EP45: A Widow’s Journey To Wellness with Adele Anderson

This is winning with wellness, a podcast about inspiring the wellness warrior in you. If you're feeling lost or alone in your wellness journey, or looking for new ideas and inspiration, you are in the right place, a place you can learn about all things wellness, in business life and living your host Jenny Ryce, we'll be bringing you inspiring stories and practical tools to improve your overall wellness, personally and professionally. Imagine what living a life of wellness would be like. Thank you for joining us today.

Welcome everyone to another episode of winning with wellness. We are so thrilled that you are here we know that your time is valuable. And we thank you so much for putting us into your space, whether you're on a run, whether you're driving in the car, or maybe just sitting and relaxing on the couch. Thank you again from all of us here at the wedding with wellness podcast team for stepping in and allowing us to share in your time. I am so excited I have Adele here with me. Welcome Adele, how are you?

Really good. Thank you for inviting me, Jenny.

Oh, thrilled to have you. You guys I want to share a little bit about Adele Anderson's life she's had a very interesting journey and she is a survivor of a plane that crashed and flipped over in a river. Adele knows now that anything is possible when you make the right choice at the right time. But the harrowing experience didn't help her when she became a widow. Grief deeply affected every aspect of her life decisions communication, organization sleep coping and happiness. While grieving Adele discovered and use high quality supplements to optimize body health and LP to empower her decisions, balance emotions and relieve stress and develop spiritual practices that deepened her connection strengthened her purpose and created a deep sense of peace and calm. She now offer yours her body mind and soul series to you. And what I'm excited about Adele's you're going to tell us what all that means. We're gonna have people listening right now that I have experienced grief and that are suffering through, you know, just not knowing how to get out of bed or move through, move through the process where you know, we're given this kind of this weird timeline sometimes many of us as we move through grief, and you know, Oh, it'll be fine. You'll get over it, all those kinds of things. Can you dig in and tell us how you have not only moved through grief to come to the other side of it, but these tools that you've implemented, because I know there'll be many people listening, that have experienced grief and grief isn't always just the loss of somebody that grief can come in many forms. So I'd love to tap into that. Welcome aboard Adele, you're ready to take a journey on this conversation with me today?

Yeah, absolutely. So there's some fallacies about grief, we're not broken. I'd say maybe we're beautifully broken. But grief is one of those things, we don't really get over it, we don't move on from it. It's something that friends and families will use. And as part of their, you know, trying to engage and support with someone who's grieving. And yet grief is grief is more going to be a part of us, we are going to grow tremendously through this deep wound that we have. And I describe it in a couple of ways. So imagine being dropped down and invisible shoot, where everything is muffled in your ears, and you're not really getting where you're at. And all of a sudden you've landed, you don't know where you've landed, but you know, you don't speak the language and you can't read the, the writing. And I always say it's like you're at the base camp of Mount Everest, and they're telling you to climb over the mountain. In order to survive, you've got to get over the top. And yet you look down and you don't have any gear, you're in bare feet. You might be in, you know, T shirts and a an or a tank top or something like this and just feel completely unprepared. Right? Yeah. And yet you have to go. You have to take the journey. There's no backing out. And so this is this is the contrast of like getting the diagnosis. And then the other aspect is like you know whether It's you that's had the diagnosis, which is, you know, a completely psychological test for us all, or whether we've lost something that we love. And you know, it is it is like nothing else that I've ever done, even though you know I did, I was in that capsized plane and immediately underwater drowning with a mouthful of water. And, you know, having that experience and also having a near death experience, were actually separated from my body and felt like I'd been to the other side, you know, I experienced the bright white love I write bright white light and unconditional love feeling that was all around me watching very disconnected to my self, my younger self down in that capsized plane. So even that understanding that life exists beyond what we know of today, was very challenging for me to maintain that state of knowingness. When my husband died, it was just so devastating, that it was difficult to hold on to that, if you want to call it hope, or just an understanding of you know, this is a transition beyond a physical body and he's okay. And I'm going to be okay to didn't feel okay at all.

Yeah, yeah. Yeah. It's, it's so interesting, because when we think of grief, we do think of specific things like, you know, I've lost my mom, my biological mom, and you know, those are game changing moments, those are life changing moments. And I remember, immediately, and those that know me, would would resonate with us went into business mode, because I had to, you know, I was responsible for her estate, I was responsible for the decision making. And I realized, now I never actually grieved her for the loss properly. And everybody's journey is so different. And it's funny, I didn't feel that feeling again. And I've and I've lost other people in my lifetime. But you know, losing a parent is a big one. I felt the same type of raw and ripping when my daughter, which I'm so thrilled that she spread her wings and flew, but when she stepped out onto her own, and, you know, she didn't just move down the block and come home every weekend, she, you know, moved, where she's not close by. And grief comes in many shapes and sizes. And I think we don't I, you know, acknowledge that it's like, well, no, this is a part of life she's supposed to move on? Well, no. I don't care. I've known for 20 plus years, it was coming. That doesn't make it. You know, it's like my grandmother passed away just before 95th birthday. It was devastating. We knew it was coming. You know, it's, it's this grief is a very interesting experience. And it touches us all so differently. And you share that you touched into NLP and really looking at your dietary support, like supplements and that. So if we've got somebody right now who's suffering through grief? And what would be some things that you could share that could help them move through? Because again, you say, it changes us? It's not like it disappears? It's not like, Oh, I'm, I'm done. Grief is over. But how do we help them rise to a better way of being what are some thoughts?

Yeah, well, to give yourself grace, you know, it's a big thing. And to know that it does take time, and I'm still moving through those incredible first moments that keep you unaware of when it's going to happen. But, you know, I was having my hair done the other day, and I said, Let's look ahead to the end of February and she said, Oh, perfect, February 28. And I broke down not into tears, but into sobbing because it landed on my husband's birthday. So it was completely out of the blue. And this is the waves that grief hit us. So we're okay and then we're not okay. Right. And to know that that is a pretty big probability that you can be in the middle of the bank lineup. And you will turn into a puddle on the floor. And these moments happen and to just say, You know what, it's okay. It's okay. We protect ourselves as best we can. As far as you know, I do put parameters on now was that coming up to dates that I know are going to be possibly a trigger for me and make sure that I'm in the right space for myself in order to, you know, prepare myself for possibilities, and then to keep myself well, so sleep well go to bed early, I don't watch any dress like drama type of shows. I try to, you know, stay with a comedy with a feel good movie, which often includes death,

ironically enough, right? Yes, I'm a Disney fanatic. And there's a whole lot of there's a whole lot of pain.

But the idea is, is that with our minds, I say, and I, and I forget who quoted this, but grief is the price we pay for deep love. Hmm. And so we wouldn't feel that separation, that pain, if it wasn't that we have experienced and explored great love. So congratulations, if you're grieving, it means that you were in it 100% And sharing yourself in a beautiful way with another soul. And so then this is, this is the other side of what happens when that separation of I can't see you, I can't touch you today. But I have found within spirituality a great connection with my husband on the other side. And we can talk about that if you wanting to absolutely go through that route. So for myself for physical, I made sure that I was keeping myself optimized because my appetite was a bit wanting. And so I wanted to make sure that I had some supplements and I used a really high quality shake, that I could add fresh fruit and vegetables to which gave me all the nutrients that I needed throughout the day. So that was one meal that I knew that I had. And, and then also supplements that would keep my immune system boosted because when we are suffering from grief, our immune system is compromised. So even a negative thought can interrupt your immune capacity for six to eight hours at a time. So we know this through neuroscience. So when we have these moments of grief, or when we're really in the beginning of grief and suffering on, you know, daily basis, we know that our immune system is struggling. And so we want to make sure that we're topping up our vitamin C or vitamin D or by an E, and maybe some zinc, and we can get into some magnesium to help us sleep just so that we're optimizing things for our best possible outcome. And then I really went into the mind science since that is my, my work and, you know, remaining in the positive became a game to me, although I have lots of tools that I can initiate those changes, but really being mindful of where my thoughts were, what my focus was, so that I had had the chance to initiate change right away. And then finally, the spiritual piece was the piece that brought that inner inner calm one once I had that third connection, then I felt more stable than I had in months.

And I love that you share that it's not just dues again, it's not that quick fixes there's pieces to put in place to help support and I often shared this and I love that you brought that forward. To love intensely is to to feel loss intensely to be blessed with that type of connection with like you say another human being many of us are feel that with our pets. And you know to acknowledge that we feel that deep deep loss because we were gifted with that beautiful relationship and that that profound way thank you for shedding light on that because when we're in grief and we're deeply feeling that ripping open wound we we lose sight of what was we were in what we had the gift of and talking about our immunity and our health and being conscious of when we are through trauma and experiencing trauma in that way. We have to fuel our body we have to fuel our mind we have to and have to sounds like a really like you got to do the thing but it's true. It's how we if we stay at our optimum we can move through the process with more ease I'm not saying it's easier, but it allows us at ease and I want to dig into NLP because the brain is a powerful and amazing tool and I love that you're part of the, you know, NLP training. Can you explain to people because you you touched about the brain? And I think it's absolutely fascinating, you know, neuroplasticity and all the things that are happening. When we think of the brain, how do we support it? What's our best way to do that? In all things? Actually, nevermind, just as we move through grief, tell me what led you to that passion?

Well, it really came with my drowning incident, I really had a deep desire to know how on earth I survived and if I just drop into that story for a minute, you can imagine that I'm in a capsized plane. I saw like the the nose of the plane was driven into the water. So we were immediately catapulted upside down the plane filled with water. I saw the pilot go under, he was sitting in front of me, went to take a breath of air and my mouth filled with water. And then I you know, your brain does that checklist. You know, the I'm okay. I'm okay. I'm okay. So it, it actually does, you know, ceiling to floor, move through the body to see if anything's broken. Where do you hurt? What movement we have, and it does this checklist. So my checklist went through, okay, I'm, I'm fine. But I'm upside down, gravity's pulling me down. Buoyancy is pulling me up. I have a mouthful of water, it's cold, it's wet. It's, I can't breathe. I'm trapped. My you know, I recognize that my harness had come been tangled around my life jacket. And so everything was obscured and things were bumping me and there was a lot to take in for an experience you don't train for?

Well, it literally in seconds,

in seconds. And so what ended up happening was my body ran out of oxygen. I could feel that tingling sensation that you get if you were ever a kid in a pool, and tried to swim underwater as far as you could you get that tingling sensation, you've got to come up. So that's a warning bell. So that warning bell was happening. And I had been a lifeguard and very strong swimmer. I knew the sign. And so I thought, Okay, I got to get out. But I'm trapped. And so you could see my psychology agreeing with my situation. And at that point, my body started to separate from my consciousness I was my perspective changed, I was looking down upon myself rather than through my own eyes at that point. And my life began to flash in front of my eyes. And through my consciousness, I was like, Oh, I heard this happens before you're going to die. I wonder if I'm going to die. So I was a bit mesmerized by those billions of photographs from my birth through my death. And then it went forward in time, it gave me a preview of what my future could look like. If I was to die, what would happen. And that was a scene inside my mind of local police officers going through my parents front yard up there, big red brick steps and knocking on the door. And I watched my parents open the door, I couldn't hear the conversation that I simply watched their facial expressions change, from confusion, to acknowledgement to horror to my mom falling to the floor, she collapsed to the floor, She covered her head with her hands. And she screamed, and I heard that screen ricochet inside my brain. And it snapped me back into my reality. It snapped me back into my body because I made a choice right then. And this is neuroscience. So this is this is the game changer. We make the choice in time. I'm getting out of the plane, I'm getting out of it now. So there's no question in that command. And our subconscious brains only purpose is to keep us alive physiologically and to do exactly what we asked. So I always say, speak to your brain like it was a two year old. We don't use big words. Because what happened next was a phenomenal mind process. I had asked, or I had said I was getting out of the plane. So my brain went to work. And all of those pictures that had flashed before my eyes began to go in reverse, and went back through, I don't know hundreds of millions, billions of images. And then the images stopped. And in front of my mind's eye was a scene from a movie that I'd watched decades before I didn't know the name of the movie. I didn't know the names of the actors. I didn't know anything about the movie, except for the scene in front of my eyes, gave me all the information I needed to escape a plane that it crashed into returned in water. Wow. And I followed the script and I escaped the plane and saved my own life. So how do we do that? Right? If my brain could do that, when I had so little oxygen left inside my system, I had a great desire to know how I could do that every single day.

Right? The power Yeah, the power,

we each have a computer between our ears, that is bigger than any computer ever created on this planet. We're talking like in the hundreds of terabytes of memory. So it's a phenomenal amount of information that we have learned everything that we've ever seen, smell, taste, heard, felt emotionally or kinesthetically through our entire life. And now we're talking pre and pre life as well, if we want to go back into past life regression, anybody is into learning about that sort of stuff. This information is in there. And you know, if you study people like David R Hawkins, who has a he was a doc medical doctor became a psychiatrist, and studied for over a practice for over 50 years. And he you know, he talks about the difference between the body being in sentience, which means the body has no understanding of itself and understands itself through the sensations that we have. And the sensations have no ability to understand themselves, that is understood through the mind. And yet the mind itself has no way of comprehending what the mind is understanding without consciousness. And consciousness has no understanding of itself without awareness. So then we get up into, you know, the, when they're talking about the Akasha, there, they're talking about the web of life, they're talking about the grid, talking about universe, whatever we understand it as it becomes a pretty phenomenal and limiting capacity for each one of us to engage with. And so then how can we possibly consider if our consciousness already lives in the universe? Where are the people that have passed? Why do we feel such pain? Because their physical body is no longer here? But are we not? Together in our consciousness? When we are all one in this, this gets into the philosophy of you know, we're all one, well, how does that work? We're all just carbon atoms put together for a period of time in this shape and this form on this earth today. And that changes over time. Right? So becomes quite philosophical. But a lot of this is now science typically proved if you have that left brain likes the scientific evidence, there is a lot of evidence that is irrefutable. And there's so much more that can be explored that we haven't the capacity yet to understand through science. And so we say we have to have faith. And so we deepen our faith and we, you know, just understand, inside our mind when something makes sense, or when something feels good, then we get into the greater capacity, I think of human beings is, you know, are that less quantifiable love? How do we quantify love? And, you know, when we say we're grieving, would you ever consider that you've lost love, you still love this person as much as you ever did. Right? So the love is not lost. Right? That feeling still exists within our bodies, within our minds within our soul. And so nothing has been lost. Other than maybe the tangible of actually reaching out and holding that person's hand.

I don't know who needed to hear that today. But wow. It is. I'm gonna have to re listen to this episode. There's so much wisdom in what you share and so much peace in what you share. I can't I cannot thank you enough for sharing that with myself and the audience. It it is profound. Because we do when we lose something that word lose or loss makes us feel like it's gone forever. And that beautiful way that you shared that it's not lost. It's just altered.

Yeah, we will all be reconnected at some point I truly believe. And, you know, even though there are days where it feels feels harder to hold on to, in my heart and through everything that I've learned and studied and, and felt and different sessions that I've had spiritual sessions that I've had. And now I've, you know, trained in, in some of these forms, and I'm still a newbie, but But it gives me this additional sense of inner peace, to just have a deeper understanding and connection to the spiritual nature of being human. And quite often we want to separate that. But we are body, mind and soul. And so what does that soul portion mean? And you know, the infinite pneus, in that, I think, if you looked at the definition, even in Webster's that would probably, you know, bring you there. And so who are we to deny that we are infinite beings, and we're on this planet, to hopefully do something great. And so maybe this is the growth that we definitely rise into, maybe kicking and screaming. But grief, you know, is one of those challenges, that if it doesn't break us, and I really hope that you're not there, someone's not there right now, please, don't stay in that it's not healthy. And it's not anything that your loved one would have wanted, where I've switched it and reframed it is that it is really the challenge that I am rising above, in a way that I have grown significantly, through my own devastation of this loss, or if you want to, you know, call it something different that that, you know, what, how we connotates that in the mind does matter. But there is there is beauty, in grief. And that sounds off, but, you know, I have experienced joy within the pain and not as a masochist. Right. And I said, as a being

well in just to find those different perspectives, and new awarenesses and understandings, changes how grief impacts us. And that is such, oh my gosh, I don't know who needs to hear this today. But your your message is so beautiful and so profound. I can't thank you enough for sharing it with myself and the audience. And and

yeah, there's just one more thing that I'd like to you know, and it's not about not reaching out, I think it takes a village. Yes. You know, we have our family, we have our friends, we have our extended communities. And there's so many places where we can find comfort. But within the comfort, I think of grief as a big wounds. So if you can think of a big cut on your arm. And you know, it's still weeps when you pull the band aid off. And it's still raw. And when you touch it, it hurts. But when we look at something like a physical cut on our body, it heals from the inside out. And grief is like that, too. It's an inner job that we have to start at the core and we move outward until we shine.

Adult thank you so much for your wisdom, your insight. And yeah, it's it's very timely in my life. Definitely. And I'm sure there's somebody listening right now that is feeling moved to move through or move into or re rise up. Yeah, yeah, absolutely. Thank you so much for being on the show today and sharing your stories. Holy smokes.

Like that it can get messy.

Yeah, well, life is messy. Right. You know, and it's

in the box. Yeah, it can be a beautiful journey. Yeah. Even through the pain. You know, we have our we'll all have our own story. And then, you know, how do we want that story to be? Who do we want to be? As we move through our story?

You had one thing that you'd like to leave the listeners with, what would it be today?

You were never meant to live in emotional pain. It is there, you know, as a sign that we need to take care of ourselves. But it's not a place you want to live for long. And it does take time. I'm not saying that it's, I'm going to fix be fixed tomorrow. This is a journey. But there's joy within the journey. And to know that there is support out there, that you are not stuck. And in your grief.

In adult, if people were trying to connect with you to find support, what is the best way they can do that?

My email is yes, at life coach a dell.com. And you'll find me on Facebook, you know, just Google my name. I'm on LinkedIn and Instagram. So Adele Anderson, and I live on the Sunshine Coast to actually offer retreats, my husband built us a beautiful home on the oceanfront and I'm opening it up for small, intimate gatherings for grief retreats, Grief Relief retreats, beautiful people can, you know, rise out of their pain and find that, that inner peace and calm again.

So for those of you too, that are moved by Adele's conversation, her share her mission, do not hesitate to connect with her, all the contact information that was mentioned will be in the show notes. She is also an incredible contributing member of your holistic Earth. If you're looking for her and you can't find her, you can always pop over to the website and search her name and she will come rising to the surface where you can find her there. So Adele, thank you again so much for being here. I appreciate you.

Yeah, I really appreciate the opportunity to engage Jenny. So thank you.