The Weight We Don’t Talk About: Grief, Men, and the Journey to Healing with Victoria Volk

James Moffitt (00:01.368)

Hello and welcome to Father's Refuge Podcast. My name is James Moffitt and I will be your host. Today on the Father's Refuge, we're joined by Victoria Volk, a grief recovery specialist and end of life doula whose work helps people name, navigate, and heal the grief they've carried for years. Victoria brings a rare blend of compassion, clarity, and practical guidance, and her insights speak directly to the silent burdens so many fathers hold.

I'm honored to welcome her into this conversation. Victoria, how are you doing?

Victoria 💛 (00:34.211)

Thank you. That was beautiful intro.

James Moffitt (00:36.822)

Yeah. Thanks for being here and, do me a favor and introduce yourself to the listening audience.

Victoria 💛 (00:45.337)

Well, I've been a lifelong griever. I have not lost a child. However, I lost a parent as a child. So I can speak to that perspective. yeah, so I grew up with grief. I've literally known it my entire life. in 2019, I discovered, well, I had another loss and realized that grief was really a thorn in my side.

that I had never addressed up to that point. And I discovered the grief recovery method. And that literally was the thing that transformed my grief and helped me to deal with it for the first time, truly. And my life ever since then has, I would say my potential really has blossomed ever since.

You know, when we're not bogged down by the emotional weight of grief, trauma, loss, because I had a lot of trauma after my dad passed. It wasn't just the loss of my father. My grandmother had died the year before, my mom's mother. So she lost her parent. Then she lost her husband. And then I experienced some sexual abuse after that. And so my youth was very unsafe.

and

emotionally unsteady, guess. You know, it was a lot of...

Victoria 💛 (02:28.897)

Yeah, the environment was not great, I would say. So, I learned a lot, I guess, and how to deal with grief, which is not to deal with it. I think is so many of us are not taught how to do, do, how to do grief differently. Right. And that's my whole, that's what my program's called do grief differently, because we're not taught how to do that. we're taught how to resort to behaviors and things that make us feel better for a short period of time.

like gambling or shopping or relationships or fantasy or...

Yeah, any of those things that make you feel better, but then maybe potentially actually bring on more shame after the fact, right? Cause you know, if we're on a drinking binge, well, then we kind of feel like crap after that about ourselves too. and I abused alcohol in my early twenties. Like I said, I grew up with grief and it's, it's like this monster in the closet that decides to show up when it wants to. And, life is going to continue to life. And as we have.

additional experiences. It brings up a lot of that old stuff that we didn't yet address. And so that's what I did in 2019 and have not looked back.

James Moffitt (03:48.556)

Thanks for sharing that with us. Grief and loss can be painful many times. And I think that sometimes we turn to addictions when something's painful. Like you said, drinking, drugs, alcohol, shopping, the shopping network, anything that brings us a small measure of happiness.

Victoria 💛 (04:18.413)

gambling.

James Moffitt (04:18.498)

gives us a, gives us a dopamine hit. yeah. Yeah. Anything that, anything that, helps dull the pain or helps to, help us to ignore the pain, is I think that's, I think, I think we do that on a, think we do that normally. think it's a defense Mecca mechanism and father's refuge is here for, it's a safe haven for fathers and men and others who

Victoria 💛 (04:21.389)

Yeah, yeah.

Victoria 💛 (04:35.683)

Mm-hmm.

James Moffitt (04:48.334)

want to move forward and understand, you know, the emotional intelligence that it takes to deal with the pain and to equip ourselves with the tools that are necessary to deal with the pain and deal with the grief and the loss and understand that life goes on for us and our other family members.

And it requires us to not hide and not lash out at other family members, know, hurt people hurt people, right? And so all of this takes on a multitude of, dynamic and, and a huge dynamic. And I'm certainly no expert in the healing process, even though I certainly have a lot of experience.

with grief and loss and back in, we lost our daughter back in 20 or 2000 and

I noticed after she passed away, Jessica, I noticed after she passed away that there was not a lot of support for men. And we had been going to a support group at the hospital for parents that had children that were sick and had cancer or some other debilitating disease and chronic disease or whatever. And, after, after she passed,

we weren't going to that support group anymore because obviously parents that had children that were still alive, they didn't want to, you know, be faced with the reality of, you know, they're either going to get healed and get better on this side of heaven or they're going to get healed in heaven, you know? And, so anyway, that was not an eventuality that, that those parents wanted to hear at that time. And I don't blame them.

James Moffitt (06:57.985)

But nobody told us about the possibility of going to see a family therapist or sending the kids, the teenagers or the preteens to a therapist. And I think in the last 24, 25 years, this field, this field of study and field of experience has matured.

exponentially. And now there are so many more options for people to get the help that they need. And, so anyway, that's, that's my hope and dream and vision, purpose for this podcast and for having guests like you on to talk about these things, so that people that are listening can understand that they're not alone and that,

There's light at the end of the tunnel and it's not a freight train, you know? And, so anyway, so you shared what your personal experience was that led you into grief recovery work. What? Tell me what does end of life doula mean? What is a doula?

Victoria 💛 (08:11.831)

End of life doula is someone who bridges the gap between, for example, like hospice care or end of life care and the family. So we're kind of like the in-between go-to person. They're to support the family members, but also the one dying.

James Moffitt (08:27.99)

Okay.

Victoria 💛 (08:36.172)

an advocate, I guess, so to speak, for those dying because there's anything that I learned about watching my dad slowly die of cancer was that there was no talk of the dying process with us as a family, with me in particular, I suppose. I was eight years old when he died and I heard a lot that, she's too little to understand anyway.

And I'll share this too because any fathers listening who lost a child who have younger children who are young or presumably emotionally not as mature, they still know what's going on. In fact, we learn by the age of three, 75 % of what we're going to learn and how to respond to life by the age of three.

The remaining 25 % comes by the age of 15. So by the age of three, we've already picked up all the cues from our environment and the people around us and our caregivers, how to respond to life. And that includes grief or painful events or trauma or anything like that. Children are literal sponges. And if children are not given the time and the space to express,

that goes somewhere, right? And so often we see children being labeled as problem children who have experienced a lot of grief and trauma, or they become, or they're resilient. I heard that word a lot too, and I hear it a lot, children are resilient. I absolutely hate that word. Any child who's experienced grief or trauma will grow up probably in agreement that

that is not a word to use about children. Children don't have a choice. They simply adapt. Children are adaptable. Children are more adaptable than adults because adults, by the time you reach adulthood or the age of 15 and onward, your personality is kind of set, So yeah, end of life doula, I kind of got off on a

Victoria 💛 (10:58.899)

tangent there but yeah end of life doula is there to support those dying and the loved ones.

James Moffitt (11:00.663)

No, it's okay.

James Moffitt (11:06.477)

Well, I appreciate you bringing up the perception or the point of view by bringing in the person that's dying, right? Because loss and grief certainly starts happening before the actual death date, right? But the person that is at end of life...

Victoria 💛 (11:26.936)

Mm-hmm.

James Moffitt (11:35.711)

no matter how traumatic or no matter how hard that experience is for the person that is in the process of the end of life. He's mentioned hospice and we certainly had hospice with Jessica. The doctors said there's nothing more we can do and just take her home and make her comfortable and had hospice come in.

you know, she had a hospital bed oxygen, you know, all the monitors and stuff. And, and we had a hospice nurse come in, you know, I think once a week or whatever, and more frequently as she got closer to the end. But, but I think that it's, I think it's very important, uh, in key to, uh, bring the, that person in, into the conversation. And I think it's, it is,

I like what you said that a doula is like a, you're like a bridge between hospice and the family. know, hospice has a specific reason for being there. They're the ones that are providing the medical care, the psychological counseling, you know, and answering questions that the family may have.

with regards to what are the stages, what do we look for? How's it going to affect our loved one? How's it going to affect us? How can we handle it? And, and so you, bring in a, an extra layer of empathy, sympathy, understanding. so that's great. I mean, that's, that's, you know, I think that's a, from, from my perspective.

You know, I come to the table as the person who's lost somebody. I've lost two children. And so that's kind of my perspective when I talk about it. And I would say that Jessica, she handled her death and the process of her end of life.

James Moffitt (13:55.197)

she had 14 months. The doctor said that after her surgery, that if she lasted 12 months, we'd be very lucky. Well, she lasted 14 months and she knew, she knew what was happening to her. She knew what was going, going on. And she actually was, her mindset. She, she was much more at peace with the eventuality of her passing than we were. Right.

Because we still struggled with hope. We still struggled with the six stages of grief and all of that. But she was so much more.

She was, I would say she was mature beyond her age. But yes, I'm glad that you focused a light on the actual person that's doing the end of life things, you know.

Victoria 💛 (14:57.593)

Well, and it's a normal and natural process and as an end of life doula we are taught and trained how to recognize those stages of dying so we can communicate that as well with the family but more importantly too it's being able to support those dying and having a death with dignity, how they want to die, from the details of the room.

if they want special music played, if they want specific visitors or if there are specific visitors they do not want to have. And being the advocate for them to in honoring that and being the voice for them. But I think it's so important that those conversations are had before you cannot have them. And that's where the death end of life doula or death doula can come in.

and facilitate those conversations that family are really resistant in having, right? Because like you said, you're still holding onto the hope and all of that. so it's, often I've seen too, and just in my personal experience and heard stories where people will spend that time at the end about talking about logistics. They're having to deal with,

bank account stuff, they're having to deal with the financials, they're having to deal with all of these things that, particularly if it's an adult, right? Children with an adult parent who's dying, they're having these, instead of spending that precious time.

either healing or mending the relationship in ways that they won't get to once that person passes. Instead, they're spending that time talking about logistics. so those are conversations too that an end of life doula can help and support and facilitate.

James Moffitt (16:57.237)

I I think, when we have a family member that has a traumatic experience, car wreck, whatever, tumor, cancer, whatever the issue may be, and, and, it takes a turn for the worse. I think we're largely, excuse me, I think we're largely unprepared for that. And, you know, I think, I think part of the preparation, for

Victoria 💛 (17:19.737)

Mm-hmm.

James Moffitt (17:26.847)

older adults is to have a living will and to just get your life in order and prepare for the eventuality. none of us, you know, I've heard, I've got, I have good authority that none of us make it out of this alive. And our life is, you know, kind of, we have an hourglass with sand running through it and

We don't really know from one day to the next when our tickets going to get punched. So, so to speak. And so it's our responsibility as adults to, to get our life in order and to be prepared and you know, have all your bank account information available and you know, communicate. There's a lot of information that has to be communicated to your spouse, your older children, close family, friends, whoever it is that you.

want to help settle your estate, right? Because then those people are going to want to get on with their lives, right? And you want to make sure that your passing doesn't cause an extraordinary amount of stress because you didn't do those things. You didn't have a will, you didn't do any estate planning, and all of sudden you're...

estate is in probate and you got to go through all that rigmarole and so yeah that's right absolutely so in your work what forms of grief do you see men carrying that often go unspoken

Victoria 💛 (18:59.489)

It's a gift you give your loved ones for sure.

Victoria 💛 (19:13.219)

There are 40 plus different causes of grief. I mean, the list is like a laundry list, particularly in clients that I've worked with, men in particular, childhood stuff, typically.

painful relationship with their mother is common.

We all experience grief. There, there is no discrimination, whether you're male, female, binary, whatever you want to identify as. there's, that's the one thing, grief is the one thing that unites us all. does not discriminate. It doesn't care. Your sex, your financial stature, your

you're standing in the community, it doesn't care. But how men carry it maybe differently than women do is...

Victoria 💛 (20:25.587)

Truthfully, I think we all tend to lean towards stirbs. We call them short-term energy relieving behaviors, the things that we resort to to feel better, right? And there are myths of grief that are pretty standard across the board, which are keep busy, don't feel bad, replace the loss, time heals. Everyone's heard time heals all wounds. Yeah.

Be strong. That's a big one for men. You know, they feel like they can't allow themselves to be vulnerable because the family is counting on them. And so often we grieve alone. Men grieve alone. As a child, I was taught basically to grieve alone. So these are the myths of grief that all of us...

It's not intended that we learn them, but that's how we respond. That's, that's a pretty, standard way that we respond to grief across the board. even first experience as a child. often, you know, is if you lose a pet, your child, like a pet dies. Well, that's okay, James, we can go to the pet store and we can get another dog tomorrow. So in that instant you learned, okay.

my dog dies, we're not going to talk about how I love this dog and how it was my first best friend and all the emotions and feelings that I'm having about never seeing my beloved pet again. But that's okay because I shouldn't feel bad because tomorrow I can get a new dog. I can replace the loss. So just in that one experience, there's don't feel bad, replace the loss.

Grieve alone, like, you see what I'm saying? Like we've learned these things, not intentionally, but it's just how we learned how to respond to grief.

James Moffitt (22:29.761)

Well, it's like a cultural acceptance or it's a cultural understanding that we're not going to talk about it because it's too painful to talk about.

Victoria 💛 (22:46.359)

or on the flip side, it is what it is, we all die, there's nothing I can do about it, so then we do that spiritual bypassing or just minimize it so that we don't have to feel it too.

James Moffitt (23:00.469)

Right. So how does unresolved grief typically show up in a father's relationships or daily life?

Victoria 💛 (23:15.107)

Grief affects every aspect of our lives. I tend to describe it like it puts a veil over our face. So when we look in the mirror, we don't even recognize the person we're seeing. It's almost like...

the person we were before and the person after, and you're still trying to figure who that after is, right? And I think it, yeah, you just, you don't see yourself clearly, so how can you see other people clearly?

when we're carrying the emotional weight of grief, the painful emotions, the unresolved communications. And I think really what it comes down to is all the things that you wish you could have, would have said, or could have, would have done. When we think about grief, the definition I like to use is grief is the loss of anything that we wish would have been different, better, or more.

And it's anything that we wish we would have done differently or better or anything like that. So that's a lot. It's, and when we have these unresolved communications, just because the person dies, those communications that are unresolved within us still carry on. We still carry those. And what do you do with that? What do you do with those things that are on your heart weighing on you or

things that you wish you would have said or didn't say or.

Victoria 💛 (24:56.525)

the emotional completion that did not happen. That's what you're carrying. That's what's painful. And so that affects your ability to make money. affects your, or may not. mean, cause you can actually go the complete opposite, right? And just completely distract yourself and be highly productive and laser focused on your career and to the neglect of everything else, right? As a way to distract.

So, but it affects your money, it affects your relationships, it affects how you show up in the world.

your energy, your physical body, might have, it's when you think of yourself, like if you think of yourself like a tea kettle, you know, it's when the tea kettle is getting to the point, it's, you know, either you're going to implode or you're going to explode.

So if you don't get what, what goes in must come out. And if it's not coming out, it's going to manifest as physical symptoms. Potentially. So migraines, in women, it's common fibromyalgia, skin irritations or rashes, things like that. Autoimmune, dis ease in the body causes disease.

And you have enough of that or years and years and decades of that. It's no wonder that there are so many people with, with broken hearts, literal failing hearts, heart disease.

James Moffitt (26:40.557)

So guess one of the outward manifestations of, or maybe not outward, but more internally, when you have unresolved issues or conversations that need to be had, offenses that need to be mended, mended relationships that need to be mended, so you have regret. You have regrets that you carry with you like baggage that you have to, emotional baggage that you...

Eventually wind up having to deal with one way or the other and it's like you said you the pressure that's created from all of that calls you to either implode or explode and

Victoria 💛 (27:17.079)

Right, and externally, that's where you're resorting to alcohol or drugs or relationships or anger, outward anger, right?

James Moffitt (27:28.471)

So what makes it difficult for many men to recognize or name what they're grieving?

Victoria 💛 (27:34.809)

because they weren't taught. They weren't taught and they probably, I think so many young boys, and I think that's probably improving too, perhaps. Like you said, I think in this space, think the grief, area of grief, the talk about grief, mental health in general is starting to mature a little bit. Emotional intelligence is becoming more mainstream. And I think,

It's my hope too that young boys are are given the opportunity to express themselves freely, that anger is not bad. I happen to be a child where and even a young adult where I had a really difficult relationship with anger because when you're taught that anger is bad or it's wrong.

You know, you just stuff that down and stuff it down until you explode and, or implode, right? cause I had physical manifestations of my anger and I also had external manifestations of my anger. you know, cause I think anger is often associated with men, but that, that is such a, I think that's one of the myths of grief too. It's not just, yeah, we all experience it.

And it can be a very powerful force of change. When, if you can direct that anger into transformation and you know, when you can look in the mirror and be like, I am sick and tired of being sick and tired. Like you, turn that not anger on yourself, but you transmute it. That's what we're not taught to do. We're not taught how to transmute anger and grief and those difficult emotions that,

have been labeled as bad or voodoo, not voodoo, what's the word I'm trying to think of? Taboo is what the word I was trying to think of. Let's just not talk about that.

James Moffitt (29:43.487)

Ahem.

One of the characteristics of grief is loss. And because we're losing something or we have lost something, but you can also lose a career. You know, there's a lot of people that go through a midlife crisis. They've been at their job for 20 plus years and all of a sudden, because they're considered an elder or a senior citizen, you get kicked to the curb by HR because you're considered washed up and no longer

productive members of society and I've been through that and so job loss, loss of a relationship, know, separation, know, divorces, all that, all those family dynamics that we all sometimes have to deal with causes, you know, that loss causes a certain amount of grief and we're just...

I think in the American culture, we're kind of taught to just roll with the punches. you know, if you get knocked down, you stand back up and, know, men, you know, I'm a child of the eighties, seventies and eighties, and we were taught men don't cry. You pull yourself up by your bootstraps. make, make of who you, you, whoever, whoever you become is what you've done. You know, it's your, you're, you're the master of your own destiny and, and we don't have time for emotions and, and all of that.

So loss and grief doesn't necessarily have to be encapsulated in end of life. It can be everyday life.

Victoria 💛 (31:22.615)

No, exactly. by the time you reach midlife, you've probably stacked a lot of grief luggage along the way. Because that's actually one of the other part of that definition is grief is the loss of hopes, dreams and expectations. Anything you wish that would have been different, better or more. That's a lot.

James Moffitt (31:41.355)

Right. That's good. Say that again.

Victoria 💛 (31:45.987)

Grief is a loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations, and anything that you wish would have been different, better, or more.

James Moffitt (31:54.028)

I like that. So for a dad who feels stuck or emotionally shut down, what's the first step towards healing?

Victoria 💛 (32:01.505)

awareness, self-awareness, just like Dr. Phil McGraw, I grew up hearing him say, you can't change what you don't acknowledge.

James Moffitt (32:17.985)

My little friend in my office, and I can cut this out, but my friend in the office, her name starts with an A. She picked up on what you were saying and just went off on a tangent. I was like, I was like, stop.

Anyway, what were you saying? I'm sorry.

Victoria 💛 (32:37.057)

Yeah, no, what did I say?

James Moffitt (32:41.783)

For a dad who feels stuck or emotionally shut down, what's the first step towards healing and use that awareness?

Victoria 💛 (32:48.345)

awareness, yeah, awareness. mean, like Dr. Phil McGraw said, I grew up watching him. You you can't change what you don't acknowledge.

James Moffitt (32:57.773)

That's exactly right.

Victoria 💛 (32:59.541)

Mm-hmm. That's stuck with me. Yeah. Yeah. So I think really it's like, where am I in my life? How did I get here? How do I want to move forward?

James Moffitt (33:03.209)

Absolutely.

James Moffitt (33:14.337)

And do I want to take ownership for why I'm where I'm at?

Victoria 💛 (33:18.765)

Yeah. And that's the thing too. I think that's where, I mean, you mentioned, your Gret, but I feel shame is a real driver for people. Shame is what keeps people really stuck. mean, it kept me stuck a very long time. and I'm not saying that it's not grief, but we have, it's grief isn't just grief. It's like all the things that are embodied with it. The grief.

shame, all of the emotions, the emotional energy. And we expend a lot of energy distracting ourselves, trying to just forget it, pushing it aside, stuffing it down. That takes a lot of energy.

James Moffitt (34:08.397)

Yeah it does.

Victoria 💛 (34:09.861)

And I think if we just sat down and sat with it and faced it and really allowed ourselves to feel it, which took me over 30 years to do. And that moment of doing that, where I had a witness that was not going to criticize, analyze or judge my experience or my grief, where I could just let it all out. And it came out like a

I couldn't cry any more tears. It was just 30 plus years of emotional baggage I had been carrying. And I still can feel that sensation in my body, the release that that was for me.

James Moffitt (35:00.663)

It's okay to cry. There's nothing wrong with that. Sometimes a good cry is the medicine that we need.

Victoria 💛 (35:01.931)

Yeah, yeah.

Victoria 💛 (35:08.482)

Yeah, and you know, and as a kid, I was told and so many young, I think so many boys are told this too. If you want to go to your, if you want to cry, I'll give you something to cry about or go to your room if you want to cry. Like I don't want to see you cry. And that was, I I went to hide to cry as a child. I hid in the laundry closet or the linen closet. I'd go under my bed. There was even one time they had to send out a search party cause they could not find me. I was in the kitchen cupboard.

James Moffitt (35:38.375)

my.

Victoria 💛 (35:39.019)

It was shameful to show emotion. Like, I don't wanna see you cry. It's too painful for me to see you cry, so I don't wanna see you cry.

James Moffitt (35:50.091)

Even though you might've been the catalyst for making you cry.

Victoria 💛 (35:54.829)

Yeah, I mean, you know, my mother did the best she could with the no tools she had in her toolbox, but that's why I'm such a huge proponent of people, adults in particular, who want to be parents, desire to be parents, who are parents, to sweep their own doorstep. Because like it or not,

your perception of grief, your perception of your past is impacting and influencing your children.

James Moffitt (36:32.023)

How can families create space for honest conversations about loss without fear or shame?

Victoria 💛 (36:40.323)

being the example.

Being the example of openly sharing your grief, your pain, your emotional truth, without shame, without guilt, without, what are they gonna think of me if I say this? Like, my kids are gonna see me as weak. I've, going through grief recovery has absolutely changed how I parent my kids.

and how I allow them to express themselves and recognizing when I need to step back and when I need to step in or even.

Yeah, it's been huge. It's been so huge. It's huge.

James Moffitt (37:32.045)

What misconceptions about grief recovery do you wish more fathers understood?

Victoria 💛 (37:40.217)

Well, we're talking about two things there because when I say grief recovery, I'm talking about grief recovery method. It's a method for actually recovering from grief or the process of recovering from grief. So they're two different things. What I can speak to is...

Victoria 💛 (38:00.333)

people will say that not every, so like, when I'm thinking, when I'm talking about grief recovery method, the grief recovery method, people might say, well, that worked for you. not, that won't necessarily work for me. And I push back on that because although it is an evidence-based method and program, and it is a method and program that every single griever takes and goes through.

It is unique to every single griever because their grief is unique. is... Basically, you take the method and you apply it to your life, your grief, your story, your relationships. That's what makes it not be cookie cutter. So on the outside, it can be viewed as cookie cutter, but because every grief experience is unique...

Even if you live in the same household with people, and I'm sure you've experienced this yourself, you know, when you and your wife lost your child, you both experienced the grief, the same grief, right? But it was different. You experienced it differently. You showed up to the grief differently.

James Moffitt (39:09.111)

Mm-hmm.

Victoria 💛 (39:15.597)

this method you could both use in your own way. And so that's why, but grief recovery, just recovering from grief or grief recovery, the process of grief recovery, I think we all just have this, our own path of how we take that windy road of getting to a place where we finally feel whole again, where we...

where we can have a memory of someone we loved and care about that died, but it doesn't take us way back to the emotional pain. Instead, we can feel feelings of fondness and love and gratitude for that relationship and for the time we had with that person, rather than the deep emotional pain that can take you out for weeks or maybe even months again, right? Like when those anniversaries come around, it's...

looking at them and experiencing them differently with a different lens with a different perspective. And that's the process of grief recovery, I feel. And that's different for everybody and in the timeline and how long that takes and whatnot. But I can tell you grief recovery method. It can be 30 years like it was for me, or it can be three years or three months. It doesn't matter. There's no timeline as to

James Moffitt (40:23.487)

Ahem.

Victoria 💛 (40:38.475)

when it's too soon or too late. It's never too late and it's never too soon.

James Moffitt (40:44.929)

Well, one of the things that I would like to bring up at this point is that as you are experiencing loss and grief, whatever the catalyst is for that, whether it's job loss, divorce, separation, loss of a child, loss of a parent, whatever, loss of a job, as you're living through that and you are...

doing the best you can with the tools that you have to to experience the emotions and deal with the emotions and still function in life. You're going to have people that are going to come to you and go and a lot of times it might be family members. They're going to come to you and go, well, you know, it's been three months or six months or a year or two years or five years or 10 years since you experienced that loss. And now it's time for you to move on.

time for you to stop wallowing in self-pity. And well, those people are idiots, right? And those people are misinformed, ignorant, whatever words you want to apply to it. But just be aware that people are going to do one of two things as you suffer, as you walk through the loss and the grief. They're either going to be silent,

because they don't know what to say.

And they may even pull back from you and not want to get close to you because they don't know what to say. loss and grief is ugly and they don't want to admit that they're susceptible to the same thing. So they're just going to stay away from you. Right? Or they're going to get in your personal space and they're going to push ridiculous statements like that into your life.

James Moffitt (42:47.589)

and just be aware of that and to those that are listening that have experienced loss and grief you know what i'm talking about you know you know what people are capable of so yeah just try to take it with a grain of salt

Victoria 💛 (43:06.627)

Well, and what I would add to that is, it's a reflection of where they're at. Simply. mean, it's either they haven't addressed any of their own pain or suffering or grief or, or, well, I would, I would wager to guess nine out of 10 times. haven't either way they go either. If they're giving unsolicited advice, like, it's been three years. You should be over it by now. And I heard plenty of that too.

James Moffitt (43:27.841)

Well.

Victoria 💛 (43:34.977)

after 30 years, you know, but,

James Moffitt (43:35.344)

sure.

Well, I think that you never really get over grief. You never get over the memory of your loved ones. You just learn how to live with it. And you get better at living with it. get the emotional triggers and the traumas are not as fast and furious as they are at the onset. Jessica passed away on August 5, 2001.

Victoria 💛 (43:46.092)

No.

Victoria 💛 (43:58.863)

I can say that, yeah, my own experience. 30 plus years as a child. Yep. Growing up with it.

James Moffitt (44:07.085)

25 years since then and I can, I can talk about her life. I can talk about her. I can talk about how much I loved her and I can, as long as I don't focus on the end of life things that happened for too long of a period, I can keep a dry eye. back when it first happened. Yeah, forget it. You know, you, you.

You hear music that the person loved or you go to a restaurant that they enjoyed or there's lots of emotional triggers that, that, you know, hits you like a freight train and you, you you have waves of grief that.

there's no wrong way or right way to experience it or deal with it as long as you just don't shove it deep down into your heart, soul, spirit, and ignore it. Because it's not something that's going to be ignored. And eventually, like we said earlier, it's either gonna... you're either gonna explode or implode. And that can be messy and ugly and damaging. So,

As you look at the men and families you've served, what gives you hope about the healing process?

Victoria 💛 (45:25.529)

That it's possible? That is possible. It doesn't matter what the loss has been. The worst has happened.

The worst has happened. And I think as long as you have hope that there are brighter days, that you can feel better, that you can become emotionally complete, that's what I look, that's what I want people to experience in their life and recognize as possible.

James Moffitt (46:01.901)

So if you had two or three minutes to tell people what's on your heart and what you want, what do you want the listening audience to take away with them? What would you tell them?

Victoria 💛 (46:16.643)

I think what I usually say here is that there is hope because, and to not lose it. Because I think when you've tried so many things, so many different things and they failed, or maybe you've had two, three, four different therapists, or maybe you've tried this thing or that thing or that method or this method, none of it's helped. The next time you try the next thing might just be the thing.

So I think it's just holding onto the hope that it doesn't always have to be this way, that this is temporary. What you're feeling today is temporary in that with different knowledge, with new knowledge, new information, taking new actions, which then thereby affects your behaviors, which is in a nutshell what grief recovery helps you do actually.

you can create that forward momentum in your life where you're no longer, where your present day is no longer dictated by your past.

James Moffitt (47:26.935)

So how would people get a hold of you if they wanted to connect with you?

Victoria 💛 (47:31.841)

All my links and everything are on my website, theunleashedheart.com.

James Moffitt (47:37.653)

You also filled out a guest profile, which I appreciate. any of that information in your guest profile. When the episode is released on the, on the episode website, it has the transcript, it has a summary, has obviously a player where people can listen or watch and in your guest profile will show up on that same website where they can get ahold of you. And think all your links will be there as well. So Victoria, thank you for being here.

Victoria 💛 (48:03.609)

Fantastic.

James Moffitt (48:07.047)

And to the people that are listening, the listening audience, I want to say thank you for the privilege of your time. Thank you for joining this conversation and a special thanks to Victoria Volk for sharing her wisdom and the heart behind her work. Her insight into grief, healing and emotional honesty gives fathers and others language for things that they've carried alone for far too long. If today's episode encouraged you or opened something new in you.

share it with someone who might need the same hope. Until next time, stay present, stay grounded, and keep choosing the kind of healing that strengthens your home and your heart. Thanks for listening.

Victoria 💛 (48:49.305)

Thank you so much.