Discover tthe FLOW Release Method

Show Transcript

Hello, everyone. This is your host, Keri Logan at Master the Upper Rooms. I have a special guest today. It's Denise Diehl-Watt, and she has created this amazing grief relief method. And before I have her talk, I got to say everyone deals with grief differently. And when her first husband suddenly passed away, she tried many different methods, many different methods. And None of them were working. And so she sought a path of healing that led to create the flow grief release method. And it's a transformative approach to move through grief with grace and ease. And I think that's what's really, really important because everyone has their own journey and you do need to handle grief with grace and ease. She has 15 years of experience in doing this, and she's guided thousands of people to reclaim their lives from grief using her unique method. So everyone, I wanted to welcome Denise here to the show. So how are you this lovely day, Denise? How are you doing? I'm fantastic. Thank you so much for having me here and allowing me and giving me the opportunity to talk about an often overlooked subject. 

Of loss and death and grief. Because people don't like to talk about it. No, we don't because it's like, oh, I'm not going to die. I don't want to talk about that. But we have to. We have to bring it out to the open because if we don't, how do we know how to deal with it when it happens to us? Yes. Well, and the thing is, too, is it not only just happens to us, it happens to your children and the grandchildren. And the coworkers and everyone that was in that person's inner circle, it impacts everybody differently. And when you can get the support that you need going through a grief process, it gives you the tools and resources to better support other people around you that are dealing with the same grief. Yeah. And, you know, when I lost my husband, right? 

But I didn't just lose my husband. When Martin died, my children lost their father. My grandchildren lost their granddad. It doesn't just affect one person. So how we heal and how we move forward is so important on how others will heal and move forward. So how is your method different than what other things you try doing? It's very different, very different. I tried therapy. I tried grief counseling. I tried grief groups. I tried books. I tried the lot. Nothing was helping because it's all talk therapy. Right. We cannot talk our way through grief because what happens is we just keep repeating our story over and over and over again. And with grief and loss, it's the sad story of how we lost our loved one. 

What happened? How they died? How are we feeling? And all that does is cements that. It becomes a habit. It becomes what we are. And that's when we become the victim of our grief. So what I like to do and say to my clients is we need to scratch that record. Now, how do we scratch that record? We draw a line in the sand and say that that's our story of what was. Now we need to move forward. Now that sounds so simple. Yeah, I'll just move forward. It's not that easy. Because we have all our emotions that come into it. And we think that by keeping busy, we're going to be okay. That by waiting for time, it will eventually get better. Then we are told to go through the five stages of grief. And that's the biggest myth. The five stages of grief was never intended for anybody that lost a loved one. Yeah. 

It was intended, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross wrote it for someone that was diagnosed with a terminal illness and the stages that they go through. But it's been widely accepted that that's grief. We've got to go through those five stages. And we don't because grief is different for everybody. Yes, it is. So what makes me so different is we work on getting into what are you feeling. That's the first step of the flow method. We have to acknowledge what we're feeling. What are we feeling? Yeah, we're feeling sad. Okay, but what is beneath that sadness? Yes, because then beneath that sadness, someone can be angry that that person left them. Yeah. They could be bitter because that person left them. They could have resentment. They could have unresolved issues or unresolved trauma. And sometimes some people with that anger is angry 

have all these unresolved emotions and memories that never got processed. And so it's kind of like that grief can bring it all up to the surface and they don't know what to do. Yeah. Yeah. And they don't recognize that it's being brought up to the surface. They just have, because we don't really, we can't nine times out of 10, we can't verbalize our emotions or how we're feeling. We just feel crap. We just feel, Oh, I feel terrible today. I feel sad. But is it really sadness or is it guilt or is it something from even your childhood that has come up? Because grief puts a magnifying glass over your life. Yeah. You know, the loss of a loved one, suddenly you are vulnerable. You are exposed. You've got all of this happening and emotions come up to the surface. It just rises. Like where did that come from? Well, and a lot of people too, which is – 

Interesting. I don't share very much, but I did get into the grief support work for a while. And when I would go see families after someone passed away, the stories I would hear were interesting. And like one of them, the guy said, oh, just last week I saw my mom sitting in that chair and she started talking to me. And he just and I just sat there and listened to him. He's like, I don't know who to talk to about this. And when we had those spiritual moments, it's for me, I took care of my mom the last five months of her life. When she was on hospice, she moved in with me. And when she passed literally for the first two weeks, I smelled her in my house. I mean, I would go grocery shopping and I'd walk in the laundry room and there's the smell of my mom. And I would just start bawling, bawling, just crying. And, um, 

but she never was in that laundry room for the last you know three months of her life so there's no way i could have smelled that yeah and so we have profound people have these sometimes profound spiritual experiences like you could smell them you could feel their energy you could hear them i remember one time having a cat that passed away and i was in such grief with the cat passing that while I was lying in my bed by myself, no animals in the house, I literally felt like the cat jumped up on the bed. Yeah, I've just lost, as a young girl, I had a poodle, little poodle that was run over and she was always on the bed. You could feel her on the bed, on the bed. She would jump on the bed after she passed. I have just lost my little fox terrier doggy that I've had for 10, 15 years. She passed away a month ago. 

and she was a rescues but she adopted me so that bond was really special between between her and i and my grandson as well and and he'll say he woke up the morning he said oh sally was on the bed with me this morning i could feel on the bed with me this morning and i said i know me too i heard her coming into the bedroom so we have these after they passed away and people don't know what to do and they think they're crazy when you talk about it but this stuff happens it does it It does. You know, when I heard Sally, I went, oh, hello, Sally. Hang on, Sally's not here. You know, it's that real. Yes. It is that real. And it's the same with my husband. When my husband passed away, I remember one night watching TV on my own and everything, and I got up to go to the bedroom. And as I got up and walked into the bedroom, I switched off all the lights in the house, walked into the bedroom, and as I was in that doorway, I thought, 

I remembered, oh, my phone. So I pivoted and turned around to get my phone. And as I turned around, there was somebody there. And I didn't go, ah! I just went, oh, sorry, because it was like I'm walking into somebody. And then I realized, hang on, there's nobody in the house but me. And then I went, okay, so you want to come to bed? All right, just let me get my phone. Yes, we can. It's interesting. I'm glad I can share this. with you and we, we both get it because it is something that I think people find fascinating, but when they have that experience too, they don't know what, how, how to handle it. And it, it's hard. I mean, I remember for me, it was going through my mom's estate, even, even just that she had not passed away yet and, 

but she was in the transition of, okay, we need to get rid of her estate. She's got X amount of time to live. She has to move in with you. And even doing that was grief. It was like, I started grieving the loss of her before she even passed away. Cause I knew it was coming. Yeah. Yeah. And some people need help with that because it's hard. It is incredibly hard. Yeah. You know, and it is, It is the most misunderstood emotion. The most misunderstood emotion. It's not like anything that you will ever experience in your life, ever. Yeah. Now, how do you verbalize it? How do you tell somebody how you're feeling? So you want to repeat your story all the time and tell them, and I'm feeling like this, but we have to actually stop and we have to go within and start healing ourself. Yeah. 

We do. We really, we do. Yeah, yeah. And that's part of the feeling is what am I feeling? What am I feeling? You know, there's a lot of disbelief in it. There's a lot of cultural issues that come into it as well. A lot of, well, we don't do that and we do this and a lot of beliefs of how we should grieve. And the fact is there is no right or wrong way. It just is how you grieve. do it right whatever that is for you whatever it is for you some people cry some people don't some people scream others don't some people shut down others others don't so it's really it's so individual that there's no one cookie cutter solution go through the five stages of grief wait for time and eventually you'll be okay you have to actually be 

active in your life, active in your healing journey. Yes. And I really think too, a lot of people, you know, they're told, take the time off, take this time off to, you know, process your grief and all that and I think the biggest mistake a lot of people do is they don't take that time off. They think, oh, I'll just dive into work and I'll distract myself. Like you said, I'll But again, it rears its ugly head when you least expect it. And then it impacts your quality of work. It impacts the quality of your life. And then you're, I think the longer you go without processing, taking that time to step back and process it and do all of it, you're actually doing a disservice to yourself. Yeah. 

You know, I always say to everybody, invest in yourself. Yeah. Whatever that looks like. Invest your time. Invest in you, not in things, not in others. Yeah. Now, taking the time for you is investing in yourself. You're putting back into you. But the problem with that is, is that when we're still, everything comes flooding back. Yeah. And we don't want to process that because it's painful. So what do we do as human nature? Oh, we get up and we get busy. Oh, I don't want to think about that now. I haven't got time to think about that now. I'll just go back to work or I'll just go to the kids or whatever. And that's the wrong approach. And I hate to say the wrong approach, but it is because we need to be still and we need to feel. Yeah. Because we can't let go of those emotions and start healing, start moving forward if we haven't processed them. We might think we are, but... 

But then we get all the complications of complicated grief and unresolved grief because, like you said, it comes up later. It just bubbles beneath the surface. And I don't know why this just popped up in my head too, but sometimes when people do take that time for the grief and process, there are some people out there that could think that you're being selfish. When in reality, I see you laughing. When in reality, it's not. all these weird conceptions in their minds and because they'll like tell you well why do you need to take off you know just just get focused on your work and do this and that um but you're just dying inside almost yourself because the grief is so unmanageable and so and that's why i tell people sometimes when you're dealing with grief be mindful with who you talk to 

seriously be mindful because you can talk to some people that you can relate to and then it makes and you feel good but then there's people you can talk to that you can't they can't relate with you they can't connect with you and they just feel sorry for you and then that's it's the worst you know I have stopped calling myself a widow I'm single yeah because the minute I I say I'm a widow or somebody introduces me, I get what I call the puppy dog look. Yep. And they go, oh, I'm so sorry. And I think, what are you sorry for? It's 15 years later. You didn't know my husband. I've been living happily for 15 years. I've reimagined my life. I've got a whole new life, whole new career, everything. What are you sorry for? 

So you say you're single, it's like, oh, cool, okay, and they accept that. That's it. Right. So there's this whole stigma around loss. Yes. And I've got a lovely client that works with mothers that have lost a child, and she gets the same, oh, I'm so sorry you lost your daughter. And she thinks, why are you sorry you didn't know her? And it's the same pattern. So it doesn't matter whether you've lost a child, you've lost a husband, you've lost – a mother, you get that sympathy look yeah like the victim of it. And we're not. Unless you are. Yes. And that's true. And that's the hard part is we, unless, I know i can be transparent here with you because you're going to get it, but some people know how to milk that sympathy card oh oh i i haven't i haven't i haven't 

beautiful group that I, and a Facebook group that I've had for years. And the amount of people I've had to get out of the group and get them moved on from the group because milking the fact that they've lost this, you know, oh, I'm feeling so lost and I don't know what to do. And then you get a hundred other people climb on the bandwagon. Oh, but mine was worse than yours and I lost mine and I know how you feel. And another one comes they just pile in on each other. Yeah. You know, misery loves company. So, you know, I've got a very strict rule in my group. Unless you can lift somebody up, don't post. Because nobody wants to hear your story. Everybody's there because they're suffering from grief. That's the end of the story. We're all there for a reason. But how are you going to lift somebody else up through that? Yeah. And that's why things like grief share. I mean, I've got one client that did grief share five times. 

And her being such a beautiful client now, I said to her the other day, I said, so what didn't you understand the first time in grief share? Why did you have to go five times? Yeah. What'd she say? And she just laughed. She said, I know. She said, I thought the second time I'd get it better than the first time. And I might've missed something. She said, and I said, after five times, what were you missing? She said, nothing. It was all the same. We're just sharing our story. Yeah. And that's the hard part too, is that like, you said a lot of people, sometimes they can be invested in their story and you, you've got to, you've, you've got to let it go. You seriously do. It's just, it's hard. Yeah. Sorry to cut into you, but it's harder to be not invested in your story than what it is to be invested in your story. When we're the victim of, 

It's so easy to be the victim of our grief and of our story and of our loss and of our life because we're meeting one of our human needs, which is love and connection. So people are still connecting with you. They're still loving you, but in an unresourceful way. It's not a way that's going to lift you up. It's like, oh, I know, it's terrible, isn't it? I feel for you. And how are you feeling today? Whereas when you start... doing the inner work on yourself and you start moving through that, you start moving forward, you start, you know, who am I? I want to love myself. Like you said, people start criticizing. They start saying, oh, so you're being selfish now. Yeah. You know, I had one one lady said one friend of mine said to me, we never see you anymore, Denise. And I said, that's right, because i have a life to live. It was after martin died, because i was always at home. She knew she could pop in at any time. 

And, you know, she was quite upset with the fact that when she decided to pop in, I wasn't home. Yeah. You know, so we change, we become different, but it's easier to stay the victim and stay who we are to please others. This is true. So what are some of the main goals that you have people set? Let's say that are, are dealing with, grief and loss. Like, do you work on goals for them? All the time. It's purpose. It's finding their purpose. It's finding their why. Finding who they are again. So the goals will be all different. You know, I had one lady that, um, her husband was killed on a motorcycle. I think it was about two or three miles away from home. Wow. And, um, they never had kids. They never 

But they had made a pact before he died that last man standing goes on living and loving. That was just part of their talk. And when he did die, she knew she had to go on living and loving. So her goal was to find another man. But she didn't want to find another man in her broken self. Correct. She knew that's who she would attract. Right. Exactly. I was actually talking to someone today just about that, where I think it's been 10 years since her partner left and she's gone out and has tried dating. And she said, it's just horrible, horrible, horrible. And she's like, I'm meeting all these broken men. And I said, yes, but you're still broken inside. Yes. And that, you know, like attracts like you, you, you've got to, you know, clear that. And, 

there sometimes there can even be the belief and they don't realize they made this belief in their grief where they could have said, I'm never going to love that way again. It's subconscious. Yes. And you can plant that seed and then that takes root. So when you're trying to go out there to meet someone else, you already made this promise, this vow, this belief that I'm never going to find that kind of love again. Hmm. And you've got to, if you want to find love again, you've got to extract that root that you planted. You've got to go to the core of it. You've got to let it go. And that's the L in flow. You've got to let it go. So, you know, until we actually know what we're feeling, and part of that is the feeling. What do you feel? Anything. I don't know what you're feeling. You tell me. We'll work together through what you're feeling and then go deeper. But the letting go is letting go of the you you used to be. Yes. 

and what you used to have with that person. And what you used to have with that person, who that person was. Because, you know, in the case of your friend that's a widow, and I see it a lot with the widows I work with, and mothers as well, but more so with the widows, is that they've lost their life partner. How do I move forward now? Nothing compared to the love of my life. And they put this man on a pedestal. He was perfect. Nobody's going to be as perfect. Right. And I always say, that's right. He was perfect for you at that time, but who's going to be perfect for you now? Yes. I love how you say that. You know, that's so important because you could have met that person in your 20s or 30s and the kind of love and the relationship you had with them then, now let's say you're in your 40s or 50s or even 60s, 

It's going to be a lot different, way, way different. Yeah, exactly, spot on. And, you know, it's like I had one lady say she'll never find another man, she'll never get remarried again. And this was a post in my group and I just reposted to her and I said to her, I'm curious to know, do you have more than one child? And she came back and said, yes, of course, I've got three children. And I said... So do you love them differently or do you love them all the same? So when you had your first child, did you love your first child so much that you vowed never to have any more? And then put it into, of course not. She says, oh, I've never looked at it that way. Yeah. But that's how our mind goes. It plays tricks on us. You know, when somebody loses a child, they say, oh, I'll never have another. 

You just froze and I didn't hear anything you just said. You froze as well. It says on my screen, it just popped away. Your internet connection's unstable. So where did we get up to? Yes. You were talking about loving your child and how the woman had three different kids. Yes. Yeah. And, and yes, that's a really good way to, to look at it is we love all, we love our kids all different and different ways. And, and some are easier to love than others. And that has to do with just their personality, you know, who they, who they are. So I love how you, how you, how you say that and you, how put that. So can you explain that significance of the flow method and how it helps you navigate, you know, through your grief grief how did how did it how did it all start? How did it help you? Because I'm really fascinated with what you came what yeah so the flow method is a method that i created out of my grief healing journey 

After I couldn't get help and I was seeing this one and that one and everything else, I actually knew I needed to heal myself. I needed to heal me. So when I had gone through my journey, and it was really quick, I reverse engineered. I remember sitting one night going, how did I heal so quickly? And it was okay. The very first step was to feel. I felt every pain. I gave myself permission to just be. Be in that pain. Be in that grief. Be in that pit. Be down in the bottom of that pit. Scream. I used to scream into my steering wheel while I'm driving. You know, get out of town and you're on the open road and I would just scream and scream and scream and scream. I had to let that out. Yeah. I was feeling. I didn't know what I was feeling, but I had to let that out. I had to let that energy release it. 

I used to sit in my walk-in closet and I used to just rock in a fetal position, screaming, crying. What was I doing? I was letting my body release what it needed to release. Yeah. So that's the feel. We have to feel. That's the first step. The second step is to let go. Now we know what we're feeling. We know that we've felt. We know that we're feeling this. What are you letting go of? You're letting go of the pain. You're letting go of that emotion. You're creating that, let it go. Now you've got a void there. So what do we need to do? We need to overcome. Now we can start overcoming. That's the O. How are you going to overcome? You're going to learn to love yourself. You're going to learn to rediscover yourself. You're going to learn, who am I? What do I want for me? What does my life look like now? And the W is for whole. 

right. I know who I am. I know where I'm going. I've got purpose. I've got a mission. Now I can start re-imagining my new life. Yeah. And it's just taking one day at a time because I always like when I was dealing with the grief of my mom passing, I did literally have to take one day at a time because when someone is having to deal with the estate and banks and and death certificates and going to the funeral home and getting a hold of all these people. It's not fun. I mean, it sucks. It's not fun. And then like in my case, and I know in a lot of other ladies case, um, because my husband passed away in hospital of a blood clot, which was unexpected, he had to have an autopsy because it's now that's the protocol. Yeah. Um, 

Autopsy, not a problem. Blood clot, not a problem. The problem was that they put on his death certificate cause unknown. Yeah. So my insurance company, because Martin and I had a business, so we had life insurance so that if anything happened, all the business expenses and that would be paid, wouldn't pay out. Why? Because cause was unknown. Yeah. Yeah. So you have all these things that you're dealing with. Well, and one thing when I did grief support and it's interesting because I, my, this was several years ago, my, my landlord at the time, his parents lived right next door to me. And when they passed away, he wanted me to move into that house because my son has cerebral palsy and it was a 

a one story house. It had wheelchair access, all of that. And it was a really good fit. So, but what was really unfortunate for him is after he did, I helped him with the estate sale and stuff. None of his family wanted to help him with anything else. So I, I told him, I said, no, let me help you out. I do want to move in that house. I'll pack everything up. And I said, but I need you to give me a jar. i want you to find a jar and i'm going to whatever money i find, I'm going to put in that jar because a lot of people don't realize this is sometimes parents hide money in pockets, jacket pockets, pants pockets. They can tape it underneath um drawers you pull out drawers. I found money taped underneath drawers. He found money underneath. I warned him. I said before i was going to do this, I said, 

I want you to go through your house or go through their house, pull out all the drawers and feel. And if they have any of that paper, you know, where people line the cabinets or the drawers, lift that up, see what you can find. He said he found over $500 literally just by him doing stuff. And then when I went through and just packed everything up and took stuff to charity and this and that, I have more money and more stuff. I even found in the back of his refrigerator, their wedding cake that was 30 years or something. Yes. Yeah. Just some, some amazing, you know, things. And, and that's the hard part too, is sometimes when we have, when we can't do that for, for our, we can't do it ourselves because it's so painful and, 

We got to ask someone else. And if, like for me, I knew I had to offer it or else that house would have sat there and sat there and sat there because it was too painful for him to go through it. And no one in his family was offering. And so it was just sitting there. So sometimes we, you know, we do need to step up and and and and be gentle, like you said, with grace and ease. Say, what can I do for you? Because sometimes they can't do it for themselves. And how can I help you? How can I help you move forward? What do you need to move forward? And very often they're going to say to you, I don't know. I don't know what I need. And that's okay. Don't stop there. Don't stop there and say, oh, okay, well, when you know, let me know. No, just go, all right, that's fine. So what are you doing today? Okay. 

What needs to be done? What's the next step? Have you done this? Have you done that? You know, and they'll go, oh, no. And then you go, okay, well, let's do that. Let's go. You know, I had a client that needed to clear out her storage shed that she'd had for five years with all her husband's business stuff and everything. She just couldn't get there. Yeah. And within a week of us working together, she had cleared that out. She rallied her friends around and she cleared it out. And that was the first step to her healing and letting go because all that old stuff wasn't there anymore. But for five years, she couldn't touch that storage shed. So it's just a gentle, well, what about rallying your friends? Have you sort of had rallying your friends around, getting your friends? I have, but they're always busy. Okay, so what friends do you know that won't be busy? Yeah. You know, and it's gently just guiding them into that space 

that space that, that, that, that they feel that container really of feeling loved and supported. Yes. No, that's, that's so true. Cause like, for example, my, my husband was just telling me and I, I know his mother passed away. I think about maybe five, I think about five years ago, she, she passed away and he said that, His two other sisters and him went through the place and he took this. She took that. And another one took whatever no one else wanted and just store it in her garage. And just last week, the other sister came over and said, OK, I'm ready to go through this with you now. Yeah. Yeah. Because she just like you said, it took five years to get to that point where it's like, OK, I can now deal with mom's stuff. 

Yeah. It was just, it was too painful. Yeah. Yeah. Because you see, even though it's just stuff and it's got no value to anybody else. Yeah. The value is in the emotion that's attached to that stuff. Yes. The memories that are attached to that stuff. Yes. Now my, my husband was sharing the same thing. Like he's, he's like, I got stuff of my mom's. I have no use for at all, but I can't get rid of it. Yeah. I told him the same thing. I said, I have the gown my mom wore the day she died, and I can't get rid of it. I know exactly where it is. I just can't. And that's okay. That's okay. You know, so many people say, well, when is it time to get rid of this stuff? When you're ready. Yeah. There is no time limit. In a widow's case, when should I take my wedding ring off? When you're ready. If you're never ready, you're never ready. It's okay. 

There's no hard and fast rules. My mum died about 20, 30 years ago, and I still have a plastic container with all the stuff that she crocheted and knitted and made for me. I'll never get rid of it. It moves from house to house. It goes into storage. I call it Granny's Box. That's Granny's Box. Okay. And that's it. Okay. What's going to happen to granny's box when I die? I don't know. The kids can do whatever they like with it. But we do hang on and hold on to some significant stuff. We need to do that. It's part of our healing journey. And remember that item or whatever it is as often as you need to. Yeah. Yeah. And I mean, and there are moments, I mean, it's very, very brief, but I... 

I remember, I think maybe two months ago, I was doing something and I stopped and I looked at one of my friends and I'm like, I smell my mom's perfume. Yeah. And I knew it. I don't wear it. No, she wasn't wearing it. No one else was. All of a sudden, boom, pops up. Here's that, her smell. Her smell. Yeah. My mother was a smoker. And I every now and then go, shh, shh. Oh, I can smell smoke. Hi, Mum. I actually go, hi, Mum, how are you? You know, I acknowledge that, yes, I know you're here with me because I'm not a smoker. Nobody smokes around me that. And you just suddenly have that strong smell of cigarette smoke in the house. It's like, oh, okay. Or in the car, you know, I'll be driving somewhere and you'll get that. Who's smoking? Nobody. Oh, okay. Hi, Mum. Yeah. Yeah, it's her way of letting me know, okay, I'm here. I'm here with you. Because they never... 

If I can say anything to anybody listening to this, they never disappear. No, they don't. They just change form. They change form. They're just in another realm. That's all. They're that close to you. They're just a thought away, just a thought away. I'll share a really cool story with you that I think a lot of people will find fascinating. My grandparents have passed away and my son has never met them. I really never mentioned their names before to him either, which is interesting. So one night I was in bed and I was really struggling with what I was dealing with in life. And I was praying and I was praying to them, calling upon my ancestors. And I called upon Edith and Frankie. 

And on my son at the time, I think he was maybe four, four and a half years old. And he said to me, mom, there's this beautiful angel and its wings ar