In this episode, discover how to connect with the loving, gentle guidance of your angels through personal readings and memberships. Explore the Angel Reiki School, offering an 8-week online course and an immersive in-person experience in Oakbrook, Illinois, to develop spiritual gifts like mediumship and energy healing. Host Julie Janice brings forth angel messages emphasizing trust in divine overflow and abundance. The episode features a discussion with Dr. Mary Francis O’Connor on her book ‘The Grieving Body,’ exploring how grief affects both the brain and body and offering insights on navigating loss. Listeners are invited to deepen their connection with divine energy and join various transformative programs available at theangelmedium.com.

00:00 Welcome and Introduction

00:27 Membership and Angel Reiki School

01:48 Personal Journey and Angel Message

02:30 Understanding Abundance and Divine Overflow

04:28 Meditation and Divine Prosperity

11:21 Interview with Dr. Mary Francis O’Connor

27:41 Understanding the Grieving Body

29:31 Exploring Spiritual Gifts

30:21 Membership Events and Opportunities

31:57 Physical Effects of Grief

35:33 Adapting to New Routines

38:29 Collective Grieving and Resilience

40:56 Personal Reflections on Loss

47:29 The Depth of Grief Research

50:08 Conclusion and Resources

Angel Membership

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Angel Reiki School

Feeling called to step into your spiritual gifts? Start online today and receive FREE tuition for an in-person training this spring (April 11-13, 2025, in OakBrook, IL) or fall. Become a certified healer through mediumship, angel messages, and energy healing.

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New Readings with Julie

Book a 25-minute reading recorded for the podcast and social media. Hear what your angels have to say and share their guidance with others!

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Not Sure Where to Start?

Email me at julie@theangelmedium.com or book a free discovery call.

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Day 31 of 31 Miracles: Your soul is already perfect, just as it is. Today, your Spirit Team invites you to see yourself through the eyes of the divine—whole, complete, and worthy of love. Release the need to strive for perfection and embrace the beauty of who you are in this moment. You are a unique expression of divine love, and the world is better because you’re in it.

Transcript:

Julie: [00:00:00] Hello, beautiful souls. I’m thrilled you’re here to connect with the divine guidance of your angels. Imagine feeling the gentle, loving whispers of your angels guiding you every step of your life. If you’re ready to experience that profound connection, book a personal reading@theangelmedium.com by clicking the readings tab For those eager to work daily with their angels.

Join my membership. Every month we explore a new facet of angel communication. Through live weekly meetings on Wednesday evenings at 7:00 PM central time. This isn’t just about learning, it’s experiencing healing and coming home to know your soul’s truest path. And if you’re ready to develop your spiritual gifts to the max, join my Angel Reiki school.

You can go through the school in two ways, whether you choose our enlightening online eight week school starting on the first of each month, [00:01:00] or join our immersive. In-person school in Oakbrook, Illinois from April 11th through the 13th, 2025, you’ll gain the skills to become an angel Messenger yourself.

My school gives you the skills of mediumship, energy healing, and angel messages all at once. You can use these skills to start your own spiritual business or to grow your current career. Step into a life filled with angelic energy transformation and unstoppable abundance. Sign up today@theangelmedium.com or check the show notes to book a call with me to chat about which program would be best for you.

Your journey with the Angels begins now. Let’s see what messages they have for you in today’s show. Friends. Before we dive into today’s episode, I really, really want to bring through this angel message. First off, the angels are saying To let you know that I went through the surgery [00:02:00] actually went so much better than I expected.

One hiccup was really glad that I did it because they found so much more endometriosis wrapped around even other. Organs outside of where they, they thought it was gonna be. I’ll explain that all in a different episode, but so, so glad that I got the surgery. Uh, it was definitely needed. More to come on that later.

Let’s focus in on you today. I know that I’ve mentioned this before on the podcast, but sometimes when we reuse words over and over and over again, they kind of tend to lose the powerful. Energy behind them. And I see that happening right now in our world when it comes to the word abundance. Okay. And if you feel that way too, uh, your, your angels have a message for you about abundance [00:03:00] today, but they said that we can call it something else.

Okay? So I want. To just kind of say as we’re going forward with the podcast, if you hear me, use the words, divine overflow, heavenly provision, sacred prosperity, um, miraculous supply, infinite blessings, divine prosperity. We’re all talking about the same thing. Abundance. And your angels say that there is so, so much just like a treasure trove worth, which is great ’cause I’m recording this on St.

Patty’s Day. Happy St. Patty’s Day. I think March 8th, right? Happy St. Patty’s Day, everybody. But I kept getting this vision when I was in meditation this morning of. The treasure that’s at the end of the rainbow when you see St. Patty’s Day decorations and the angels came in in meditation this morning and they go, Julie, [00:04:00] there is so much divine overflow blessings, divine treasure on its way to people right now, you and, and the angels just said.

Tell ’em if they are listening to this, it’s you. Your angels are trying to communicate to you right here, right now. You don’t see what is on its way to you. The angels need you to keep believing. So this message is for you. And we’re not gonna do a meditation, but I just want you to center your energy no matter whether if you’re driving or you’re at work.

Just take one second, pause and take a deep breath in. Deep breath out. God, universe, source. Let our energy be connected, all of us, as we’re hearing this message from you and the angels. The angels want you to know that divine [00:05:00] overflow is not just on its way. It’s actually already here with you, waiting for you to recognize it.

The angels say you have worked so, so incredibly hard and your nervous system. I’ve been tuning into the nervous system of just the collective humanity, and it is so. Rightfully so. So what is the word? Just not tense, but. Overwhelmed, right? Like the nervous system of every person, every soul, especially if you’re highly sensitive, is just so overwhelmed that your angels want you to know that the work that you have done in the past, you have to trust.

Trust the work that you’ve done, trust the path, even though it’s unclear, is gonna lead [00:06:00] you forward to so much good that is awaiting you. Now the doors are opening. The treasure chest is revealing itself, not as really something that you must chase after, but as something that really you just have to align your vibration with.

Your angels want you to know that divine prosperity is not something that, again, you. Earn it is a vibration that’s here right in front of you that we wanna help you align with. You gotta hold the frequency of trust, of gratitude, of openness, of belief, of faith in God, universe. Source that the universe is gonna respond, sending you more than you ever thought possible for yourself.

And this is the season where infinite blessings are unfolding with ease. Effortlessly, right? The angels [00:07:00] just came in, Archangel Michael in particular, and said, not just a year from now, five years from now. Now within the next month, there are blessings coming to you unfolding within the next six months.

There are blessings unfolding for you within the next year. The universe has. So many gifts, blessings for you. This is the season where infinite blessings, unexpected heavenly blessings are really gonna appear out of nowhere. Now, this is the other thing that the angels really, really want to emphasize.

You’ve done the work. You’re on the right path. You are here to keep going. A lot of people are being asked right now to tune into their intuition, to make a little tweak over here, A little tweak over there. But there are so many gifts, blessings, heavenly divine overflow provisions, prosperity [00:08:00] that are gonna come to you out of nowhere.

Okay, because your heart, your intention, who you are, it is all aligned. And what your homework is to do is to get into oneness and stay in. Oneness. Friends, if you need help with this, I really highly recommend that you join the Angel membership. It helps you so much to get into oneness to stay in this vibration.

And here’s the other thing that we really don’t talk. A lot about the angels say dimension. It. There is a law beyond the laws of effort. A law that operates all laws are divine. But this law is called the law of divine overflow. And this law states that when you move in harmony with your in oneness, you’re able to connect with [00:09:00] your highest self.

The universe doesn’t just give you enough. It gives you more than enough, which is one of the things that I should do an entire podcast episode on when it comes to manifestation, honestly, a lot of times when we are manifesting, we are manifesting getting to the moon, but I. The angels wanna take us all the way to the sun.

There is so much more that is on its way to you, not that you have to know all of it, right? You can manifest and you can have the biggest dream in your heart. You can say, God, universe, source, this is what I wanna manifest for my life. And whenever I talk about manifesting, it always involves a bit of service.

And when you manifest. I am telling you, when you hold faith and keep your vibration high in oneness, oh my goodness, [00:10:00] what is gonna come to you is gonna just blow you away with such love, such grace, such ease where you are gonna have things happen this year and you are gonna go, God, I wasn’t expecting that.

Oh, I could cry, but I am just so incredibly grateful and. Friends, the angels just said that as you come into these beautiful blessings and miracles that are on their way to you, share them openly with people around you so that they can be touched by this energy. Yes, we speak these words, but the words.

That we talk to one another. They carry a vibration, they carry an energy, and you can inspire others just simply by being yourself, being in oneness this year, calling on God, universe, source to bless your life in the [00:11:00] greatest ways possible, allowing yourself to receive those blessings and then sharing them with the world.

Oh my goodness. Could that change so much for all the souls here? I love you. So incredibly much friends. Here’s the episode. Let’s dive in. Hello, beautiful souls. Welcome back to the Angels and Awakening Podcast. I’m your host and author, Julie Janice. Friends today, if you’re listening, you might hear that my audio sounds a little different.

I am doing a little work on the podcast studio over here, so I’m using a different mic. It’s just temporary though, and I can’t wait for you to see the new space today. I am so excited as I get to talk with different authors around the world, just in conversations, networking with people, even at the chiropractor’s office the other day.

I am always, every single week bringing up the name of this guest, Dr. Mary [00:12:00] Francis O’Connor. She’s a guest that we’ve had on the podcast before. Her former book was called The Grieving Brain. She has a new book out and it’s called The Grieving Body. And first, Dr. Mary Francis. Thank you so much for being here.

I’m just. So excited that you’re here and so appreciative. Oh, Julie, I’m really happy to be back. Your first book just touched my heart in such a beautiful way because there’s things that you can do as a scientist where you are measuring things, understanding things in a way that we don’t see everywhere, and there’s something in your first book that I was like, oh my God.

How did we not know that or not see that? But once you understand it, it puts everything into perspective and that’s where you talk about mental mapping when you lose a person. So for those who maybe [00:13:00] didn’t see that episode, we’ve got over 600. I just wanna explain this to people because it can be so helpful when we lose someone.

Can you share that information?

Mary: So I think that one of the easiest ways for people to concretely get this is that if you wake up in the middle of the night and you are thirsty, say you can walk through your house even though it’s pitch black, right? Yeah. Like you could go to the kitchen and get a glass of water for the most part.

That’s really because you’re using this internal map that we all have, right? Of how the world works, of how everything’s laid out. And you don’t have to, every time you go through a doorway, you don’t have to think about the idea that this is a doorway and how am I gonna get through it? You just do what your mental map tells you to do, like a Google Maps in your [00:14:00] brain.

The example that I give in the book, the grieving brain. Is imagine now for a moment that your dining room table has been stolen. It doesn’t really matter why your dining room table is stolen, but just imagine now you wake up in the middle of the night and you’re walking toward the kitchen to get a glass of water, and so you cross through the dining room and just as you hit where that dining room table should be, you can actually.

The whole, you can feel the absence where it should be as a physical sensation. And that seems really weird. How can you feel something that’s not there? But our internal map, our expectations, our predictions about the world are so strong that it’s like we feel the table first. Mm-hmm. And then we compare that to what our peripheral nerves felt.

And we go, oh, wait a minute. Something’s wrong. Something weird just [00:15:00] happened, and I think for many people who are grieving, they have a similar experience. Every time they walk into a room where their loved ones should be there, there’s this expectation that you will smell them or see them, or you’ll see the, the dirty socks in the hallway or and over again.

Your brain has to remember. Oh, wait a minute. They’re not here. But in the course of doing that, we have all these sensations as an expectations and then emotions when we realize, oh, wait a minute, they’re not here. And I think just knowing that this is the normal way that our brain works and that it is faced with this incredibly difficult loss situation.

Helps you to feel a little less crazy. Hopefully when you do things like pick up your phone to call that person who’s died, and then remember, you can’t do [00:16:00] that.

Julie: And sometimes even years later. My grandma passed almost two exactly two years ago, and there’s still stuff that comes up and I’ll go to call her and I still haven’t been able to take her phone number out of my phone.

Like I just can’t do it. I know it belongs to somebody else, but I do go to press. Dial. And what’s fascinating too is when you talk about mental mapping and just like I know that my husband’s a school teacher, he’s at the school. I know my daughter’s at the school. I have these mental maps. I know my mom’s in Florida.

I know my sister’s out in the East Coast. And when you lose someone, you just don’t have that map. Just to what you were talking about, when you are able to. Maybe believe in a higher power and mental map that they are on the other side and get a good reading. There’s somebody else who came on the podcast that said getting a good reading [00:17:00] coupled with having a great therapist can work so much more to help the healing process than just having counseling alone.

And I thought that was very interesting.

Mary: I think we all have some learning to do as we’re grieving, right? We have to learn how does the world work? ’cause it apparently works differently than I thought it did. I think people will do that learning in lots of different ways, but the truth is we all have to come to some answer for.

Where is this person? And I think as you say, there are people who have a very strong and clear understanding of where that person’s spirit is. Other people might transform their understanding in a more kind of universal way. Ah, and I see when I see the oceans or the mountains, right, these. Transcendence time and memorial places that that is how I transform my [00:18:00] understanding.

Yes, lots of ways. But what you describe is very powerful for people.

Julie: So this brings us into your next piece of work because the grief that we are experiencing is not just happening within the physical brain, it’s also happening within the body as well. And we often think about our connections to one another as like.

I am here in my physical body and my husband is somewhere in the house right now in his physical body. But the energy of him is also, not in a weird way, but like it’s in my cells, it’s in my molecule makeup of my physical body. Now, because we’ve had this long lasting relationship, we’ve been so connected, and it’s the same with our parents and our children and our close friends.

So how does grief, I know we’re gonna dive deep into this, but basic overview, how does [00:19:00] grief then tie into the physical body and what the body goes through?

Mary: Yeah, I do always come back to this question if we’re gonna talk about grief, we have to talk about love and bonding first. Like you can’t figure out what is missing or what’s gone.

Unless you know what was there. Yes. And so my, my, the studies that I look at really talk about co-regulate. So this idea when you’re in a close relationship with someone, when you’re bonded with someone, that our physiological systems rely on each other. And you can think of a really easy example is imagining your routine as you’re going to bed at night.

Right. So you and your partner maybe watch TV together, and then there’s maybe a time when maybe you’re brushing your teeth together or you dim the lights. Or, in my own home, I put on an eye mask and he reads. But all of the sights and [00:20:00] sounds and smells and behaviors are conditioned so that I’m expecting to fall asleep at some point in the sequence.

And that’s part of that co-regulation because he’s there in all those different ways my body can predict ah, and then I will fall asleep and my body’s physiology adapts to that as the expected input. Honestly, even when we’re apart, I never go to sleep without getting that text from him. Goodnight. Oh yeah.

Even if he’s not physically present, there is, he is a part of the sequence of me falling asleep. So now you imagine the situation where if he’s no longer alive, God forbid, I have to figure out how to fall asleep without all of those co-regulation sequence of events. And that’s really [00:21:00] hard for my body to do.

Sickly it is not getting what it’s expecting. It doesn’t necessarily feel as relaxed or safe or comforted, and so it’s gonna be harder to fall asleep. So this is one example, sort of like many of my examples, something really concrete. You can imagine how that works. But this happens again and again with people were really close with.

And so that. That person is our external pacemaker. They help us to calm down. They help us to get excited, and so our physiological reactions are dependent on their being in our life.

Julie: Yeah. It’s so fascinating. It’s so when you are doing this research on grief and the physical body, what surprised you the most?

I

Mary: think the thing that really has stuck with me that’s made me persist after a couple of decades of doing this [00:22:00] research is that it’s just like, oh, I had trouble falling to sleep tonight. The kind of physical impact that I’m talking about is what we also call dying of a broken heart. The fact is. That we, that we see in research over now millions of people that, for example, a man is twice as likely to die of a heart attack in the first few months after the death of his wife compared to a man who remains married during that same time now, wow, almost twice as likely is a huge risk factor, right?

That’s huge number in medical terms and so. I don’t mean that we just feel upset and so it’s hard to fall asleep that we feel upset and our physiology has a really difficult time adapting to that. And in some cases it can actually cause physical damage [00:23:00] as we try to adapt in between. Now, to be super clear, most of us have remarkably resilient bodies, and so while we may have physical symptoms, right, our stomach may be upset, our throat may be tight, we may cry frequently.

Even though most of us have physical symptoms, they’re not, they’re not symptoms that are indicators that we’re gonna have a heart attack. But given we know that it can be that impactful, it’s important for us to research how is this happening? Are there any things we can do to intervene or even just should we be taking care of people who are grieving in terms of their body and not just their mind and their spirit?

Julie: And this is just such a fascinating topic, especially in corporate America, where a lot of times you’re only given two weeks. Off for a major death and maybe a couple days off for [00:24:00] something that they consider minor in their eyes. But let’s go back to this passing of a broken heart, because I believe that we have soulmate in different ways.

I don’t believe we just have one soulmate. I think we live these eons and infinite existences in different lifetimes, and that we’ve actually traveled together with a lot of our people before. And my dad and my grandma Harris had one of those relationships. Fair. He was just her person. He could do no wrong.

You’re not supposed to have a favorite as a child, but my uncle has said my entire life, like your dad is the favorite to the point where when my dad passed at age 59 unexpectedly on a trip of a heart attack. My uncle flew across the country to go tell my grandmother in person because he knew she was just going to take the news, so rush, and she had a [00:25:00] heart attack.

Immediately upon hearing the news, she passed away 10 days later. In the hospital. So I think that there are a lot of people who might think or say to themselves, is it really possible to die of a broken heart? I’ve seen it, like I, I’ve witnessed it in my own family. It is now to compound that we have heart issues on both sides.

What can we do? What can I do to protect myself because I already am anticipatory of like, there’s gonna be news that I will get in the future. I don’t know when, but. Oh, like even if I feel a lot of stress, oh gosh, I feel like there’s an elephant on my chest. I feel it immediately go right there. How can people who worry about that work with it?

Mary: Yeah. I think one thing that you point out is. Each of us has to come to know our own physical body. And one of the ways that we learn [00:26:00] that is by understanding the bodies of our family members, right? Because we’re so like them in so many ways. And so in in, in the book the Grieving Body, I talk about my friend Lizzie Pickering, who had a lot of pneumonia and bronchitis after her son died.

And she also says, in my family, we’re prone to lung troubles. And so I think it’s helpful to know what are the systems that I need to provide support for in my own body? What can I learn about those? How do I support those so that I know what are the best, what are the best indicators when something is going wrong?

What are the best treatments? If I suspect that there’s something that’s problematic and that’s really in that sense. This is just life, right? This is just getting to know the human form we got born into. But in the case of an extreme stress, like the death of a loved one, I think we also [00:27:00] can learn what does it mean for my own body to really feel soothed?

How do I feel physically comforted? So that might be. I’m the kind of person who really needs to go for a run that after a run I finally feel calmer and I feel more clearheaded or whatever it is. I personally really need a massage, right? I need that skin on skin sort of contact to really feel like, okay, I can, I’ve actually relaxed now.

I’ve actually calmed down. So I think outside of like specific systems of the body. It’s also really important to know what helps my body to feel calm, to be soothed. And so I think we can learn those things about ourselves. And also I think taking very seriously that when we are having [00:28:00] symptoms, if we are bereaved, we have to seek treatment for those, right?

So for Lizzie, it was really important that she get on antibiotics for the pneumonia because it was becoming a chronic situation for her. We don’t want any longer term damage. The key here is these are normal things, right, that a regular doctor visit can help us to detect. There’s nothing magic about what happens to our body after grieving or while we’re grieving.

If you go for your regular annual checkup and you have your blood pressure tested and you have your blood drawn like you would in a normal checkup, they’re gonna detect if things are out of whack. Or we have to remember, have I been to the dentist or have I had my mammogram right? Often we’re caring for a loved one who dies for a long period of time, and we’ve stopped taking care of our own health.

The thing that’s challenging is we don’t feel like doing much of [00:29:00] anything when we’re grieving, but we can’t forget that we may need support for our grieving body, and that may include regular checkups.

Julie: Absolutely. You found different things too when it comes to the grieving body, that it’s not processing in the same way that it was before your immune system can become.

Lessened. I don’t know if we say compromised the wordings for that. Yeah. But what, what else is happening within the physical body that maybe we could look out for? If you are searching for community where you can share your beliefs openly, connect with kindred spirits and feel truly supported, you’re exactly where you need to be.

My programs are more hands on. And unlike anything you’ve ever experienced before, let’s explore our upcoming events in March. Our membership topic of the month is exploring all spiritual gifts and how the world needs [00:30:00] you. In this course, you’ll learn all about the different types of spiritual gifts, what they are, and discover what kind of gifts you might have.

This course is designed to help you understand what type of healer you might become and how you could use your gifts to make this world a better place. Then in April, we’re diving into a new membership topic called Be Your Own Angel Messenger. I’ll be teaching you how to receive angel messages for yourself on demand anytime, anywhere, so you can navigate your life with a clear divine roadmap always at hand.

And in May. Members are doing an exciting 21 day Money Miracle Challenge, a journey designed to help you open new doors of prosperity and abundance in your life. Trust me, you won’t wanna miss these transformative experiences for [00:31:00] members only. And don’t forget, if you’re ready to elevate your spiritual gifts to their fullest potential, whether to enhance your current career, enrich your personal life, or build your own spiritual business, join my Angel Reiki school.

You can opt for our enlightening online eight week course starting on the first of every month, or immerse yourself in our in-person session in Oak Brook, Illinois from April 11th to the 13th, 2025 complete with online access. Step into a realm of angelic energy, profound clarity, and embrace limitless possibilities.

Sign up today@theangelmedium.com and for more details, check the show notes to book a call with me. Julie, I. To talk about how this program can unleash your hidden gifts and transform your path into one of soulful abundance.

Mary: When we do these studies, of course we’re [00:32:00] looking on average, right? So we take a whole group of bereaved people and we look and we say, on average, in what way is their physical body working differently now than it did before?

Or compared to a group of people who aren’t grieving? And so, for example, we have seen that on average. People’s blood pressure goes up a little bit. Their heart rate goes up a little bit. We see that inflammation increases a little bit. These are primarily in the first six months after the death of a loved one.

So again, this is on average. That means it won’t happen to everyone, and for some people it’ll happen more dramatically than others. But these are some of those systems that we think about when we think about why we can have so many different kinds of physical symptoms. That all of these different systems are being affected.

I think the key here is paying attention to your own body. Not in an anxious way, but really understanding what is thing. [00:33:00] What does it feel like today? What does it feel like? Differently than it did yesterday. And what are the things that I’m doing that support my body, that seem to be making a difference, that seem to be helping with also the sort of faith that our body is adjusting.

It’s coming to understand this new world we have to live in without the other person. And that kind of physical change takes time. So there’s a, there’s a, some Native American nations have a tradition of cutting their braid off after they, after a close loved one dies. And I think that this, the idea that your hair takes a long time to grow back Wow.

Is such a great right, like visual image. Of how long healing takes, right? There’s nothing no one says to you, why isn’t your hair growing faster? Right? There’s nothing wrong with what’s happening. It just takes time [00:34:00]

Julie: and we have to be patient. It’s such a vivid image, especially too, you think about so many women who go through cancer treatments as well and losing their hair and allowing that regrowth, and you’re so spot on.

It takes time and years. Oftentimes I changed my hair so many times in my lifetime, but often coming into an entirely new look as well. Yes,

Mary: that’s right. Exactly. When we have healing in the body, we don’t always know exactly what that’s going to look like later. We, if we break a bone and that bone heals.

That bone is very strong. We can also still see on an x-ray that it was broken. I think there is this, this is part of what’s difficult I think in grieving, is on the one hand you have to know that it’s going to take time to adjust to this new reality. And on the other hand, we have to keep asking ourselves, am I supporting myself as [00:35:00] much as I can?

Yeah. Am I increasing the resources around me as much as I can? Am I giving myself. Opportunity to sleep, but even if I don’t have much appetite, are there healthy foods around that? If I do feel like, well, I could have a snack, at least I’m eating something healthy. Right? Yeah. So these are the kinds of things that we’re not used to talking about during grieving, but we talk about how to get emotional support that I think I’m just pointing out here, that we also need physical support for our body and our brain to absorb this blow that we’ve been dealt.

Julie: Was there anything else? Like the support groups or anything else that you find? Found that had an impact on the physical body itself. It’s

Mary: interesting. There’s a, a wonderful study that looked at widows. I was just mentioning eating. Yeah. So this is what made me think of it, that over time that widows develop a new.

Sort of food system as it were, right? [00:36:00] Because eating isn’t just when you sit down at the table and you start putting shoveling food in your mouth, you have to think about shopping. You have to think about making a grocery list and going to the store and cooking, and how are you gonna do with leftovers and right, like when you are in a relationship with someone that you live with, whether that’s your children or your spouse.

You’ve developed a system over a long period of time, of how often do we eat, what kinds of things do we eat, and so forth. And so it takes a long time to be at the grocery store and say, you automatically put soy milk in your cart and then you realize my daughter isn’t gonna need soy milk anymore. Now I’m suddenly.

Upset in the middle of the grocery store right over the dang soy milk that’s now in my cart that I have to put back on the shelf. But the upshot of this is it takes a long time to develop a new system, but what they found was that widows did eventually, they figured out how to make nutritious, financially sensible sort [00:37:00] of meals make sense for themselves.

After having to shift from doing it for two people, for example, then doing it for themselves, and they came up with all sorts of different solutions from making cooking a social event. So my father, after my mother passed away, my father would invite all the widowers in my little tiny hometown for dinner on a Sunday, and he would make like crockpot chicken or something, not.

My dad was not a fancy chef, but I think these men came to realize, oh, you have to make, you have to plan if you’re gonna cook something. No. And eating together, I suddenly have more appetite than when I’m eating alone. Right. So I think it’s these kinds of things that, that make a big difference for people.

Julie: Absolutely. I wanna go in a couple different directions. But one of the questions that I was wondering is as you were doing this research, it struck me over the last couple of weeks us witnessing these LA wildfires and just [00:38:00] the magnitude of houses that were devastated. And watching this on the news at the beginning, I just couldn’t stop crying and like two Manhattan’s worth.

Um, homes are just completely gone, and this isn’t the very first time that we as a collective have all experienced something together. We are dealing with this a couple of times a year, if not more, just watching wars and climate and everything. I’m just wondering in your research if you’ve found anything more so on a collective grieving level.

That there is something happening within our physical body as well. Oh, yes. So it

Mary: is interesting to recognize that even when we lose a loved one, one of our most natural responses is to reach out. To comfort that person who is [00:39:00] crying. There is something we are built to be social creatures as humans, and the desire to reach out, just as you described, the desire to reach out, to comfort, to be present and soothe and bring casseroles and whatever our particular culture does.

We saw a lot with the pandemic actually, that because we were forced into sort of social isolation, that we didn’t have all the same rituals we could rely on, right? During the pandemic, people couldn’t do funerals in the same way. We couldn’t literally cry on each other’s shoulder because that was too much closeness.

What’s fascinating is that research has shown. That people are still surprisingly resilient. We came up with things like zoom funerals, right? If you had described a Zoom funeral to someone in the year before the [00:40:00] pandemic, they would’ve thought you were out of your mind, right? Even in the research we were doing in my own lab, people said it was devastating not to be able to be together in the, oh, yeah, sixth.

At the same time described things like it was so personal to be sharing stories together on Zoom differently than my family has done before, where we just go to a church or something. I think that what’s. Remarkable about human beings is that we will find a way to come together, especially if we’re given the opportunity or a little bit of encouragement, we will find a way to come together and deal with a loss as a community, and that makes us.

So much stronger, and we know social support is so important to the individual who is grieving that specific loss.

Julie: When we were talking early on today, you said [00:41:00] something to the effect of when we lose someone, we have to come to this conclusion over time that life doesn’t work the way that we think it does, and that hit.

My heart because I think so often we have conversations on this podcast just about emotions and our mental health and our wellbeing, and so often you can feel like you’re bad or wronged or shamed for different things, but you didn’t do anything to lose your person. They’re gone. And I saw when my grandfather, my grandpa Sam, passed, uh, cancer, he didn’t.

Want to go. He had so much life left in him. Mm-hmm. He was funny. She loved to cook. He would do these little shimmy dances in the kitchen and he would golf and he would connect with his friends. Um. I remember because my husband and I chose to go spend time with him on our honeymoon. I knew he didn’t have much [00:42:00] time left instead of going somewhere for ourselves and directly after his passing.

I remember having this conversation with my grandmother where she said, I’m so angry, Adam, Julie, I’m so angry at him for leaving. I think he was in his seventies. She just knew that she had time left. She wasn’t gonna go anywhere, and she was just so mad that he wouldn’t be here. She didn’t do anything to cause it.

There was no, you didn’t wanna go, but you do with grief. Come to this other conclusion of life. Sometimes you even get to it in your forties a little bit and start to see life differently, not about being right or wrong, that life is different than we assumed it to be when we were younger.

Mary: That’s exactly right.

There’s no point in understanding. All your physical symptom systems, if there’s no motivation there, if you aren’t motivated to do anything, then you’re [00:43:00] not going to spend time trying to care for your body and enable it to help enable it to help you to pursue something that you find meaningful. And a lot of people really struggle that life doesn’t feel very meaningful after a loved one has died, right?

Mm-hmm. Perhaps your grandmother feeling like, but we were supposed to do these next things. Together, right? Like yeah. The whole point was that we would have this time together to live our seventies or whatever with whatever goals that included. And so the thing is realizing that your whole life has shifted.

That is an enormous. Blow It is also going to take time to figure out, well, how do I do this? Now? This is a way in which I think about support again, and when we’re supporting someone who’s grieving. The idea is not, I’m trying to cheer you up, right? You feel terrible. I’m trying to make you feel better.

The idea is I’m gonna be here [00:44:00] with you. Until you figure out what your life can be like now, and that’s gonna take time. So I’m gonna be here for a long time, right. I’m gonna be with you and together we’re gonna sort it out. But I think that lack of motivation to even get, I. Matching shoes on or to get a shower or is overwhelming often for people, I think of it as lending people your hope.

They’re not gonna feel this way forever. It is gonna take some courage to try things in your life now, and it’s gonna be also accepting that life doesn’t work the way we thought it did, but we can use that information to do things like. It is our honeymoon, but let’s go visit my grandfather because yeah, this is the time we have.

Right? It can, one can find eventually a motivation that’s much more about, wow, now I really understand that life is [00:45:00] short. I. And what am I doing with my time now?

Julie: Does it help to just hold that mentality that we earn? We don’t know. Like we don’t know. And as a energy healer or a psychic, a medium, who does this work myself and has interviewed everybody on the planet who does this?

I can tell you that everybody says it’s the hardest energy to work with when you’re at the end of life because you have a lot of free will in it and the energy of it, of when you’re gonna release yourself to the other side, and you’re making peace with that transition too. Does it help to. Live with the acceptance or surrender within your heart of, these are the people that I love.

I love them so much. I don’t know how much time I have with them, so I’m gonna spend as much quality time as I can and make the best. Of the

Mary: time. I think this is a conclusion that many people come [00:46:00] to. I’ll also say that I don’t think we, human beings are so varied, right? I don’t think we can know what each person will come to is their new understanding that having a brush with death or having a.

Very close person die. I don’t think we can always know what it is that’s going to be learned from that situation, but I can say that it can help to have a chance to talk about it with someone who you trust rather than have it just rolling around in your own head and sometimes reading what other people have written about how they thought about their own loss.

Can be an opportunity to, it’s like I think of it as like lending you my glasses. My glasses prescription is not gonna be perfect for you, but you might see something through my glasses that you wouldn’t have seen clearly without them. And so it’s not that you would take Oh my you. It wouldn’t take my glasses the whole time.

But it might be interesting, I think the opportunity for human [00:47:00] beings to talk about this is how it is for me. This is what’s changing for me. This is what I’m learning. Can be, sure. Can be really helpful in. Sorting out what we think, and it can be motivating in reconnecting with people when the person we want to be connecting with isn’t there.

How do we even understand that situation often by talking about it. Yeah.

Julie: All right. I’m gonna let you go after this, but I do have a different personal question for you. Right. So you have done this work for decades when we’re in our twenties. We have this just busier energy and determination and gusto, and we get into it.

We’re doing research and sometimes we are like you. You said you’ve worked on this for decades, doing this research to a middle place where maybe you’re not, I’m not bored with it. I’m taking it to a deeper level, like in depth and going into. [00:48:00] Very niche thing that as I work with my clients, I’m like, Ooh, this is what needs to be researched.

Ooh, this is what needs to be talked about. But it’s different, like it’s a different word. Have you found that yourself, like as you reach research something for decades, some people could be like, how could you focus on one topic for so many years? I think you can. There’s a depth to it that you start going to.

Mary: Yeah, I think that’s exactly right. Some of it is that in science, of course, we also have to learn lots of techniques, lots of methods, right? Once you draw the blood, how do you get the immune cells out? And then how do you look at inflammation, right? So part of it is that there’s a long learning curve, but I think what’s you’ve said is so right as you study it for longer, and mostly talk with more people about their experiences and what it is that they want to understand about grieving.

It gives you a different perspective. [00:49:00] You go deeper into, oh, okay, so we understand this, but then well, what does that mean? And so I think for me, I’m passionate about studying loss because ultimately it reveals what we have when we have relationships. I don’t think of it as it reveals what’s there. Yeah, exactly.

Oh. Yes. It isn’t until it isn’t, until they’re gone that you can feel that longing for them. So the question is kind, so then how do we understand longing when we’re together there? There’s just so many ways that you can’t really, you can’t see two planets orbit one another. Right. Until you see what happens when one of them is gone.

So I just fascinating. There’s, it’s a, there’s a way in which it reveals. The wonder of the human mind and the human body and [00:50:00] how we make relationships work and derive thrive because of them. That keeps me motivated. Yeah.

Julie: Dr. Mary Francis, where can everybody find your new book? The Grieving Body and your past book too.

The grieving Brain is just a must have on your library shelf. Thank you. They’re, they’re

Mary: available anywhere books are sold and there’s an e-reader version and an audio version of each as well.

Julie: Amazing. Thank you for your time. Thank you for being here, and thank you for the work that you taught all of us through.

I just, I seriously, I bring your name up all the time, everyone that I’m talking to. I think your work is just the most fascinating research out there.

Mary: Thank you so much Julie, and thanks for doing this podcast.

Julie: Thank you. Thank you for joining me today. I hope you’re feeling a renewed sense of clarity and a deep connection to the angelic guidance that surrounds you right here, right now.

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Opening doors to opportunities that truly resonate with your passion for healing and soulful, abundant living. For more details, please visit the angel medium.com and go to the Angel Reiki school tab. I’m Julie and I can’t wait to guide you on this remarkable journey. Until next time, keep radiating your unique, beautiful energy into this world and listening to your angels.

I love you [00:53:00] friends.