Ep 404 - The Light & The Dark Of Grief with Suzanne Anderson

Ian Hawkins 0:02

Are you ready, ready to release internal pain to find confidence, clarity and direction for your future, to live a life of meaning, fulfillment and contribution to trust your intuition again, but something's been holding you back, you've come to the right place. Welcome. I'm a Ian Hawkins, the host and founder of The Grief Code podcast. Together, let's heal your unresolved or unknown grief by unlocking your grief code. As you tune into each episode, you will receive insight into your own grief, how to eliminate it and what to do next. Before we start by one request, if any new insights or awareness land with you during this episode, please send me an email at info at the Ian Hawkins coaching.com. And let me know what you found. I know the power of this word, I love to hear the impact these conversations have. Okay, let's get into it.

Today's guest, Suzanne Anderson as written two books, the first one already published the way of the mysterious woman and second book out in June, you make your path by walking. And both of these books deal with overcoming things from your past and how to do so. So we talk about her own journey around how she's been able to come through different experiences herself. She touches on a time in Bali. And for those who have been longtime listeners, you've heard me refer to my own experiences in Bali. So she was given a calling in Bali. So she talks about then suddenly having this inner voice telling her that what what needs to happen. But then, of course then starts the journey of being able to make that a reality. And then there's also the big moment of having losing a husband to suicide and the impact that had and how she got through that how she came out the other side and everything she learned along the journey. Also some pretty cool guidance that came through for both of us through this chat. So if you like things are a little bit mysterious, then you'll love this chat with Suzanne and everyone and welcome to this week's guest Suzanne Anderson.

Suzanne, how are you? I'm great. Thank you. Good to talk to you here today.

Great to have you on. You've got a couple of books, you got one coming out very soon. But we've just talked about the your journey and chronologically probably makes more sense when we start on the first one. But the book was a product product of an experience that you had. And I mentioned before he came on, that my listeners would be familiar with some of the stories I've shared from my experience in Bali. But you had quite a profound experience in Bali too. So firstly, how do you end up in Bali? And then could you share write that story

Speaker 2 3:03

about? Well, there's sort of there's sort of these two life transforming moments like where literally there was a kind of what I call a wake up call one I would say I would call the light wake up call. That's what happened in Bali. And I'm sure that and then that put me on a path that ended up in the in the first book, which makes sense in the moment. And then the the second wake up call, which was more of the dark wake up call. Wake up as in, really wake up to who I am and to who I am in the world and to the world itself. So the first experience was maybe a couple of decades ago now. And my sister lived in Indonesia. At the time she lived in Java in Jakarta, no joke Jakarta actually jumped. And I went over there to visit her. And we had a we were fasting and doing yoga and kind of doing this wonderful week in Bali, just the two of us. She left her kids and husband in Java. And toward the end of that time. And I was meditating and I I kind of fell into I guess we could say or maybe dissolved into an experience of just loving presence. And I'd had a very long time spiritual practice. I'd had my first spiritual experience, maybe you could call it that if 17 or 18. So I'd been on a spiritual path for some time. But this was really different because I've been more in masculine spiritual paths with my own guru centric pathway. This was really like a deep feminine and surrender was just this pure light, pure bliss, absolute loving presence. And I stayed there for a couple of days. I mean, it was like I was in a state of bliss, were they not exactly what it was, if we could call it that, so I'm not in quite right words. But my, in some time during that, that timeless time A question came into my awareness, which was Will you help to midwife the Divine Feminine on Earth? To which everything in my body responded, yes, I had in mind online at that time, you know, to say, I will or I won't. But then when I came out of the state, and started to put myself back together, remember who I was, and where I lived and everything, I realized that what I'd said yes to, and, and I had no idea what that meant, and what it meant, ultimately, but I knew that it was the thing I was going to do next. At the time I lived in Paris, I was a management consultant. In a very prestigious actually, job, I worked with the top teams of fortune 100 companies, and this elite little management consulting world, as very masculine, weren't very many women in that world at the time. And as I mentioned, I was on this sort of more masculine spiritual path. So yeah, that was the within three months, I'd left the firm that I was part of, I started a private coaching practice in Paris with women, trying to figure out what I just said yesterday, basically. And that took me on a path I've been on ever since actually, I would say that I, it has been the my unfolding life has been along that trajectory of what does it mean to help play a part right now and waking up the deep feminine and men and women, although my own it took me ultimately to do programs and research for 10 years and any university programs so that I could really figure out what is this pathway specifically for women? But no, there we have it.

Ian Hawkins 7:14

Yeah. Wow. I imagine that when you first get given that guidance, and you're in a completely different space, you've got a job. And it's a very different world, like you said, very masculine, very driven, I imagine. Was there a part of you that was grappling with the concept of well, what, what does that path look like what I've been given this calling, but like how,

Speaker 2 7:38

or 100%, I had no idea what it meant, I really had no idea other than it was. And so I began where I was, which I think we have to do, right? When we get these calls, like where was I, I was in this consulting world. There were a few women at these executive levels. And I was aware that they were already up against a wall, you know, they, they learned to be successful, and the masculine model, left big parts of themselves behind and they were suffering. And so I thought, all right, well, I'll do this, I'll just open a practice for women. And I don't know what I'm doing. I literally feel like I was like one coaching session ahead of my clients at best, and trying to figure it out. And then my then husband, my first husband had an opportunity to come to United States and to launch a software company here in the United States in Seattle. And I realized, I'm way out over my skis here, it is a ski metaphor. I am Canadian, so I can use that metaphor. And, and I decided, okay, since I couldn't work, I'd go back to graduate school and clinical psychology and really see if I can understand what is this next level that I am trying to understand, develop? What would it be for women to develop into the next level? And I was always from the beginning, you know, really, I think I am a sort of bridge person I was, I am interested in how, you know, a deep presence or let's say soulful source full presence translates in how we live in the world, how we show up in our relationships, how we show up in business, how we show up and as agents of change in the world. So I, which is part of why I put my my programs and universities from the beginning so it wouldn't get sort of shoved over in the somewhere. Yeah.

Ian Hawkins 9:36

How was such programs received in universities at that time?

Speaker 2 9:42

And well, we were probably the things I were We were some of the first to do women's leadership programs now. I mean, really, everywhere you can see those. But at the time, it was the first program was that was a choice. allenge Just getting finding the people because we were just starting this. But after that there were there was a waiting list way out ahead, like way out ahead, because because universities because it was accredited, then people from Microsoft and Starbucks and a bunch of companies here, you know that our could was legitimate in a certain sense. And they were seeing the results. So women were coming back from these programs, and leading and really different ways they didn't have to know what we were doing. Because it wasn't a traditional leadership program in terms of just skills, we were actually working deeply with some of the unconscious beliefs that kept women stuck in these old ways of being.

Hmm, love that. So for for a while not necessarily even young woman, but a woman who's making their way through in business. What's the best tip we can give them for helping them be more conscious and to be able to step more into that feminine space but still feel that they're leading in a world which is generally the opposite is praised as the as the right path?

Speaker 2 11:10

Yeah, well, I guess the first piece there is to even recognize that they are part. But I would say they're there, that they're interested in probably listening to your podcast, they're what we could call women on the edge of evolution. To recognize you're not alone, because what's actually I've done a lot of when the first book came out, I did a lot of keynote, speaking over in Europe, and here in North America, and one of the things that happened for women was the sense of I am not alone, because it's actually quite confusing time. You know, there's this feeling of pressure, I want to be successful, I've seen a masculine model of leadership that looks like I should do that, but that I have to leave these parts of myself behind. I don't want to do that. Or maybe they've already gotten successful, you know, really mainlining that masculine way of being, and but are feeling dissatisfied and unhappy and wondering what's wrong with me. And so first of all, just to say, to normalize that this, we're trying to grow ourselves into the next level of our potentiality is how I hold it, and it's going to be uncomfortable. So first thing I'd say is, you know, welcome discomfort, it's okay, that you might be uncomfortable, right now. And then, and then see what what you can well, of course, I'm gonna recommend people get my first book, cuz I'm gonna lay it out. A lot of practices are in that book about places to start connecting to ourselves really coming back into the body again.

Yeah, and just for the title for those and we'll make sure we get the link in the notes to the way of the mysterious a woman upgrading how you live love and lead, which actually gives me goosebumps, like hearing that, like, what is that? What are they gonna find in that book? That's going to be so full for them, Suzanne?

Speaker 2 13:14

Yeah. Well, no, first, I should say what the word mystical is because I boldly invented it. Although some people hear it, and they think I think I know what that word means. But but it because after 10 years of this research, when we would have written the book is full of case studies of, of women going through these changes, which I think will be very helpful for people. But we had no we're trying to find a way to describe it as this like, are these full presence women leaders? Are they as an integral leaders as what's what can we call these leaders, but what we were seeing was women who had a capacity to exceptional capacity actually to be with the unknown with the mystery, with ambiguity with uncertainty. And of course, in these times, that's pretty critical. But they also had this what Carl Jung's collaborator Tony wolf called a medial capacity, which is this capacity to bridge between differences between the conscious and the unconscious, to sort of find the middle way. And one day, this word kind of popped up. These women are mysterious. So I wanted to say that first of all, that's what that is. kind of pointing the way to a way of being that we haven't seen before. So the book kind of lays out the first section is the research and the models. So that and they're certainly for men and for women actually, a lot of men have found the book useful, although the research I did was with women. And then part two is going through this developmental path. pathway, which goes through five different feminine and masculine archetypes. And in each one of those chapters, there are very specific practices, we kind of lay out, how does the shadow show up? And by shadow, I mean, the parts of ourselves that we've tucked into the unconscious. And you probably work with that on your podcast.

Yeah, absolutely. You've mentioned a couple of times around being that bridge. And barley is one of those bridges, right? It connects us to the part of us that perhaps we've always known was there, but didn't really know how to explain it or articulate it. But then you go away, and like you describe like, you're suddenly helping women, you're only a few steps ahead, which is, when you're guiding someone, that's all you need to be, is part of what you do or have done and continue to do is to help the feminine cross that bridge between, it's almost like two worlds, right? Like what they know in terms of the world they have to live in at this moment. But also making sure they're bringing that divine part of themselves to the table as well. Is that Is that how you would look at yourself as being that bridge? And if so, how does that? How do you see that role within yourself?

Speaker 2 16:30

That's a beautiful question. The image that I use often, and that comes to mind as you're saying that, did you ever read or you know, the book, the mists of Avalon? No, no, it's a, it's a novel. But it's this beautiful story of basically King Arthur's kingdom. So during the time of King Arthur, and Avalon was this sacred island and the way that and where the priestesses would go and be trained and learn the sacred arts, and then they would go back into the mainstream, they go back into Arthur's kingdom and bring these was this you know, vibration could say this wisdom. And you kind of have to have the way in the in the story of its, you have to have the eyes to see for the Isle of Avalon to show itself. So you get, there's a boatman who carries you across the waters and there's a fog and you know, the waters part and you see it. And it's this sort of how I feel I've actually lived my whole life. And when I feel is the the work we're doing which is and now we have the potential to do here, which is to be to see other worlds, but to be in the world, you know, and that to have the veil. And for me, Bali was a place where the veil was very thin. And I've been there many, many times since, as it turns out the night the dark story will we'll get to my husband was had an Indonesian antique furniture business, and we went to Bali a lot and to Java. So it was, every time I go, I'd get the next kind of download of what I need to do where I need to go. So I think it is true that I'm interested in being in the world. And I came could say I came here to be awakened present and in the world right now. And to be able to see things that maybe everybody else cannot see. And that does feel like part of what my role is yes.

No, I love that. And to me that's one of the greatest goals as a guide is to help them see what they can't see like you mentioned scheme before I come from a sporting background and and the dependency on having that mentor or coach or guide or someone there even just the teammate who can say didn't look at things from this perspective. And that's what you described beautifully. They're the bridge between what they feel within themselves and then the reality of the situation they have to go into I think that's yeah, really, really eloquent way of describing that. Thank you Suzanne. Now, fast forward then to like you said the the dark wake up. So can you tell us a little bit what about folder there and how that impacted you.

Speaker 2 19:50

So, I'm following the path of of Will you help to midwife the Divine Feminine on Earth? brings me to the to Seattle, to these programs as I described, and my first marriage ended, and very difficult and actually go into some of that in my second book, you met your path by walking. But, and about six months later, I met my second husband, David. And really, that meeting was, I just see, in some ways I felt like my whole life was, who was working its way toward him. And there are various reasons that I would say that, but there was that sense of just such coming home or resonant Flipside. And so he, as I mentioned, was in this in a business of Indonesian antiques, and he had a workshop in Java. And that was his passion. And he had actually created this incredible property on the island that I lived on also at the time in the Pacific Northwest. And had brought Indonesian antique houses over from Bali, taking them down, you know, one piece at a time, labeled them all, like a Lego set in a metal, rock the carpenters over and put them all up again. And so our property well, his property, and then it became my was this magical, magical, you've almost felt like you were walking into Bali, it had that, in fact, we had volleys. ricefields, kind of going down behind one of the temple buildings, it was quite extraordinary. Yeah. So this was another world I lived in this other world there. And my work was really beautifully unfolding. The work I was doing with women, we had two very different businesses, David did his own, and I did mine. And and after 10 years, it was time to bring this work into the world and share it with, with those beyond the few women that could get into our programs, because we've figured some things out. And I felt we could accelerate the development for women all over the world. But they weren't all going to come to Seattle, and do this program. So so my co author, Dr. Susan cannon, and I wrote this book, when the manuscript was complete. And we were getting ready to bring it out to the world to find a publisher. And also, to run a program that we had taken a year off of running our programs are both in house and corporations, and then programs that women came to, to write the book. So there we are. And then I will just say, David, in about three months prior to, to this. He had gotten tinnitus, if you're familiar with that. ringing in the ear.

Yeah, actually, really? Interestingly, I did a few podcast episodes on that. Just recently, so yeah, continue, please. Oh, really?

Speaker 2 23:12

Okay. Well, you may well know more than I do then about it. But David, got this tinnitus. And it was debilitating. When you were the people you've had on your podcast, where they people suffering with this, or

it's been a bit of a journey with my experience with it, helping other people with it. Some of the things like that have gone on, it's part of the awakening process. There are physical elements like the electromagnetic field when when the energy flares up, then it can go off more. But then what I've learned more recently is it's very much linked to a sense of rejection. And to the body talks to us, and more recently, a woman that had been through three years, I was working with her to help her alleviate some of the symptoms three years of really intense like she she sent me one of those, the video that shows the different sound. Yeah, oh my intensity. Yeah. And so this is like 10,000 hertz or whatever. And that's what she's experiencing constantly. And then when I when I, the next day, this is what I've just recently like talking about just being video clients, just recently, like maybe three, four weeks ago. And then the next morning, it came to me as like, oh, I ran it through the filter of everyone I knew and it's like, yeah, they experienced some kind of rejection from someone. And so I sent that to her and I said, would that add up for you? And she said, Well, yeah, she'd had, she'd been estranged from her both of her teen age children's children because of stuff going on with a separation all these different things. She goes that that actually sits perfectly with her and just acknowledging that really helps. I don't know if that works for you. Alright, well, let

Speaker 2 25:00

me tell you a little bit more. And then I'd love to hear what you think. Because for David, he, he would spend his mornings, early mornings. And up until this moment, in the states of bliss and his meditation, he would just get into these great states. And that was sort of part of how we handle this very complex business world he had between here and Java, and all these people, and our property, and they were all tied together. And so then he couldn't, he couldn't get into those states, because it was so, so crazy, like the threats for this woman, it was just like having this, like assault, and he was very, very sensitive being. And so then, and of course, then he couldn't sleep. So then that that is also an exacerbate.

So, I'm getting goosebumps. So when you were describing that I was getting like a twitch under my right eye, which would be mirrored back from him left left eye, which is the feminine, and, you know, twitches like message from from spirits, trying to get your attention. So, so my best guess would be, like you described, he was no longer able to connect to that, that feminine energy and see what he used to see because of everything going on. So the sense of rejection was from almost like that, that whether self or spirit of like, why weren't you? Were right.

Speaker 2 26:31

Well, I think I think you're right. And so then the other piece of it, that was very much a part of this is that his whole business was about to implode financially, which it did, and it all came crashing down on me. So there was an enormous amount of shame, also. And that, you know, you could say that was the fear of rejection, I think, was coming, because the reality of who he projected in the world, and what was about to happen, we're so different.

Yeah, that makes total sense. And I, my guess, would be that he may have experienced that at a minor level, like sort of leading up to that, but you're kind of like it comes and goes, and you don't make too much of a, we don't You don't draw a great deal of awareness to it. But then when it gets intense, then you really notice it. Yeah, fascinating, fascinating. And so

Speaker 2 27:30

yeah, so I think he, this is a combination of these factors that tinnitus with the physical level. And, you know, I felt we would work this through because there is no cure yet, as you know, obviously, but there are ways of working with it, so that you can learn to live with it. And then as you suggest, there may be wait patterns that you can clear, that are causal, but But anyway, that was going on. And then he, I believe, I know, actually, that he, he kind of lost hope in himself, and in the fact that he could handle what was about to happen with his business. And so on the on January 3 2013, he took his life, and I came home from working in the city that day to find him. That and, you know, to even try to convey the, the try to convey the, the opposing energies here, one of which is I'm getting ready to come out with my book, you know, to go to the publisher, five days later, we're going to launch a program, his niece, so his sister's daughter, and his best friend's son from Indonesia, who'd helped him set up his business. We're getting married two days later, all the Indonesian family, we're here in Seattle. You know, everything was in a certain sense celebratory and the energy was, this was obviously not always the case for someone who chooses to suicides. You could be they could have been in a depression a dark place for months. And this was David was struggling with the tinnitus. But he had obviously kept these parts very separate. And a part that was not afraid of leaving. couldn't, couldn't stay basically. And then the part who was very charming and here

Do you mind if I just ask a couple questions around? So to my left, middle fingers been itchy, like really itchy? And it's like I'm, like I say that's, that's usually somebody from spirit. Now, I just tried to quickly look up middle finger. Now it says here, this is the first one that's come up. And it's about the throat, throat chakra. And then the next thing is around, boosting your skills. around taking responsibility. So is that to do with you? Yeah,

Speaker 2 30:34

I mean, if I had to say there are two things that I've had to do, you know, would be, basically they Well, or we could say David couldn't do he couldn't take responsibility for what he had created. And he left and I did take responsibility. And, and it required me to be I mean, I would say, the throat chakra in terms the way I hold the throat chakra in terms of not just speaking, but manifesting. The things that I actually needed to do. As the title of the second book is you make your path by walking like, how one thing that I was very clear about and this was from, I did not know, when I found him that he'd taken his life, I actually thought he'd had a brain tumor. From the that was the ringing in the head, like, that's just what I. And when I found out that he had taken his his own life couple of hours after that, from a friend who was there, and the police were there, and it was a whole scene. This this thing, this voice just rose up in me and I remember it, like now, I was standing in front of our fireplace. And somebody came and said, you know, you should sit down or something I want to tell you and I said, No, I'm not sitting down. I'll just stay standing. What is it, you need to say, and then they told me and this just voice came in and said, I will not the allow what I am here to do this, the midwifing of the Divine Feminine on Earth, I will not be taken down by this, I will do what it is I'm here to do. It was almost like I sent this vibrational belay line out into my future self, you know, to say this, this, you are still on belay, you are obviously going to go to a deeper and darker place than you've ever been before. But you know something about walking in the dark. And actually, that is the lesson and that is where you will go. You know, that was an important thing for me. Yeah,

I mean, to my mind, we can't teach others to walk in the light until we've been through our own dark road. And it doesn't mean we wish darkness on ourselves. Generally, everyone's been through the dark. It's just they haven't necessarily associated with it the first time. So the darkness will come and find you in another way. Like how dark like even though you had that moment, almost involuntary commitment to yourself. Like how dark did it get in those coming hours and days and weeks?

Speaker 2 33:22

Yeah. Oh, it was? Well. The work I do, just to say is with the dark, you know, the yin and yang symbol in the dark is the yin and the yang is the white. And the work I had been doing for years had to do with inviting women to really make contact with the their own embodied nature with the unconscious, you could say, with all that is not known. And so that was already something I knew. And one of the myths that I worked with a Greek myth of Persephone diameter myth. And the myth, for those that aren't familiar with that is basically that. And so, it's a myth that I always it's in my first book, and we do a kind of ritual process here, when at the beginning of every program I do where women sort of ritually turned toward the dark. And the methods that can I just give you the simple version of the myth? Yeah, of course. Okay, so Persephone is amazing and she's picking flowers with her mother diameter. And Hades, who was god of the underworld saw her, fell in love with her. And with along with Zeus decided he would have her as his bride. So one day he, she's picking flowers and he comes up in his chariot with the thundering horses and grabs her and takes her down into the unknown. old and she refuses to eat anything refuses to talk to him, she uses everything of the underworld experience. And there for some time until eventually Zeus relents and decides she should return to her mother Demeter. It's a longer story. But let me just give you that. And it's the basic. So just before she's about to leave, Hades offers her some pomegranate seeds. What's interleaving? Why don't you eat these pomegranate seeds. And she thinks, Okay, I'm getting out of hell, I think I can eat something now. And she has a few seeds. And when she returns to the upper world to where diameter is her mother, she discovers that if she's eaten anything in the underworld, she would then have to spend six months of the year in the underworld and six months of the year in the upper world. So ultimately, though, and this is the point, she becomes Queen of the underworld, she falls in love with Hades, she learns to embrace the dark. And she becomes Queen of the upper world. And this is really that bridging it was talking about, you know, could save in the stereo that same way. So the day after David died, one of my good friends lived on the same island, Michael Mead, and he's written a lot of books on. He's a kind of ritual elder, and you'd probably like his work if you don't know it already. And I asked him to come over and just like, help me make sense of this. And he knew the meth, he's also amazing mythologist. And we sat together, and he just looked me right in the eye and said, Well, you are going to be and you have been called, actually, you've been called to go somewhere darker than you've ever gone before. And remember that your queen Persephone that you do know how to be in the dark. And some of us will be with you in the upper world, or, you know, we'll be holding space in the upper world, but it's yours actually now, to go down. And I remember in that moment, and I write about this in the book, that feeling of something almost like something let go inside me to really, to go down. And in the going down, you know, there was also the possibility that I might eventually come up. Yeah. So the darkness was just as it began to be apparent. What would you know, letting it all in one piece at a time?

Yeah. And when you when you shared that part about the darkness, and then your friend there, just got this wave of nausea. And it's like that that's what it's like, right for for people when they go first go into that darkness. It's like a, that sinking feeling. And they got that this sick feeling that

Speaker 2 38:04

it is this kind of nauseating feeling. It's also it's also Yeah, the, for me, there was also the scrambling, that my ego, try trying to leave like to take flight, you, you got to go like this part of me that felt like I just had to go, I just gotta go, I gotta go, I gotta go. And then I would be like, Oh, my God, there's nowhere to go. There's nowhere I can go. I can't go, you know, so there were the the feeling of and I knew enough from the work I do. That I wanted to get to a place where I could just be with what is like really be with this denial is a really helpful stage and trauma. And I and it's an essential because you you're the preferred front load goes off duty a little bit while your nervous system is overwhelmed. But ultimately, the sooner you're able to not resist what is which is what Persephone did initially when she went down, you know, to not resist it, the better it is, for you. There's already so much suffering, you know, and then the Buddhists call it the suffering of the suffering. When you resist your suffering, or you're trying to change what it's like, get me away, get me somewhere or you go numb, or you know, this is actually happening. And this is and this is my life. Like this isn't this is my life right now. It's not like I'm, I don't know where I'm going to go. And so, can I be here now, with this now this day does not come back. This moment does not come back.

That word you used the word I think you use but it's where my mind went the resistance to the suffering it's, to me, that's what causes most people their problems, it, if we can just sit with it, we can find a way to let it pass, but we just want to resist and whether it's like finding any joy on the other side of, of that sort of depth of loss, whether it's allowing ourselves to feel the depth of the pain, because it's not just the moment from, from that grief, but it's everything that comes to surface at the same time, really. But it really is that art of being able to be in that state of just allowing it to be right.

Speaker 2 40:33

Absolutely. And being able to this isn't in the system I work with, that I teach is, when I call the mother archetype, that first the Yin field is how I think about it, the deep feminine, but the static, feminine. There's also a dynamic, feminine, talk about but this, the Yin field where you can just let yourself drop in to here to this moment. And the thing about the emotional body. And I mean, I knew something about this, obviously, I talked about this, I lived at some degree, but I mean, I don't think but no, I'd never experienced anything of this level. The thing is the waves move, they are designed to move. If we will let them move. The fear is and it's it's an understandable fear, and I had it myself was, it's going to be too big. If I you know, and so I, I learned how to, I could say it like this, I learned how to surf like big wave surfing. And that metaphor, and you don't suddenly, I have always loved big wave surfing, I do not serve. I do big local skiing, which is my equivalent, but I've always loved watching it, it's sort of like one of the things I do and I've done for years to just watch big wave surfing is something about when people are with that kind of force of nature, and can be with it. And that image for me was so right on for for what was happening when I went down. Yeah.

I don't know if you've done much dream interpretation. But big waves is big emotions. And, and the you know, everything that comes crashing down. So I love how what you're drawn to because it's the exact space you work in. I found this really fascinating. And this is just the thought that came to you when you were talking it's like the being allowed to be able to get into that place of allowing is the feminine, but most men are trying to stay in the masculine and post going through a wall was a lot of women are too much in that masculine two. Is that the reason why grief is so hard for the Western world? Because when we've lost that out of that?

Speaker 2 43:08

Absolutely, I would say absolutely. For men and women. We've, we've, well, that's just the TS Eliot poem. I don't know the whole poem. But it's a when the when the darkness does it go? The Darkness becomes the light and the when the darkness becomes the dancing or something like that. The darkness is so terrifying to the the pure hypermasculine that there's a sense that I'll be annihilated. If I go toward this rather than actually there will be there's not just you find the light in the darkness, because that still makes it about the light is that you find the pearl in the darkness you find the beauty in the darkness you find your embodied experience in the darkness. But the hypermasculine has also been very mental. And I would say and we I read about this in the first book, from a developmental perspective, just in terms of culture, we've been in 5000 years of this more masculine model of wholeness. And that wasn't wrong. We were cultivating a lot of the capacity of the brain and the higher functioning mind but now it is time not to go to the feminine we're not going back to the Goddess but to bring now the feminine together with the masculine Yes,

yeah. Once we jump off I'll have to show you an image that came to me in meditation we were exactly like it on that callings, which was exactly along those lines. You You were talking there about the the The masculine having that fear of what they will lose if they go in to that space. And it is amazing how people going through that grief. I think one of the things that blocks is it's almost dishonouring the person or I'm dishonouring the situation or like, it's not okay to be happy again, if you suddenly find that pearl on our phone, I don't know, if I want to go down there. I'm not ready to find that pearl. And I think I'd love your thoughts on how you help people to be ready to be able to to realize that within that darkness, they can actually find that pill.

Speaker 2 45:44

Yeah, well, the first thing would be to just be in the darkness, because that's the surrenders, okay. And that is yeah, the surrender is surrender is everything there were the in one way, you know, I remember Michael also was thinking that to me, you know, way that you know, you're really in a dissent, the way that we might think about real dissent, the way that even indigenous cultures still today have these rites of passage that are designed to take people into the dark, is that you don't know if you'll come back. And also there is a sacrifice required, something must be let go of. And I know for myself there was, although I'd been another dark times before other hard things that happened in my life, I don't think I ever felt like this where I felt like, you know, the ego, desperately trying to hold on, I wasn't sure, you know, the heroic me, that could get through anything was shattered. And that was actually for me. And I'd say for others, that was a good thing. Because the breaking open, and being willing to be broken open was the way to break into the world or the world to break into me. And so, you know, I think you don't need to do that on your own. I'm not even sure we should do it on our own. So when you know, one of the hardest things for me, and was that I had to accept the role that I was in which I didn't want to accept QA because I was usually the one helping people through difficult things, and being the transformational teacher and doing blah, blah. Now here I was at the center, my role was actually to be the one broken open. But if I was able to go to be there, which was where I was designed to be, something could happen. And what did happen was this incredible love field came in around me, of my good friends and my family. And it was profound for everyone. I think everyone would say that, that there was something we found together in the darkness, and I'm sure I couldn't have found it on my own.

Yeah, and it draws me back to something that I was going to mention earlier as like the responsibility wasn't just in the responsibility you were thrust in, but it was like, you know, you wouldn't want to go somewhere else, but you weren't sure where to Parliament is, there's a sense of responsibility to stay here and, and playing your role through all of that, right. But also, what I love there is you being responsible enough for yourself to know that we'll know it's actually okay. It's okay for me to receive support and help through this. And even

Speaker 2 48:49

when when I when I write about this in the book I factored myself in this was a big piece of my own growth was I think I had overstepped some of my own humanity, and my desire to be observed within the world. And you know, all of that. I can relate to that. Yeah, I think a lot of us have that shadow. And this was because I really lost everything. I didn't just lose my husband and the path ahead. But his the financial devastation was complete. We had a multimillion dollar property that I had to sell and was able to sell fortunately, very quickly, but his debt did not even equal that property. So literally, all of my personal resources were gone. Wow, I lost my community. I left the island I closed my business down. I mean, you may be familiar with a Tibetan sand paintings where the monks have these little tubes and they blow sand onto the Korean Mandalas of sand have ever seen these No, they're amazing, they're there, you should find an audio or video of this. It's a whole meditation that they do for days where these monks take turns. And they all create this amazingly intricate and gorgeous mandala. And you could choose to be, and I've been present for some of them where I've just, you sit in meditation while the monks are doing this. Well, at the very end, when it's all done, they just they take a step, and they just wipe this whole thing. And that's what it felt like it felt like life just like everything that was so beautiful, I had the most beautiful life, all I can say. And it was just gone within six months. So it wasn't like, it was just a little bit of my life gone, it was like everything in my life was gone. And how I would go through this, I knew right at the beginning was not a guarantee that I would where I would get to in the end, but I wasn't going to not have myself in it. So for example, the decision to take on the role of the Will the executor, so I was named as one of my financial counselors said, you know, maybe you should just walk away because we had separate businesses, you know, I wasn't tied into the estate, that way, you should just pack up and go, and because otherwise you are it is a sinking ship, and you could go down with it. And I spent a month just using all my ways of knowing to really feel into what could happen. I mean, and ultimately, including, when taking myself into account for the first time really, I made the decision to go ahead and be the executor and tried to sell the property and I felt like it was my path to walk. And that if I could do it, there would be some residents that would start to come in the field around David and some people could get money back that creditors that you borrowed from but I did that in a more complete way than I've ever done anything before with myself in the middle of it as well. Yeah.

ultimate responsibility that's magic. The this this sort of sense of anxiety that came up when you mentioned finding or finding out that your husband had taken his life It also came up when you just mentioned the sand patterns and I imagine both of them is because of what you described is that everything just being swept away. So so what what was that like from from an emotional perspective, when when everything's taken, like how did that feel? And how did you get through it

Speaker 2 53:02

well, let's see, I guess the way the best way I could describe it beyond what I've said already would be to say it was profoundly humbling that these you know in the way that that lightweight cup dissolved my ego and my identity in that moment you know from this management consultant who is doing all this work and blah blah blah I this event totally dissolved my had an identity I didn't even know I was a lot of our identity rightly sort of goes in the background we don't even know what we how we see ourselves but, but every way I identified myself was was gone. But this one is one of the the images I I had and it was something that it was an image here for Americans will relate to more because it was a big hurricane that we had on the East Coast. And everything was devastated in the New Jersey area but this one there's a photo that went viral but which was this the Virgin Mary this one graveyard were all that everything was just flattened but this the the Virgin Mary is standing there now. She survived out of out of everything else getting knocked over. And often I felt like that like something held inside me that I felt kind of like being tied to a mast and in a ship that's going crazy in the frothing ocean, like some part of me that wasn't about the identities that remained and I really landed firmly or let's say rested back into a me or in a me in relationship to a we are inter being or the larger, something that I actually had enormous faith in. Now whether that meant I could have been homeless, you know, under a bridge. Yeah, maybe that was one of the options there. I had no guarantee that way. But I did. I didn't have that center. Yeah, the same time I had all the waves to go through, I want to say these were co arising, I had no anger, enormous grief, terror, in all moments of joy. And with that would happen, I had all it was like, a whole panoply of emotion at the same time. Yeah,

it's a great description, because that is what it's like, isn't it? No matter? No matter your circumstances, it's just a whirlwind of all these different combinations. That's probably why it's so hard to make sense over time. Because it's just like, you try and grab on to something and it's just ever changing,

Speaker 2 56:14

ever changing. And so therefore, you know, you get an I did get more connected to what, what wasn't moving? Well, everything is moving, like groundless ground, or something. And there's a wonderful we used to teach and when we did our all our, during the research phase, we did intreat, in person retreats a lot. And there's a practice in Aikido called Ron Dory. I don't know if you're familiar with that. But basically, it's when the the Aikido master stands in the center of the circle. And different people come in toward him or her. And the job of the Aikido master is to take however, that whatever that person, however, they move toward them, and move them, you know, so you basically, so if you do it, well, you aren't meeting each person or circumstance in the same way. You're really you are staying, you're present, but then you get thrown off, but you're not to come back fast. And then you get thrown off and you know what to come back fast. And that's what it felt like a constant wandering, because there were so many factors. And the more that I could be when I was soft knees and present, the more capable I wasn't meaning whatever that next hard thing was, or that that next moment was.

That's a great description. And that's a good way to approach any of the challenges begin small, isn't it to have more of that flexibility?

I've been drawn to the pitcher behind you inside. And archway. It's almost like angel wings. Like who's the pitcher?

Speaker 2 58:15

Yeah, well, that is, first of all the, what you're seeing it framed behind is an antique Indonesian. The marriage backward that would actually go behind the bed, that sort of like the sacred, you put the image of your sacred clouds or whatever. Well, this is a little photo of a little boy that met someone, a person who took the photo, early one morning, super early in the morning, when they were hiking in Nepal. And nobody was around them, they were looking around for where to go. And that little, little Bing, and it's such a beautiful image showed up. And the interesting thing is, I mean, it was such a beautiful photo and this the woman who took it as a gallery here in Seattle, and then sold it to too many people and generated funds from it and felt that that money should go back to that person. So about five years after the photo, or maybe more, maybe five or six years. She went back to Nepal went back to the village took this photo and went around to everybody to say Do you know who this was and ultimately found him and and then funded him to go to school. And obviously his life changed and his family's life changed and it's a beautiful story, but I love that because it's a kind of there were many layers of reason I love it. But what was it what struck you when you saw it?

Well this is my they'd be a bit out there for my regular listeners. But when you were talking, I'm like, He's almost like conscious of like, someone they're like with some really long hair. I don't know if it's a male long hair. And it's like, hair that's kind of like, it's like, you might imagine a sort of biblical sort of person. And then I'm like, oh, that same shape is mirrored by the framing of the around the picture. I'm like, is it? Is it a, like, a past ancestor of yours? Like, did you Was there a? I'm not sure. I could throw a few yeses in there. But I got the sense that it was like, I don't know. Did your did your husband or your dad or grandparents? Male have long hair?

No. I don't have a direct.

So yeah, I'm not sure what all that was. It's something I've experienced before. But that's what I was kind of kind of saying, and it's like. Yeah, but it was great.

Speaker 2 1:01:12

Well, you know, the other day someone was doing a podcast with me. And they said, because you said angel wings. They said, you know that there's this, like, white being that is behind you? Well, the, when I had that experience in Bali, the the essence that I feel like connected with there's this an essence that I think is in the energy of Quan Yin, who is the goddess of compassion, this big white being. And I said, well, either someone I do have pretty close to me. So I don't know that what you're getting into?

Well, I got confirmation from my body, that that would be it. But also, there's probably a bit more to it than that. So now if that's something that you're needing to share, or maybe for, for after, but more significance and just

not sure.

Speaker 2 1:02:19

I'm very open to hearing any threads that you think would be useful for?

Well, I'm not I'm not going to get clear. I'm not getting a clear. Read on it, except that there might be an element of frustration from you whether that's something because you don't know or whether.

Speaker 2 1:02:42

Yeah, I don't I don't feel frustration at all. In fact, what I would say is why I'm curious in what you're doing is I think that one of the ways that one of the things that was most helpful for me going through the dark, dark times was that I really was listening at all of these layers and levels to, to beings to people on them different in different dimensions and paying attention and extraordinary things happen. I mean, synchronous things happened. And I was open to them. I was I was watching and tuning in to be informed. What was my next step? Because there were so many critical decisions I had to make, that would have and did have very big consequences.

When when I get different reads, it doesn't necessarily mean that it's anything you can identify with. Or, well, it might just be something sitting there. So it's a unconscious frustration, perhaps. But anyway, we might move on from that maybe the answer will come as we go. So the first book, you said came out, like, at the same time, so no, no, it was that whole, we'd have to pause that whole situation. Oh, yeah,

Speaker 2 1:04:11

for sure. Yeah, the it hadn't. We hadn't found a publisher yet. We had just finished it. And we were getting ready to do that. So the program that was supposed to happen. Five days after David died, we postpone for five months, and then did that. And then it took me about another year and a bit to get back to the book, the first book, and follow through and the publishing and get that out in the world that came out in 2016. And, and did very well. It's a that got three awards. And it's been really, I think, an impactful book in the world in the space that I'm working in. But I didn't really that was not my journey. And it was I didn't even mention it. except in the the acknowledgments at the end of the book. So, this new book coming out in June, you make your path by walking a transformational field guide through trauma and loss, that was not a plan that I was just walking, I was just making my bath by walking, you know, and I was very, very deliberate about not doing it as for anybody other than myself initially, I mean, for myself as a transmission for, you know, I could impact others, but I wasn't going to do the spiritual bypass of writing about things that I hadn't lived yet. And it wasn't until another after the first book came out, maybe another three years or so that I was ready to write for myself, I wanted to write myself back together, and take myself back over the ground of what had happened. And I would go away for a week at a time, and then do that it was very hard, actually. And, but very, like, the me of today or of them, taking the me of the hadn't gone through the horror, you know, when he died in that first year, by the hand, and those two coming together was very, very healing for me. And after I'd written that I, I've written quite a lot, maybe took me a couple of years, because I go away every now and again. Then I showed it to my, my editor of the first book, and she was the one that said, Okay, I think you need to make this into a book for others, you can bring this out. So that was that just happened. And then it all happened very fast. It was like, okay, all right, then, here we go.

I love that, especially what you said about the writing, there's no point writing or sharing messages around things that you haven't been through, because it's, it's not in alignment, it's like, you can talk about it, because you've spoken to people, but it's not where you can have the greatest impact. But then, as you said, you go through this process of sharing your stories, so therapeutic in itself of externalizing all of the different thoughts and feelings and, and all the moments. And of course, that's what's going to have the biggest impact. So this book hasn't gone out, but I imagine you're going to get some fantastic feedback given it is coming purely from your story. But after that first book, like we you, was there some some feedback that you got that that really surprised your blue your way that you received from people?

Speaker 2 1:07:53

Ah, yes, I think it was the carrier wave for me that I kind of rode back into my work in, in a way I people were so grateful, it's like we met, we show, show women a map and hit home, then you can see where you are. And that was enormously comforting for women. And also the practices were like, okay, and get going, because this is the the, the dynamic of this evolutionary time, you know, what the moment we're in right now is forcing us to grow, if we can stop resisting it, and actually let the emergence occur. And I think the book was, has been still it's actually interestingly, it's my publisher keeps saying, it's like your books got a reverse curve, because, you know, books come out and they've got something my book has come out and didn't okay, but then it just keeps going. And during COVID It was it was really helpful to a lot of women and I think this second book, women in particular will want to go back and get the first book because what I what I do in the second book, and this just came about when I stepped back after I saw my writing and I was trying to see how did i How did like the connect to the first book to this archetypal pathway I mentioned but what I actually saw was that there were there were eight when I call meta capacities that we had started to see in women there in the last chapter of the first book, like we just seen them like multi dimensional knowing, embracing paradox, gender to mutual we've named these ways of being that were like second order, you'd say, and, but we weren't fully living it yet. It was like we just received no like we're on the edge. And that's what I did. That is what I lived. So this book is that then there's the whole second section is where I tell my stories, but I connect them to those meta capacities. And so you can see III, how it's possible through the most difficult circumstances that could be thrown at you that you're being called to that darker night for the transformative force, if you will let it have its way with you. And that's hard as hell, because none of us want to be in that kind of pain. But when you are called, event it is okay. What is this is, is the cauldron, you know, for the alchemy for something I can't even imagine. Yep. Like that's level of emergence, right?

allow that. For something you can't even imagine yet. I think that's the bit that if anyone's going to take anything away, like when you're going through whatever you're going through, you're looking to grow and changes, you have to remember you, you've got no idea what's coming. And you don't know what you're capable of until you step forward, as you say, make your own path by walking. Because what you're capable of today is, you couldn't have imagined what you've created way back when,

Speaker 2 1:11:11

because the self today, you know, the self myself at the beginning, that that identity was not an identity that would be able to forgive was not an identity that could be at home in that kind of darkness and dissent. I had to grow that identity over time, and that identity later. came online. And then then, you know, that was a different experience.

Yep, well said, Now of all of these different amazing creations and moments and teaching and leading that you've done, what? What are you most proud of? Suzanne?

Speaker 2 1:12:07

That's a that's a great, it's a great question for him. Because I I don't often think of myself as being proud per se. But I really love that I, I should think about that. Like that. In other words, yeah. And I am proud of the way I did walk through this, like that I've I had that initial I will not be taken down. And that I would hold I would walk in the way of the ministerial woman basically. And I really have done, I am doing that. Now. This is the next phase of bringing this book out and talking about it, you know, is is the next phase of my own healing and I, I'd say, Yeah, I've, whatever that soul contract was, and I don't believe that David incarnated with the plan to suicide, I think it's one of the options of a probability path. That was one, that's the one that he took. And therefore I was then put on a path with him. But having now that I was on that path, that this was a walk that my, my soul accepted. And an invitation I would say that I lived into, and I'm really, I'm proud of that.

Amazing. Love it. Where can people find firstly, the book that's already published the way of the mysterious woman? And then can you let us know where when when the second book, you make your own path by walking will be released? And how people can find that as well?

Speaker 2 1:13:57

Yeah. Amazon is the best place. Well, actually, what I would say is go to your local bookstore if you've got one, because that's what I always would like to see us do. We can have to be somewhere you haven't bookstores still order it through them. But serve Amazon and everywhere else Barnes and Noble and whatever you have in Australia, I know a lot of people in Australia have the first book. And the second book you make your path by walking is out on June 13. And that you can preorder now in all of those places. So yes, I invite you to do that. And you could find me at Mysterio a woman.com. And that's that wonderful world and y s t e r i l woman.com.

Love it. Thank you. We'll make sure we get all those links in the show notes so people can find you nice and easily as well. Susie, Suzanne, thank you so much for coming and sharing your story and being open to whatever will come from it and it made for a really A beautiful chat and thank you for sharing your magic and mystery always.

Speaker 2 1:15:06

Thank you and for sharing yours. It's been a really beautiful, meandering and meaningful conversation. Thank you.

You're welcome. Thank you

Well, I hope you enjoyed this episode of The Grief Code podcast. Thank you so much for listening. Please share it with a friend or family member that you know would benefit from hearing it too. If you are truly ready to heal your unresolved or unknown grief, let's chat. Email me at info at Ian Hawkins coaching.com You can also stay connected with me by joining the Grief Code community at Ian Hawkins coaching.com forward slash The Grief Code and remember, so that I can help even more people to heal. Please subscribe and leave a review on your favorite podcast platform