174 Exploring Spirituality in Grief with Vicki Paris Goodman

Join me and Vicki Paris Goodman in our paradigm shifting conversation about exploring spirituality in grief.

Vicki Paris Goodman shares her profound journey through grief after the loss of her husband, Sam. And in this conversation, we talk about:

🌱 Navigating Grief and Optimism at the same time

🌱 The Caregiver's Journey

🌱 Finding Adventure in Loss

🌱 Transformative Beliefs and Afterlife Insights

🌱 The Balance of Grief and Moving On

🌱 Embracing Life After Loss

🌱 Cultural Perspectives on Death

🌱 The Importance of Discussing Death

So, if you feel like this episode might be for you, then we’re ready to welcome your listening ears!

DM me for the link or see link in bio.

Vicki’s Links:

Contact Vicki and read her blog at her author website: https://vickiparisgoodman.com/

URL for discounted book purchase: https://inspiredgrief.com/book/

URL for Vicki’s FREE belief-shifting 3-episode audio series: https://inspiredgrief.com/

Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/vickiparisgoodman

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/samnvic28/

LinkedIn: https://www.linkedin.com/in/vicki-paris-goodman-1021a6270/

Sally's Links:

[Free] Relaxation Hypnosis Recording:  https://bit.ly/relaxationwithsally

How to Create Phenomenal Self Esteem [£47]:  https://www.sallygarozzo.com/selfesteem

Menopause Wellbeing Practitioner [£127] https://www.sallygarozzo.com/meno

Cold Water Therapy Practitioner [£127] https://www.sallygarozzo.com/cold

Transformational 30 Day Rewire (Includes RTT) [£447]: https://www.sallygarozzo.com/rapid-transformational-therapist

Transformational Trauma Informed Coaching [From £197]:  https://www.sallygarozzo.com/transformational-coaching 

Instagram:  https://www.instagram.com/sallygarozzomindmentor

Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/sallygarozzo/

Send me a voice clip via What’s App - https://wa.me/message/FTARBMO7CRLEL1

Transcript

Sally (00:01.55)
So my guest today is Vicky Paris Goodman. Vicky is an author, a retired mechanical engineer.

She sings and plays violin semi-professionally and is a theatre critic for a local newspaper. Now you might be wondering why she's a guest on today's podcast about menopause. Well, that's because she has a very unique and interesting perspective about grief and loss, which I know many of us experience when we're going through the menopause, whether that's grief because of something that's going on, going on in our lives, remaining unfulfilled within us.

or grief of losing a loved one that can happen at this mid-life time. Either way, grief and loss comes up a lot at mid-life. And when you hear Vicki's story, hopefully you will find it very soothing. So Vicki, welcome to the podcast today. How you doing?

Vicki Paris Goodman (01:19.218)
Thank you so much for having me, Sally. I was looking forward to it.

Sally (01:24.424)
bless you. So it's very early where you are. It's 7.30 in the morning where you are. So we're very, very grateful for you getting up early.

Vicki Paris Goodman (01:31.136)
Yes, you listen to my complaint. Thank you. I'm over it now.

Sally (01:36.974)
Brilliant, I've got the other end of the day complaint. I'm like, it's half past three, I'm having my afternoon slump. actually for the first time in forever, I just ate half a double decker, which is like a really yucky, horrible chocolate bar. I never eat chocolate like that. I'm like, God, I really need a boost. Anyway, that's totally by the by. We're just having a moment before we kick off.

Vicki Paris Goodman (02:01.856)
I'm

Sally (02:06.594)
So Vicky, I would love for you to share your story about the passing of your husband and how it led you to experiencing this very unique optimism that came afterwards. So yeah, would you like to talk to us about that?

Vicki Paris Goodman (02:28.288)
Of course, yes. Well, my husband passed from cancer, my husband Sam, in 2019. We had had two years from his diagnosis till his passing. you know, even though the doctors had said that there was no chance whatsoever.

for him to survive this, you we thought we'd get a miracle because he did so well for a year and a half on treatment. So, you you just kind of go there as a human being. But he did pass in July of 2019. And on the very day it happened, his passing, I was flooded with optimism. It was unseemly because it was within a few hours of,

his death and I thought, what's going on here? This is not right. And my initial instinct was to push it away. But I thought, you know, I've been so strong during this two year ordeal and it took such good care of him and I'm not the caregiver type, but I rose to the occasion for Sam. He was the love of my life.

And I thought, you know, if good things want to come my way, even on the day he passed, maybe I should let them. It felt like a helping hand was coming down from somewhere outside myself, you know, and I was raised in a very secular family. So this wasn't really my mindset. But for some reason, I just was motivated to open myself to whatever wanted to come my way.

And it was the best decision I could have made. You know, first of all, not only was I raised secular, but I'm not a particularly optimistic person. I'm not pessimistic. I'm kind of middle of the road, you know? But I was flooded with optimism. And it really did feel like some thing or someone was immediately trying to help me or lead me forward into

Sally (04:42.766)
Mmm.

Vicki Paris Goodman (04:44.318)
what I now know was the next chapter of life, which has been mostly great. I was not just flooded with optimism, but there were opportunities coming my way suddenly to do things that maybe I couldn't have done if Sam had lived. And I...

Embraced them. I did all kinds of wonderful things. I traveled to exotic places. You know, I went to Antarctica. Sam wouldn't have wanted to go there. He wasn't a cold weather vacation kind of guy, you know, and I auditioned for a play and I got the part, you know, just all kinds of things. I rejoined the orchestra that I'd been playing in until we got Sam's diagnosis, at which point I stopped playing with them.

temporarily and I rejoined immediately. And all of these things in retrospect, now that I look back on it all, were such a blessing because while I was grieving for Sam, I could be also enjoying life.

Sally (05:33.602)
Yeah.

Vicki Paris Goodman (05:57.84)
And I was also blessed with the insight that to feel guilty for moving on so soon was not the way to feel. And all of it put together with additional insights with which I was blessed caused me to write the book two years after Sam's passing, my book to Sam with love, a surviving spouse's story of inspired grief.

Sally (06:26.862)
Mmm.

Vicki Paris Goodman (06:27.512)
And so I did that and I really want to get the message out to the world because I think that people are under a particular set of assumptions because of cultural conditioning. That when someone passes, we need to grieve in a certain way. And maybe that way isn't right for us. Maybe there's another way.

Sally (06:54.614)
Yeah, wow. Okay, so so many things have come up for me as you were talking and telling us that introduction. You said at the beginning you weren't really the caregiving type. That piqued my curiosity. I guess because I'm a therapist. So why would you call yourself not the caregiving type? And what did that look like for you and your, especially in terms of your relationship with Sam?

Vicki Paris Goodman (07:08.736)
No.

Vicki Paris Goodman (07:25.14)
Well, what it really is, is that I think because of the way I was raised, there was a little dysfunction there that we don't need to go into, but I think because of that, I tended to kind of be in survival mode most of my life, which made me a little bit self-involved, let's say.

You know, so I was just always trying to prove myself to myself, which kind of precluded my looking outward toward doing things for others. When Sam and I first got married, and we were married almost 22 years at the time he passed, when we first got married early on, I said to him, I said, sweetie,

you know, what if one of us should get sick and the other one would take care of the sick one? I know you would take excellent care of me, but have you ever wondered what would happen if you were the one who got sick and needed caring? know, and Sam was a very funny man. He said, the thought has crossed my mind.

Sally (08:49.751)
Hilarious

Vicki Paris Goodman (08:51.102)
And I said, that's okay. I said, you know, I'm not the least bit surprised. It's why I'm asking the question. And I want to make a promise to you right now. I am prepared to make a promise that if you should ever get sick, I will take excellent care of you. And he said, thank you, sweetie. That does ease my mind. And I knew that I would keep that promise if I needed to. What I didn't tell Sam was that I wasn't sure I could do it without resenting him.

Sally (09:10.498)
Vicki Paris Goodman (09:20.988)
So imagine how relieved and happy I was when he, at the end of his life, when he needed caring for, and I was taking care of him. I had him at home on hospice and I didn't resent it one bit.

Sally (09:21.059)
Sally (09:36.706)
Did you grow from it? How did you find that experience of caring for him? Like, did it really open up something within you?

Vicki Paris Goodman (09:46.292)
What it did was...

Vicki Paris Goodman (09:52.576)
It made me stop beating myself up, kind of.

I realized that I'd been beating myself up over the assumption I would resent taking care of anyone, even Sam. And when I did that with, when I was able to do it without resenting it or him, it was such a relief for me because I thought, okay, I'm not as faulty a person as I thought I was.

Sally (10:07.181)
Yeah.

Sally (10:28.162)
Yeah.

Vicki Paris Goodman (10:28.99)
if that makes any sense.

Sally (10:30.988)
Yeah, of course, because when you have a lot of trauma, you have that trauma history, and as a result, you create these adaptive coping mechanisms, which might look like being in fight flight mode, then we can be cut off from those sensitivities, because we've had to, to be in survival mode. And then when something comes along, like you say, when you're having to care for, and this has crossed my mind totally, my husband is way more caring than I am. I mean, I'm very caring.

I'm very caring in my job and I absolutely, when I'm with a client, I am so there. I'm feeling everything. I'm, you know, but outside of that, sometimes I struggle. It's not that I struggle. It's like, I'm quite protective over my energy. And that has actually crossed my mind with my husband. We have these conversations all the time where I'm like, who's going to die first? Like, please let me die first.

because I'm not sure how I would be if I had to take care of you on your deathbed, you know. But I think it's a conversation worth having because it brings up, like it highlights actually what death can do for us in terms of like really bringing us back home to ourselves and what matters and what's important and that real humanistic element that we all have within us.

that compassion that often lays dormant underneath the surface of trauma, you know, and in those tender moments, they have an opportunity to really flourish and come to the surface. And, you know, we get to live out that as sad as it is, and, you know, in death, I've not been through, my nan died and my granddad died when my nan died about 10, how many years ago.

I think it's about 15 years ago now, it was hard and it was the first death I'd experienced and it was very raw. So I haven't experienced that real, you know, when someone really close to you dies. And that's why I wanted to have this conversation with you, because I think I can learn a lot from it and I think our listeners can as well. Even if you haven't been through the death of a loved one. So.

Vicki Paris Goodman (12:42.173)
Okay.

Sally (12:54.444)
What else do I want to ask you? Why Antarctica? What is in Antarctica?

Vicki Paris Goodman (13:00.576)
Whoa. OK, I think I'm making an assumption here. I don't really know. But I think when when someone loses someone they're very close to, there's sort of a. Like you said, kind of a flight mode you go into, you just you just want to kind of escape your life and do something adventurous. At least that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to pack a suitcase and just get in my car and drive somewhere.

But I realized that, you I was thinking, I live in Arizona. was thinking, okay, I'll go to Winslow or something and stay overnight. But then I was thinking, okay, I'll be in some shabby motel and then I'll have dinner alone in some diner, you know? And I thought, no, you know, let's put this off. Let's do something productive like plan Sam's celebration of life.

and then think about the adventure later. And what happened was I got an email from a travel website that I get weekly emails from and they had an Antarctic expedition cruise advertised. And I thought, that's the adventure. So I had Sam's celebration of life. And in the meantime, I had booked this.

wonderful trip, but Sam passed in July of 2019. So the trip was going to be in, gosh, it wasn't until 2020 sometime that I would be going. And by that time COVID was upon us and it got canceled. took until 2022. I didn't go on this trip until October of 2022.

which was over two years after Sam passed, but it's okay because I had it to look forward to. And, you know, I knew I'd go eventually and I did. And it was just, it was nothing more than it just sounded so adventurous. And that's what I needed after losing Sam. So, but I don't really think Sam is lost. know this is part of my transformation, Sally. I was...

Sally (14:48.748)
Right.

Sally (15:15.074)
Yeah.

Vicki Paris Goodman (15:17.208)
You know, I was raised secular. I didn't believe in much of anything. None of my family did. And even though I'd begun to believe years before in a higher power, because it just didn't make sense to me that there was nothing. That all of this was created by nothing. So I believed, but not very strongly. You know, it remained a very rudimentary belief system that I just hadn't given much thought to or developed well.

after Sam passed, suddenly all of these things came together. Let me just tell you one little story that kind of explains it all. One of this very serendipitous things that happened is I was meeting about once a month with the hospice chaplain. Meetings with her were offered to me and I said,

Sally (15:57.389)
Yeah.

Vicki Paris Goodman (16:11.968)
And I had access to her once a month for a full year after Sam passed. And the first thing I asked her was, tell me about the afterlife. I want to know if Sam is there and if so, where he is. And she recommended the story, that I read the story of a neurosurgeon who had been secular and had rejected the near death experiences of all of his patients.

and the ones who had had near-death experiences. And I read his story about the coma he was in from a brain infection that he had no way of even acquiring this infection. You know, he didn't have a wound of the kind that you need to even get such a massive brain infection of this kind. And he was in the coma for seven days and he had a near-death experience and his

colleagues were taking care of him in the hospital and they couldn't get the infection under control and you know, he was going to die. And if he did live, this infection will have destroyed his brain and he will be in a vegetative state for the rest of his life. Well, he survived to resume his career, write the book, go on speaking tours, no brain damage whatsoever. His whole

experience was so divinely inspired that it alone brought me the rest of the way to fully believing in God and an afterlife. And yeah, and so that's how that happened. And it was just part of my belief system changing so radically and

Sally (17:48.118)
Hmm, I see.

Vicki Paris Goodman (18:04.518)
Therefore, I was even more open to the insights that came my way that allowed me to write the book and develop the audio episodes from the, from the inspiration, from the, I'm sorry, the insights that came to me after I wrote the book. Cause they kept coming even after I wrote to Sam with Love. So yeah, that was a big part of the story.

Sally (18:28.31)
Yeah, that's kind of, it sounds like that was the catalyst for you thinking differently about where Sam had gone. And I think that's really important actually, in terms of death. And also, I mean, we all have varying different belief systems, but obviously from you, it's quite clear that your optimism has come from this belief in the afterlife that you...

Vicki Paris Goodman (18:32.245)
Yes.

Sally (18:54.37)
have gathered from somebody who's had a near-death experience. And I don't know, have you read Anita Mujani's book, Dying to be Me? That's another similar account of Anita Mujani, an Indian lady who had, I'm not quite sure, I think she lived in America and she ended up with cancer and she tried absolutely everything, all the kind of Ayurvedic stuff, every wellness.

Vicki Paris Goodman (19:03.23)
No.

Sally (19:22.926)
under the sun, massages, therapy, sound healing, and it just kept getting worse and worse and worse. And she ended up in a coma and had like the most blissed out experience in this coma where she was able to see all experiences happening at once. So she could see her brother flying into the hospital. She could see the people around the bed.

She could see her past, she could see her future, and she was in a very, very vivid dreamlike state. I think she would describe it. And then when she came back from that, she went into spontaneous remission and now goes around traveling and doctors, you know, it's like, it always amazes me that these things happen and yet they're not studied. I mean, they are studied, but it's very kind of underground.

and it's not mainstream. I think these things really need to be brought out in the mainstream because obviously something is happening that we can all learn from and that we can all perhaps take some peace from, especially if we've had a lot of grief in our own life and use that to maybe transform that grief or get out of that grief quicker if we're in prolonged states of grief that are affecting our health.

which is what I'm particularly interested in, know, having a happy, healthy life. And if we're in these prolonged states, whether that's grief or depression or anxiety, then it's not particularly great for our health. And I do think there are perspectives that can help free us from these darker states. And that's what I'm really interested in. So you had this...

you came upon this information about the afterlife and what happened as a result of that? How did you change on the inside as a result of that information?

Vicki Paris Goodman (21:27.328)
Well, one of the things is, is I'm no longer afraid of dying. One of the insights I received after I wrote the book was it occurred to me, is death really tragic? I came to the conclusion, no, it's not. Now you do kind of have to have that belief system where you believe in a higher power and an afterlife, but most people I'm finding do have that belief system.

Sally (21:55.468)
Yeah.

Vicki Paris Goodman (21:57.636)
And, you know, we, one of the assumptions I think we make is that there's this ideal life where you meet someone in your 20s or 30s, marry them, and you both, you stay married to that person, they're the love of your life, and you have a good marriage, and you both live until you're in your 80s or 90s, and then you pass within a relatively short period from one another. And if your life is, isn't, doesn't fit that description,

then it's somehow your life has been lesser. You know, that you didn't get that ideal. And we take that upon ourselves, you know, as a failing. I say that God has a plan for each one of us. And yeah, we still have free will, but I think there's a general plan. And that some of us,

Sally (22:32.462)
Hmm.

Vicki Paris Goodman (22:54.56)
For some of us, that plan includes finding one person to live out your entire adult life with happily. For others, God has a more compartmentalized or segmented plan wherein we live our life in sort of chapters too, or maybe even more. And some of those chapters, or maybe even all of them might be lived with different people.

Sally (23:10.807)
Mm.

Vicki Paris Goodman (23:23.712)
And that that doesn't have to be less than that ideal. In other words, it's all ideal because it's all there to teach us different things. So, you know, when the love of my life passed away, I was presented with a next chapter of life. And I know Sam is there, you know, he visits me.

That's another story. Yeah, and I have a wonderful new life now that doesn't include him living here physically with me. But is it less than what I had before with Sam? I don't think so. I'm pretty happy with...

Sally (23:55.039)
Hahaha

Vicki Paris Goodman (24:18.772)
the things I'm accomplishing, the things I'm experiencing, the things I'm learning, the people in my life, it doesn't have to be... His death, which I don't even... I feel uncomfortable calling it death because his soul lives on, but his death was just the end of one chapter and the beginning of another. And that's the way God...

Sally (24:45.742)
Yeah, I see.

Vicki Paris Goodman (24:48.53)
has taught me to see it.

Sally (24:52.556)
Yeah. When you say God, are you, how do you, how do you believe God manifests? Like what is God to you?

Vicki Paris Goodman (25:07.52)
To me, and this is based on the neurosurgeons near-death experience and some others that I've read since then, God is the all-knowing, extremely loving entity that created the universe and created us. And when we do pass, we lose our body and our brain.

but our soul goes to this place where it is surrounded by a love so powerful we can't even imagine it here on earth. And we're at one with God. According to the neurosurgeon, when we're there, we know everything because God knows everything. We know everything about math and physics and chemistry and history and philosophy.

And, you know, so the neurosurgeon comes back and his brain is now limiting him again. So he doesn't know all those things, but he remembers having known everything. So it makes sense to me. Anyway, that's kind of a. Yeah.

Sally (26:13.486)
Mmm.

Sally (26:21.144)
and offshoot.

Vicki Paris Goodman (26:21.854)
I don't know, a little kernel of what I believe about God and the afterlife.

Sally (26:29.158)
It's very, very interesting when you ask people about their belief systems. And I suppose what strikes me is it's quite a radical change for you. So you were a mechanical engineer, which strikes me as being very scientific, very rooted in physics and all of that, the science-y stuff. And now we're in this different paradigm, this totally different way of operating.

I don't even know what my question is really, but when you look back, I suppose, when you look back on your life as a mechanical engineer without those beliefs, do you see it as less than? Do you see it as like more, well, more one dimensional than your life now?

Vicki Paris Goodman (27:15.772)
in a way, you know, for one thing, we're burdened when we don't have a belief system, like the one I've described, we're burdened by a fear of death. And we think if we have a loved one pass that they are just gone. And to that extent, I think it is less than. What being a very analytical scientific type,

Sally (27:27.34)
Right.

Vicki Paris Goodman (27:45.792)
does when you're raised secular as well is it kind of makes it very difficult for you to believe in anything else because you think you need proof, absolute proof in order to believe. And that's why this story of the neurosurgeon was so powerful for me because his

the way he tells his story was so convincing to me. It was so convincing that it brought me the rest of the way to believing in these things. It was proof for me, or at least close enough that I could take myself the rest of the way to believing. So yeah, when you're a mechanical engineer, you don't believe these things on faith very easily, especially if you're not raised to.

Sally (28:41.602)
Yeah, and then I suppose if you go through life and then you experience tragedy, how are you going to reconcile with that tragedy if you don't have some kind of faith or some kind of belief system that pulls you out? Even if it's like, so I had Eileen Cusick on this podcast and she's very much into sound healing and.

very much into the nature of the universe from a physics point of view, from like an electric perspective. And to me that really resonated with me, that whole, I mean, I haven't quite got my head around all of it yet, but it made a lot of sense to me about, you know, energy and stuff that we can feel in between our hands when we do this. It's like, yeah, I get what that is now. That's like plasma, you know, very, very diffuse matter.

in between, you know, that we can feel and our energy field. And I get that and that's really helped me reconcile some, you know, anxiety that I've experienced or, you know, I know that if I go and if I go in the sea, that will really help to clear my energy and I'll come out and I'll feel a lot better. When it comes to those tragic experiences that we have.

I think, I know for me, digging deep into that faith and that sense of there must be something else has really helped me to feel just more balanced, calmer, more optimistic, as you say, more like, you know what? There is a future. There is something that I can move towards. This has happened for a reason.

What it's not particularly a death, but for example, I haven't had children and that's been a grief that I've had to go through And so, you know, it's that idea of well, you know what this I'm going into a new chapter of my life without children So it's it is that moment in time where you realize that's not going to happen for you And yes, there's a grief surrounding that but also it's an invitation to move into something else should you should you want to? so

Sally (31:00.222)
I suppose my next question would be how do you, how did you manage to hold on to those two emotions of grief and optimism at the same time?

Vicki Paris Goodman (31:13.088)
Yeah, great question. I'm glad you asked it because I might have forgotten to mention this. One of my recommendations for people who lose someone is to strike a balance between what I call activity and quiet time. You know, the activity being

doing anything, having lunch with a friend, going to an orchestra rehearsal in my case, going to karaoke and singing my heart out, whatever it is, traveling somewhere, whatever. Those are fun things. Strike a balance between that and the quiet time needed to process what's happened to your life. Even if you believe, as I do,

strongly that it's really not a death that the soul lives on. You still need to process what's happened to your life because that person isn't sharing your home with you physically anymore. Things have changed. a lot of people, some people did tell me, and I know they tell others who are suffering a loss, keep yourself as busy as possible so you don't have time to think or feel.

I instinctively knew that was bad advice, well-intended advice, but bad advice. You you're going to have to deal with what's happened to your life eventually. Why put it off? You can be having a wonderful time moving at your own pace into this next chapter. You need not delay that, but you need to process what's happened.

you know, sit and think or take a walk or take a hike or, you know, watch a movie, just, you know, but be by yourself a certain amount of the time so that you can process what's happened. And I found that to be the best possible way to move forward. Now there's a warning along with this. So I go out and I do something fun and I come home and I would feel empty inside.

Sally (33:25.965)
Mm.

Vicki Paris Goodman (33:26.996)
Because Sam wasn't here to share things with me anymore. I used to come back if I did something with a friend instead of with him, I'd come home and tell him about it. And that wasn't available anymore. So I would feel empty and I thought, okay, this is the way it's gonna be. I can still have fun.

but it's not gonna mean much of anything for a while, maybe for a long time, I don't know. But I knew that there was no choice, that I was on the right path, and there was just gonna be that one thing missing, you know, until I found a way or was ready to make a change for that. And you know, a year and seven months after Sam passed, I woke up one morning and decided,

you know what, I think I'd like to meet someone new. So the online dating thing is a horrid process, but I did meet somebody really nice and we've been together over three years now. But the point being that most people aren't ready for that right away. And I certainly wasn't. And so it was okay. And I accepted the fact that my life just wouldn't have a lot of meaning for a while.

Sally (34:25.74)
Ha ha ha.

Sally (34:39.02)
No.

Sally (34:49.816)
So what was that optimism that you experienced right at the beginning? How is that different to... What am trying to say? How is that different to...

the grief that you experienced. So you experience his optimism. Like, what was that like? Was it like, cause in my mind, I'm thinking the relief, there's a sense of relief that this person's not in pain anymore and I now have all of this freedom. But it's, was it that, or was it something greater, like a tenderness that came through in that moment when he passed?

Vicki Paris Goodman (35:31.786)
Boy, you're asking me to look back five years. But I do recall it pretty well.

Sally (35:34.688)
Okay.

Vicki Paris Goodman (35:40.544)
There was a relief because, you know, this was harder on me than I knew until later, looking back on it, thought, my gosh, you know, I was experiencing anxiety. You know, it was making me kind of sick in the stomach and I would have headaches and things a lot of days. And, you know, but I didn't even realize because I was so focused. But yeah, this was having a big impact.

on me toward the end, Sam's illness. And so there was a relief when he passed. But the reason that there was something else having to do with this optimism was that helping hand that I described that I didn't even realize was God. thought, is Sam trying to lead me forward from the afterlife or is it God who I haven't even believed in very strongly all my life?

Sally (36:12.29)
No.

Vicki Paris Goodman (36:41.086)
believe that it was a helping hand coming from God.

Sally (36:44.93)
did that look like? What was the helping hand? Like how did it manifest in your life?

Vicki Paris Goodman (36:50.076)
It was a feeling that was so strong, nothing like I'd ever felt before.

Vicki Paris Goodman (36:59.54)
You know, I had been so grounded in my secularism from my family that I'd never had, at least I wasn't aware of ever having had an experience that something outside myself that I couldn't really explain was pushing me in a particular direction. That was a brand new thing for me. And I paid attention because I thought,

Sally (37:21.196)
Yeah.

Vicki Paris Goodman (37:27.986)
Wow, I don't think I've ever experienced anything like this, not that I've been aware of. And I, you as I said before, I felt a need to go along with it rather than push it away. So that's the best I can do to describe it.

Sally (37:44.844)
Yeah, it makes sense. So what insights did you have as a result of this whole experience with Sam passing this optimism, this helping hand and this sense of being very connected to God and this God being a force kind of outside of yourself coming into you. What was some of the insights that you had?

Vicki Paris Goodman (38:08.608)
Right, well, other than the insight that came later, that death isn't tragic, it's part of life, it's part of God's plan. Other than those, something that the neurosurgeon said had me sort of extrapolating other things that he didn't say. He says that there's this...

Sally (38:20.792)
Yeah.

Vicki Paris Goodman (38:36.764)
all-encompassing love in the afterlife that is like nothing we can imagine or really understand here on earth. And from that, I sort of extrapolated that souls are perfected in the afterlife. They don't experience negative emotions like anger or jealousy. They want only what's best for us. And this is a very helpful message for people who suffer a loss because

There's so much guilt involved in moving on or moving on what people think is too quickly. And I say, no. That's kind of a cultural conditioning that awfulizes death and makes us feel guilty if we feel like we should move on before a certain amount of time has passed. And I say, no.

Sally (39:13.101)
Yeah.

Vicki Paris Goodman (39:35.28)
are the souls that pass of the people who we loved want only for us to be as happy and fulfilled as possible. They don't want us wasting time. We can grieve while we're moving on. So, yes.

Sally (39:53.681)
I like that! Wow okay that's a real light bulb moment we can grieve while we're moving on okay.

Vicki Paris Goodman (40:01.344)
Well, that's part of the balance I was trying to describe between activity and alone time. We can move on and do fun things and start looking at what the next chapter of life will look like while we are grieving this huge, enormous change in our life. You know, other people would characterize it as grieving the loss, but I'm still trying to figure out what's really lost.

Sally (40:29.896)
Okay.

Vicki Paris Goodman (40:30.888)
because the soul lives on. And so we can look for little signs and I get them all the time of Sam being there. So I'm still grappling with what's really been lost because this, when you remember that it's part of a plan, so I was one of those people that didn't have the ideal of being married to one person and then we both die in our 80s or 90s.

Sally (40:46.914)
Right.

Vicki Paris Goodman (41:00.168)
So I'm one of the ones for whom God had a plan to have a more segmented life. And I think, okay, that's because God thinks I can accomplish things, learn more things, experience more things, and maybe even teach others.

Sally (41:16.987)
like you're doing right now.

Vicki Paris Goodman (41:19.59)
Yes. And it's all positive because, you know, if I can adequately describe this message to others, then they can have the benefit of these insights with which I was blessed. I think God has chosen me to be the messenger. Why? I don't know. Maybe because I speak fairly well. I write quite well.

You know, I had a secular upbringing which maybe makes all of this more convincing. I don't know, but I don't think any of this came from me. It all came from God and I am simply the messenger.

Sally (42:00.716)
Hmm. Yeah. Yeah. And, you know, I like, I like that. I like that there are, and what I like these days actually is that I think because the world is so open now because of social media, whereas in the past you would get the profit like, and I hope this isn't blasphemy, but you'd get all these profits around the world that would create these religions. Yeah.

And now you have people who are in a way becoming like prophets, but not on that grander scale. They are sharing their own unique experiences of what God feels like running through themselves. And because of the social media and how connected we are, we have the ability to share that story.

to a worldwide audience and share what is happening to us. So in the sense like we are all these kind of like mini-profits sharing our own unique perspective in the hope that it will teach others how to perhaps, I don't know, live a more optimistic life or sail through life a little bit more frictionless or just experience life with more joy.

rather than having to be in a prolonged state of negative emotion.

Vicki Paris Goodman (43:32.852)
Yeah, I think so. This is another assumption I think we make, that people who have slightly different belief systems are somehow wrong. But I think maybe it's also God's plan for us each to experience Him in our own way. So that there's really no right or wrong about it.

Sally (44:02.422)
Hmm.

Vicki Paris Goodman (44:03.448)
if that makes any sense. Yeah.

Sally (44:05.037)
Yeah.

Yeah, and you can express that in the way you want to according to your own faith or what you're drawn to, what kind of religion you're drawn. Are you Christian by the way?

Vicki Paris Goodman (44:17.136)
No, my family was Jewish and, but not religious. know, could Jewish, someone pointed this out to me. It had never occurred to me. Jewish is the only religion where you don't have to believe in the religion to be Jewish. It's, you know, it's, it's a, it's a, it's a heritage or a tradition as well. You know, if you're born to a Jewish mother, you're Jewish.

Sally (44:24.59)
Hmm.

Sally (44:35.157)
Yeah.

Vicki Paris Goodman (44:45.632)
And so I, you know, and taking on a belief in God in the afterlife so late in life, so far I haven't been comfortable in with the idea for myself of organized religion. So I am just going along with this, these insights and inspiration that the, you know, God is giving me and kind of making it up on my own with his help.

Sally (45:15.597)
Yeah.

Vicki Paris Goodman (45:15.648)
And that's probably, I would guess, the way it's going to be for me, unless I have some other... No. No.

Sally (45:21.23)
So you haven't adopted a religion? No. Okay. So you've adopted a spirituality, shall we say.

Vicki Paris Goodman (45:31.208)
Yeah, or a belief system of my own, not not, yeah, not a organized religion. Yeah. Yeah.

Sally (45:38.294)
Yeah, okay, that's interesting. Yeah. So you said something about awfulizing death, that the culture awfulizes death. Why do you think it does that? And it is interesting because I think you're right. I do think, I do think we're programmed to believe that like death is the thing that we ultimately need to avoid at all costs.

So everything that we sold, especially in the wellness industry is like, avoid, avoid, avoid, stay strong, stay healthy, stay upbeat, which is incredibly important, of course, but to have to thrive while we're alive, to be healthy. But I do wonder if we're avoiding the inevitable and if we over try, like this whole thing of being on our A game all the time can sometimes feel exhausting.

And actually by just sort of letting go and surrendering to the inevitable, maybe there's something in that. Maybe we'd actually live longer if we just surrendered to the inevitable and ate what we wanted and I don't know, had fun.

Vicki Paris Goodman (46:50.784)
gosh, there's so much there, Sally. Wow.

Sally (46:55.892)
Yeah, that's my brain for you.

Vicki Paris Goodman (46:58.836)
Yeah, no. Well, I mean, I don't know why our culture teaches us to awfulize death. It just seems to be a thing of Western culture. I don't know why. And I don't think it's particularly helpful, you know, because it does make us fear death. It does produce anxiety in our lives. Another thing is we don't talk about death in our culture much, you know, and I now believe it's

it would be helpful, maybe not essential, but very helpful if we didn't avoid the subject so much. Maybe more people could get some perspective on what's really going on and even understand some of the message I'm trying to get out there themselves without hearing it from me if we talked about death. I discovered something.

Apparently all over the world, there's this organization called Death Cafe and their chapters everywhere. I hadn't heard of it until about a year ago. And I actually went to one of their meetings in my little community here. mostly it was older people who showed up at the meeting, but there were a couple of younger people, like I'd say 30ish. And I had to say, boy,

I commend you two for being here because most young people, most people, but especially young people do not want to think about or talk about death. And I think it's a very healthy thing at age 30 or whatever you two are to be

interested at this point in life in talking and thinking about death.

Sally (49:00.855)
What do you think it gives us when we acknowledge death from a younger age?

Vicki Paris Goodman (49:07.006)
Well, if you talk to others about it, I think it gives you a variety of perspectives. And one of them, one or more of them might resonate with you. And so if you can, if you can understand some of these things that it's taken me my whole life to understand and losing Sam to understand, if you can accomplish that,

at a younger age, I think it's very helpful to living a more peaceful existence throughout your adulthood.

Sally (49:48.716)
Yeah, I agree. And also understanding, like when you're talking about death and listening to people's experiences, especially positive ones like yours, like now after speaking to you, I'm no longer as scared now of my husband dying first. So it's like, you know what? I really like this because I've heard your, your take on it that now I know that it's possible.

for one to feel optimistic and, okay, it's just a new chapter, then if that's possible for Vicky, why is that not possible for Sally? You know, it is possible, I think. And so I think when we hear these stories, and of course not every story is going to be like yours, other people's stories will be different, but when we listen and get an idea of what's possible, it helps us to perhaps map that over into our own life.

Vicki Paris Goodman (50:45.734)
Yes, that's what I'm hoping, trying to do. I'm retired. I could be doing all these fun things like playing in the orchestra and singing and writing more, doing all the things I love instead of, and I am doing all those things, but I'm also spending a lot of time trying.

to put my message out there to help others, which feels so good because as I said before, I'm not the helpful type. So finally, I have my niche. God has blessed me with a way to help others. And so, you know, and yes, I think it's not only possible, but I think if we can just shift our beliefs about death and God's plan and really life itself, we can all have what

Sally (51:14.231)
Yeah.

Sally (51:23.661)
Yeah.

Vicki Paris Goodman (51:40.424)
what I have found. The optimism, the realization that death isn't tragic, that somebody in a married couple is going to to pass ahead of the other one. And it doesn't have to be tragic. It's just the plan. It's the plan. And it only means that you have more to learn and experience and maybe teach others. You know, before you go to join your husband,

Sally (51:42.926)
Mmm.

Sally (51:57.262)
Hmm.

Vicki Paris Goodman (52:10.344)
in the afterlife.

Sally (52:11.85)
Wow, wow, that's a really nice place to finish, actually. And I think my biggest takeaway from this conversation is the idea that spirituality can be a real resource for us when times are hard, when we're going through something difficult, especially when we're experiencing a kind of loss, because the

the flip side of that, the reframe is that, well what have I actually lost, as you said earlier? Like where is the loss? Yes there has been a loss, we have to acknowledge that, but where have I also gained? And also if Sam has transformed into the afterlife, then he's only lost the physical body and he's, you know, I believe that energy cannot be created or destroyed, only transformed.

So we are energy and when we pass, this energy transforms into another energy, because that's the law of physics, right? So, I mean, that's what I, that is my belief system. I do have a spiritual belief system. So yeah, like bringing all of that into those tough moments. And I think that's what those tough moments really call for. They call for an analysis of our belief system.

Vicki Paris Goodman (53:17.568)
Thank you.

Sally (53:38.53)
You know, there's a deep invitation during those moments to dig deep and figure out what it is that we believe, talk to people, read research. Or as you say, sometimes it just happens. Like you just got this download. You know, God came through you and you felt it and you listened to that call because you were tapped into your intuition. And you listened, you got the message.

Vicki Paris Goodman (54:07.422)
Yeah, you know, someone asked me if after I described some of the all of, you know, what I've what I've described here, if the shock of losing Sam wasn't wasn't really what happened to me that just produced such a radical transformation. I guess it's possible, although I didn't. Feel shocked.

at all, you you can't always know. But I still can't dismiss the fact that for the first time in my life, I felt something outside of myself guiding me. I mean, that was a very strong feeling at the time, you know, and it was flooding me with the optimism as well. I don't know.

Sally (54:39.49)
Mm.

Sally (54:53.314)
Yeah.

Sally (55:02.232)
Well, it's your lived experience. It's your lived experience. And I think we can't discount that. I think if it is what you experienced, then it's something and it's something that you're building on and people are benefiting from your message, then it's true for you. And it might be true for lots of other people as well.

Vicki Paris Goodman (55:04.832)
Yeah.

Vicki Paris Goodman (55:22.976)
I think it can be. I don't see why it wouldn't be true for others. It just requires a little shift in perspective, a little bit of undoing of that cultural conditioning.

Sally (55:24.483)
Yeah.

Sally (55:34.86)
Yeah, that says it all has to be heavy and awful and bad and final and yeah, and actually, you know, what happens is when we do kind of lighten up and realise that it's not the end of the world or, or when we believe in an afterlife, I think perhaps it makes us less materialistic in this life. Because we're

Vicki Paris Goodman (55:55.815)
Maybe.

Sally (55:57.056)
Yeah, yeah, like less, I don't know, less, we place less importance on materialism and more importance on, you know, being in nature or connecting psychically or connecting with our hearts. And you can't commodify that, can you? So maybe that's why culture doesn't really want us to know that death isn't the final thing.

Vicki Paris Goodman (56:11.743)
No!

Sally (56:19.97)
Yeah.

Vicki Paris Goodman (56:20.104)
Yeah, I think it's really earth shattering realization.

Sally (56:25.952)
Yeah, absolutely. So look, thank you so much, Vicki, for spending this hour with me and the listeners who are listening to this. You have a website. What's the name of your website?

Vicki Paris Goodman (56:40.692)
I would have people go to, I would have you go to inspiredgrief.com and there you can subscribe to my audio episodes that are free. They're about 12 to 15 minutes each. And a lot of this that you've heard today is described in more detail. And I would highly encourage anyone, whether you've lost someone recently or not,

to get the benefit of those, of the insights in those audio episodes at inspiredgrief.com. You just have to put in your first name and email address. And also there's a, you can buy to Sam with Love. There's a link there to, I've discounted it on my site. So you can get to Sam with Love, A Surviving Spouse's Story of Inspired Grief there.

as well. And there's also a link to my blog, which is actually on my author website, but you can get to it from inspired grief.com by just clicking the button. And there's some articles. There are some articles there that are interesting. yeah. Actually, I finished it last week. I have some friends reading it now. Yes, it's called Speed Bumps.

Sally (57:54.782)
brilliant. Are you writing another book? are you?

Sally (58:03.413)
Wow.

Vicki Paris Goodman (58:07.058)
and other impediments to life in the fast lane. And it's about the trials of life from the point of view of a type A personality. And it's pretty self-deprecating. I had a lot of fun making fun of myself and my type A tendencies, you know, the impatience, the drive, you know, all of that.

Sally (58:22.701)
Ha

Sally (58:34.594)
Yeah, brilliant. Well, it sounds like a very useful book, especially for someone like a type A personality or someone that's been through a lot of grief. Obviously you have some beautiful words to share, you have some stories to tell and you have some really incredible insights as well that I think will uplift and inspire others. So thank you so much, Vicki. I'll put all of your links in the show notes. Thank you so much for sharing this moment with us.

Vicki Paris Goodman (59:05.373)
thank you for having me, Sally. It was wonderful.

Sally (59:11.586)
There you go. That's lovely. Well done. What a nice conversation. Thank you, Vicki.

Vicki Paris Goodman (59:17.236)
Yeah.