write about the depth of belonging I felt with him the way I felt so at home with him gave me the, the capacity to deal with the tragedy that was to come, which is a very odd thing to say, but actually it built the sort of fiber of my. My being to have the strength to, to go through with, to, to be in his leaving, so to say.

Mandy: 3:35

Yeah. Yeah. I, when I read your book, I loved reading about how the two of you met and it just, even just from reading your words, you could feel the love that was there between the two of you and how perfectly you fit together in that world. And I could see it all as I was reading just the two of you living on the island together in this gorgeous estate that you had together. And yeah. And when you read that, you just get such a sense of. Two people who were really meant to find each other and Absolutely. Yeah. That's how I felt reading it. And I know that at some point David developed tinnitus. Mm-hmm. Is that right? That's right. And can you tell us a little bit a, for listeners who don't know what it is, if you can describe, but what it is and then how it impacted him and his mental health?

Suzanne: 4:24

Right. It's a, it's a ringing in the ears. It's, it's quite a disorder. A actually, a lot of people have it. I'd never heard of it before. And then when he had it, I, we started doing research and discovered his friends. Some of his friends had it, and, and there's no known cure for it right now. It's basically, it can happen through sometimes if you have been exposed to a lot of really loud music when you were younger or Sometimes it's just random kind of thing that happens as you age, and there's really, there's not a lot of understanding about it, but it is like this ongoing screeching noise, the way I understand it. And they're different levels. Some people say that just like, it's like constantly listening to crickets or someone, someone will say. It's like constantly having someone put their fingernails down a blackboard. I mean, it's just awful. Right? And it just arrived for him out of the blue maybe four months before he died, roughly. And, and I would say that that impacted him profoundly for two reasons. One, he couldn't really sleep. And when you cannot sleep, that is, everything looks different in the world. And we know that, of course. But also he had a very deep meditation practice that he'd had for years and years to, and he would go into these states of bliss and, and he couldn't do that. It's like he couldn't get beyond the screeching. So that's, that was a, that was a big factor.

Mandy: 5:47

So you knew that at the time that he was struggling with that, but it seemed like, from what I read, things, things were hard. But also though you were still doing normal things, that you even went to a party together to celebrate his niece's wedding and and it was right after that that your whole life changed.

Suzanne: 6:07

right. Well, exactly. So. What I did not know, what I was soon to find out was his business was in the process of coming down and he ran an Indonesian antique business in Seattle and how to workshop in in Java where he made things and it was a feature in Seattle. The David Smith and company store was a big. Thing, you know, kind of an event space. You'd go to 14,000 square feet and you just would go in this other world. And I had my own business, my own work with some, worked with women in leadership and the first programs, all the programs that I did and actually the, the, the manuscript for a book, my first book was done at the end of 2012 and I was ready to bring it out into the world. And David, died in January 3rd, 2013. So that is not what happened. But but what I soon discovered was that this, this world that he'd created, which was magical because our home. I moved. Became our home. This incredible piece of land on Vaon Island that had antique houses that he, he'd brought over from Indonesia. I mean, just incredible. Actually on my website, on my book page, I put some photos of those buildings just so people can get a sense of what that magical kingdom was, because it really was like walking into another world and it was his great passion and he was incredibly gifted at Creating beauty. He brought these huge stones from China and from Indonesia that created a kind of Japanese garden. And because he already was in the import export business, he, he kind of knew how to do all of that. But it was at a cost, obviously. It was sort of like his, his obsession was. Well, they say building castles in the air. That's actually what had happened, and I did not, I knew he was struggling as it happens with the retail furniture business, there are times when it's high, times when it's low, but that, I think that combined with the tinnitus, the knot sleeping created this sort of perfect tsunami or conditions, let's just say, for him to choose to, to leave this world. Yeah.

Mandy: 8:16

So January 3rd, at the beginning of a whole new year just before you were supposed to have this great wedding for your family. Well, that's,

Suzanne: 8:24

that's it. That's something that you mentioned because, Often, of course, many people say, and rightly, well, did, were there any signs or did you see anything? Or, and anyone who is a survivor of a suicide, you can't. That is something you just live with forever, which is what didn't I see? What could I have seen? That's, that's just part of the journey to, to go through. But for me, I I knew he was struggling, but he was sort of making his way through. We'd found this some audio program you could put on that would help reduce the attention to the sound and, and his beloved sister's daughter was getting married to the son of his best friend in Indonesia who had helped him create his business over there. So all the family were over here from Indonesia for the wedding. So we had just come from this incredible dinner at Pam's, his sister and he was the life of the party and he was celebrating them and love and all the mystery of how people come together and all of this. So that person, it's, it's was unfathomable for, for all of us that, that, that. Person would then the next day take his life. And you know, that I'll never fully understand, we'll never fully understand why that timing. And then we had the choice to make all of us would we go through with this wedding and how to go through with this wedding. Yeah. Yeah.

Mandy: 9:57

And you talk about that and we'll get into this later, but you talked about the different things that you did that helped you through this process of losing him and one of those things related to that, I think. Was, well you talked about embracing paradox and I think that was so important for you to be able to go this like happy experience for this couple. They're getting married, they're joining their lives, and at the same time this really, really heavy sadness and everyone there is having to hold both of those emotions and I have found that section to be really. Powerful because I think so often people do have conflicting emotions with many different kinds of grief. And it could be related to a death by suicide or it could be some other type of loss. But I think that those paradoxes we push away or we think we have to choose one or the other and a struggle to really take in both of them. And so I found that that part of your book should be really powerful.

Suzanne: 10:57

Mm-hmm. Yeah, that, I think that's a good thing to point out because so, so one thing that I just probably should establish here is that the work I do and did for many years in research with, with women in particular was around how. To, I wanna say, resolve some of the early developmental traumas for the sake of actually the awakening of more self-awareness, consciousness, and, and leadership capacities. Like how to really be women in the world today, the way it is in this complex world. Able to show up and really make a difference in our families and our communities and, you know, in the larger issues we have to address on the planet now. And. So I knew something in my own professional studies and then of course for years of working about trauma and how to work through trauma. And one of the things that at the end of the first book we had identified were these capacities that women were beginning to bring online once they did the deeper work one of those was embracing paradox. But all of these capacities I basically ended up living, that's not what I was trying to do. So I'll just say that I wasn't trying to embrace paradox, it's just that I had the capacity and that is a capacity to build where you are able to hold. Things that seem like opposites for the sake of actually acknowledging both are there when they're so different, like we're just talking about now, but also that there's something else that arises in the middle of those two. So for example, that moment of. Deciding, first of all, for me, deciding to go to the wedding for the them to decide to have the wedding to carry on and go forward. I had to hold the possibility and did that, was I a blessing at this ceremony or a, a terrible nightmare? I mean, was I gonna remind everybody of. The star of the, the sort of the, like the night before a star of the show who'd introduced this couple and so on. Was I gonna be a good thing? Was it gonna be good or was it gonna be bad? Like I had to really both were true and were possible and then, and then being able to just keep moving. This is the title of my book that's coming out in June. You make your path by walking a transformational Field Guide through Trauma and loss. And that is you make your path by walking. I had to keep moving. I did keep moving and discovered that there actually was something possible in the intersection of those two things. You know, that wasn't one or the other. It wasn't like I was a total blessing and it wasn't like I was a total curse, but something in my being able to be there was in some way healing for everyone. I mean me, all of us in the immediate world and the people at the wedding ceremony.

Mandy: 13:49

Yeah, I love that. And I think it's an important point to say, like, you didn't go into it thinking, I have to, I have to embrace this duality, or I have to go through these different stages. But for me, even just reading through the different capacities as you called them, I can look back on my own experiences of loss and see where I did pieces of each of those things. Yeah. Yeah. And I think it's much more universal than we think at the moment. And, you know, you're not aware of how you're going through those, but it, there's something helpful by reflecting on it and really thinking about how you moved through those different phases and, and where it brought you.

Suzanne: 14:31

Well, I, I love that because actually I've heard others say that and I, I'm happy about that. Not just that the book is useful right now for people going through any kind of loss, and that could also just be our times. We've just come all of us through an enormous trauma of the last two years, and we're still making our way out of that. But also, I've had others say that This is actually a, a final stage in that Elizabeth Kubler Ross's work that you probably are familiar with. Mm-hmm. And that sort of sixth phase that came out at the end of her work with her colleague David Kessler, which is finding meaning, like they've been able to read the book and then say, oh, I did develop that. You know, at the time you're just, you're going through. But I'm glad that it's also can be helpful, that there can be a deeper understanding of what actually was cultivated through the fire of that loss.

Mandy: 15:23

Mm-hmm. Yeah, I think when you're going through it, you can only see what's right in front of you. And as you say it, just one, one step forward at a time and, and what I liked was that you were very conscious, or it sounds like you were trying to be conscious of what you felt you had the capacity to do so like the wedding for example, or other things. Just trying to ask yourself, is this something I can take on right now? Is this something that feels right to me? And just following that intuition is really important for people to do, and there were just so many pieces of, of your experience that I think. Are helpful to others, and you were very open to letting your community into your experience and being there to help you through it. Especially you talk about, and you mentioned this earlier, about your husband's financial troubles that were preceding his death and that you didn't really know of until after. And so not only were you grieving this sudden loss of the love of your life and then. You called it a tsunami, this financial collapse that happened after, and having to then manage that. And it sounds like part of how you got through that was by allowing people in to help you, and you called it developing a team, and I, I really loved that. If you could talk a little bit about just your experience of, allowing others into your grief.

Suzanne: 16:45

Yeah. Yeah. That is so key. And I wanna say especially around a suicide, because that suicide can be so isolating. There's so much shame. I think suicide just has shame involved in it. Often, it's what takes people out. And then of course, the shame that those that are left feel around. The what didn't I do? Da da. Was it my fault? You know, all of those things that can come up. It was very, you know, that was another piece that we might talk about around how to just stay out of that suicide swamp for those that are dealing with that. But in any case, whatever the loss is that I believe need a resonant. Kind of love field because you, and that may not be the people you even expect it's going to be. Mm-hmm. It's just who's able to show up for you in the moment because it's not, not everybody that can, you know, is able to, and that's necessarily bad. I really felt. A lot of com enormous compassion through this for others also and what they were going through and some just weren't able to be there and some were. But you do need, I feel this place where you. Can just let go. We, we kind of call it in and there's some great neuroscience around all of this now around the, the like a, like a tuning fork that if you hit a tuning fork and there are other tuning forks nearby, they'll start to ring, like you're going to be vibrating at some. To some energy. And in the ideal world, even if that's one person you are vibrating. When you are falling apart. That's the thing, the energy you can come back to, and I had that. In such a beautiful way with so many dear friends, women friends that came in around me with my family, who they each took a a turn. One family member would come for one week. They live all over the world, and sort of be there with me. And I would say if you don't have the larger group, like I actually was lucky enough in some ways to have one person can be like that. Just somebody that you do reach out to and that is with you in the Azure going through these early stages. I, I initially, it was so traumatizing for me, I had girlfriends. Stay over with me every night. Like I knew I couldn't. I lived in a very large home and large estate and I asked for what I needed. This is also something because I'm a teacher, transformational teacher, I give to everybody else and I love to do that. It's my life work and to let myself be the one who was the shattered one was so foreign for me in many ways. It's not like I hadn't gone through other losses before, but to be the center of this kind of absolute shattering and there's no way I could have gone through this without that help. Absolutely not. Yeah.

Mandy: 19:38

Yeah, and I think when you talked about the shame that comes with a death by suicide, there's also a lot of anger that comes. And one of the things you talked about were having rituals. And I remember in one part people came together and were able to really share whatever emotion they were feeling about what had happened and, and some of them were very angry and. I just found that to be very profound because I, I think so many people don't express all of those emotions that they're dealing with inside. And may also because it was your partner not have felt comfortable expressing anger. In front of you A as if that would make, you know, possibly make your experience worse. But I really applauded the way that you were also open with each other about all of the emotions you were going through, whether they were good or bad. And it just felt like that whole ritualistic piece was really, I. Really powerful. I would love to hear you explain a little bit about what rituals you did and yeah. How, how did you make it an environment where people felt comfortable to express that level of emotion?

20:50

Right,

Suzanne: 20:51

right. Well, ritual is something I have worked with for years and, and actually teach. In the work I do because ritual is basically a way that the conscious mind and the unconscious mind can communicate with one another and symbol, you know, we see that in a wedding. We see that in a funeral in some cultures where their rights of passage, where when someone comes into their, you know, young girl or young boy, The for a Jewish tradition. I mean, the rituals well done. Allow for something sacred to happen and, and speak to the parts of the self that are actually the large part of the self. It's like in the iceberg model of. Consciousness, the way we talk about it in psychology, two thirds of the iceberg is under the water in the unconscious and one third is above, but the iceberg is moving based on what's under the surface of the water. So in any kind of loss or trauma where you are in the darkness like this I knew that I would have to speak to those parts of myself and. And do that with others as well, and Ritual can do that. But I also knew in this case, the ritual you're referencing. I would not be the one to hold that space. And I asked a good friend of mine who's a ritual leader and author himself, Michael Mead, who does this kind of work to, to facilitate the process. But there's a lot of different schools, let's say, of understanding trauma where what we would all agree that the thing is, Getting congruent with what you're actually feeling is a big part of the healing. Like letting yourself have the feelings you have rather than denying that you have them or keeping them hidden because you don't think they're, worthy or valid to be shared. And the healing comes in being able to be real with what is actually happening for you. And of course, in the grieving process are different things at different times and in. In those cases, you know, you, you're just maybe initially in the denial. Okay. So that's where I am, but I don't wanna stay there very long because there's just more suffering in the denial that's the suffering of the suffering we sometimes call it. So, so that's also true here, and this was a ritual That was well held cuz you, you do need to have these rituals held. That's what allows people to feel safe to actually be congruent in this case. And I actually began the whole thing in a way it set the tone for it. I had one of my, the, my dear friends who new David and was involved in finding him and is also a shaman practitioner and she was a. Rattling doing this incredibly intense rattling as everybody. There was roughly 30 people in my living room and we were standing in front of the hearth, the fireplace hearth. And I had a bowl that was a beautiful antique Chinese bowl actually from some. Era back, you know, some very special bowl, but it was David's, it had a little chip out of it. And I, at a certain point when the rattling had gotten to this pitch, which was also very congruent in a way, it's like, that's what we all felt, this kind of like, we've been so shaken. And then I took this vessel and I just smashed it on the, on the hearth. And of course it went into a million pieces. And everyone and me were just, it was just silence. It was like that was speaking to the unconscious. This there is no putting back together again of my life in some way. This it is, this is such a complete and utter shattering of everything. That my life was at that time and what I saw for my future and for many others that were part of this intimate gathering. And that's how ritual can be really potent.

Mandy: 24:45

Wow, that's incredibly powerful. I think I like hearing you just talk about that in voice, even though I've already read the story. It just sounds so powerful. I can. Just hear the vibration so high and then everything's stopping. Yeah, that's

Suzanne: 25:01

that's amazing. And all of a sudden something settles in the nervous system. I mean, a lot of what you're working with and trauma like this is in the nervous system, and I knew that of course that was, that's the work I do. But this is how ritual can, or getting congruent, can settle the nervous system. The next part of the ritual was where people actually stood up if they felt moved. And not everybody did need to because sometimes somebody's, somebody's share really covered, spoke for you, let's say, but then they would come into the center and speak whatever that was, or be silent. Maybe it was sadness, maybe it was fear, anger, some combination of all of those things. And then there was a, and then they would take a, a cedar branch. That were stacked up by the fireplace and when they finished whatever they needed to say, they placed it on the fire. And that was sort of a moment of, you know, a blessing for David on his journey to the other side, to his, whatever's next for him. And a kind of release. Yeah.

Mandy: 26:01

One of the other stories that you share that I found to be really profound, and I would love for you to be able to talk about it, is the intruder, the young intruder that you found. If you don't mind sharing a little bit about that, I found this to be fascinating and have a lot of meaning behind it, and I'd love for you to

Suzanne: 26:20

share that. Yeah, that was really profound for me. One of the buildings on our property of these many antique houses that I mentioned was this kind of Chinese Indonesian house. So it's quite vast. And we would do events in there, had a little kitchen, had a little apartment at one end where guests, when they visited would stay. Little, little pot, belly, stove. And I was inside the house with a friend of mine and we were, I was. Packing things up. Basically that painful process of needing to get the house ready to be sold. So removing all the personal things. And I went outside with my friend who was with me, to look at some of the outdoor sculptures and things that we had and to decide, you know, do we take this, do we leave this? And I could see smoke coming out of this house, which was like, what the hell? Is there a fire in there? So we go running over there and we arrived and there's this young kind of shaggy kid, I'm gonna say he looked about 13, 14, but he could have been older, but just like a younger kind of guy. This amazing. I remember coming into the room and it was later when I wrote about it. It was like he looked, he was trying to be both. I'm, you know, the guy and I'm the tough guy here. And, and you could see the terror in his eyes when we came in. Of course. I'm like, what the hell are you doing here? Who are you? And and he was, Well, I just, I'm over here. You know, I'm just walked over here and I'm And where did you walk over here from? Where did, how'd you get here? Well, I'm, my dad is next door building a pizza oven for Leah, and I wanted to come over and see where the dead guy lived. Well, of course, that, that was like just a. You know, I'm hit to the gut for me. And he had music on that was playing. He had been, had my tape recorder going. He had all these things he'd taken out of the desk drawers in there. And some of these things were David's, most of these things were David, some were mine. And well of course then there was this whole interaction with him around what do you, what do you think you're doing? You're ta these are all these things that are not yours, that are my husbands. And And we need to get you back, you know, back to where you came from. I want to talk to your father. Like this was just so inappropriate. Why would you? And my friend was just absolutely, you know, yelling at him. Like, how could you just come into somebody's house and build a fire? And what do you think you're doing? And. Well, then we start to leave and he has all this stuff in his bag still. He, which he, then I ask him to empty out and he leaves. And I see one of these things as this little, little necklace that I got actually in China with a, a little scarab inside Amber. Okay. Came out and all these other things. My Bose speaker and various things, and. We go to his father and we walk over to the neighbor and it's, it's quite an exchange because his father is clearly, they do not have a relationship. And and I don't have much, I'm still, this is only a couple of months, maybe two at the most since the trauma, I don't have a lot of bandwidth in my nervous system for, for anything. So, Watching this, I just felt so much compassion for this kid who was his dad saying, oh, you're such a loser. I can't take you anywhere. You're always trouble. You're just a yours to real pain. And and I, I thought, whoa, okay, I see where this is coming from. And, and at a certain point this little kid says, well, I'm right. I'm a loser. I just shouldn't even be here. I should just, you know, like, of course that is hitting my wound. And I ended up kind of getting in this place with him where I just channeled these words, maybe these words I wish I could have said to David, but I was saying to him basically, no, you, you, you should be here and you do have a choice and that behavior was not right, but you belong, you do matter. And it was just like I locked onto him and I gave him this energy. But the end of which I was exhausted. Cause as I say, I just didn't really have much to give. We went back and when I went back in the house, I really, and I saw the, the Chinese house to clean up and I saw that necklace and I thought, I also saw at the same time when I came back, a big knife, a big kitchen knife that he'd taken out, you know, and it made me wonder like, was he coming over to, you know, even as I tell this story right now, I feel. I can just feel the chills around it. I don't know what he was planning, but when I saw the knife, I thought, did I just stop that from happening? And, and just this, my heart just broke open and I, I saw that little necklace and I thought, I need to give this to him. And I, I didn't have the energy to give it. I didn't have it in me, but I asked my friend if he would take it to him and tell him from me that this was the scarab has this, you know, all these sacred principles to it. But basically, they, they come out of the shit. They live in the manure, and then they, they're released into the world and you don't have to stay in that. So he did do that. He didn't wanna do it initially, but he agreed to do it. And and that was the end of that. I just felt like I needed to do it for me, whether it was almost like it was part of my own healing relative to David, maybe the thing I wasn't able to do, or maybe, you know, maybe it would stop him from taking his life in the future. And then many months later I got a little handwritten letter and this letter, this might be worth reading, so this is, he had, he had written this, it was hams written and, and, and in a writing that I couldn't read very well. It was like a somebody's but, but like perfectly between the lines on this little piece of ruled paper that he'd obviously really spent time working on. So dear Mrs. Smith, and there was many spelling errors in this, so that was also heartbreaking. I am so sorry for breaking into your house and stealing your things. If there is any projects that my dad and me can do for you around your house, I would like to help. Sincerely, Sean. It was so moving for me. It still is as I read it now, you know? So it's like Something did happen there. I don't know where he is. I'll never know where he is now. I only knew in that moment it was the thing I could do to not perpetuate the trauma that I was in and that others were in, and obviously he was in. I saw that with his father and I like to think that, you know, Yeah, I like to think that he's, that was a moment where he found a little ground under his feet and, and he was able to find himself, and maybe he's making his life now in a new way. I don't know. I

Mandy: 32:53

found that story to be so incredible. Just the idea that, that he could have been in this very dark space mentally, and that he found himself in your space just after this had happened to you and. That whole interaction where you were able to say things to him that you aren't able to say to David, and for him to be able to hear that, for him to receive something from you, which is like receiving compassion and grace despite what he did and despite the fact that it. Made you angry. You also held this anger, but also held this compassion. Yeah. Like we talked about. And so I think just everything about that story means so much. And this idea that you did reach an a handout to him despite your anger and despite this intrusion of your privacy and, and all of that is, is so incredible. I love just thinking about that and all the meaning that can come from that. Yeah. One of the other. Themes, I guess I would say, or a very small thing that I saw thread through your story, and I don't know if you've thought about this or if you even had an answer to this, but you told a couple different stories, and in the beginning there's a story about a bird, and that's back when you and David met, and then. We hear about your cat, Emma, when you find David after he has done this and, and Emma's like a comfort to you during this process. And then towards the end of the book you talk about an experience with dolphins and they swim around you in this circle. And it just made me think about animals and how they have. Sort of interwoven into this story of yours, and I didn't know if you had given that any thought and if you had any comment about that.

Suzanne: 34:42

I think animals are, I love animals. That is absolutely true. And the experiences that I, have been very healed by my. Communication with animals in different ways. And my cat, Emma for sure, and she was an incredible resource for me and died right before I left three days before I left the property itself, which was its own journey. And then yes, the experience with the dolphins was also amazing. I do feel one thing that definitely happens, as your listeners will know is in, in a grieving time, is that you are so broken open and I found, I. There's some connection in that way than with animals that are so healing. And even during the pandemic, we saw a lot of people who were isolated, get their animals, get animals with them. I mean, the animal world wants to be connected to us. We have to care, tend for them of. Of course, but but there's this reciprocal healing and they were a real healing and still are. I have two cats now. In my life actually. I got them maybe. Three years, two years after I moved away from my property. They were rescue cats from the island that I lived on, and they'd been in a domestic violence, a very difficult home for a year. Their siblings, although they do not look alike, and they, I I would say we've been in our mutual journey of, you know, my loving them has helped them heal, I think from that trauma and their loving me has helped me heal.

Mandy: 36:20

Yeah, I like to think about that. I think animals can't communicate with us the way that we do, but if you really pay attention, they do have a lot to say and, and are very receptive to what's happening in our world. I know. Like for you, when you arrived home and Emma was outside, you could tell that there was something wrong just by the behavior of your cat. And that is fascinating to me. My mother, when she passed away, she was very close with her dog, and her dog was just laying at her feet. She was in a chair and she died suddenly and he would not leave her side. Mm-hmm. And then when they took her away, He would just cry and he would just like sit out on the deck and cry and whimper. And it's fascinating to know that that animals can perceive this presence or absence of people. And I just Absolutely. I think it's fascinating. And even the dolphins, I thought, wow, that's just really amazing. Well,

Suzanne: 37:19

I just wanna say when, of course, it was so confusing to Emma, Who was a shy cat? My first and only cat cuz I did a lot of traveling in my early life. And I didn't have my own animals and she would sleep right at my head that first night. She slept right at my head, but then she just was with me. Really close with me the whole time. And I actually, I've, I've read in different places that the animals sometimes do also take the energy on some of the hard energy from situations that we can be in. And as I say, she died probably six months after he did. And she was an not that old, she was only 13. But I do feel she did take some of that. Trauma charge from me and that was hers or maybe our agreement, you know, together. Mm-hmm. That she would, she would do that and her leaving was, was really for sure one of the hardest things in the journey. But at the same time as I write about, Because I was able to help her leave in this really beautiful ritual and with a VAT and so on, it was somewhat healing or corrective that for how, from how David had had left. Yeah.

Mandy: 38:31

Wow. I really, I really appreciate getting to talk to you and hear about this incredible journey that you've been on that started with such tragedy. And I would just love to ask what you have learned about yourself or your path in hindsight, looking back at all that has happened and what meaning you have been able to draw from this or anything that you wanna leave with listeners about your, your experience as

Suzanne: 38:56

a whole. Yeah, I think One, when I went into this, when this occurred, it was very clear to me from the very beginning that I, I really didn't have some certainty about how I'd get through it because I lost David our future together. What might have happened. I lost all my financial resources. I lost my cat, I lost my community. I mean, really, there was nothing else you could lose. I mean, there were, other than my own life So that was an enormous kind of sweeping away of my world, and would I get through this and how would I get through this? It wasn't like I, I was no longer a theoretical teacher. Not that I was theoretical. I also had embodied what I'd taught women, but it was like life said, you, well, let's just see how you do. Really, really do, does this way of being hold up. So I knew that I was going to walk in what I call the way of the Mysterial Woman, which was the title of my first book, the Way of the Mysterial Woman, upgrading How You Live, love and Lead, and, and that is what I did. And what that meant for me was, I would say through the, and this is what I hope the book points toward for, for anyone who reads it, is. I have become more, I wanna say more whole, you know, I've, I describe it some as a kind of hidden wholeness. Like something my deeper self, my true nature in the breaking open had more of a chance to come into expression. Right now in my life, I think I'm more. Real with myself, I'm more connected to me, I'm, I think I often forgot myself in service of taking care of others. I think I'm more grounded and present in the reality of what is, and, and in many ways I feel like I've. Been preparing for these times on the planet that I, I am, you know, when people walk through very difficult things and I can really walk with them. There, I can say, yes, I know what that is, and you can walk through this and, and here are some ways. Some sort of ways that it might be easier to go through what is impossible to go through or that might help you as you move through that and, and I certainly hope that's what the book offers to others that they. In the end, like the title of the book says, you make your path by walking and it is your unique path. I was initially looking, someone else must have done this like this, I couldn't find someone, and of course I couldn't find someone who'd had my exact experience and you won't either as a listener. But there are great podcasts and books and ways that you can get resources to kind of give you the energy and the insight and maybe a, a practice. To make the next step, but ultimately you're making your step. But if you can hold it as I dunno, as a journey of becoming, not just a journey of losing, like in other words, don't try to just get back to where you were before the loss happened, but see if this opportunity can actually take you somewhere you could never imagine.

Mandy: 42:01

Right, because you say there's the shattering and you can't put those pieces all back together in the same way. So we have to walk forward and see what is to become from that point on. Exactly.

Suzanne: 42:14

Yeah.

Mandy: 42:15

Thank you so much. So I know the book is coming out in June. Where will people be able to find the book and find you?

Suzanne: 42:22

Right when you make your pathway by walking, just to say the title again is out on June 13th and it's available anywhere you buy books. Right now, it's, you can pre-order it on Amazon and bookshop and so on, or go to your indie, go to your local indie store and actually buy it live. Mm-hmm. I recommend you get it tangibly in your hands. I think it's the kind of thing that you wanna read. Like have it as a resource and, and have it easily available and highlighted. And I, I hope it's like that there's that's what I would, would hope my website is. Mysterial woman.com. So that's M Y S T E R I A l.com, woman.com. And then the book page is, I've got two books as I've mentioned, so they're both on that page and You can find, you can join my mailing list and be connected to the work I'm doing if you're resonating with what I'm saying. I am actually doing my first retreat in-person retreat coming up in June, June 8th to 11th. For people that are outside of the longer programs that I run, and that'll be this beautiful time just for women. To really drop into the nourishment of this beautiful place, and I'm doing it with a colleague who does yoga and auric practices, and it's going to be delicious. So if that's of interest to you, you'll find out about that on the website too.

43:43

I hope you enjoyed listening to Suzanne story today. Be sure to check out the show notes, to find ways to connect with her further. As always, I will leave you with a writing prompt. Suzanne talked about a ritual after David had died, where she gathered with others around a hearth and people took turns coming to the center to speak and then placing a Cedar branch in the fire. Imagining someone you have lost, who was close to you. Right about what you might say to them. If you were to hold a similar ritual. Follow the prompt, wherever it might lead you. Feel free to email responses to contact that. Remember grams.com. To support the show. Please be sure to subscribe, and share with others. And check out. Remember Graham's dot com to send someone you love a personalized card or a grief support box. If they are struggling. Thank you and have a wonderful day.