Sudden bereavement, with Amy Moser

Summary  

Amy Moser shares her profound journey through grief after losing her partner unexpectedly, exploring how she managed the chaos, supported by community and self-regulation frameworks, and how this experience impacted her relationship with herself and others.

Takeaways

• The sudden loss of Amy’s partner
• Initial shock and practical responses
• Organizing funeral and support
• The moments of realization and emotional impact
• Support from community, friends and coaching groups
• Evolving relationship with self, through therapy
• Empathy and understanding others’ grief
• Ongoing Self work and self-regulation
• Impact of Crisis on inner voice, amplifying the saboteurs
• Passing on regulation skills to others
• Working with parents, kids and teenagers

Chapters
00:00  The sudden loss of Amy's partner
03:08  Immediate aftermath
05:16  Full realisation and emotional impact
07:21  Support from community, friends, colleagues
10:50  Evolving relationship with self
14:38  Ongoing work, self-regulation during crises
17:42  Amy's work today, with parents, kids and teenagers

Keywords

grief, self-regulation, community support, coaching, positive intelligence, mental health, resilience, personal growth

Guest Contact Details:
Amy Moser's Coaching Practice - https://amymoser.com
Helping Kids Academy for Coaches and Therapists - https://helpingkids.co.uk/academy 

Thanks to Jacopo Lazzaretti for the intro/outro music, see:  https://jacopolazzaretti.bandcamp.com/album/secret-love

For all contact details (including our Associates) and useful self-worth resources, see www.SelfWorthAcademy.com

Transcript

John Niland (00:00)

Welcome to Self-Worth in Times of Chaos and possibly one of the most awful disruptions that anyone can experience is the sudden and unexpected loss of a loved one. Today I'm joined by Amy Moser who is going to tell us exactly how that happened to her. Amy, welcome to this courageous conversation.

Amy Moser (00:19)

Thank you, John. And I know it might be a little bit emotional for me, but I'm happy to talk about it.

John Niland (00:27)

Thank you. So what happened?

Amy Moser (00:31)

Well, I had been in a relationship with a new partner, Philip, for about seven years. And ⁓ we were both divorced and both have kids ⁓ from previous marriages. And we were just really happy together. And our relationship ⁓ had grown. And ⁓ Philip, he had...

diabetes, but also was very good about caring for it and had been, you know, doing much more healthy stuff lately, going to the gym and everything. And he unfortunately died of a heart attack, age 57. And ⁓ he wasn't with me. He wasn't at my house at that point. So it was a matter of

me not hearing from him for a couple of days and kept calling and asking. He didn't respond and I ⁓ had been in touch with his kids to let them know and then finally I just got in touch with his landlord like I guess it was a day and a half later and ⁓

landlord went and looked into his house because he didn't have the keys to the house either. So had to get up on a ladder and he looked in and he said, he called me back and he said, I'm sorry, Amy, but he's in there and he looks like he is dead. so yeah, that was this beginning of that sort of chaos that happened to me.

John Niland (02:13)

Wow.

Amy Moser (02:24)

And Philip and I had been like building, remodeling my house together for him to move in with me and with the kids. so that was all, had just been finished and had just moved back in and was getting it all ready for that. And so that was, you know, such, it was such a big shock that I...

I just remember I was walking in the park with my friend and had that phone call back and just, I think I was just so shocked that I couldn't even process it at that

John Niland (03:07)

Yeah. And what was the immediate aftermath of that like for you?

Amy Moser (03:17)

I got into business mode about taking care of things. And there was a kind of difficult idea of his ex-wife, me and his kids getting together to talk about how his ⁓ funeral would be and

you know, all of the parts of that and what to do around his belongings. ⁓ I got actually a pastor involved as well that was really helpful. My church was really ⁓ helpful in terms of finding somebody out from where he lived in Leeds. And so he, we had then

Zoom calls about it with the family and with the pastor. So working out kind of how this would all go. And it was me that organized that because I felt like we needed to all get together and discuss that. And I hadn't really met his ex-wife before. So it was all very...

strange to do it in that.

John Niland (04:48)

And of course, you know, bereavement is in the short term. It's like another project almost. have all these practical things that you have to think about and, you know, certificates and funeral and arrangements and all of the, you know, just notifying people and dealing with responses. And, you know, I can well imagine that, you know, business mode or project mode kind of kicks in almost.

because it has to or someone has to do it. When did it really hit you? Let's assume that I guess you had to do the project mode stuff for a while, but when did the full reality of this come home to you?

Amy Moser (05:37)

think it was a couple of days later and I went into a church, just a random church, because I was walking down the street and I had just had a phone call about it. And I just went in there and cried. And that was when it just hit me. And I think for quite a long time, I was still expecting him to come in the door. Yeah.

So that was just like gradual kind of realization, okay, he is not coming back. And I think the final time that I remember that happening was at his funeral when ⁓ the pastor said, Philip Sodden is dead and rest in peace. And that was sort of at the end of the funeral.

John Niland (06:34)

Yeah.

Amy Moser (06:35)

So just that statement, know, okay, somebody has to say that.

John Niland (06:43)

Yeah, yeah. What was most helpful to you during that time?

Amy Moser (06:52)

Yeah, I remember talking to you about this before ⁓ that it was so helpful to have friends from my church and my women's group. They made meals for me, like a meal train. And it was actually at the same time as my son was doing GCSEs. So my son was doing the GCSEs. was, Philip died like during the break. ⁓

between the GCSEs starting again, so it was like June 1st. And so I had to tell him and my daughter as well. ⁓ so that, you know, he was so brave and just, you he was in pieces about it and just so upset. But I got some help from the school and, you know, they were very,

very great about it and looked at how they could help him through the time as well because he was under so much pressure. ⁓ But yeah, just remember these also people from my women's group, they would just kind of show up with the meal and then they would talk for a little bit.

And that just showing up thing was good because I didn't have to coordinate it or think about what I was doing at that time. And also, it was just great having the meals.

John Niland (08:35)

Yeah, indeed.

Amy Moser (08:37)

a single parent and having those meals brought was just such a relief.

John Niland (08:43)

It really brings home the importance of, you know, the community groups, church groups, schools, you know, all the support structures that perhaps are often invisible to us from day to day or week to week. But suddenly when you get a bolt out of the blue like that, the presence of people and just the presence of them talking as much as the food.

⁓ is so important. What else was helpful?

Amy Moser (09:20)

I am in this group of coaches as well. Positive Intelligence is the framework that I've used in coaching. I told a lot of people there about it. I had this group that I was in, a mastery group as well. And ⁓ there were about 10 women in that with me. And ⁓ they were all coaches, so really supportive. And we had

guess at that time kind of weekly calls and they were just always asking me to tell them how things were going and it was a just place that I could completely just let it all out and they were with that and you know others would they sent me a lot of things they sent me like a teddy bear and they sent me

flowers and things, which I didn't expect. And it was just nice to have the coaches that I was working with, they just had such compassion for me in that situation. They really cared ⁓ enough to just let me vent, you know.

Take the time.

John Niland (10:46)

So the support of people is not just confined to community groups, it also our professional connections, which can be really helpful and understanding at times like that. So in the aftermath, how did your relationship with yourself evolve? Because as you say, you had been planning this future together, you were renovating your house, you were...

you were looking at life through the lens of a couple and then suddenly that other person is not there. What was that like? How did it ⁓ affect your relationship with yourself?

Amy Moser (11:28)

I did a lot of therapy, which I continue to do one-on-one, and ⁓ I was able to kind of look at that throughout the time. I think I remember a turning point in the therapy where I was quite disconnected from myself and I kept saying, I am not functioning. I am just not functioning well. So I sort of thought of myself as this

person after grief that was just not, you know, in the same mode as I ever was before. And ⁓ I remember the therapist asked me,

So you're not functioning. Are you feeding your kids? Are you doing laundry? Are you going to the grocery store? Are you waking up in the morning? Are you going outside every day? That sounds like functioning to me. So it really turned my mind around like, yeah, you're right. I am.

functioning. And so what am I saying all the time to her? I'm not functioning. So that really was a turning point of my therapy. And I think just getting back to this fact that this is myself now, this is not some other self that's going to disappear. It's just

myself has become different, evolved. And I like to think about the gift in it being I can understand a lot better about people that have gone through this in my coaching or in ⁓ everyday life. do you notice? What do I notice?

John Niland (13:34)

Yeah, what do you notice when you are understanding other people going through this ⁓ bereavement, whether sudden or not, what do you notice?

Amy Moser (13:49)

I think there is a kind of...

feeling of being the same. Like, I can understand that. I won't necessarily say that I've been through that too, but I will slow down and notice more about how that person is being in the moment. And I just have this empathy that comes from the experience.

John Niland (14:24)

The experience. Yeah. Indeed. How has your relationship with yourself evolved since then? Fast forwarding a bit to today, for example.

Amy Moser (14:40)

well, I continue to work on my relationship with myself all the time. And I know that some of the saboteurs, for instance, in my positive intelligence model, so there's one that's called hyperachiever who wants to just tell me that achieving is so important.

John Niland (15:06)

It's mentioning, right? ⁓

Amy Moser (15:09)

Yes, you can see that already. And in the model, I really like the fact that this is something that is saying stuff to me. This is not me. This is something that is saying stuff to me, and I can turn down the volume on it. And I know that that really ramped up, like, even during this time of the grief, like, do more, come on, you know.

Get back into it. Let's go.

John Niland (15:43)

Interesting.

Amy Moser (15:43)

So

even now, of course, it never goes away. The other thing that I have learned is much more about regulating myself. So that was something that came out of this experience was finding out more about how your body actually gives so much more to your brain, your body being regulated, having

a more calm and a more, I guess, with this idea of regulation. It's even the fact that your brain is not able to process stuff unless your body is in a calm state.

John Niland (16:35)

But intriguing that in times of crisis, the voice of the saboteurs is higher, it goes up. Whether those are the voices of self-doubt or perfectionism or whatever, whatever they might be. In times of crisis, the voices of the saboteurs are amplified. This sounds like a rather important point for the times of disruption we're all living through. Whatever our saboteur might be.

Amy Moser (16:42)

Yeah.

John Niland (17:04)

probably will be even more of a saboteur during the crisis.

Amy Moser (17:11)

And then what I have learned is then it's even more important to be able to regulate yourself. Because if they're going to ramp up, then the more that you can regulate yourself in terms of even your breath or ⁓ the things that you're doing, nutrition, exercise, sleeping,

All of those things are so important.

John Niland (17:42)

Indeed. Well, so what's your work today? Can you tell us a bit more about how you pass on those regulation skills to other people?

Amy Moser (17:56)

Yeah, I really enjoy now being able to work with ⁓ parents. So that's one area of focus that I've brought into my positive intelligence work and also Helping Kids Academy, which is another group that I work with ⁓ that certifies coaches in working with teenagers and with kids.

Those both, I've been able to really pour that into ⁓ when I've worked with groups, which I really enjoy so much. ⁓ I just finished one this last week of like 10 parents that were in this group. it was just so helpful to be able to give them those tools. ⁓ And I think when I even demonstrate them,

or do them at the beginning of a meeting. There's just this sense of, ⁓

In one-on-one coaching sessions too, I just did one last night with someone who was just kind of wondering, I think, what the stress was ramping up in her, like what anything she could do and having done like a mini meditation, PQ rep as we call them, with her.

just changed everything in the beginning of the session.

John Niland (19:28)

Yeah, these self-regulation abilities become so important when the stress is ramping up. And of course, particularly in family settings, where parents are often dealing with the stress of the day job and the stress of the latest employment setback or problem at work or reorg or whatever it is. And then they come home and on top of that, it's so easy to be passing on those stresses.

reactivity to kids. We will put Amy's details in the show notes, by the way, for anyone who's listening and who is interested in Helping Kids Academy, which not only works with parents, but also grandparents and teachers and anyone, coaches who might be interested, coaches or therapists who might be interested in working more with children and teenagers. We will put that in the show notes. If there was a piece of wisdom,

Amy that you could send back five years or more if you prefer to your younger self four times of crisis. How would it be?

Amy Moser (20:48)

really been focusing in on this idea of regulating and just the fact that your body and this kind of state that you're in can influence so many things. ⁓ So I would say learn about regulating, learn about those saboteurs that are coming in and find those things that really

work for you to make life more simple.

John Niland (21:24)

What a great message coming directly from your own experience. What a great message to close on. Thank you for a very honest conversation about this very difficult experience in your life.

Amy Moser (21:37)

Thank you, John.