Lioness Conversations: Brave Stories of Women Leaders & Female Founders | Women leading with confidence, empowerment, entrepreneurship, innovation, impact

Jen Porter (00:01)
Hey, Lioness, welcome to the show, Lioness Conversations, where we help women be brave, to lead with confidence and joy, and to find your path to the most meaningful work of your life. I'm your host, Jen Porter, leadership and empowerment coach for ambitious and heart-centered women. Today, we have a very special guest, Rachel Tenpenny McGonigal. Rachel, founder of The Grief Gal.

transformed her own unimaginable loss into a powerful path of healing, empowering thousands to navigate grief and rebuild their lives with purpose and joy. Rachel, welcome to the show.

Rachel McGonigle (00:45)
Thank you for having me.

Jen Porter (00:47)
I want to give the audience just a little bit of background about how we came together. So you were nominated as a lioness by a dear friend of ours. And you and I connected first when we did the book interview because I'm writing this book, The Lioness Project, and I got to hear your story. And I knew by the end of that conversation that I wanted to share your story more broadly. And so I want to...

just give a preview to the listeners that this is a tender topic. This is one we're going to be talking about grief and loss and overcoming and how to find your way back to a place of, dare I say happiness, joy, meaning, purpose. And the thing that I have carried your story with me, I carry everybody's stories with me.

but yours has a weight to it because of what you've experienced and how you are now empowering others to move beyond their pain and their grief and to dare to dream for something that seems impossible, which is to move forward after such immense loss. What else to say?

The other thing that really strikes me is that you have a unique ability to say hard things in a very tender place that people are holding in a way that they can hear and be challenged by and move forward. Not everybody has that gift. And so you dropped some wisdom bombs the last time that we talked and it was like, wow, wow, wow. So...

I just want, I want to prepare people for what they're going to get to hear and experience through your story. Thank you for being here.

Rachel McGonigle (02:51)
Yeah, thank you again for having me. I already find myself getting a little teary, like a little choked up when I was hearing you talk because I remember what it felt like back when my girls died, where I wasn't even sure that this moment was possible, that I would ever really get myself to a place where I could say I have healing in my life and meaning and purpose and more beauty than pain. And it's not that I don't

miss my girls because I absolutely do. But my life is very full. I do something very meaningful that I am passionate about. I have, you know, a loving husband now. I went through a divorce so that is another topic but I have a loving husband now.

Jen Porter (03:23)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel McGonigle (03:40)
a blended family of four boys that keeps our lives very full, a one-eyed dog named Nala who has also keeps our lives very full. And, you know, there was just a time in my life where even though I fought for it and I wouldn't give up on it, I wasn't actually 100 % sure it was possible.

Jen Porter (03:49)
You

you

Rachel McGonigle (04:04)
and to move forward 17 years later of which a vast majority of that has been incredibly fulfilling and full of healing.

I just wish somebody would have told me this 17 years ago. That's what I wish. And that's why I do what I do. So that somebody can be a different voice than the voices that I had, which were the voices of a mother who loses children will never be okay.

Jen Porter (04:21)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Yeah. So let's share with the listeners what your story is. I want to, because they're probably, you know, wondering like, what, my goodness, what happened? I'd like for you to share the loss that you experienced. And then I want to move us to how it is that you're helping people today. And then we'll go back in time, but share.

what the losses are that you experienced.

Rachel McGonigle (05:06)
So in 2008, I had two little girls, twins, that got sick and died six days apart from each other. They had, ultimately they shared the same symptoms of what happened, but it all happened in different order, so we were navigating two different journeys for two little girls. I also had a two and a half year old son at the time. We had no awareness that anything bad was coming. It was just...

normal life, right? You have a baby and then that baby gets a certain age and you decide to have another baby and surprise, it's two babies. So now you're preparing for two babies and then both of those babies die. And I found myself thrust into

a world of grief and loss that I never saw coming. I had no idea how to navigate. And quite frankly, I didn't like it at all. I didn't like being there. I didn't want to be there. I felt forced against my will to be there. And I was incredibly disappointed with what being there meant. It was antiquated. I feel that we still have a culture that even though grief is universal and has been happening since the dawn of time,

still act like every loss is a giant shock and surprise and treat you like you're the first person to ever grieve. There's a big hands-off approach to grief, right? It's your own journey. Everyone grieves their own way, which I always felt was really code for, you figure it out yourself and please don't bother me with it.

Jen Porter (06:32)
Yeah.

Rachel McGonigle (06:41)
And once I started putting it together that the culture in our society was not going to magically shift to make my grief easier for me, I was going to have to find my own way. And it's not that I have had no help or nobody showed up along the way. But when we experience a significant loss like that, if we're expecting someone else or something else to come and save us or make it easier for us, we will wait forever.

Jen Porter (07:08)
Mm.

Rachel McGonigle (07:08)
It's

hugely disappointing to realize you have to advocate for yourself.

Jen Porter (07:13)
Why do you think it is that our culture doesn't accept or look grief in the face? What's happening?

Rachel McGonigle (07:22)
Because it's terrifying.

It's terrifying. It's your worst nightmare realized in someone else. You know, I would walk into a room after Aubrey Nellie died.

And it was full of wonderful kind of people, know, women that I went to church with or had play dates with. And they would walk out or they would look away because one, they didn't want to hurt me. They thought if their babies were around, it would somehow make me more sad that my babies weren't. I don't think everyone has terrible intentions, right? We're just very confused. But also you can't be holding a little baby and then look at the mom whose baby's just

died and not think about losing your own child. Just like you can't be a wife and sit with a friend who just lost her husband and not think about what it would mean to lose your own.

or any kind of loss, right? We have a friend that loses their parent. We immediately think, my gosh, losing a parent would be terrible if we haven't lost ours yet. And so grief is this unfortunate reality that slaps us in the face that says it's not just someone else. It could be you. And it probably will be you eventually because we all go through loss and we're not ready for that. We don't want to make space for that in our lives. And part of it's cause we get a lot of messaging that that makes us negative or paranoid.

or there's something wrong with us. But also the other side of it is we are taught how to acquire things, but we are not taught how to lose them. So our loss skills are low. And whenever we have a low skill set, it's uncomfortable. We want to avoid the things that we know we're not very good at. So grief is just hard. Bottom line.

Jen Porter (09:05)
And

that leads to what you're doing now. One of my objectives for this podcast is to share stories of women who have overcome tremendous things and are now using what they've been through to give back to others in a way that is meaningful and having impact in the world. And your story is that. it takes so much courage to do what you're doing.

Rachel McGonigle (09:35)
Okay, so I have a different perspective on that. I do think it takes courage. I think lots of things take courage. I think it takes courage to do what you're doing. But I think there's always a certain point in life where our courage starts tipping over more into our passion.

Jen Porter (09:35)
So, yeah. Okay, tell me.

Rachel McGonigle (09:59)
and the things that we used to be really afraid of or were really hard where we had to really conjure up that bravery to push ourselves through.

We get enough practice under our belt where we're not terrified all the time. That's why it's so important to do hard things, even when we're afraid to do it anyway and to cultivate courage and bravery, because eventually courage and bravery also becomes proficiency and which becomes passion. And I don't wake up and do something that feels hard to me every day. Was there a time in my life it was hard and I had to push through that and I had to learn? Yes, but it was a season, it wasn't forever. Because there's no way I would have

capacity to face that level of fear every single day of my life forever. I'm a human being. I have limits. I can't push myself to the edge of my limits like that all the time.

So I had to learn how to cultivate that proficiency. It's exactly what I taught myself to do after Aubrey Nellie died. Everyone said it's impossible. The pain is too great. You'll never be okay. And I decided that I was not going to allow grief to be a limiting belief or a limiting experience in my life. That there's no way that grief could set a cap on what I was capable of. I was gonna be the only one who would limit what I was capable of.

Jen Porter (10:51)
Yeah.

What was it inside of you that gave you the gumption to believe and hope for more?

Rachel McGonigle (11:18)
And so I'm sorry.

So a big part of it was having a beautiful two and a half year old son that I wanted to have a good life. I wanted him to have happy memories and a childhood that wasn't plagued by paranoia and grief and a broken mom who was always sad or at the very worst, bittersweet. I wanted him to have fun holidays and good birthday parties and normal days after school where we just got a snack and we fed the dog and then we did homework and right, and our life was not.

umbrellaed right by this constant grief but also underneath that because i've thought about this a lot and i thought you know was my son enough he was a huge part of it but he wasn't enough it went all the way back from when i was young

And my best friend and I, we had this mantra. like, we love living, we're pretty carefree kids, but we also took everything very seriously, right? We wanted to be good people and we wanted to grow and learn. We were traveling around the world at that time doing missions work and we always worked hard and we would talk about all these deep, you we thought we were so deep and everything, you know, we weren't ordinary teenagers, right? And it wasn't that we thought we were better than anyone. just, everything mattered to us. And we had this mantra.

together, we would always say, if you don't know what to do, choose life. And that's how we would figure out like, if we don't know what college to go to, if we don't know, you know, what was the most life giving option? And would you know, which was fun and wonderful at a time when, you know, the worst thing in my life was that my parents made me pay for my own stuff. And, you know, I couldn't do whatever I wanted to do. Like I had a very, I did not understand a lot about grief and loss in my early years. It just really wasn't a part

Jen Porter (13:02)
Yeah.

Rachel McGonigle (13:19)
my life and the little bit I did was very distant for me. was many degrees removed. And when my girls died, even when they were dying, even when they were sick, I would repeat that mantra in my head and try to match every decision to what is the most life-giving decision. Now that takes on a different meaning when now you're old enough to realize that there's difference between quantity of life and quality of life.

So I was able to process that. And then when they died and I lost both of them, I made a promise to myself that I would choose life in their absence, right? In their stead. They didn't have a chance to choose life. So I will do it for them. And that meant that life couldn't be only about their death. It had to also be about...

Jen Porter (14:02)
Mm.

Rachel McGonigle (14:15)
their existence, right? Their value, their meaning. And so I'm feisty like that. And I make up my mind. I make up my mind. It felt too important. It felt the cost would be too great. I'd already lost so much. The cost was already unfathomable. I just wasn't willing to give anything else up that I had the power not to, right? Some things are not in our control.

But me deciding if grief was going to become my identity or become something that informed my identity was in my power.

I did not get a chance to choose if my girls lived or not, but I could choose how I was going to respond. I could choose to be the mom I wanted to be to my little boy. And so those choices became how I empowered myself, even when I didn't have all the other answers that I needed. And a lot of stuff still didn't make sense.

Jen Porter (15:14)
What were you hearing from others? You you talked about the unhelpful responses that you got from people around you. Well-meaning but not helpful. What kinds of things? Because I think people, can all relate to this. Yes.

Rachel McGonigle (15:32)
Sure, there's thousands of them, but the big ones.

The big ones were, a mother who loses a child will never be okay. Other people said things to me like, you know, it's a blessing in disguise because if they couldn't be okay, they're better off in heaven because they were going to have health problems if they lived through their injuries.

People said things like, you need to trust God's will, right? This is God's will, which I did not find helpful at all because it did not align with my understanding of who God was or the scriptures that I had read that God's will is never that innocent babies suffer and die. That's actually completely opposite of his will. It was a horrible tragic thing that happened and it had very much to do with living in a broken world, not.

living under God's will. And you know, and that can you can deep dive into some pretty serious theology in that area. And I often do because one of the so one of the best, let's go with the best advice I got the best advice I received was from a friend of mine who was a mentor to me through my teen years. And I called her and said,

I'm not sure where to go from here. I don't know how to navigate this. I'm not even sure what's real anymore. And it wasn't that I was having a crisis of faith. It's just that when you go through a loss like that, all of the filters are skewed. Now you're, you're wondering how do things really work? What do I really believe? What can I really depend on? When am I really in charge of? Where do I have control? Where do I not have control? So lots of deep, like existential questions. And I said, you know, I just don't know where to go from

I don't even know what to trust what to believe and she said well When you don't know what's true The best thing to do is keep peeling back the layers right the first thing you're like, I'm not sure this is true anymore the second layer I'm not sure this is true and she says just keep peeling back what you don't where you're not sure is true It doesn't mean it is and it doesn't mean it isn't it just means you're not sure Until you land on the thing that you know that you know that you know is true

And she goes, go as deep as you need to go until you hit that bedrock. And as I did that, and it wasn't something that happened in like a minute, right? This was a process I took myself through for like a couple of months to just keep peeling back. What is real? What is true? How do I know? Do I know? And I was able to land real hard on the bedrock that God is good.

I don't know how he works. I'm not even sure he listens to all of our prayers. I still have a lot of questions, a lot of things I haven't even sorted through 17 years later. But I couldn't deny that I had experiential proof, okay, not just cognitive awareness or scriptural information, but actual experience from my own life of God's goodness. And if that is something I know that I know that I know to be true,

then that became a filter that I looked at everything else through. So if God is good, how can it be as well? Because a good God does not see two little babies as expendable for some greater good or lessons the rest of us need to learn. And that's when I realized God was grieving with me.

Jen Porter (18:54)
Hmm.

Rachel McGonigle (19:07)
So if God is grieving with me, he knows grief, but grief is not God's identity, which means grief can't be an identity. It's an experience.

Jen Porter (19:08)
Mm.

say that again, grief cannot be an identity.

It is an experience, is that what you said? Okay, that's big. And I'm guessing that's what a lot of your clients struggle with.

Rachel McGonigle (19:34)
Well, it's the primary message in the grief world, right? Grief, once a griever, always a griever. Grief changes you. Grief never leaves, you just learn how to carry it. Right? And then you hear weird contradicting things. And this was the stuff I was sorting through pretty early on. You hear the message that once a griever, always a griever. And then you hear psychological terms like prolonged grief.

Jen Porter (19:39)
How so?

Okay.

Rachel McGonigle (20:05)
And I'm going, why is there a term for prolonged grief, which is essentially the idea that grief lasts extra long and is extra intense, if we're being told that grief is permanent. You always, once you grieve, you always grieve.

Jen Porter (20:21)
What does it look like when we have taken on grief as an identity?

Rachel McGonigle (20:30)
So when we really sort of put on the coat of our grief and absorb it into who we are, grief becomes either our excuse or our limit in anything we do. I'm this way because of my grief. I'm not this way because of my grief. I'm not capable of this or that because of my grief.

No one understands me because of my grief, right? We just sort of put this banner because of my grief over everything in our life. And it's the best possible excuse we could ever give ourselves to not push through our pain and tap our potential because it's also the most justifiable excuse. Nobody pushes back when you say, you don't get it, I lost two children. You don't know what I've been through. And they say, you're right, I don't. Your grief is yours. It's your own journey.

Jen Porter (21:11)
Mm.

Yeah.

Rachel McGonigle (21:24)
I'm one of the few people in this grief sphere who pushes back on that and says, if grief is your identity, that's because you chose it to be.

Jen Porter (21:37)
See, this is the thing that you share that is probably really hard for people to hear.

Rachel McGonigle (21:44)
Sometimes it is, but other times it's the hope someone is looking for. Because there's also this backlash in the grief community that if you don't want grief to be your identity and you want healing in your life, you're a big giant betrayer.

Jen Porter (21:48)
We're ready for it.

like you're leaving the group?

Rachel McGonigle (22:02)
Right?

Yeah, well, or that your loved one is not being honored because your pain honors them. And healing means forgetting or loving less or I had a woman come up to me at a conference I spoke at this was years ago. And in front of many, many people in this group, including one of them being my sister, she said to me, if you loved your girls as much as I loved my son, you could never heal.

Jen Porter (22:09)
Okay, yes.

my goodness.

Rachel McGonigle (22:30)
And it was very jarring experience. It was not easy to hear that because I felt she was basically accusing me of not loving my girls all the way. My sister even said to me, she says, I do not know how you didn't start crying. And I know exactly why I didn't start crying. Because what I saw wasn't a woman who was trying to jump down my throat. I saw a woman in so much pain. She didn't know how to love her child and let go of her pain.

Jen Porter (22:37)
Wow.

Right.

Rachel McGonigle (23:00)
And that's when grief becomes our identity when we say, need this pain to prove my love. So I will absorb this pain so that my loved one is never forgotten, is always honored. But I teach that our loved ones are more honored in our healing than they ever could be in our hurting.

Jen Porter (23:12)
Yeah.

Say more about that, because this, in my mind I'm thinking about the relationship between pain and grief, and then the human experience of pain and what we do with that, and you're talking about honoring. So just tell us more about how did you navigate this yourself and how do you help other people navigate their grief, their pain, and what love and honoring can look like?

Rachel McGonigle (23:47)
So first of all, I want to be very clear that we are absolutely entitled to our pain. Grief is an incredibly painful experience and there's no glossing over that. You can only go through and processing that pain and understanding where that pain is coming from and what it's rooted in, why it's there is a very important part of the process. And believe it or not, it's way deeper than I loved them and they're gone.

Jen Porter (24:12)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel McGonigle (24:12)
That's

just scratching the surface of the depth of our loss and therefore the depth of our pain. But when we start to really examine why our pain is so deep, what we often discover is not that our love is so deep, it's that our identity is so intertwined with that relationship that we're struggling with who we are without them.

Jen Porter (24:35)
Yeah.

Rachel McGonigle (24:37)
Right? All healing work is identity work. And there's mixed messages about we grieve in proportion to our love. It's not what I have seen. That was not my experience. I've been doing this for a very long time. And I don't see people grieve in proportion to their love. I see them grieve in proportion to how clear they are in their own identity. The more confused they are about their identity, the deeper their grief.

Jen Porter (24:56)
my goodness.

Rachel McGonigle (25:00)
because it's not just about love, because people have healed from grief, me being one of them, right? I have healing in my life. And I still love my girls more than what is measurable. So if my grief was about my love, I would still be grieving.

Jen Porter (25:00)
That is huge.

It's so interesting for you to hear you talk about identity being connected to grief because the foundational work that I do in coaching, we always start with identity. Because if we don't understand who we are, we can't build on that. So we always start with identity. And I've not thought of it from the standpoint of the intertwined relationship.

Rachel McGonigle (25:30)
Everything starts with identity.

Jen Porter (25:47)
and our identity being attached to that. And it feels very natural, doesn't it? Especially, I would imagine, with your children.

Rachel McGonigle (25:56)
Absolutely. And it's not that we shouldn't have our identity intertwined in these things, right? If we lose a parent or when we lose our parents, really, like they are the primary influencers of our existence. So we should be intertwined with them. They should mean something to us. Without them, our lives should look different, but we should also know who we are because of them and who we are without them. Because if we're not

who we are without them, right? And I hear this all the time, right? They were my world. They were my everything. That's whenever I hear a client say that, I'm like, all right, we've got some deep identity work to do. Especially when I hear parents say that about a child they lost when they have other children.

That's always a tricky one to unravel, right? This one child was their world, their life, their everything. And these poor other children are trying to navigate essentially what they mean to their parents and grieving their sibling and some pretty heavy things. answering those questions, who am I because of this person? And who am I without this person? So whether it's a parent, a spouse, a sibling, a child, when we can answer those questions with clarity and

honesty, then we're unraveling our identity from them and now we're grieving from our identity instead of for identity.

Jen Porter (27:29)
want you to share more because I have found in my coaching experience that when we start to peel back those layers of our identity even just to imagine ourselves not attached to anyone that's important in our lives, there is a... it's disorienting.

There's a fear that can come up. We almost aren't able to go there because it feels, one of the greatest fears I think that people have is being alone.

And so if we're not tethered to anything, that becomes really scary. how, like I'd love to hear what are some examples of how do you help people understand their identity without the one that they've lost?

Rachel McGonigle (28:24)
Sure. what we first really dive into is, so I start very practically and actually we dive into just your basic like personality profile testing. We really just examine like what is this natural God given personality that you have.

because we want to have that baseline to start. Like these are just sort of the building blocks of you. And then we start examining those things through the lens of loss, but we don't just look at it through the current loss that brought them to me. We actually go all the way back as far as the furthest unresolved loss in their life.

because we're always working from the point of our furthest unresolved loss, because it means we have filters that every other loss is being viewed through because we have yet to resolve that furthest. Right, so we start, we look at that, start there.

Jen Porter (29:14)
Makes sense.

Rachel McGonigle (29:19)
And then, you know, we're not human beings are not meant to be unattached. They're not meant not to be bonded or connected. All we're trying to do is make sure that we have the skills and the perspective to rebond if a bond is broken and understand.

who we are because of that bond and who we can be without that bond so that we're capable of forming other healthy bonds so that we can keep moving forward in the healthy community. Those are the three areas that we look at, physical health, emotional wellbeing, and relationships. Those are the three areas I focus on most when we're healing from grief.

Jen Porter (29:51)
you

Rachel McGonigle (30:03)
So, and then sometimes we sprinkle in some additional things, but we start there. That's the foundation. Because we aren't who we are without relationships.

Jen Porter (30:14)
You know how when we go through something really difficult, even I'll get at counseling as an example, when we choose to surrender to a process where we hope we can find healing, when we're in the thick of it, it's super scary and the pain is so intensified because we're focusing on it that we often will flee. We just want to escape that. So is this a situation where

It gets hard before it gets better. Like it actually gets worse before it starts to get better. Is that an experience that your clients have?

Rachel McGonigle (30:49)
Yes,

absolutely. that's

That's a very interesting question because most of the reason why people even contact me or find me is because they've been through a very difficult loss experience. They felt a lot of pain and they've actually tried other things first. They've gone to talk therapy. They found a support group. They went and talked to a pastor. They went on a retreat, right? They did something and it isn't helping. They're feeling like they're going backwards. It's not getting easier. And now they're starting to wonder, is it

Jen Porter (31:09)
Yeah.

Rachel McGonigle (31:23)
us up to time? Is it really true that grief is forever? Right? They're starting to have these questions about the permanency of their pain. And they come to me and they say, Can you help me even though I've done all of these other things? And I reassure them and say, Yes, I can. And also, it does get harder before it gets easier. But this is why we have to go in the right order of support.

We have to get your physical body supported under the toll of your emotional pain or any well-meaning emotional work will not stick because it's not being built on a foundation. Yeah, first, yeah, foundationally across the board.

Jen Porter (31:58)
So you address the physical health first.

And are people willing to do that work? Because these are individuals who, they're ready for healing, so they're listening to what you're telling them.

Rachel McGonigle (32:11)
They are,

I also think that.

Oftentimes grief work starts immediately with a lot of psychological and philosophical ideas. And when we are really deep in grief, our brain actually changes and the electricity gets really stuck down into beta waves. And beta waves are not the kind of brain wave that allows us to have philosophical or future thinking. It keeps us locked down in very much survival mode. Like what's the next thing? Keep yourself safe, eat a little bit of food, get some sleep, right? And so telling grievers things like you won't always feel this way.

or it will be okay. Literally bounces off their beta brain. They can't even absorb it because they're just not even in that capacity. So what I do is get them set up on those very practical things that don't require decision fatigue. They are not philosophical, you know, in nature and say, we're just gonna eat warm food. We're gonna protect our sleep. We're going to take adaptogen herbs to help regulate your central nervous system. We're gonna make sure we're gonna get your B vitamins up. We're gonna build up that depleted foundation so that

our brain, right, I put them in a t-ritual, the t-ritual changes those beta waves into alpha waves. Alpha waves. So,

Jen Porter (33:25)
kind of teaser are you talking about?

Rachel McGonigle (33:28)
I created a line of teas. was my first company. But any teas will work. Any organic herbal teas, superfood, green tea, that's delicious to you will work because the tea itself offers a ton of nutrition. But what really seals the deal is the ritual. It's walking yourself through the self care protocol that they teach you where you steep the tea, you hold it, you smell it. It's all about grounding. You're grounding yourself. You're regulating your central nervous system. So then when you ask yourself,

Jen Porter (33:34)
terrible.

Hmm.

Yeah.

So simple.

Rachel McGonigle (33:58)
very

important questions which are what am I feeling, why am I feeling that way, and what action step can I take to meet my need. You actually can get data from that because you've regulated yourself and you're no longer competing with your beta waves and your adrenaline.

Jen Porter (34:15)
Incredible,

incredible. You're talking about some really significant somatic experiencing, like psychological experience, like counseling. There's so much involved in what you're sharing, but it's a very simple way that you're introducing it to people through tea.

Rachel McGonigle (34:35)
Yeah,

I think it, yes. T changed my life. T was probably the single greatest factor of shifting my grief. Other than...

Yeah, I don't even want to say other than, no, tea was not a magical cure for my grief, but it was the ritual and the nutrition that I leaned on to continue to strengthen myself towards the next tiny step. And then I take that step and then I take another cup of tea and then I take that step. And my tea ritual enabled me the longevity and the consistency I needed to make progress in my pain.

Jen Porter (35:06)
Yeah.

Rachel McGonigle (35:20)
And I think it's completely underutilized and it's the foundation of everything IT.

Jen Porter (35:22)
Yes, yeah.

Did you, so you start with your clients with a physical, were you aware when you were in the intense early stages of your grief and loss that you needed to supplement your physical health? Were you in that awareness?

Rachel McGonigle (35:42)
So to some

degree, I always was, just luckily, because I was raised that way, I was raised in a home with a lot of natural and alternative medicine where we were taught that our bodies and our health and all of that are connected and you need to take care of them. So I had some basic understanding of that. But right away, other than that I was recovering from my C-section, I...

I didn't understand how much support I needed to give my body. I actually tried to, I tried to run my grief out of myself. So I was attached to the physical aspect of my pain in the sense that I needed to get it out rather than build it up. And being that in my background, I was an athlete and I like to push myself and I...

Jen Porter (36:28)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel McGonigle (36:36)
Right. was a default mode to say, I can beat this, right? I can get through it. Exercise is good for you. It'll help me feel stronger. I need those endorphins. I'll strengthen my body back up and I'll get myself through this. And there was a lot of messaging at the time about how to use exercise as a tool to get through grief, which exercise is hugely beneficial, but it has to be in the right context. needs to be restorative. What I tried to do was more like self-medicate, right? And what I discovered is, you know, I started my

Jen Porter (37:00)
Yeah.

Rachel McGonigle (37:06)
poor son. He was so little and I used to stick him in the jogging stroller with a snack and a sippy cup of water and run for hours. And that kid would just chill out in the jogger like such a champ. But what I learned was started out as three miles, turned into five miles, turned into six miles, turned into 12 miles. Like I was just, then I started competing in half marathons. You know, I just couldn't, I just couldn't win, right? I couldn't beat my grief. It was always waiting for me. And then what started happening is I was depleting my

Jen Porter (37:15)
wow.

Yeah, wow.

Rachel McGonigle (37:36)
I wasn't eating what I needed to eat. I couldn't keep that adrenaline high for very long. It was interfering with my sleep. And that's when I realized that I was not helping myself. I was just distracting myself, right? Because medicating our way through grief doesn't have to be the obvious drugs or alcohol. It's not the only way we medicate. I have an issue with exercise. It was a misguided choice.

Jen Porter (37:59)
Well, I'm.

Yeah, I'm glad you shared that. I'm thinking about the tea and I know the tea, you describe it in a healthy, it's a tool, it's a ritual. I also think it's just a healthy coping mechanism too, right?

Rachel McGonigle (38:19)
yeah.

Absolutely. Well, just you

tea in and of itself is a super food. It's one of the most powerful foods we have on the planet. It's been used for centuries. It has no side effects, no poor benefits, like only beneficial thing. It boosts your immunity. It's anti-cancer. It's delicious. It's super affordable. There's a billion different varieties and flavors for all different needs. You can adapt to it seasonally. All you need is water to make it like it's the easiest thing you could ever do. The biggest return on investment you can you

Jen Porter (38:30)
Right?

Amazing.

Rachel McGonigle (38:50)
can give yourself. Then when you get more mindful about it and you move from like a tea bag to an actual loose leaf tea experience, you integrate that ritual with all of that nutrition and now you have something incredibly powerful in your life.

Jen Porter (38:50)
Yeah.

Do you still

have your, does the tea company still exist?

Rachel McGonigle (39:09)
It does, my sister still has it. So we started it together in 2009.

And then I left in 2019 and she took it over exclusively, got a new business partner and they've absolutely launched it to the moon. So T-Motions is, it's called yeah, T-Motions. T-MotionsT.com is the website you can go to. And there are six different flavors. Each one has a unique blend of adaptogen herbs for a unique emotional support benefit. They're all delicious, award-winning, organic.

Jen Porter (39:22)
Can you share what it is? Because people may want to get quality teat after hearing you. Teat motions.

t-motions t.com.

Hmm.

Rachel McGonigle (39:42)
Non-toxic, no additives, no preservatives, not even any sweeteners. They're amazing.

Jen Porter (39:48)
Amazing, amazing. So after the physical, where do you take your clients next?

Rachel McGonigle (39:54)
Then we start going into the identity work. Then we work on...

emotional well-being management, building a support system, understanding yourself and what you need, getting clear on those two questions, who am I because of my person, who am I without my person? deep dive into that identity work. And then from there, we move into actually assessing the relationship itself. We look at all the significant factors of the relationship.

We do what's called a, I call it a timeline where we look at the entire relationship, highs and lows, goods and bad. We analyze what that meant to us. And ultimately it leads to a 14 prompt letter called a culmination letter where we complete unfinished emotional communication and give our heart a voice.

Jen Porter (40:53)
Yes, I love that you said that because I do that in my coaching work. The way I ask it is if your heart, if you gave your heart space to speak right now, what would it say? Because we're disconnected, right? We're always up here and we're not allowing our heart to give it voice.

Rachel McGonigle (41:13)
Yeah, and I believe in completion. I don't believe in closure. I think it's a horrible term that's very confusing to people. Closure, yeah, because...

Jen Porter (41:17)
Hmm. So you believe in completion, not closure.

Rachel McGonigle (41:24)
Closure insinuates that we can compartmentalize the things that impact us most from our life, right? We can process them, stick them in a box, and then be done with them. Where completion says there's no compartmentalization, there's integration, and we have to integrate these experiences into who we are and then carry them with us instead of dragging them behind us.

Jen Porter (41:36)
Hmm.

Yeah.

Wow, that's good. You mentioned support. You help your clients find, kind of create a support network. What did your support look like when your girls died and thereafter?

Rachel McGonigle (42:03)
So in some ways I had some phenomenal support. Both my sisters were very much there for me. My mom, especially now, my mom, she is probably my biggest champion as far as honoring the girls. She gets them present every Christmas, something for their birthday. Just keeps them very present, but not in like a dramatic way. like, you know, when people ask her how many grandchildren she has, she includes them in the number.

Jen Porter (42:20)
Yeah.

Rachel McGonigle (42:32)
Right? My dad does not do that. My dad includes the number of living grandchildren. And at first my mom, she would ask me if that bothers me. And I said, no, it doesn't bother me because I believe that you each have your own choice to decide how you are going to tell the world about Aubrey and Ellie. And my mom is at a place where she's very comfortable telling the world about them. My dad likes to vet people.

little bit more and not bring them up as much, right? That's his choice. That's not because either of my parents love them more or less or anything. They have just integrated the loss of their grandchildren into their life differently, which is exactly the whole point, right? You get to make your own choice and it's authentic to them and it's honest. But Armin and I are still very much a part of our family, a part of our life. But my mom, my sisters, I had a couple of pretty amazing friends come out of the woodwork. I think the biggest challenge for me was I did not have support from my husband.

We had a very challenging marriage. We are now divorced. But we just couldn't, you know, I had this naive ideal that, because our marriage had been hard for quite a while. So when Aubrey and Ellie came along, it wasn't like a big shocker to me and losing them. It wasn't like, I had no idea. I knew our marriage was hard. But I had this belief that...

if life ever got really hard, we would be able to band together and get through it. And then life got really hard and we did no such thing. As a matter of fact, we really just went our separate ways because I couldn't, I was like, I don't have the capacity to try to keep...

wooing this relationship, Holding space for this relationship, whatever you want to call it. I'm barely getting out of bed in the morning. So, you you just have to tend to your own grief. you know, so one of the things you actually said that I wanted to address is before we even got started, you were talking about how lots of couples don't survive the loss of a child.

Jen Porter (44:15)
Yeah.

Rachel McGonigle (44:38)
Well, my experience over the last 17 years and my research has shown that lots and lots of couples get through the loss of a child. That losing a child does not break a marriage. Losing a child reveals if a marriage is broken. Right? It's a magnifying glass on what is in need of healing. And couples who are

Jen Porter (44:54)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Mm.

Rachel McGonigle (45:03)
tight who are, you know, no one's perfect, but when they're, they're solid, then that magnifying glass doesn't show any cracks.

But when you have a lot of cracks and you've been coping with them with other coping strategies because you haven't been grieving, but then now you are grieving, all of those cracks get magnified. Yes, and you no longer have the capacity to kind of work around them and brush them under the rug and tolerate them because your bandwidth is gone. You're barely getting through it.

Jen Porter (45:11)
Wow.

are exposed.

Yeah.

Rachel McGonigle (45:34)
And so that's what happened to us. It just completely exposed that there was serious issues and struggles in our relationship. And I went into, you know, my my ex-husband decided to go to graduate school and basically buried himself in that and disappeared that in golf and work. He was also a Marine at the time. And I pulled back for my own survival to take care of my children.

and to not try to solve all of that because I just didn't feel I had the capacity to do so. And ten years later, I left with two little boys living 2,400 miles away from family to start as a single mom who get healing finally from that situation.

Jen Porter (46:30)
Yeah, I'm curious about what stage were you at in your healing 10 years later? Do you remember?

Rachel McGonigle (46:41)
I was pretty far because I remember I was very strategic about how my marriage and the timing of it.

I had a lot of clarity and clarity is evidence of healing. The more clarity we have, the more healing we have. If we're still not clear, it means we're still in the process of healing or sometimes haven't started. So that's part of the reason why there was a decade between the loss of our girls and the end of our marriage is that it did take me some time to get my footing. But once I was able to get that clarity,

Jen Porter (46:58)
Mmm.

Okay.

Wow.

Rachel McGonigle (47:21)
I strategically moved through it and there were highs and lows. It wasn't like I always, there were some rough patches, but I promised myself that I was not going to end my marriage out of panic or out of desperation or out of exhaustion that I needed to have that clarity or else I would question my choice for the rest of my life. And someday when my children ask me about what happened between me and their dad, I want to be able to answer them.

Jen Porter (47:45)
deaf.

Rachel McGonigle (47:51)
with confidence with clarity you know it's not that i don't think that they're gonna you know those answers are not going to be difficult to hear but at least they won't see a mom who thought something then and isn't quite sure now and would do it differently or like i'm solid and i

Jen Porter (48:09)
Mm-hmm.

One of the things that you mentioned in what you shared with me in writing is that you're very intentional, you're very purposeful, and you are about empowerment. And that's what I hear in that. That's so important when we're making decisions that we're making it from a place of wisdom and intentionality and not just a knee-jerk response or reaction to what is so hard.

Rachel McGonigle (48:41)
It's the only way to and not that you can't recover if you do make knee-jerk reactions there is still healing there too but when decision and I see it's not just you know in a difficult marriage whether it's after a loss like when I see people in pain

Jen Porter (48:46)
Sure.

Mm-hmm.

Rachel McGonigle (49:00)
The need, the desire, the risk factor of making knee-jerk decisions is incredibly high because that's what we're programmed to do when we're in pain. It's to get out of it, right? You have to train and discipline yourself to stay in your pain and choose to collect data in order to make informed decisions, right?

Jen Porter (49:11)
Yeah.

with you on that and I have learned over years to coexist with my pain in a way I'm not scared of my pain anymore I used to be but I'm guessing that a lot of people listening are afraid of their pain. Can you say what makes it worth it to stay in the pain?

Rachel McGonigle (49:47)
Well, so first of all,

If we're listening to the false narratives that our pain is forever or our pain is permanent, then it's much easier to be afraid of our pain because our pain feels more powerful than we are. And we're afraid of things that we don't think we have power against, right? Like that's why when we see, you know, a giant wave coming where it's like, you know, that wave is way bigger and stronger and more powerful than me. And we see, you know, a little tiny poodle

Jen Porter (50:07)
Yeah.

Rachel McGonigle (50:20)
running towards us we don't freak out because we're like I'm way bigger and more powerful and strong than that you know little tiny prancing poodle right so we're constantly making these gauges like these assessments like you know how afraid do I need to be if something that is bigger and stronger than me and so if we're told well grief is bigger and stronger than you loss is bigger and stronger than you right trauma is bigger and stronger than you then we were terrified because we're like it's gonna get me and it's gonna take all my power so we do weird things to try to maintain a

Jen Porter (50:43)
Hmm.

Right.

Rachel McGonigle (50:50)
sense of control or whatever we can. And so first we need to change our narrative. Your pain is not more powerful than you. Your pain is data. It's telling you something and you need to listen. And the minute you start listening, the minute that big overpowering stronger than you pain goes right back down to being its normal manageable self because it's like a two year old. It will throw a tantrum until you pay attention to it.

Jen Porter (50:51)
Yeah.

gets attention.

It's interesting that you share the wave analogy because in my own healing journey, one of the things that was a game changer for me, literally changed my life, is when I realized, I used the metaphor of when something huge comes, I would see it as a wave and the wave would overtake me. And I used to think in the intensity of the

Rachel McGonigle (51:18)
Right, and figure out what it's to tell you.

Jen Porter (51:46)
the emotions around it. In those moments, I didn't think I would recover. I didn't think I could come out of it. And what shifted for me is I could see the wave in my mind and I realized I had actually learned as a child how to dive into the wave in the ocean so that it doesn't crush me.

Rachel McGonigle (52:06)
My dad taught me that too. Yeah,

I've used that analogy because it's real.

Jen Porter (52:10)
And so it was like deep within me I realized, I actually have a tool that allows me to navigate the wave. I'm not afraid of the huge waves coming and crushing me because I have ways to manage it and that the wave will come, but it will pass. And there'll be another wave that comes.

Rachel McGonigle (52:36)
You're going to have to swim and hold your

breath, but it won't be more powerful than you.

Jen Porter (52:40)
Yeah, and so that there was something that happened in this was somatic experiencing work that I was doing where whatever part of me realized that and I've never gone through tough things the same.

Rachel McGonigle (52:58)
So my, yeah, so I had a pivotal moment like that too. And it was actually something my dad taught me when I was in the fifth grade, we went to Catalina Island, our whole class would go on this big field trip. They did it in all the schools in California. And you go stay a week on Catalina Island in the Marine school. And you do very cool things like snorkel and look at plankton under microscopes and learn how to read the stars and, you know, catch sea cucumbers and release them back into the ocean and you know, whatever. Yes, it was awesome.

Jen Porter (53:26)
That's amazing.

Rachel McGonigle (53:28)
And yeah, pales in comparison.

Jen Porter (53:28)
I'm thinking of the field trips I went on and it was like to the local waste management company, you know, was nothing like that.

Rachel McGonigle (53:36)
Not that quiet life, you know, teaching events there, but

But my dad, we were getting all ready to go snorkeling and my dad came as a chaperone as he often did because he could manage some of the more unruly kids. So it would always be like me, my dad and a group of like, know, monkey brained boys, right? As we're all trying to like go on, have a fun field trip. And so we're getting our wetsuits on and while we're getting ready, my dad says, hey, just in case you get caught in a riptide, don't panic. He says, you have a wetsuit on, it'll keep you buoyant. It'll also keep you warm.

Jen Porter (53:48)
Okay.

Rachel McGonigle (54:11)
We're all going to be in a group. So for some reason you start getting swept away. I will know. I will see you. He taught me the hand signs and all the stuff to do. He was a lifeguard, right? And he said, we will get out to you, but just don't panic. Cause it's the panic that will make you drown. The panic is what exhausts you. The panic is what muddles your thinking. It's going to feel like it's taking you way far out, like further out than you can ever imagine, but it will eventually let you go swim parallel to shore.

I will come get you or I'll come get someone to come get you. I was like okay dad you know sure glad thanks for telling me sure enough snorkeling around with Ryan Escalani he's my snorkel buddy and we're snorkeling we're looking at the Garibaldi fish and the sea kelp and all this stuff and I lift my head up

Jen Porter (54:49)
Yeah.

Rachel McGonigle (55:01)
and the group is way over there and we are way over here. And immediately I went, are caught in a riptide.

Jen Porter (55:10)
my gosh.

Rachel McGonigle (55:12)
And immediately I said, okay, my dad said, don't panic. Right? So I waved, you know, I saw my dad give me the hand signal, right? And was like, okay, he sees me. Of course, Ryan Asplani had an absolute panic. Like the kid lost it. And I remember being in the water and saying, you can't panic or gonna drown. Like snapping him out of it. Realizing that like my dad had given me a plan. No one had given Ryan a plan. We compose ourself.

Jen Porter (55:20)
Yes.

Wow.

Rachel McGonigle (55:38)
We start swimming parallel to shore. I'm telling you what, we've swam forever. That thing took us way the heck over there. But sure enough, we got to shore and by we're walking back, my dad was right there to meet us. Just like he promised. We got out sooner than he could get a flotation, like a paddleboard to go get us. we ended up anyway, long story short, what I learned from this, and this is what I pulled from this and my grief is grief is a lot like being caught in a riptide. But having a plan.

is how you get out of it, not by being the strongest swimmer. Right? And when we start developing...

Jen Porter (56:11)
Hmm.

Rachel McGonigle (56:16)
the freedom to allow ourselves to create plans, right? Whether that's a skill set that we need, right? Just like, cause we were taught, my dad used to take us to the North shore of Hawaii and we go swim the giant waves at Waimea Bay. So he taught us how to like get in and get, cause if you didn't, man, you could break your neck, right? Like those things were big. And then sometimes I wonder, it's like, why did our parents let us do that? But now I know, cause they were trying to cultivate courage, right? And confidence and all these important things in us and me and my sisters when we were kids. But I pulled from that, that we don't need

Jen Porter (56:31)
Yeah.

Yeah.

Rachel McGonigle (56:46)
to know everything. We don't need to be the strongest. We don't need to be the most courageous. We just need to be willing to remind ourselves, I can learn a plan. I can execute a plan. Right? If I dive in and say, what's next and how can I help myself and what do I need to know? Then I can execute that plan in my life. And when Aubrey and Ellie died, that's exactly what I looked at myself in the mirror and I said, I don't know what to do.

Jen Porter (57:05)
Hmm.

Rachel McGonigle (57:15)
but I'll figure it out. And my whole life became the plan to get me through my pain. And that plan changed and it evolved and I didn't always execute the right plan, right? I learned a lot along the way, but we don't need to know a thousand steps ahead. We just need to know the next step.

Jen Porter (57:16)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel McGonigle (57:34)
And that's what I think is missing in grief culture is this whole everyone gets to their grief their own way. Everyone grieves uniquely is basically saying you don't need a plan. And I'm saying, you do exactly. You do need a plan.

Jen Porter (57:45)
and that you're alone.

Rachel McGonigle (57:50)
It isn't just yours to figure out. Other people have gone before you, and some of us have learned some really valuable and important things. And even if our grief differs and our pain differs and our loss differs, the way we heal is shockingly universal.

Jen Porter (57:54)
Yeah.

What kind of results do you see for your clients?

Rachel McGonigle (58:09)
amazing results. It's the best thing ever. Someone asked me the other day, how do you do it? How do you just work with grievers all day? I said, I don't work with grievers all day. I work with people who are trying to heal and I get to watch them transform. We don't just sit around talking about how miserable and hard it is, although we have plenty of vulnerable moments.

My clients are allowed to be honest with me. I know how hard it is. They know how hard it is. We talk about it. But we don't stay in that place. We also make plans.

We also interject skills. We also access resources. We learn how to set boundaries. We give ourselves permission to ask for help. We change our nutrition. We grow in our self-awareness. We implement our self-care plan. And I'm watching them learn and grow. And they come to me and they say, I'm not even sure this is possible, Rachel. And I always tell them, borrow my hope. You don't have to know. I know.

Jen Porter (59:07)
I would think

they would get, because that's the, that's something that we get from people who have gone before us in the, a hard thing that's similar to ours is hope. Cause we see, my goodness, they've survived this.

Rachel McGonigle (59:22)
And it only has to be true for one person. One person has to have healing in their life after loss for healing to be possible for anyone.

Jen Porter (59:31)
Will you share that story of the friend, the dear friend who you kind of made a vow together early on that you would believe for the impossible?

Rachel McGonigle (59:44)
I think that was the same girlfriend who helped me dig through the layers of what I didn't believe.

Jen Porter (59:48)
It might be, but she

was dealing with throat cancer.

Rachel McGonigle (59:51)
Oh, that's Amy. That's Amy Lim. Yes. So her and I met, I put on a retreat called Retreat Hope, ironically, in 2014. And she came as one of the attendees. And she was one of the first people I met, we just hit it off immediately, that talked about grief and loss like I did. That healing was possible. And she wanted that healing. Her daughter died when she was 31 days old.

Jen Porter (59:53)
Will you share that story?

Rachel McGonigle (1:00:21)
I believe and I was her firstborn daughter. She's gone on to have two boys I have two boys like we have some similar overlaps but in different ways but we just bonded in that commitment that we would honor our children more in our healing than we would in our hurting and we would honor the life of our daughters

more in our healing than we would in our hurting and we were not going to let anyone intimidate us or bully us or shame us into healing less so that we could prove how much we love our girls.

Jen Porter (1:00:57)
And at that time, I remember you saying you believed the impossible because you didn't really think.

Rachel McGonigle (1:01:03)
So we, yeah, so we,

I don't know if we believed it yet, but we refused to allow anyone to tell us that it was impossible, right? That grief made something impossible. We're like, what is grief? That powerful? Like grief is now the decider of our fate and our future and our emotions and our inner world? No way.

Jen Porter (1:01:08)
Okay.

Rachel McGonigle (1:01:30)
I was just not gonna hand it over that power and neither was she. And by the way, her name is Amy Lans. She's amazing. She's written numerous books. Find her, glean from her. She's amazing.

Jen Porter (1:01:40)
Yeah.

And you mentioned that grief, I think that you said grief is finite, grief can end, we don't have to, we can choose to beyond grief. Can you say more about that? Because I'm not sure that everybody realizes.

Rachel McGonigle (1:02:00)
People hate when I

say that, by the way. That's probably the thing I get yelled at for the most. I do say grief is not forever. I say that. Well, I actually say grief doesn't have to be forever if you don't want it to be. That's what I say. Right? You have a choice.

Jen Porter (1:02:04)
How do you say it?

Grief is not for everyone.

Rachel McGonigle (1:02:20)
You get to decide what goes on in your internal world. Your heart is 100 % your responsibility. We cannot always choose what goes on in our external world. Other people's choices, what happens that we can't control, the weather, circumstances, you name it, that's not always in our power. Actually, rarely ever is it.

But what happens inside here is 100 % up to us. To the extent that you could even put a gun to my head. You could even take my life. But you couldn't tell me, Rachel, you better hate your children right now. You could never make me decide to hate, decide to love, decide to forgive, decide to, right? Those are only things I can do in my inner world.

and grief is the same way. A loss experience can take from you a loved one, but it cannot take from you your ability to decide what happens to your heart. So if you want a life of healing and beauty and hope and richness and meaning, you can have it because you can choose it. And if you want a life of pain and limited thinking and suffering and anger and resentment and blame, you can have that because you can choose it. These things do not happen

happen

against our will. Losing my daughters happened against my will. I couldn't stop it. I couldn't change it. I didn't cause it. But what happens to my heart? I only get to decide that. And if I don't like what's happening to my heart, I can pick a different outcome. Grief does not have that power. It's not what gets to decide.

Jen Porter (1:03:42)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

I find that one of the most powerful things, the most empowering thing is when we create choices for ourself. If we feel like we don't have a choice, then we become trapped and powerless. And that's what you're, that's what you're inviting people into.

Rachel McGonigle (1:04:17)
Yeah, and you hear

it a lot in grief. People will say, especially, you know, there's unfortunately some really upsetting platitudes and cliches around grief. And one thing that grievers do not like to hear, and I understand why, is when people tell them, oh, you're so strong, right? You're so strong. Because they know that they're, maybe they don't feel strong. They're like, I don't know how strong I am, right? Maybe I'm strong, maybe I'm not. It doesn't feel that way. But also, oftentimes the response is, I didn't have a choice.

And I always gently correct my clients into, yes, you did. If you're getting out of bed every morning, it's because you chose to.

Jen Porter (1:04:59)
Yeah.

Rachel McGonigle (1:04:59)
If you're not getting out of bed every morning, it's because you didn't choose to. And maybe that's a good choice, right? Maybe you need more rest or something. There's no judgment. But if you chose to go to work and pay your bills, if you still choose to show up for your kids or your husband, if you choose to get through the day, if you choose, right, these things are your choice because you have other choices. You could check out. You could opt out. You could stop taking care of everyone. You could do a whole bunch of things.

Jen Porter (1:05:06)
Yeah, but let it be a choice.

Rachel McGonigle (1:05:24)
But just because we had a difficult experience does not mean that we didn't have a choice in how we showed up for it.

Jen Porter (1:05:31)
Another thing you say is we are more powerful than our pain. Can you explain that?

Rachel McGonigle (1:05:39)
The bottom line is, if it were true that we're not more powerful than our pain, then what are we doing? Because it means we don't get a say in our lives and we're just waiting for fate or happenstance to take over. There would be no pursuing healing. There would be no hope. There would be no growth. would be none of those things after loss if our pain gets the final say. Because now we're saying we're powerless in all of this and I do not believe in powerlessness.

That is my top, top, top message. We are not powerless, even when situations take things from us.

Jen Porter (1:06:11)
Mm-hmm.

Yeah.

So how do you honor Aubrey and Ellie now?

Rachel McGonigle (1:06:25)
I'm happy. My life is good. I love what I do. They're integrated into everything, right? Their life is more meaningful than their deaths. Even though Ellie only lived for seven days and Aubrey for 13 days. Their life is still more powerful than their deaths. And I think that's my biggest message in grief is we have to remember to...

represent for their life, the life that they lived, the life that they gave, the value of that life, not just their death and let death define us and death control us and death determine our next steps. Because we want to choose life. And it's actually been interesting how

You know, I am in a place that I wasn't sure I ever could be at.

but I definitely wanted to fight for it. I didn't ever wanna look back and say, I didn't give it my best. That was another promise I made to the girls. I said, if they can see me, and I don't know if they can, but if they can see me, I wanted them to see a mother who was fighting for a good life, to love her son, to be a good mom to their brother, right? To show up as a good sister and to...

Jen Porter (1:07:26)
Mm-hmm.

Rachel McGonigle (1:07:52)
see life is still a privilege to be lived and honor them that way instead of see me fold and give up and use their death as an excuse for why their brother wasn't loved as much as he should be and why life didn't go the way that it should because i thought how if my girls see me use them as an excuse how is that honoring how is that loving

Jen Porter (1:08:15)
Mmm.

Rachel McGonigle (1:08:17)
And again, like I said, I don't know if they can see me, but if they can, I wanted them to see the version of me that wasn't afraid to fight. And fight I did. But the amazing thing was is I didn't have to fight for very long because it turns out that healing is incredibly powerful transformational experience that lets a lot of good in relatively quickly. You don't have to struggle.

Jen Porter (1:08:27)
around.

Rachel McGonigle (1:08:45)
for decades in order to finally feel an ounce of reprieve. It's diminishing returns, it's exponential returns.

Jen Porter (1:08:50)
Hmm.

Before we wrap up, want to share the different kinds of losses that you help people with because it's not just a loss of a person, a child, a parent, a spouse, but it's other kinds of losses. Can you name some of those just so people have a sense of the things that you help people with?

Rachel McGonigle (1:09:22)
Sure, so there's two kinds of loss that cause grief. And the first kind of loss is when you don't get to keep something you wanted. And then the second kind of loss is when you realize you're never going to get something you always wanted.

So those are future losses. So for example, someone who's struggling with multiple miscarriages or has not been able to get pregnant, that's a real loss.

You can't point to an actual loss of a, well, in a miscarriage, you can point to the loss of a baby. But even in infertility, you're just, you're not getting there. And a loss of a future, a loss of a dream, a loss of a hope, those are real losses. So I work with a lot of intangible losses.

I also work with what they call ambiguous loss, where there's loss involved in something that doesn't seem bad or hard or painful. So empty nest syndrome, right? The sale of a business, retirement, things where people think they're moving on to something good or the next phase, and then they're disoriented and emotionally distraught, lost, you know, they've lost their purpose, whatever it is. We work, I work with that.

And then I also work with, for example, like athletes who their career has ended from an injury or someone fell and now they're paralyzed and illness has changed their life. Right, things that are permanent changes or transitions that are difficult to navigate. So if it's the loss of a person, the loss of a relationship, I work with a lot of people who've experienced a divorce.

Or even parents who have children that struggle with addiction, so they're pretty much not part of the family, right? And they're grieving that even though, you know, people don't have to die to be grieved. And, you know, really, if you can point to a situation that is either a loss experience or a difficult to navigate transition, you can call me. I can help with all of those things.

Jen Porter (1:11:23)
Yeah.

And you're currently helping a lot of California residents who went through the wildfires. That's a lot of loss.

Rachel McGonigle (1:11:43)
Yes, I am.

Losing your home in the fire is a lot of loss. And unfortunately, it's very misunderstood loss because it's invalidated with at least you're still alive. It's just stuff.

Jen Porter (1:11:58)
Right.

Rachel McGonigle (1:12:02)
Yes, it was stuff, but it's important stuff. Stuff that is attached to people's memories, their histories, their identities. It's incredibly difficult to recoup all of those things, so there's no such thing as replacing those losses. You actually have to grieve them and build a new life.

And you also have to do it while people sort of judge you and say you're losing perspective and being superficial. So that's not fair to people. So it's very important when you are grieving to find.

Jen Porter (1:12:30)
you

Rachel McGonigle (1:12:36)
You know, I think this phrase safe space is overused at times, but grief requires safe space. You need a place where you can feel your feelings, express your emotions, talk about your thoughts and confusions without feeling judged or diminished or having to compare your loss to others in order to get the validation that you need. Comparison always tells me that a griever does not feel seen.

Comparison is just used to say, understand how much pain I am in and how significant this loss is to me.

Jen Porter (1:13:03)
Mmm, wow.

One of the things that stood out to me in our first conversation was at the end I said, hey, thank you for sharing your story with me. And I said, and I thought to myself, you probably share your story all the time. Do you remember me saying that? And you said, actually, I don't, I don't because it's not helpful. It's helpful for people to know you've been through something significant, but then it invites this comparison of, well, you you've lost two babies and maybe they've lost one.

It's just, there's nothing helpful about the comparison.

Rachel McGonigle (1:13:41)
Right. I I share

the generic, like my four sentence story, right? But the nitty gritty of, you know, cause my story isn't just losing my girls. My story is also navigating a difficult marriage, also going through a divorce, also starting a business that I loved and then leaving it 10 years later and going through that, starting a new business during COVID when it's the worst time in the world to start a new business and trying to keep a roof over my children's heads.

Jen Porter (1:13:46)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Thank

Rachel McGonigle (1:14:11)
you know getting in a new relationship and meeting a wonderful man and now being a stepmom and having blended family like there's so many layers right grief is not my story grief is a part of my story it just was so significant that I knew that if I did not treat it with the seriousness it deserved it would become my story and that's what I didn't want

Jen Porter (1:14:36)
Wow.

So how can people find you and if they reach out to you, what can they expect? Can they talk to you? Can they ask the questions?

Rachel McGonigle (1:14:48)
If you reach out to me, you'll get me. So you can email me at rachel at the grief gal dot com. My website is the grief gal dot com.

Jen Porter (1:14:50)
Okay.

Rachel McGonigle (1:14:56)
And if you send me an email, I answer you back personally and I will answer whatever questions you have. more importantly, I will likely set up a call with you where we'll do a free consult where I'll spend about 30 minutes understanding a bit more of what you're experiencing, what you need. And then that way we can figure out what the best steps forward are for you next.

Jen Porter (1:15:18)
I'm so thankful you're doing this work. People need this.

Rachel McGonigle (1:15:23)
I think so many people need it. think that I think there's going to be a grief support revolution and I'm gonna lead it.

Jen Porter (1:15:31)
Mmm, yes.

Rachel McGonigle (1:15:34)
Because everyone grieves. The world is full of grievers. And you don't have to experience trauma to experience grief either. Not everyone is traumatized just because they've grieved. And so grief is very misunderstood because it always gets put into the trauma category.

Jen Porter (1:15:38)
Yeah.

Mm-hmm.

Rachel McGonigle (1:15:49)
But grief is a permanent thing. It's a permanent part of being human. Everyone will grieve. It's not an if, it's a when. And statistically speaking, the average person will grieve eight significant loss events in their lifetime. So people will grieve more than once. So these skills, these resources, these tools are essential to meaningful living. And we need to normalize them. They need to be accessible. This isn't like just therapy isn't enough.

Jen Porter (1:16:02)
Yeah.

I can see it being beneficial to us when we're going through grief, but also to be there for others when they're going through grief and having more tools to be able to support others.

Rachel McGonigle (1:16:19)
loss skills are vital.

Absolutely. And we can pay attention and we can get some of those tools, but when we go through our own lost experience, it does expand our empathy in enormous ways. And the best thing we can do to show up for people is to just listen.

Jen Porter (1:16:39)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Rachel McGonigle (1:16:47)
Just be there, be present. Pour them a cup of tea. That's why I always say, like, I don't know what to do. Pour them a cup of tea. It's the best thing you can do for them. You don't have to fix them. You don't have to alleviate their pain. You don't have to solve their problems. Just be present.

Jen Porter (1:16:56)
Yeah.

I'm so glad to have met you and that you're doing this work. Rachel Tenpenny McGonigal, thank you for taking time and sharing. yeah, I'm so glad that you're, that I know about the work that you do because there are people in my life that are grieving. You know, I'll be grieving things in the future and it's, it can be all consuming and just a very isolating.

experience to go through. So yeah, everybody reach out to Rachel. Thank you so much. In the meantime, the lioness in me sees the lioness in you.