Why She Says Grief Is Good For You- with Tracee Dunblazier

So hi everybody this is Brian back with another episode of grief to growth and they I've got with me Tracy den Blaser. She's the Los Angeles based spiritual empath. She's a shaman. She's an eight time national award winning author. Tracy is a multi sensitive, she has a blend of intuitive information combined with different modalities. And that's provided the opportunity for many to achieve deep healing and create the success and peace that they seek in their lives. She has written a book called transformative grief. And I'm gonna read one of the endorsements from it because it's from a friend of mine, Austin wells. And Austin says author and spiritual Empath Tracy downplays just transformative grief and ancient ritual of healing from modern times, is an eloquent straightforward White House for anyone lost in the deep waters of grief. So I say from a professional, personal experience, she illuminates inward descent of grief as an opportunity for deeper self awareness and personal empathy. Through poignant exercises and introspective guidelines, the readers guide towards navigating the depths of their grief, and emerging a more conscious and heart and soul, often causal and master guide book for anyone going through extraordinary change. So I would then I'm excited to welcome Tracy to the show today.

I'm great, I'm really happy to be welcomed. And just so you know, I have a, I have a brain cat, there's a cat in the background. And when she wants to talk, there is no shutting her up. So I might pick her up and just over love her for a minute as soon as he or she comes.

Yeah. They can always tell they can always tell when you're recording they my dog acts up to she'll probably roll through here in a couple of minutes. And she likes to wine. So we love animals here.

Good. This is Charlotte. Hello, Charlotte. She's

beautiful. So for anyone that writes about grief, I always have to ask what what inspired you to write a book about grief?

Well, I, my my I have I have grieved every day of my life until I was about 50. And that was there was from 35 to 50, there were some major turning points that really shifted it. But I was born psychic, and would constantly have night terrors and dreams that comes from other times and spaces. And all of that. Grief, grief was always my style, to awakening to accessing my faith, to reconnecting my with my higher spirit with the Creator. Grief was the way that I did it. And then learn from that, from that experience I you know, had grieving every day. At some point, usually it was a you know, at night, and then daytime, I wouldn't grieve and then nighttime, I would cry myself to sleep. And it wasn't something that I could speak with people about, I didn't want to get Western medicine help, because I didn't, I didn't think they were going to help me access what what was really going on with me. And I didn't want to be told I was crazy. And I didn't want to be on medication I didn't want to there was a lot of things that I knew weren't right for me. And then I want to be clear, it's not right for me. That's not everybody else's story. So that's not a that's not a statement about mental health care. But it was it was definitely my way. And it was from from that process, I learned a lot about the spiritual process of grief and what it does for us how it transforms our ideas, beliefs, experiences, it actually changes the neurons in our brain and creates a space where we can repopulate our, our neural pathways with new new beliefs, thoughts and ideas. So it's really one of the ways that helps us relate differently to our memories. Because I don't go ahead. No,

I was interesting that you identified that as grief because typically think of grief as like a particular thing, like a particular loss of a person or something. But it sounds like you had a you will I think we'd like people will call it we'll call it depression, which you're going through, but you identified it as grief.

Yes, well, the reason depression is a part of it that depression is a relationship to something and I find that people who are depressed, it's because they haven't allowed themselves the the opportunity, opportunity to see and accept the truth as it is. When we are when we're depressed. We are slowing down all of our systems to take a deeper look inside. And if we are willing to do that self reflection, then our spirit leads us in that direction. shouldn't but sometimes, and I'm not really talking about clinical depression because clinical depression is something different, right? Please clinically depressed their, their chemistry doesn't allow much shift and an enormous amount of behavioral change, which is oftentimes impossible because they don't feel up to it. Right, they can overcome the feeling aspect. But in general, we experience depression when we are slowing down to take, take, take a deeper look inside. And then we experience anxiety when we are speeding up, to become vigilant in our perspective, right. And those two things are a part of spiritual awakening. Spiritual Awakening occurs when we grief is always a part of our spiritual awakening. And when I say that, when people experience an extreme loss, the loss of a loved one, or the loss of a physical loss, disease, the loss of a house any any kind of law, a major relationship and something that people have been relating to, for a long period of time, when that goes away, it causes a internal shift that changes the endocrine system, and oftentimes can spark what we call a spiritual shift or a spiritual awakening. And when that happens, our endocrine system, the pineal gland, the pituitary gland, the thought thyroid, many each, each one of our glands in our body that connect to the endocrine system, carry a sacred light or sacred geometry. And when we have an awakening of those places, it awakens certain energy and information in our spirit, our soul. And that soul, energy or information becomes a part of our consciousness and we become aware of it. And it is through that awareness period that grief often comes. Right? So when we when grief, when I'm talking about grief, I'm specifically talking about the crying the wailing, the, the the enormous emotional response that comes when we when we feel that loss or that opening. Our culture is the one that tells us it's about loss. Our spirit tells us it's about awakening and expanding and accessing more information, and more truthful information about ourselves, the more we whatever that truth is, whatever. I each person has their own truth. And then there are spiritual truths. And each person will live their own truth, going through each awakening one after another after another until they get to the common spiritual truth that we all experience.

So you said you're, I think you're always grieving. That's a start as a child,

it started as bad as an infant. I mean, interesting. Interestingly enough, this is it's funny, I've not thought about this, but um, my mother used to always say, Oh, are you I was such a good baby. I never cried I never fussed I was I was always helpful to her. I was the youngest of three. But interestingly enough, I never I mean, I never spoke to her about my night terrors, the dreams that I would have the the spiritual experiences, entities, all kinds of strange things happen. And I would grieve my way through them and work through them on my own. And so during the day, I really was a good a good kid, I didn't cry much I, you know, if somebody else was crying, I am an empath. So I could join them in that, but it was always my desire was always to be an anchor. Yeah, my desire was always to be an anchor to to keep them steady.

Yeah, that's, that's really interesting, because I think I was like that as a child, I felt out of place and sad. But I didn't know for any reason I wouldn't. I wouldn't have called the grief at the time. But I would just felt like I would just add a place and my parents a few times where they knew that I'd stayed up all night and they didn't know till I was an adult. Why that happens. So yeah, I can relate to that.

Absolutely. I think too, that the the other thing that oftentimes we because we are because we are what's the word that I want? Our culture teaches us we are indoctrinated to believe that grief is bad. It's negative, it weakens us. And so we don't allow it and so we never get because you don't. Once you grieve, then you get to access it. What is the purpose of the grief, the deeper understanding that comes with what you're grieving about. But if you don't allow the grief process, you can never get to that information. And most people stay in anger or depression. Yeah. And anger is the next step. But eventually that anger needs to give way to the expansive sense of of crying or emotion that comes. And so we have to teach ourselves.

So you call yourself a multi sensitive what is you? What do you mean by that?

I mean by that, that I'm a clairvoyant, clairaudient and clairsentience, which means I channel, I hear things see things, sometimes have prophetic dreams, not all the time. It really my experience. Oftentimes I call myself a spiritual Empath, instead of just an emotional Empath, because I often take, that's how I read people as I take on their spirit, and I experience it and then go, oh, okay, I can recognize that. And so it's, it's a way of being multi dimensional. I believe that we are all this way. I just, I came in with a deeper level of proficient proficiency, or awareness of it already.

Yeah. So when you say your MultiSense is it with people that are living people that are passed? Or both?

Everybody? I mean, so it's interesting because I this this I really struggled when I started this, this work publicly and working with people how to describe what it is that I do, because I didn't I couldn't limit it. There. I deal with everybody and any I deal with everybody in anything. But you can't, you know, you can you can say that in a in an elevator pitch. But it's really hard to create a name and I didn't, I didn't like the bad rap that psychics get by using the word psychic mediumship kind of implies a limitation or an expectation, that doesn't always happen. Right? Just because everybody's got some dead people. And they don't always come through. Oftentimes, they'll have some, some will have messages. But you know, if somebody's there, and they've got a message, it will always come through. But people have this expectation. And if you're a medium that that is the own. That is the only thing that's going to happen in the session.

Right. All right. So you're getting everything from everywhere. Exactly. Yeah. So in terms of your career, did you What did you have a job but normal job will quote before this, or?

Oh, yes, I've had I've had multiple normal jobs. I worked as a makeup artist, waitress, I worked in entertainment for a while I did a cabaret show where I sang. And I've always I've always been psychic but I wasn't until I came to to LA and starting to tell people about it. And that's Paloma in the background. Just FYI. She doesn't know but the doors open for you if you want to go out she's looking at me because she wants to go out but she thinks that that she doesn't know yet that the door is not open because she hasn't looked yet. Yeah, she will go look I'm so I was what I was doing directly before this is I was doing special events for Donna Karen. So that was in the fragrance world. I was in the fragrance world. And I started doing this work with the public when I became a gift with purchase. Have you ever gone to to the mall and bought a bottle of Cologne and you get a gift with it? Well, I was I started they, when my boss found out what I did, he invited me to sorry. He invited me to do readings for people. Oh, wow. And I had such a profound response to that. Like I literally people lined up out the door for the first two or three events that I did. And, and and then people were having these cathartic, you know, tearful experiences with me just for the five minutes that we sat together. So that was one of the things that really taught me about about empathy and how, how deeply we needed and how indoctrinated we are to not do it is just, oftentimes when people sit in my presence, they just unlock. And anyway, so that was my first experience of it. And that was about 25 years ago. Yeah. Doing it. Working with public with the public since that point,

okay. So we're there's mostly mediumistic readings or psychic readings combination.

They would they would, I mean, again, it's all for me, it's all the same thing. It's all psychic energy. You're reading what's what is in somebody's space. And for me when I don't limit what that means to me. Or whatever a person I, I read to the degree at which a person is ready, willing and able to receive. Right, right. Right. So whatever comes through is what is what people are ready and able to receive. You could say that they were psychic readings. But psychic implies the psychic vibration, if you want to get technical about it is, is it lacks emotion, which is kind of the the point it's it's one is able to see what's going on without feeling it. I always feel it. So, so I oftentimes would feel what somebody had going on. And then I would say, Well, I, I feel X, Y, and Z, and they're like, Okay, yes, those are those are, those are things I've been thinking about, right? Because they weren't. They weren't, they weren't. They weren't coming through a feeling place for them, but a thinking place.

Interesting. Yeah. So tell me about your business. Now. The public a publishing business you have

also good go. Tracy publishing focuses on spiritual tools for the 21st century. I want I create cards, I've got the book, I've got my Rainbow Warrior activation deck. They're all tools to help people connect more deeply to themselves. The grief book, here's the transformative reef book. This covers the point, the point of doing this, this and this actually the transformative grief book, I did not publish it. It's actually published through red feather Mind Body Spirit, which is shoe for publishing. But I did I wanted to do this grief book. Because we need to as a culture change the way we think about grief, and the way we see ourselves and our emotionalism and we need to give ourselves much more space to much more often experienced small grief responses to things so that when the big things come, it doesn't take us down, you know, or that we have beliefs about it, that allow us to surrender to our grief for a period of time. And that we can still manage a life despite our grief. Yeah. Right. A lot of a lot of people feel like, if I ever let myself feel any grief at all, I could never stop. And right that's, that's a that's a big one and I it will always stop grief, grief is finite. Whatever it is, it might be you might be layered, like, I mean, so for me when I if I had to break it down, I've probably been doing 10 10,000 years worth of grief in in 150 year lifetime. You know, of course, I'm those are made up facts. But yeah, but the idea here is that I that my grief that I experienced was multi layered, and multi leveled, and scanned, many, many years back, not just this life experience for me. So I had to process those things. When when, if we die in a state or condition that we cannot process, our own transition, it will, it will stay with us until we can process it somebody somebody's got to process it. And so that's that's how I came into this life experience to process out these different layers of grief that I brought with me from another time so that I could a complete that work and be better understand what grief is and how, how and why our world needs it today.

Yeah, interesting. So needs grief. Tell me what you mean by that.

We, we're bad things are happening. And it's happening people. So we have to embrace the the spiritual process of enlightenment that comes when we allow ourselves to feel what it is that we feel, and grief will shift how you see things. If more people were grieving, rather than being fearful, we would not have the world that we would today. But they're not. They're getting angry. They're getting frustrated, they're wanting to bully because they've been bullied, right? So there's all of this dichotomy of going back and forth and grieving takes both of those pieces and brings it to the center. And for whatever it is that you're grieving, it's going to after after you aggrieved it opens up a new perspective on what was causing the conflict. Right, and we don't really give it we don't have you know, religion, in our, in our urban world today is not as popular. You know, the, I've done a little bit of research on it and a lot of the millennials 30% of them will meals don't claim any kind of religion, they see themselves as spiritual. And they and there's, you know, people in my field. Now there's, there's a lot more of us, because people are ready to hear something that's not not only one master related, you know, one, one person for one religion that that governs all things. You can have the creator and relate to the Creator any way you want. And you can relate to the different elements of yourself as a god and goddess in all the ways that you do in your own way. Right. And the more we we have access to shifting the way we perceive our relationship to our highest self, the more things change, and grief is a part of that change. Like it takes us from one level to the next level to the next level. Like when you grieve and a door opens, then you grieve some more and another door opens.

Yeah. So you use the term transformative grief. And that really caught my eye when I saw that the title of your book. So what does that mean to you?

Transformative grief, to me means that when we grieve it, it makes us the people we become as the more and more we allow grief, the more and more it changes, outdated beliefs or thoughts that we have about ourselves and others, it opens up our ability to be creative and visualize more deeply. The world we want to live in the life we want to have the relationships we want to have, right? It's it's our agents of change, and it takes us from I keep wanting to use the word concern, which is interesting, but I can't conflict to peace. And, you know, I think for a lot of people, they stick in that position position of being concerned about something. So they never grieve it. They never they never touch it, they never walk to it. They just stand back and look at it and are concerned. You know, so that so transformative grief is is recognizing that grief daily changes the person that you are, it allows you to more freely become the person you want to be.

So grieving then be feeling into it. Would that be another way of putting it?

Absolutely. Okay. Absolutely.

Yeah. Because when you transformative grief, it's funny, as you were saying that I was thinking about the people I work with, and you know, inevitably, the grief is transforming them in some way, you know, and they often don't really see it, but I can see that and it's like you said it kind of it's a it's a reset everything. Everything's up for grabs, and it can be scary at first because you feel like you're losing everything. But it's a it's a chance to rebuild.

Yeah. One of the one of the best when I, before anybody knew I was psychic, I didn't I mean, I've always had maybe one one or two friends who kind of knew but not really. And maybe I maybe I had a friend that was into it or had a, they were that way themselves. We when I came to LA I only had one friend and I started to meet people. And I was I was probably in my late 20s At the time, and I met these women that were at least double my age and, and they kind of took me under their wing, and we would get together for weekly. We do like psychic night at my house and everybody would get together and play with cards or whatever, just have conversations about this stuff. And one of one of these women said to me, you know Tracy, when when this hits you let it go, like like scream loud, did give into it just be as loud as you pop cry out to the heavens. And thinking that the angels, the angels need to hear you. And somehow that changed everything for me because I had, you know, I cried myself to sleep at night and for 30 years, nobody knew. You know what I mean? So I was doing a really good job at hiding it. Trying to find all these other ways to balance myself when it really when I really just needed to give myself permission to cry and, and and be be surrounded by people who didn't take it personally who don't try to change it who don't tell you to get over it. Right. There's all there's all these things. archetypes that in our world of of of experiencing grief and being being deeply uncomfortable with it. So when she when she told me to be loud and proud I was that was that was the answer for me. And things that made me recognize the next time I had a bout of grief It really made me recognize that I was in control. And I had never felt that way. I always felt that it controlled me, I didn't have control of my consciousness and what was coming to me, all of these dreams, all of these different things, all these things that I didn't really have any understanding of at the time, crying loudly, made me recognize that there was a deeper level of support that I could, that was palpable, if I could be open through my grief, and that I was in control of it. And that and that on some level, I wanted this, this wasn't something that was happening to me, it was happening for me. And that's, that's the most important thing is when grief is not happening to people, it's happening for them for their transformation, for their realization for their opportunity to get new information and accept their circumstances and then get the resolution to the things they want to change about it. Yeah, that's

a really interesting way of looking at it. Because I think a lot of people, I think almost everyone, when they're going through grief, it's like, why is this happening to me? I, as you said, I don't have any control. And our society, we are very, we want to get people past it. Let's just get over this. Let's move. Yeah, yeah, yeah, let's just get this, you know, get this over with I want to I want to be fixed, I want to end and then people around, you get uncomfortable because no one likes to see anyone sad. So they're always trying to offer you solutions.

Exactly. That's one of the things you know, one of the one of the parts of the book I talk about is, you know, if you're experiencing a loss of any sort, and you have to be around your family at the holidays, or go to a party or deal with we're just going into work sometimes. It's so people are really comfortable, as long as you let them off the hook. Yeah, you know, right now, I'm really emotional. And I might cry. And I just want you to, I want you to know that I'm okay. You don't need to do a thing about it. Right? When you let people know, in a, what I'll call a sober time. Right? When you're when you're even. And you let people know that that happens, or that's going to happen or that you you give them permission to be comfortable with it and to not try to fix it for you. Because it's there's nothing to be fixed because you're not broken. Right? You know, you are you are transitioning from one frame of reference in life to another frame of reference. And I find that every single transition I go through, it's always to something better. Always.

Yeah, yeah, that's a really good point is interesting cuz I was just talking with someone yesterday who's you know, a young person that just lost their first job and going through a transition and, and I've given them perspective of someone 40 years older, and I'm like, you know, one day, you'll see that there's something good. And as I say, I can't tell you what it is right now. But I can tell you what I went through this 30 years ago, myself, and at the time, I thought it was the worst thing ever. But it's that perspective that we get, once we've been through a few things that we understand, there's something there's something good in this event, and whatever it is,

it always is. And again, when we, when we tell ourselves when we stay in the anger about it, or the blame of others about it, because at the end of the day, you know, there people are awful, let's just say that people are awful, and they're going to do some awful stuff. But at the end of the day, you still control your own destiny, despite what others do. And when you know that the ways in which that can happen for you will come and you will see them. If you do not believe that's a possibility, what you believe will show itself to you over and over again, until you've had enough grief experiences to shift your perspective and give you a little bit of light. Right? You know,

I know you know, when it comes to grief. I always say our society's not really good about they have equipped us to deal with it. And I know you have some practices in your book. So what are some of the practices that you offer people because people are like, I don't know how to do this, how do I do this?

Um, so I love building altars I love it's the only time I really enjoy cleaning my house is I create a sacred space and I clean it really well. And I set it up with items that I that bring me joy. That's really what an altar is putting, putting on the table for what you're willing to give up to the creator in order to receive what you want in return. It's like an exchange. And so I have at the end of each chapter there are 12 chapters there are 12 suggested alters you can do them anyway which you In any way you want, I suggest a lot of different herbs for burning, I like to do a burning pot with different herbs sage cedar I, there's lots of recommendations. But I basically set my intention, if I've got a conflict going on, and I feel numb or neutral about it, that tells me that there's something brewing that I don't have enough information yet, to fully grieve, I need more. So I asked for that I want I want more information about this situation. And so I write that out, and I fold it up, I put it under a candle, I light the candle flame. If you can do it safely, I always use jar candles. In case of earthquakes, I'm gonna, this has actually happened. I had canned the jar candles burning in an earthquake, and they just fell over and put themselves out with the wax. So I was like, if you but if you can do it, you don't have to have flame. But flame is very helpful when you feel stagnant in your emotional body. But once once you start to take a physical world action towards your emotional goal, what you what you need to facilitate that will then come up it will come to your mind because you have already you've opened up the door and you say please, please give me this information. How do I do this? What can bring me more of what I need in order to allow this energy to move through me. And that's and that's the idea is grief is something from the Creator. It's energy that's moving through you. And then on the tail of that is this new wisdom, this new joy and these new concepts that come to you. They go oh, okay, well, that's that's not really what I was seeing. That's I'm seeing now this in this way. And it's totally different when you look at it from this perspective. Right. That's, that's one of the reasons why multiple people have multiple truths, because you can look at one thing from a three different perspectives all around it, and they're all different. Right? Right. So, so altar creation is one. If you just one of the things for people, like if you do counseling with people, it's imperative that you have your own ritual for grief that you give yourself permission to unload all of that. And so for somebody who has somebody who has a job, where they're constantly working with people or suffering from compassion fatigue, I recommend that you give yourself 30 minutes to put on some sad music, or even a sad movie, or even a happy movie, something like comedy, comedy, starting to laugh will also start the train of emotion coming, and often will turn into tears, which will allow you to release that way as well. So giving yourself a deep a definitive 15 to 30 minutes every day, to do some deep breathing, and listening to something that just allows you to just think or take an inventory of your day. Just if we will give ourselves just a little bit of time. It's not it's, it moves it pretty quickly. That's what I tried

out. That was that was actually really interesting that you said that because I was thinking I love listening to music, and all kinds of music, upbeat, you know, sad, whatever. And there are times I just want to put on something that's a bit sad. And I talked to so many people, because I run these Facebook groups. And I'm like, What song do you like what? Let's ship it. So people say I can't listen to music anymore. I just my son dies is my husband. I can't listen to music. And I find that to be so sad.

Well, that and the reason why is because music is the one thing that connects to your right brain, which is your intuitive self, which is the access point of your grief. Right? Right. And so they're there. They think that it's, it's keeping them together. But if they would allow just even five minutes a day, just allow a little bit of that stuff to come out. And then you can get up and go about your day. Sometimes, I mean, there have been many times. Another type of grief that somebody can experience if somebody if the people out there are an empath it's called transpersonal grief, it's when it's when you grieve for another person or the collective. So when 911 happened, I was here in LA I had a bunch of people in New York I just moved from New York. And for 10 days I grieved night and day 24/7 All big eyes. I was a hot mess. But I was also not in resistance to that. I, you know, I just I knew how to take care of myself, I knew it would eventually end. Crying for several days didn't didn't intimidate me because I had done that many other times. But that's the one fear that people have is if it starts, they won't stop, and it will always stop.

Yeah. And you can

breathe into a new, you can, if you're crying too, if you're crying, and it's too much for you. Take moments, take a few deep breaths, change your position, change your room, your world will change. And you can do more later.

Right. Right. Yeah, I think that's really, it's fascinating that you said that, because I keep running across as people say, I can't, I can't listen to music. And I'm like, that means you shouldn't be listening to music, you know, go ahead and let it out. Because people, they feel like, if they let it out, they're not they're not in control. So they're just trying to stuff it down and hold it in.

Well, and, and I would say that, that it's the the opposite is true, you, you are letting it control you, when you withhold it, you control it, when you allow it to come out. You control that. And using using your vocal cords, like in my living living in New York, I moved when I was 18. And it was it was it was the 80s. And it was a deep time there. And homelessness had just shot up for the first time, in many ways, like on a on a whole other level, a whole other scale. And I would sing I listened to gospel, and I sing it at the top of my lungs. And that's, that's that's the only thing that would get give me even a little bit of solace. When I was in, in New York, I didn't, I cried a lot. But it was still I was still in the habit of crying at night and you know, girding my loadings during the day and not not showing people where I was really at. So the singing really helped me to, to manage that differently.

So I, you know, I could see people going sounds like she likes grieving. You know, she's like, really into this?

Well. It is, it is, it is who I am. Meaning I was built that way my chemistry, I mean, we can, we can, there are 1000 different things that I could blame it on. And they're all true. And it's just what I did. And I luckily, I had the faith inside me to know that there was an endpoint that I that this was purposeful. And and so I just embraced it. And yes, grieving actually not now that I am out of the victimized perspective of it, because that's, you know, no matter how you slice it, when you are first really starting to grieve and you've experienced a big loss that maybe triggered it that there's a deep inner awareness that makes you focus on yourself and you do feel victimized, it does feel like it's happening to you, and not for you. And, you know, you're talking to somebody who has, you know, five decades worth of grieving to look back on and say, you know, it happened for me not to me. That's that's just that's the wisdom of being at this point with it. Right, when are you starting? You know, I hope that that I can inspire people to embrace it even a little bit. Because there there is nothing like the feeling of clarity that comes after you have grieved. It's like you wake up and the colors are different things are different and there's hope. Yeah, hope is hard to come by these days. So you got to take it where you can

Yeah, no, you're absolutely right. And before we started recording we were talking about the state of the world and you know, no matter who you are, you have your there's bad stuff going on. And there are a lot of people are like well, I just can't you know, I'm going to turn it off. I can't I can't be part of it. I don't want to feel it. I don't want to I don't want to connect to it. And I think what you're saying is you know we have to lean into it.

We do and here's the thing that the whole I'm going to turn off the news therefore it doesn't bother me as a fantasy. You know, I yeah, that's just true. It just is a fantasy we are we are all interconnected. Whether or not you know it whether or not you have an awareness of it. Was fun Yeah, that was awesome. Yeah, well,

just for anybody that know me a little technical glitch right before we started recording, I was telling Tracy I live in Ohio like it because it's like, everything's kind of mild here. We don't have crazy weather. We don't have fires or floods or anything like that. And while we were recording, I looked at the window. I'm like, we have a storm blowing in. And of course, the power went out. Awesome. Yeah, yeah, it's always something but yeah, I appreciate you coming back. And we can finish this up. So we were talking about grief and how sometimes we tend to avoid it, and how you really lean into it, encourage other people to lean into it as well, because it's a transformative process.

It is. I think that I call it everyday grief, I do a whole chapter on it. Oh, sorry. I do a whole chapter on everyday grief. Because if we don't give ourselves five to 10 minutes a day to sit down, you know, for especially for commuters, I mean, drive time, when I was working outside of the house was was one of the one of the times where I did some of my best grieving was while driving, believe it or not. But it's a if you give yourself a few minutes, 510 15 Whatever, whatever you can manage. Every day when you get home from work to give yourself that space to ponder about the day, whatever, whatever circumstance happened, whatever experiences you had, whatever feelings came up, you know, sometimes things break down, the coffee machine breaks, the car doesn't start the pets or dogs, you know, poop somewhere, like, there's all these mundane things that as they as they layer up, they build, they build in your emotions, and you've got to give yourself the opportunity to find to release those emotions and find a real clarity about it.

Yeah, I like that, you know, that's a great way to build those muscles to build that resilience to grieve the small things that so that when the big things come, you've got the you've got the practice, you've got the you're not uncomfortable with those feelings. So I really liked that everyday grieving practice sounds like a great idea.

Yeah, and you know that there's an end to it. Because, you know, even when, when when you when people talk a lot about waves of grief, and that's, you know, if you lose some, but I was watching, I mean, I got sucked into Bosh. The show Bosh. It's, it's good. I'm enjoying it. But uh, you know, he just lost his ex wife, she was just murdered. And, you know, his daughter asks him, you know, does the pain ever go away? And he said, No. And it was interesting, because I'm like, Well, you know, I've lost all of all of my peoples other than I got two sisters and a few cousins. And your, your relationship, grief changes your relationship to the departed, it changes it from them being here in the moment, and you can call them and talk to them or touch them to you have to call them and talk to them in a new way, you talk to them in your heart, you connect with them in a spiritual way, you still see them, you still feel their vibration. But it's it's you, you're the grief awakens you to this higher frequency of energy on which to connect with them. Right. And once you have changed that relationship, you no longer you're still gonna miss everything that you had here with them. And depending on how close you were to them, you know, I think that my father died when I was 11. And it took me you know, in those formative years, it took me until I was in my 30s to really stop blaming my mother, you know, because that's when you have, when you have a single parent raising adolescence, if one of the partners dies, it's a natural thing for the kids to blame the other parent who's left with them. It doesn't matter what what the circumstances were, it's just they need they need somebody to take it out on and that other person is left to do that. But you know, what I what I have learned through all of the deaths of people that I've experienced is that your relationship changes. And once once you have that first experience where you can recognize them in some way and spirit, the pain stops, the sadness doesn't necessarily stop. But over time, that will even change too. But it's it's not we it's not the expectation isn't ever to get over it. Right? Yeah. Patient occation is always to transition into what exists now.

Yeah, yeah. I love that. And I love what you said about the relationship because I think it A lot of times, people when when someone dies passes, we initially feel like it's the end of the relationship. And it's really the beginning of a new relationship, and it might not be the one that we want. And it's going to be different. And it requires work. Yeah, we can, we can get there. And and you're right, the pain. You know, for me, it's been eight years since my daughter passed away was eight years this past Saturday. And it's different, you know, it's different than it was I still miss her. There's still sadness, but it's certainly different. And it's not it's not as sharp it's not as intense. It's not, you know, I don't cry every day, like I used to. So it does change.

It does change. And I think the other thing too, is that, you know, when the one thing, the one good upside of big loss, is that you can tell people to eff off. Yeah, yeah. Right. When When, when it comes to our little grief expressions, or our frustrations about our day, or, or whatever. We, we have to give ourselves permission to grieve and to feel what we're feeling without making it about somebody else, or even bringing them into it. Yeah. You know, I think that the that and when you've experienced big loss, you've learned how to tell your loved ones, you know, no, no, I can't. No, I won't. I need time. Right. These are all, you know, taglines that when you when you've experienced something that trumps all other things. Yeah. You it gives you permission to say no to people in ways that maybe you may not have prior, you know,

yeah, absolutely. Yeah. And that's something that you that we have to learn or going through that, you know, we have to learn how to set those boundaries, we have to learn, like you said earlier, you know, if if you're going to be a situation where you tell people okay, I'm going to be sad, right? Okay, so it's not on, it's not on you, it's not about you. If you if you mentioned my loved one, you didn't make me sad, you know, you have to educate those people that it's not, you know, it's not your responsibility. And, and it's okay to be sad for a while, you know, for a long while.

I remember just after my mother died, she had cancer. And so for nine months, we all live to other sisters. And we would all go back and forth to Albuquerque to take care of her for two weeks at a time. And when I got back from her after, after doing that for nine months, and then coming back from the funeral, I was living in an apartment, I was actually managing the the the 40 units here in LA, and a very good friend of mine who lived there. She came up and she says, You know, I'm so sorry. And I don't know why I don't know what she said to me. Oh, God bless her. It just It irritated me beyond belief. I was so I had I had nothing left. She's like, she was just she was saying everything that she was saying to me was every wrong thing she could possibly say, yeah, she's in a better place. Now. I don't care about what place she's in. She's not here. So she's saying all of these things. And I finally said, You know what, just stop. Here's the thing. I understand that this makes you uncomfortable. And you know what, that's okay. I don't need you to told me. The gift that you have that I love is you are hilarious. So why don't you just be you, let's, let's have a drink, and you just be you and make me laugh. And that's okay. That's what I need from you. That's what you can do for me. Like, okay, we call it the living gift. Because she her mind just thinks in unique ways. And she would always just come up with these things that were hilarious. And we would laugh for hours. And so once I gave her permission to to be funny, that's the other thing people don't they think it's like blasphemous to laugh at a funeral or that you know, when you lose somebody that that requires sadness. And it doesn't you can you can you're gonna feel manic you're gonna feel all kinds of ups and downs.

Right? Yeah. Absolutely. I don't know I want to ask you this. I know you believe in using crystals in your work. What's what is tell me about the crystals and how that helps. Oh my

goodness, I do so here just just within hands reach. Here's one. This is a Citrine This is a fantastic crystal for grief. Because it actually works with the third chakra, which is your power center. And your power center is it's governed by your your stomach and your intestines. And it's how you put your energy out into the world. It's how other people how you require that other people perceive you. But it's but it's that chakra is one of the places that we grieve from. And so this crystal is a wonderful crystal that actually draws in energy and helps Still metabolize the energy it'll eat, you know about crystals. I'm going to reach around you right quick here and grab some of my I just I have a new deck coming out of altered cards for crystals. And they're really fun. In fact, I'm going to trying to do this so I don't look strange, but it's I've got a whole deck desk full of books that I got my recent conference and have no room. Okay, so here's the deck. Choose, I'm gonna choose a crystal for us all. And it's going to give us some energy and information. Okay. Little message for us all if that's okay.

Um, yeah, absolutely.

Okay. Oh, interesting. Okay, so this this is a crystal called precise light. And it is it's got it's a it's a, it's a form of quartz. And it so which and it means that it has big crystals. It's a macro crystal and crystal. So you can you can, you can see the termination. And its energy is about growth. It, it's a incredible crystal to help metabolize your emotion, balance the emotion open the heart chakra. One of the things that happens when people experience an enormous loss, is they close their heart, they don't want they feel like they're, they they don't want to get taken advantage of they don't want to like it shifts how you see people. When you open your heart, it allows a deeper flow of energy that you can see yourself much more from a from a more peaceful perspective. Right, not from and it helps you process pain easily but it helps you process it through your heart rather than keeping it just in your second chakra, which is what most people do when you feel victimized, it's because you're you're very close to the attachment of what it means about you to be emotional. For Sale light is a crystal that you can work with. And when I say work, you can hold it, you can keep it in your pocket, they come in all forms, cut pieces, pocket pieces, hand pieces, but just having it and holding it keeping it in a pocket, having it with you. If you have anxiety, palm stones, there's a ton of palm stones in different in different types of crystal. But working with it helps to shift your energy. So that's that's, that's what I I just I'm not I'm not a very good salesperson today. But I just I just finished a series of four different products. One is the the deck, which is your it's called your crystal allies series. And I and each one of them, in fact to the first one. It's not. It's not handy right now. The first one is called your crystal allies, the 12 best gems and minerals for healing trauma and navigating change. And that's out right now you can buy it anywhere books are sold. But it's great because part I have been a crystal collector for decades. It was one of the first things that I did through marbles. Did you ever play marbles? Yeah, I love marbles. And back in the day, they used to make marbles out of actual stone, and not just glass like they do today. But I realized that over the decades I have certain crystals that I have worked with that have companioned me in very dark periods of time, and really helped me come out of it with with wisdom and confidence and all of the you know, just really carried me through some some very, very deep times. And so I wanted to I have this huge collection and so I wanted to start sharing them with other people and that's why I did the the altar card deck and the books and so the pictures that I've taken, you can actually work with that stone and in the book I'm actually talking about that stone and my experiences with it over the years.

That's awesome because I know a lot of times I've gotten to Crystal shops I just get overwhelmed and they're like they all sound great, right? So I can't buy all of them so everybody wants peace and you know everything that Every golfer crystals do so it's nice to have a guide to have somewhere to start.

Exactly and yeah, it's so funny because I yeah, I'm not I'm not the manual, writer mice. Self I, I, for me, it was like 12 I want 12 because that's that's manageable. And I went I wanted and I wanted it for people because I know there are a lot of new people to getting into crystals and it's it's, it's it's no longer as niche as it was even 10 years ago. It's becoming much more popular and and people are being exposed to it in a positive way. And I just wanted to give somebody like, not just thinking about the crystal and getting something from it, but really seeing it as an ally to bring that thing out in you. Yeah, right, because that's what it will do.

Yeah. Well, Tracy, we're just about out of time. I really appreciate you doing this today. Appreciate your patience with a little technical hiccup we had remind people of the name of your book, transform it transform transformative grief so they can find it and where people can find you.

Great, transformative grief, an ancient ritual of healing for modern times you can buy anywhere books are sold. And you can find me at Tracy done blazer.com which is tra CEDUNBLAZ. i e r.com.

Awesome. Again, thanks for being here. And we'll talk soon. Good. Have a good afternoon. You too. Bye.