Advocating for What You Need

Now What? Season 1 Episode 6

Erin Hente: 00:05

Welcome to episode six of the now what podcast. You're listening to the now what podcast a podcast for women healing from loss will provide you with practical ways to overcome challenges you are facing as you navigate the aftermath of loss. If you're ready to get unstuck and move forward with confidence on your journey, then this is the podcast for you. It is possible to start loving the life you're living after loss. And here's your guide, post certified life coach and widowed mom, Aaron Hinton Hey there and welcome to another episode of the podcast and a huge thank you for choosing to show up for yourself by being here today. If this is your first time joining, I'm your host to the podcast certified life coach Aaron Henty. Joining me on today's episode, I brought back one of my very special monthly guest hosts. She's founder of meditation for moms, author of The Four relationships fellow with a mom, and just a beautiful human Corinne s. Hawkins. If you haven't picked up her book yet, be sure to click the link in the show notes after today's episode. Thank you so much for choosing to be here today.

Korrin Hawkins: 01:15

likewise, Aaron, thank you for having me.

Erin Hente: 01:18

Today. Let's jump right into the big question that many people want to know. How do we ask for help? I know that for many people, depending on our circumstances, and maybe our personality, advocating for ourselves may not be something that comes as easily or we're comfortable doing. But I know in previous conversations that we've had together, it's something you've sort of mastered Corinne. So I'm kind of glad that I have you on here. Because I have a little process for people today that may not find it as easy just to go out and ask for help. So I know this is important to you. And so let's just dive right in. Why don't you share with us what advocating for yourself has looked like on your journey?

Korrin Hawkins: 02:06

Well, first of all, I just want to say that becoming a widow, a hugely isolating experience, you're going along in your life, you have your, your partner, and all of a sudden, they're gone. And you're just left holding the sand, dripping through your fingers of the life that you had. And then for me, as I looked out at all of the people that surrounded me, all of the phenomenal people who were there to support me, I felt just so different from them, I felt just that really painful. Absence of my life is done with my husband in it. And here are all these people who their hearts are pouring out to me. And and I needed that I needed those other people to pour. We need other people to pour their hearts into us, when we have the trauma of losing our our spouse, our loved one.

Erin Hente: 03:15

I just want to pause you right there. Okay, so if there are people that are listening to this podcast, that are supporting someone who has lost a loved one, I want to repeat that you are a part of this community of people supporting someone that needs you so much. And many times people say what do they say like if you need something, give me a call. Like, they asked like, How can I help you? They they may like not, they're not sure what to do. So doing nothing at all seems easier. But maybe they've asked and they just feel a lot less uncertain and a little hesitant themselves. So we're going to like I just want to highlight that each person in this community that's supporting you are you're supporting the widow, the person grieving, you are given certain gifts and you are created for a reason. And how you support this person can look different than the other person. Many people want to like go out and cook a bunch of meals. I'm not that person. I want to show up. I value quality time. So I want to show up and spend time with people and I want people to spend time with me and sometimes that's just enough. So I wanted to just like start by saying if you don't know how to help or support the person who has experienced loss and that aspect do for others. You wouldn't want done for you Cabot? Perfect up there. Yeah. So yeah. Now coming back to the widow, and widow hood. Yeah, they aren't responsible for everyone else. And how they're feeling, right?

Korrin Hawkins: 05:17

They're trying to just keep their head above water. So why don't you dive in a little bit and talk about? Yeah, so and feeling isolated, like my life has just stopped. And the person that I need most I can't have anymore, they're gone. But you still need people in the isolation of losing your loved one, you still have needs that you need to have met, whether it's yard work, help with the kids, errands ran somebody to listen to somebody to, to lean on, somebody to even just call you at night and say how you doing? We have emotional needs that are so raw, especially in those first weeks and months, that for people to open up and pour their love and attention into us. We need to allow that. There's something that happens when we lose our our beloved, our heart suffers by closing down. And that can be a dangerous state, because it can affect us in so many ways in our life. We our heart closes down to the loss. But the effect ripples out into all areas of our life. And one of the ways that I felt empowered to start to retrain my heart to open in the closing down, I experienced with losing Cory was letting people be there for me, and reaching out when I knew that I needed help. Even if it was something simple. Even if it was just a text to a friend, I'm having a bad day. Could you say a prayer can send some love energy my way? Sometimes, I noticed Aaron and I'd like to hear your take on this. Sometimes I noticed that people don't always know what to do what you need. They want to respect your space of not being in your business. At the same time. You know what you need, you can sense what you need by being self aware, connected to yourself. And even when you aren't able to articulate exactly what it is you need. Just even being aware that I just need help. I just need help. And then opening that conversation of what is it? Is there something I can help you with today? Is there something you need help within a week, you know, sometimes we don't know what we need, but just reaching out and saying, I'm really struggling, I need help. That opens up the communication for the other person to listen to our needs to witness us which is a need. And to also reflect back to us what they can pour into us in our life, and our very raw time of grieving.

Erin Hente: 08:28

Ooh, I'm struggling, I need help. So many thoughts come up before I would, you know, speak those words. So thank you for giving permission just to say to say that early days of what widowhood in the aftermath of the loss, we can feel overwhelmed. And we're not really sure what we need to be doing maybe sometimes. And it's not about doing. It's about survival mode. You know, oftentimes, it's just getting through each moment of every day. And making sure like our basic necessities are taken care of right. Many people are quick to jump on caring for basic necessities. You know, will we still have a roof over our head? Are we financially going to be able to pay our bills can we eat today? Can we even make a meal to eat today, like our kids taking care of if we have kids? You know, there's I think so many things that come up and the most important thing is that you just take care of you and what you need, and sometimes even just and we're going to talk about this, I think on next month's episode, so I don't want to give away too much. But I think sometimes even being able to ask for space To be able to sit alone and process things is so important as well. So, for you, what were some of the ways in which you've been able to really advocate for yourself? And what did that look like, within the relationships in your life,

Korrin Hawkins: 10:21

I felt fortunate enough to have the self awareness and self connection, that straight off the bat, my life was shattered. But I was very in tune with what I needed, what I didn't need. And I'm a very independent person. So to people on the outside, they maybe thought I should have been letting them help more. But for me, I knew I needed to feel strong and myself. So I didn't always take everybody's help. I, you know, I always thanked them for it, I reached out, I let them know if I need anything, I will reach out to you. And then I just kept my word, because people want to be there for you. If you need help, you get to decide what that looks like. When that looks like there's so much that's out of our control and becoming a widow. Like we can be in control with being that gatekeeper of what do we need? And how, how do I need the snip map? Do I need support from other women? Do I need support from a handyman? Do I need emotional support with a therapist, like we get to pick and choose like how our needs are being met. But staying open within yourself of seeing, feeling what you need, and then reaching out to have those needs met? And Aaron, you were talked previously, and I thought it was so inspiring to hear your version of being a gatekeeper. So for me, it's I have been my own gatekeeper. And you have a different story. Can you share that? For sure.

Erin Hente: 12:05

Thank you for that, you know, in the early days of I'd never gone through loss before other than the loss of my grandmother when I was 14. And that was so significant. But I had not experienced the level of grief that I lost Andy right. Navigating relationships before the loss of Andy, I didn't know how to set out I didn't know how to set a boundary. For me to be able to say no. Felt really, really difficult. For me, I needed to I needed to truly learn how to advocate for myself. But I was so afraid of like hurting people's feelings and making them feel bad. Whenever overtime that changed like right over time that changed. But thankfully, my sister who's who's 12 years older than me, I'll share the story about her on a future episode. She supported me in so many different ways and always, like assured me that if anything happened to Annie and I together or whatever, like she would always be there and want to help support my kids and I so naturally before I even knew he was gone, I called her immediately. Like she showed up for me she was there in the moments that I found out that he was gone. And I had no idea like, I couldn't even pick up the phone and call his family back to tell them the news once I had heard it. I couldn't like, could I have Yes. But emotionally like I couldn't be the one to bear the news. I almost wanted to be the observer, I just wanted to be able to step back and see how they were responding. And then it would help me figure out what to do next, instead of like being in it. And so for me, my sister was that person, my sister, I call it the gatekeeper. She was like the filtration system that I use to be able to like, figure out, you know, not only I could communicate to her what I needed, but she could help me filter out and figure out who are the people that that could really help me feel some of those needs. Maybe it was her. Maybe it was my dad, maybe it was a friend, maybe it was some other people but in the early days I really used and trusted her to be that person for me as though it was myself. Now I will say though naturally, I didn't need her to make all decisions for me, right? Naturally like I trusted what I needed in those moments following for myself. That's all I wanted to focus on is myself and my kids. What do we need? right now and everything else, everything else I can hand over to her. Well, what I needed was somebody to be able to help me communicate the loss to my kids, we hadn't even broke the news yet. And I didn't necessarily want to be the one to share with them. Unfortunately, there's many situations where I hear what I would say like, you know, they have to tell their kids, but I chose to have someone else, share it with them while I was present, so I could be more present for them.

Korrin Hawkins: 15:31

So we have the, yes, we have the power to do it ourselves. And we also have the power to give up the reins and know that we don't have to do everything ourselves. And so even deciphering that piece of it from the very beginning was so important for me, and I look back, and I wouldn't have done it any other way I knew. And I trusted in those moments that the decisions I were I was making. Were exactly what I needed. So that's amazing. Aaron, while I'm so glad that you had such a earth angel in your life to step in and just be your person, your gatekeeper. I love that. Yes, I've, it's beautiful to hear that the differences in our experiences, and just hoping that people take comfort in knowing that as they listen to your podcasts, and they hear bits and pieces that fit for them and things that don't that it everything goes, anything goes. But the common thread in our stories and your listener stories is that we need people, and that doesn't stop. Now, fast forward to today, I'm still a widow, right? We're still we're always going to be a widow, and our needs as a widow, they might shift and change and evolve. But we still have widow needs that we can keep asking those around us, or new people to help us meet.

Erin Hente: 17:11

Absolutely. And yeah, our needs definitely do shift and change and look different actually had a group of widows over to my house yesterday. And one of them looked at me and said, Does this ever go away? And I asked specifically what she meant by that. I think what she meant by that was does the intensity of the grief ever go away? I'm like, it shifts and changes over time. Just like our needs shift and change over time, just like we shift change and evolve over time. And so I know that asking for help and advocating for yourself can sometimes look different, but

Korrin Hawkins: 17:58

it can also be it can be difficult. I understand that. And one of the things I realized the number one thing about each of us is the circumstances surrounding the death of our loved one. They the in the thoughts that like that we have about those circumstances may lead you to believing that it isn't okay to ask for help. For instance, death by suicide, death by overdose. You know, those are there's multiple layers when it comes to different circumstances surrounding grief, which may make us think that we can't talk about it, or, you know, it wasn't, we have a different circumstance. And so, you know, maybe we feel like something's out of our control. But the second thing is the thought about our circumstance that allows you to become empowered, versus disempowered on this journey is so important, regardless of what you've gone through. There are people who want to show up for you, like you said, we need the people. There are people who want to show up for you. And so even changing the simple thought that it's not safe to ask for help because you've gone through something or maybe you have financial resources, that doesn't change the fact that we need people and understanding who are those special people in our circle of trust, you know, if you will, that we can lean on for support in those times is so important. So simply changing your thoughts around the fact that people do or don't want to help you. And then how you feel is going to completely change because if you feel supported, if you feel love if you feel like it's safe to ask for help, then the outcome of that situation the outcome of what you want for yourself will align with what you need. And over time, like how we continue to respond to the circumstances and the things that go to in the thoughts that come to our mind, how we choose to respond to them can also shape our identity as we move forward. And I know you were created for so much you are here for, you know, you are here. And I want you to show up fully as who you are, who you are created to be every single step of the way. And that's more empowered and loved and confident as you move forward. Just to recap, Okay, anything else Corinne that you want to add in from our conversation today, I just want to say what you were saying just landed on my heart with such warmth. Thank you for saying those words. And yet just reiterating that, let yourself be the center. This is a very sensitive time in your life. You don't have to manage anybody else's thoughts, feelings, emotions about this. That's different if you have kids, okay? But if it's just you, and the people around you, your spouse's family, your family, friends, co workers, like you are not responsible for making this nice for anybody, your responsibilities to yourself, let yourself be the center. And let your connection with your center guide you to if you need a gatekeeper, like Aaron sister, or somebody in your life to speak up for you, and to handle things or if you need to feel the strength of being your own gatekeeper, and my situation, whatever its gonna look like, just let yourself be that center, and open to having help in your life so that your heart can start to warm and open in this devastating situation.

Erin Hente: 21:54

Absolutely. Thank you again. Oh, man, every time we get on here, I feel like my heart is expanding. And I hope each of you listening are feeling that as well. today. For those of you who would like to know more about Corinne. And the work she does, you can visit www dot Corinne. That's K O R i, n n.com. If you haven't done so, already, in the weeks ahead, I will continue to bring you practical tips, tools and encouragement for others on a similar journey as you navigate the journey ahead. So please be sure to subscribe to the channel so you don't miss a single episode. It is such an honor to be on this journey with you today. So thank you for investing time to be here with me. Until next time, I'm wishing you all the best if you've enjoyed today's podcast and want to design a life you truly love after loss, I invite you to join my becoming new coaching program. It's a program for women healing from loss where I can personally help you get unstuck and moving forward with confidence. If you're asking yourself, what do I do now? And don't wait another minute to get started and go to www dot Erin hinton.com linked in the show notes below to schedule your FREE 30 minute breakthrough session today. I look forward to uncovering what's next for you on your journey.