Create The Best Me

Grief Expert’s 7 Steps to Mend From Unthinkable Trauma

• Carmen Hecox • Episode 139

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What do you say when someone you love is shattered by loss? In this episode of Create The Best Me, we go deep with grief recovery specialist and author Sylvia Moore Myers, diving straight into “A Grief Expert’s 7 Steps to Mend From Unthinkable Trauma.”

From the moment Sylvia shares the heartbreaking loss of her son and the extent of trauma that followed, you’ll hear a raw but honest conversation about resilience, forgiveness, and the myths of “moving on.” We discuss why mending is not the same as healing, the invisible scars that most of us carry, and what truly helps when words fall short.

Sylvia reveals practical ways to support yourself or someone grieving, including what to say (and skip), how writing forgiveness letters can be freeing even if you never send them, and recognizing when trauma is stuck in a repetitive cycle in your life. With “A Grief Expert’s 7 Steps to Mend From Unthinkable Trauma” at the heart of the episode, you’ll come away with real strategies to find hope, community, and meaning, even in the darkest moments.

5 Key Lessons:

  1. Why mending matters more than “healing.” Humans aren’t meant to erase trauma, but to honor their scars—and guide others with them.
  2. The 7 Steps to Mend from Unthinkable Trauma. Sylvia shares her proven process for moving from devastation to resilience and a renewed sense of self.
  3. What really helps a grieving friend? Drop the clichés, bring a hug, simple words, and show up again when the crowds are gone.
  4. The life-changing power of forgiveness (for you). Writing “forgiveness letters” that you don’t mail can transform pain and reclaim your story.
  5. How to spot trauma’s ripple effects. Unresolved grief can shape your reactions, your health, and even how you parent. Mending means facing these old wounds, too. 

Call to Action: 

If this resonates, please LIKE, SHARE, COMMENT below, and SUBSCRIBE to Create The Best Me! Your story matters, and together, we can inspire lasting healing.

Ready for more guidance on your healing journey?
 Download Sylvia’s free “7-to-Heal” PDF and check out her book Gold Scars. 

📕 Resources: 

https://createthebestme.com/ep139

https://www.sylviamooremyers.com/

https://goldscars.com/bestme/ 

Free Download “7 Habits to Heal” https://7-habits-to-heal.gr-site.com/ 

Purchase “Gold Scars”, use code MJA40 at checkout for a 40% discount https://indiepubs.com/products/gold-scars/ 

#SylviaMyers #GriefExpert #7StepsToMend #TraumaRecovery #GoldScars #CreateTheBestMe #PTSD #Forgiveness #GriefJourney #MentalHealthAwareness #HealingTogether

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I've got a question to ask you before we dive in. When someone you love is shattered by loss, what is the one thing you should say and, the one thing you should skip? Stick with me because before we wrap up, Sylvia will give you the exact words that bring water to the fire, not more flames. Today I am speaking with Sylvia Moore Myers, the author of Gold Scars. Grief recovery specialist, public speaker, and soon-to- be Doctor of Traumatology. She turned the unthinkable loss of her son and a cascade of trauma into a roadmap for mending. We're talking about her Seven to Heal, why we don't heal, we mend, the forgiveness letters you should never mail, how to spot when PTSD is running the show and the simplest way to truly help a friend in grief. Fair warning, this episode will briefly touch on how Sylvia cared for her son at the hospital before his passing. So take a deep breath. You're in good company. Let's begin. Sylvia Moore Myers, welcome to Create the Best Me. This is an honor a privilege, and I am so excited about the conversation that we are going to have today. Uh, thank you, Carmen. Thank you for having me. So, Sylvia, before we get into today's discussion, could you please tell the listeners and viewers a little bit about who Sylvia is and what she does? I guess I could start from the present and go backwards. Well, right now I am finishing a PhD, a doctorate in education in crisis response and trauma. I'll be a doctor of Traumatology. I think that's really cool. But, I've previously, finished my master's degree in, crisis response and trauma counseling, and I have my bachelor's in business, IT and journalism among other things that I've dabbled in in my life. I'm also a grief recovery specialist. I did that after I recovered from grief because I was so overwhelmed by the, uh, process that I said I wanna help other people. So I became certified in that. And then I became an advanced, and then I got my master's degree, and now I'm finishing up my doctorate. Now you know why I did it. That's not everything I've done, uh, of course, you know, but, that's who I am right now. And you're also an author of children's books, Yeah. And you also wrote a book, Gold Scars. Gold scars. Yes. I wrote Gold Scars. The children's book came from my granddaughter Ellowyn. We had written a poem and a song that I sang to her when she was a baby called Ellowyn Noel O'Wyn. And it became a children's book series. So there's nine more coming and we got coloring books coming out soon. So keep an eye on the website. You can always order those, at any time or contact me and I'll send them to you. And then Gold Scars came from the loss of my son and my involvement in grief recovery. When I realized that, uh, even as an advanced grief recovery specialist, someone that was going to be practicing therapy with people in grief, I wasn't reaching enough people. I mean, I'd have 3, 6, 12 people at a time and I went, this isn't good enough. I gotta spread the news because if, if there's people suffering, like I was suffering, I need to reach them in a better and faster way. And writing the book is what did it. So I brought all of those philosophies of healing and mending. And I put that into the book and, Morgan James purchased the publishing rights to it. And, so I'm a New York published author. Ooh. So, but, but very honored. That's a wonderful, wonderful publishing house. But the next book coming out soon, so I look for that. And what's the next book? The next book is called The Pear Tree and the Mistletoe. And it's really a story about grief. But I won't ruin it for anyone, it's wonderful. It's poetic. We have actual art from my son who is an artist. That's what he's studying in, in college at this point. And, and myself, I, I dabble in art. And it'll be wonderful. It'll feel like you're reading someone's private journal, but it will also feel like it's your private journal and it gives you places to reflect in, in your life as well. So I'm really excited about that one. That sounds amazing, Thank you. And that's the reason why I invited you onto the show is because you suffered a personal loss by the death of your son, and I'm so sorry. Thank you. Me too. But in watching you I went on your website and you have an introduction. I could tell that you really did heal from that trauma. You're not just someone who says, I went through trauma and I came out in the other side a better person. I could see it in your eyes. I could see it in your tonality, in your smile, because that's traumatic. And in today's world, a lot of us parents might be losing our children due to fentanyl poisoning, Yeah. or you know, you, they go to Walmart and they don't come home. Yeah. My son was on his way home. He was in college, just a teenager, and, playing guitar with his friends, that's what teenagers do in college on a Friday night. And he was heading home and he and another buddy stopped at a gas station. He bought a Snickers bar and a Mountain Dew for his girlfriend. His plans were to drop that off to her like he always did at night. She lived real close to our house. And then he was coming home, going to bed, and we were gonna put up the tree, start it real early, watch the parade, Christmas parade. And that was our plan. We had the whole weekend planned out, but at the gas station, he was accosted and shot by a stranger. And became an organ donor, the next day. We're in the hospital with a child who's still breathing, and flinching, but his, he had been shot point blank, so there was no, there was no return of his brain. And walking away from the hospital with a child who was still warm to go pick out a coffin, knowing that the next time I would see him, he was gonna be cold. And that grief that that coffin that I picked was mortifying. But, there was a, I don't know, a part of it that said, but, tomorrow there's gonna be people that are gonna be alive because of that. And, and there were, there was five individuals, uh, that lived because of his life ending. And, um, it doesn't justify his death, but, um, it, it does give you a warm feeling to know that you have done something good. And he made that decision when he was 16, when he walked in and asked his dad, what does this mean when I sign this? And James explained to him, it means that if something were to happen to you, you agreed that they can use all your organs any way they want to. And he went, okay, like a teenager, just, okay, fine. And you know, and who knew three years later he'd be called the task, right? So, I had two children that were at that hospital with me and my husband at the time. Our marriage went like this, gone, you know, we're still friends, but our marriage didn't make that. Everyone wanted to talk about our marriage also, and no one wanted to talk about the grief when they were, it's like, you should go to counseling for your marriage. It's like someone murdered our child, we can't even stand to be in the same room with each other right now. You know, marriage didn't last. Almost lost everything in my business as well. My children were suffering, I had no idea what to do with them. And it was eight months after Jacob was murdered; well four months after that, I buried my best friend, that did not ah help to add to the trauma. I already had PTSD and advanced grief by that point. Not even knowing what either one of those were. But eight months after his death, I was on my way home and a would-be serial killer, followed me home; attacked me in my driveway. I was his fourth victim, not his first. I did get away, I got his license plate. But at that point any hope for me to maybe recover from the PTSD was gone because now I had physical trauma and threat of my life, on top of what I was already suffering with. So I was pretty much, you know, poster child for a victim in my county and also poster child for what does grief and PTSD really looked like it was me. And that's where I was. Ah, losing everything it felt like, and, and watching my children suffer and no way to help them. When I finally got grief recovery and I realized that I had been looking for an eraser the entire time, and what I needed was a highlighter. You know, I needed to pull it out and look at it and tell it how it really made me feel. That was overwhelming because I didn't need a way to forget what happened to Jacob or to me, I needed a better way to remember. And that's really what grief recovery is. It is reframing it, renaming it, and it's you. It's part of who you are and owning it. And I think that's what we, we're always running from grief and loss and trauma, and we're always trying to get rid of it, but it's natural. I wrote Gold Scars because we don't heal. We're humans, we're not a sea cucumber. I can't grow back my organ, if it gets damaged. And I'm not a chameleon, my tail's not gonna grow back. If I scar, even if from a burn on the stove, I've got a scar to prove it and I can point to it and say, that's where I made a casserole. That's the Turkey from last year's Thanksgiving where I, you know, clutz in the stove. But we scar and I believe that the reason we mend to not heal and that we have scars is because people with wounds are looking for people with scars. They need us to tell them, how did you do that? How did you get from where you were to where you are now? Please tell me, please show me. And I think that we were meant to not, not be a testimony to the trauma that we've been through, but more of a way to share with others. Uh, one analogy was Christ on the cross. He dies on the cross, they bury him. He raises the next day. He's got his glorious body after death. But guess what, he still had? He still had the scars on his hands and the, the scars on his side and the scars on his feet. And it was important that he did. They weren't healed, they were mended. And I think it tells us that really, truly, only God can heal wounds. We're meant to scar. So scar, and if you get a scar beautifully mend. Yeah, but I think that it's those scars that we can't see that are the most difficult ones to mend. Aren't they though? The ones on the heart, you don't see them, but they're there. You feel them. You know, most everything happens in our brain, you know that we always blame the heart. It's like, oh, my heart is broken. I've had my heart broken many times, but really, the person broke my brain, yeah, that's what really happens. Is it, it hurts us so bad that, we think differently, we act, we eat differently, you know, it ages us. All of those effects happen in the brain and the brain sends out signals to the rest of the body and we feel, like we have a broken heart. But, those were real scars and they do need to mend, and it is possible every single one. Mm-hmm. And I was thinking about that this morning. I was a victim of trauma. Something was taken from me as a child. And I remember when my son was like seven years old and I had gone to visit a, a friend. And my son was, I wanna go home, I wanna go home. And he was over by my car. I was at the front porch and it was kind of dusk. And someone I heard like a, a, a strong rustle. And I thought, what is that sound? This person tried to grab my son who was wearing a raincoat, and so this, that was the sound of the rustle. And then I looked, the rustle was so, so loud that I looked over and all of a sudden it hit me, this guy tried to abduct my baby, who at that time was seven years old, Oh no. and I was very angry. And so what did I do is I got in my car. I told my mom, get in the car. We get in the car and I'm chasing this gentleman down. And I wanted to, I, I really wanted to hurt him because anger kicked in. And I think it was the anger of my scar because I was a child when I was hurt and I couldn't protect myself. And here was my son who was just two years younger than I was when I was hurt. I thought I need to protect. And my mother yelled at me and she says, what are you doing? You're going to go to jail? And I logic kicked in and I slammed the brakes and I got outta the car and I said, why did you grab my son? Why did you attempt to grab my son? And he said he looked lost. I wanted to take him to, you know, to, to safety. And said, that is the most ridiculous thing because I was right there at the porch. And he says, oh, I didn't see you. Mm. And so I thought about that. You know, 'cause I, 'cause I was, like I said, mentioned to you earlier as I was reading a little bit about you and I heard, I read the scar and mend Yeah. and that scar brought on anger for me. It, it's funny how they, it comes back even after you're healed. Isaac called me it was two years ago, I guess; and, Elon, my grandson, his, his little boy, five at the time, had fallen and, and was injured and got cut right there at the bridge of his nose. He broke his nose. And of course they rushed him to the hospital. He's in the hospital. And Isaac is now in a hospital situation; remember, we spent the whole day in ICU with his brother there, everybody's saying goodbye. You know, it was a horrific thing. And here's Isaac's son in the hospital, injured and Isaac said, I need you to come here right now. And he needed me for him, not for Elon, 'cause Elon was fine. But I understood, he was all of what happened to him when his brother died, that hospital event, came tumbling back into his life with his own son, and his fear of losing his child, uh, was overwhelming. And of course he got through that of course. But, it, it revisits you. And, re-traumatization is normal when you've had PTSD, when you've been traumatized, it's going to happen. And, learning how to focus yourself, how to reground yourself, when something like that happens is, you know, just part of it, it's for life. But the point I was trying to make to you before was we all suffer trauma, grief, or loss at one time in our life, it's going to happen. If you're lucky and you're maybe, you know, 18, 19, 20 something years old and nothing bad has ever happened to you, then thank you Jesus for that; that's wonderful. But it's coming your way. I'm sorry, but it's just coming your way. And we don't teach that to our generations on how to deal with trauma when it happens, and that's why a lot of people get lost in it. Stuck in it is a good word. I love the word stuck, yeah. It means now your grief controls you. That's what it means, yeah, it's in charge, not you. And, again, we just don't teach that method to our children and we don't model it either. We broke grief in this country a hundred years ago. When grandma died, a hundred years ago, you would go to her house and she'd be laid out in the parlor. And everyone would eat and we'd talk about her and, and maybe laugh about the funny things grandma did when she was alive. And the kids would be playing in the front yard or whatever. And just, it was meant to be a very personal thing. And so now, if we even bring the kids, 'cause most of the time I hear this, I just didn't wanna put my children through it. It's like, well, you needed to. But we go to this strange building and they call it a funeral parlor because they stole that from grandma's house; and uh, we stand in line so we can torture the people that lost someone. And we stand there for an hour sometimes just to have our turn at 'em. It's like, and then we say something really profound, like, God just needed another angel in heaven. My favorite ones were Jacob's work on Earth was done. And I would say, what was he working on and why did he finish so soon? It's all meant to be comforting and instead it's torturous and the poor parents are just sitting there going, thank you. They're thanking you for hurting them. Thank you for the torture today. This has been great. But there's no words in the English language for what you say to someone when they've lost someone they love. There's no words in the English language. My condolences is not what you say that's for your boss to say to you; my condolence for the family. There's just no words. So you say what you really can say, I'm sorry for your loss. I love you. And don't promise them you're gonna be there for 'em when they need you, unless you really mean it.' Cause it's not next week they need you; it's about three months from now. And then six months from now and then this year on the anniversary, maybe Christmas and Mother's Day. So if you make that promise, keep it, otherwise don't say it. Mm-hmm. But, uh, we just don't, we just don't do grief for our kids anymore. And I think we get them unprepared and they're 25 years old and they have their first tragedy and they just fall apart.'Cause no one's ever showed what it's really like to lose and to have a loss and to come out on the other side still. Yeah, And you know when someone passes away, whether it's a child, spouse, parent. When that person that I'm close to, that I'm supporting, at that time I really struggled to find the words to tell them. Because I feel like I'm sorry for your loss, is not enough. It doesn't it, but it's okay. It's better than anything else you can possibly say. You know what the best thing you can do is just walk up and go, just hug 'em and just hold 'em, hug 'em again, and then walk away before you think of something stupid to say. Yeah. I mean, honestly. You know, and we all laugh about it later. And it's not meant to pick on anybody because we've been taught that for, what, a hundred years we've been taught to say stupid stuff at funerals, right. Yeah, well, you know, just practice saying nothing, 'cause that's what we really need. There's a songwriter that says, that his house is burning down and no one brought water, only words. And that's very powerful to me because that's how I felt. It's like my whole life was ending, you know, my child was gone and my other children were suffering and we're all dying inside. And people were telling me how God just needed Jacob. And I'm like, well. I had one friend that told me, I said, you mean to tell me that God woke up on December the sixth and said, I need Jacob here right now, stat. And I don't care how you do it. I said, um, no, 'cause the God I serve lost a son also. And I don't think that, that was in his plan whatsoever. But, a cocky answer. But it was a good friend of mine and she laughed. But but that's the truth. You don't have to say anything. Just be there. Just the fact that you showed up, that's enough, you know. Give him a hug, tell 'em you love him. Walk away, you know? Yeah, and in fact we just went to a funeral earlier this month where my aunt, she's in her eight, she's 80, and she lost her husband, who 84. And I felt crushed. I felt very crushed. And I went up to her and I hugged her and I did say, I'm sorry, even though I felt like I shouldn't have said, I'm sorry. But then I turned it around and I, I kissed her and I said, I love you. Yes. Cause I felt like she needed to hear that. Like God told me, tell her how you feel. And I said, I love you. Because she's not gonna get that from him anymore. Aw, yeah. There you go. And you meant it and, And I meant it. And it was water. You brought water to her fire, so. Yeah. So Sylvia, your life fell apart Yeah. in six months. Everything you work so hard for, you raise a child. Child's gone. Best friend gone. You're losing your business. Something you worked so hard for. You personally, were physically attacked and so any little hope of healing it was, was, in my opinion, I'm thinking it's gone. I was physically injured, not just mentally injured by that attack. Yeah. How does one recover, mend? Uh, yeah. Where's the, where's the secret sauce? So I discovered something when I went through my first, I signed up for a grief recovery class. Even though I was that stubborn person, people would mail me books and I would just not read them. You know, it's like, I don't read that book. We don't wanna read a book because it might bring back the memories, right? That was a problem. We hide from grief instead of exposing it. You need to pull grief out, slap that son of a gun around a bit and tell him how, it really makes you feel, because then you reframe it. And that's part of grief recovery. But I didn't know that at that time. I figured hiding was a good way to do it. Pretending like it didn't bother me was even smarter. Because everybody said, you're just doing so well. How are you just doing so well? And I heard that all the time and I was like, yeah, I am thanks. Such a big liar. Yeah, I was horribly broken and morally crushed and made very bad decisions. My life would've just continued down that road if I hadn't have walked into a grief recovery class and said, okay, I give, show me. Show me what you're talking about. Because grief disrupts everything. It takes away your safety, your personal identity, your hope. You go through divorce, broken dreams, illness. Anything that happens to you after that's gonna trigger that grief again. And I think that's what I felt like I was on a treadmill of grief and it just never was going to end. And there's myths, like, time heals all wounds. Bull, shit, it does not. It does not, heal anything. Time is just time. And, stay strong for others. I got that one a lot. You need to be strong for the boys. Hmm. And I'd go, yes, I do, don't I, it's my responsibility to bear their grief. It's my responsibility to teach them how to grief, and I failed at that, but I, I made up for it later. But grief is very much who we are, and I learned that immediately. But I have suffered grief my whole life. So we're in this grief recovery class, right? First thing you're gonna do is you're gonna graph your life. The first memory to today's date. Everything you can remember that's happened, good or bad in your life. On a scale high, if it's good, low, if it's bad. Put the dates near it, who it was that was involved. But you know, it is a eight week process, but we're about week two, and I'm in there doing my graph, and now we're going to talk about the grief that we need to recover from. Guess what I talked about? Talked about your son. I talked about my childhood, my neglect as a child. I had a very unnurturing mother. I was bullied as a child, in grade school, and I dealt with those first. And I'm gonna tell you why. The way that I handled the death of my son and the attack in my driveway was directly related to my inability to recover from being abused as a child. And until I dealt with that, that one, it brought everything forward. I was never gonna be able to deal with the grief from my son. So I dealt with that one first. It was great. And I wrote my mother this long letter and I said, I'm not gonna let it bother anymore. I forgive you. And I wish I had known about more about who you were when I was a child. And then I grieved other things that had happened in my life and then I grieved. Then I wrote the letter to Jacob and said, here's what I wish I could have said to you. And I wrote to the guy that killed him. So, by the way, you don't mail any of these letters, when you write a grief letter, it's for you, not for them. Be selfish. But there is something about pinning how you feel and finally getting to say what you want, that's very powerful. And having that, we did one-on-one, which I really believe in dyads are very important in grief recovery. Having that other person that you can read to, read that letter to, without anybody touching you, crying's, okay. But no comments, just listening. I call it being the good listener, the active listener. And I got through that grief recovery by basically narrating it. By reestablishing what it meant to me; renaming it. Like I said, you pull it out, you slap it around, you tell it how it makes you feel, and you put it back because you're not getting rid of it. It is part of who you are. But that's where the mending. And it's strange, I'm not gonna cure anybody on today's talk. I'm sorry. No matter what I tell you, I'm gonna give you my seven steps for free on my website. You can buy my book, I'll get it to you at a 40% discount. But today we're not, we're not healing anybody. But what I want you to remember is that everything that you have in you right now, and that I call it the seven to Heal is in you, right this minute. Scar is what I named my book. That stands for strength, courage, adaptability, and resilience. Prewired elements in your brain and your body that make you ready for grief when it happens. Coping is what you do when something happens to you in that moment. How did you cope with the death of your child? That's different. Resilience prepares you, for the bounce back, it's like, yes, you're gonna go through grief, it's gonna crush you. You're gonna feel crushed, you're gonna feel lost. It's gonna be desperate. But the resilience, when tapped into it correctly, is part of the healing mending process. And it gets you back to normalcy. It doesn't bring back your dead person. It doesn't stop the, the trauma or the attack that you've been through, but it reframes it. And it's very important. In psychology or therapy, you might have what's called emotion focused individual therapy; that's great recovery. It's, it's really talk in narrative. You've heard of narrative therapy where you talk it out with the person. All of those work really well. And when you frame it around grief recovery, it does work. You will get better. Both of those are known to help with PTSD, even with soldiers who've come back and had loss. So those types of therapies work. People don't like the word therapy, they just hate it. I call mine Seven to Heal, it's self therapy. You're gonna walk yourself through taking care of yourself and getting to the other side of that. But, uh, don't be, don't be stubborn like Sylvia was, and just wait. If I would've known this, I would've gone a year or so after Jacob died rather than wait years and watching my children flounder. My A students started getting C's all of a sudden. My son Isaac dropped out of college after one semester, after one year. Daniel did the same thing. Both of them just basically crushed when they got to the age of their own brother. When they were 19, and they become older than their brother was when he died, that was disturbing for them because they had never gone through grief recovery. So I only wish I'd started it sooner, not later. Yeah, and you touched on something that I thought was really important that a lot of people don't understand, and that is you wrote these letters and you said, I forgive you. People don't understand that forgiveness is not necessarily for to release the person that caused the harm. No, are not condoning them. It's for you. It's the only way you can begin that process of healing. There are so many peer reviewed journals on forgiveness as a therapy. When you forgive someone who's done great harm to you, you may actually forgive them. I'm a Christian woman. I have forgiveness in my heart. I've done a lot of things wrong in my life, and I have forgiveness from God. My sin is no greater than anybody else's or any lesser, than anyone else's. So I felt in my heart that I could forgive both of those men; the one that attacked me and the one that killed Jacob. I feel bad for their families. They all have had losses. I never condoned anything that they did, I just simply am not gonna let it bother me anymore. And that, to be able to put that in a letter and say, dear murder of my son, Tommy, whatever his name is, you know, I'm sorry that you were addicted to drugs. And I hated that you dropped outta school and your family didn't even know it. You know, you learn a lot about the person that that kills your child after a while, and the one that attacks you. And I wrote those letters meaningfully, and I said, but you know what? I'm not gonna let this bother me anymore. I forgive you, and I'm not gonna think about this anymore. It's not gonna be what frames me any longer. And I hope that you do well in life. And I hope that you, find a way out of this pattern, and goodbye, Sylvia. But you don't mail it to 'em, they're in jail. Mm-hmm. But for the person going through the therapy, The Seven to Heal, it's a remarkable feeling. You walk out like Superman with a cape on going, da, daa. This is amazing. And grief recovery, loss recovery, trauma therapy it works if you let it. It works if you work on it. And I, I highly recommend everyone seek it out from me or another counselor. Go to a grief recovery group if you have one in your area, your church. And don't stop there, remember, we scar for a reason because people with wounds are looking for people with scars. So pass on the love; I think we were meant to share. Yeah, and seeing, and like I said, I could tell that you really mean, you know, when you said, I forgive you and I forgive you, I could tell that you really mean it. Because I could see it in your face as I, I mentioned off before we started recording. You look young, you're not wearing that anger, that stress. I could see it in your smile see it in a lot of people's faces too. I can see your eyes You see grief age people when they let it? Yeah, they let it. Yeah. I could see it in your body. Your body, it's just like it, you move like a person who has grace. Thank you. If that makes sense. It does. Thank you. That's very sweet. Because I've had people say, this person did me wrong Yeah. and I forgave them. I have boundaries. I forgave them, but I built these boundaries so they can no longer hurt me. But I look at them and I'm like, you haven't really, it's not true forgiveness. You're saying you're for, you forgave that person. You said that you moved on, but I could tell you haven't. There's still a lot of work to do and you haven't. And I could tell with you, Sylvia, you're different. And I couldn't even imagine losing a child the way you lost your child. That I think that would, that would kill me. A lot of people say that. It's like, I don't, I don't know how you did it, how you were there at the hospital. I had run a Life Squad early on all of my family were firemen or Life Squad or police something. We were all civil servants in one. So for two years I was a cadet on Life Squad, advanced medical studying for EMT. And when I walked into the hospital and Jacob was there, I don't wanna get too graphic, but he had a head wound, behind one ear, out the other side. And he was on the gurney and it took us 20 minutes to get there. And so I immediately knew that he was gone, but they weren't telling us that. But I already knew at that point. And she said, you need to step out. I need to clean, clean him up. And I said, no, I'm gonna help you. There was like kids pouring into the hospital, to, to come see Jacob. He had so many friends, his brother's friends, all these. But by the end of the day, I think 2000 people had been in and out of that hospital before the end of that day saying, you know, goodbye or just hope coming in with get well soon balloons and roses and everything you can possibly imagine. They were all children with their parents. And so here I am in the emergency area helping a nurse wrap my son and clean up the area. And I don't, it, it changes a person. That's all I can say, yeah. And I think that's why when, when a parent goes through PTSD and I'm, I'm doing, you know, a paper on this as part of my, as my study for my PhD but, parents that lose a child to a great tragedy, a trauma, a traumatic death. And I don't mean to undermine, you know, if your child's got a lingering illness and, and that it, it feels the same, but when they've been shot or they've committed suicide or it's a, a huge trauma, PTSD is almost inevitable. And it's hard to wear it off because when you see that your child has suffered; and, and this guy sprayed my son in the face with mace before he shot him to keep him from getting away, which I thought was just horrific. But when you see that as a parent, you can, you feel it, you know, it's not just empathy, but that child's DNA is inside of you. You feel what they went through. And you relive it and that PTSD sets in and you've got it. And once you do, it affects everything that you do from that point forward. I couldn't walk down a corridor to go to the bathroom a year after Jacob died without being petrified and getting tunnel vision, yeah. That's PTSD, by the way. That's what it looks like, yeah total fear. And I don't wish that on anyone. And, for anyone who's had a traumatic loss, had a great loss, lost their lover, their sweetheart, their best friend, you don't have to live like that. I promise you, it's better on the other sides. And I think that your PTSD was a little bit broader than other people. And I say that because you had your own PTSD that you were dealing with From childhood experience. yeah from childhood and then from this experience of losing your child or knowing you're gonna lose your child. And then as a mom, you carry that PTSD, that your living children were caring. And that your partner spouse was caring. And I think that, you know, it's hard to understand why he's not grieving the way I'm grieving. They're not grieving the way I'm grieving. So it's just like, I think it's a, it's a mosh pit of all this PTSD. And how people grieve and how we think they should grieve or shouldn't grieve. Yeah, and, and you don't know. PTSD doesn't always set in with everyone that's gone through a trauma. Um, not everyone like does, right? It's just, your chances are higher depending on what happened and who it happened to. And if you've been traumatized in the past, or if it's a child, I mean, many parents get PTSD after the traumatic loss of their child, regardless of what that trauma was, if they suffered in any way that's PTSD. It's a marker, it's possible. So, if you know that, and you're trained ahead of time, you might be able to go get that therapy immediately and prevent yourself from being in PTSD. And how do you know? Well, if you feel exactly the same way 30 days from now, that you do the day that something tragic happened and it's not changed one bit, there's a very good chance that it's time for you to start talking to someone. Six months down the road, you're still the same way, probably got PTSD, I can't diagnose you, but I'd say go see your therapist now and talk to someone about that. Don't wait three or four or five years, don't do that. If you're still suffering, and I don't mean the child's birthday comes in, you're crying. I do, we have a video that we put together for Jacob every year on his birthday we play it. We cry, we laugh. It's, you know, it's fun, it's sad. It's all the songs that we loved and we played at his funeral and that he loved and, and so it's, it's very emotional. It's meant to be. It's our memorial to Jacob, and we do it every year, that's just normal. Mother's Day I cry sometimes, you know, a little bit of tears 'cause I'm missing that one boy right. And of course, every December the sixth, it affected Isaac so much that Isaac in school, he was very sportsy, you know, baseball, football, everything. He was always the number six. Letter six was his. And then Elon starts baseball, guess what number he is now? Six. So it's Isaac's way of remembering Jacob in that way, that's his special way of, of remembering his brother. So, pretty cool. But, uh, it's okay to remember and it's okay to cry when you remember. What's not okay is for it to destroy your life and for you to do nothing about it cause you can. Yeah, and I think some people might say, I don't have PTSD How you know? Because they hide it. Yeah, they hide it. It's really hard to hide from PTSD. It's like hiding from a lion. It's, it's out there or somewhere, it's gonna get you eventually, walking through the woods. But you don't have to be stuck in the sorrow. If you feel like you've got PTSD, you've got symptoms, it, it's time to go talk to someone about it, honestly. Is it affecting how you eat, what you drink? Are you drinking, drinking? You know, you having some alcohol every night? Is it affecting your personal relationships? Did you totally change after the death and you don't do anything that you used to do anymore? That's a very good sign. If you were the one that did all the cooking and the cleaning and now the other spouse is doing it and you're not, you'll never do it again as far as you're concerned, and you don't know why. That's a rewiring of your brain. That's what happens to your brain on purpose. Remember it, it adapts. So be in control of the adaptation, of that event don't let it take you down that path. Grief changes you. Loss and trauma changes you, so reframe it. You can't, you're not gonna get rid of it. Yeah. Or maybe you might say, I'm still doing the same things I used to do. I'm still doing everything. Because you're on autopilot. You might be, yeah. Going to work every day doing the same thing. People ask you how you feel and you go, oh fine, thanks. Yeah. Are you lying to yourself? Yeah. So go to a grief recovery class with other people. A lot of people offer those classes for free; they're not licensed therapists, they don't have a PhD in traumatology, right. But they offer 'em as a group for a reason so that you can set in motion your healing and your grieving process. And, a lot of us are so stubborn, we don't wanna go sit in a group and talk to other people about something personal. You will when you get there, when you find out that they're just afraid of telling you as you are afraid of telling them. But it does work. We were meant to live in a village, not on an island, right. So, it's, it's just who we are as humans. And Sylvia, I think another thing that I'd like for you to point out, because you're the expert, you don't heal overnight either. No, it's a lifetime, responsibility. And again, you don't heal, you mend. You set it in motion and you start to rethink things and reframe them, and then you act within that. I call The Seven to Heal; the first one is called help. Just making a personal decision that you need help. You know, whether you're gonna do that self-help or whether you're gonna get help. But making that decision that you're gonna do it is the hardest part. That's step one. It's like, damnit, I am tired of this. I'm not gonna do this for the rest of my life. Yay! Step one over. Now you can start the healing process. That's number two. And the third thing is what you and I talked about off, off camera earlier, being healthy. You know, garbage in, garbage out; yeah, that's what you read, what you watch, what you eat, what you drink. You wanna look, you know, 40 when you're 65 or whatever. Then treat your body better. Get outta your chair and walk. Get outta your chair and run. Buy a treadmill, walk a dog, whatever you can to put your body in motion because, that is one of the killers is letting your body go. You know, literally just sitting down and going, I give up. It's like, well, your body would like for you to not give up. If you're okay with that, go take a walk around the block. Walk your neighbor's dog, you know, whatever it takes. But, I think that's just part of life that we forget about. Number four is hope. You gotta have hope. And we all have hope. We hope for something. I hope it rains today. I hope I feel better tomorrow. I hope, I hope I can avoid these habits that I've done. There's always hope. And I think not saying it and meaning it, it's like, oh, I don't, I, I'm hopeless or whatever. It's like, no, you're not, you got something in there that you want. So put it into the word hope and speak it out loud, 'cause it matters when you do. Five is holiness. Not necessarily being holy like God, but being worthy of something. And we all have that with being worthy again. No matter who you are, where you are in your life, someone needs you and someone wants you to help them, and you've done something in your life that's worthy of praise. And if not, get out there and do something worthy of praise. You know, do something that helps somebody. Happiness is number six because it is okay to smile. And there's so many studies on endorphins and chemicals in your body and brain. Your body when you smile, creates a chemical that actually stops the aging process. So you wanna live to your 110, smile as much as possible if you have to watch comedy shows every day. But even a fake smile helps with your health. It fights cancer, it does all kinds of magical things, but, it makes you feel good too. And that is good medicine because the way to heal is to have a chemical balance in your body and your mind and smiling actually does that. And it starts in your brain. I mean, remember the brain tells the rest of the body what to do, right? The body sends signals to the brain and say, Hey, I stuck myself with a needle, does that hurt? And the brain goes, it hurts. But it's always the brain's decision, right? So start making your brain healthy, and the rest of you'll follow. And then the last one's hilarious. It's okay to laugh your ass off. Give yourself permission to find something hilarious. So there's always a good time, even when you think it's not to laugh and to be happy. It's really good medicine. And so those are the seven and you can get that free on my website, Gold Scars.com. You can download it for nothing. You don't have to buy the book to get that free. But it does help. Sylvia, can you please give us three pieces of advice for that parent right now who has lost a loved one for something that they can't explain. it's not like their child was sick, it was spontaneous. They lost a loved one. What are three pieces of advice that you can give them based on today's conversation that'll help them get on that right step to find healing or mend? Yes. First, don't blame yourself. we always want to do that. We wanna find out what it is that we failed to do. I call it the coulda, woulda, shoulds. If only I had, then he would still be here. If only his dad would have; don't blame anyone else. If there's a culprit involved, it's a different thing. Don't blame yourself. Don't blame anybody else in your family. We tend to do that, and that puts a negative in our brain. It actually creates a chemical that, that takes away our life. Anger doesn't, help. I don't expect you to run down the street going, I forgive you person who ran over my child. That's not what I want you to do. You're in the coping part of grief right now, you're grieving your child. The other thing is, forgive all the people that say all the stupid shit at your funeral. I'm sorry, they will and you're gonna stand there and you're gonna thank them for torturing you and it's okay 'cause it's your job. But try to be very forgiving 'cause they don't really know any better. And you're gonna have a lot of people that promise you that they're gonna be there, but they're not. But you're gonna have that one person or two that actually does show up at two o'clock in the morning, three and a half months later when you call them. And that person's gonna be very important to you. So look for that person that says I will be there and call me. And you call 'em, they say, I'm on my way. Let 'em come. You know, let 'em, let'em be there for you. There's not a lot of things when it first happens that I can say to someone that's gonna make it any better really, except for those don't blame yourself. Don't hate on others. You know, don't take what people say to you too much to heart. You know, your child is not flying in heaven as an angel now. He's just a human maybe in heaven. But he, he wasn't called there by God, not when he was 12, right? Um, so try to be thoughtful in that. And then love yourself. Look at yourself really hard and go, I need to keep going. I need to eat. I need to be healthy. I need to keep up. You don't have anything to prove to anybody, so don't do that. You're not supposed to be strong for everybody else, you know, screw 'em. They can be strong for themselves. There's a time for that, it's not right now. But, do look at yourself in the mirror and promise yourself that I'm gonna take care of you. And we're gonna get through this, talking to yourself, because if you don't, you're your only person that can really pull you through this. No one, no therapy. It really does come from inside of you and definitely pray. If you feel hopeless lost and you have nothing else, please pray. You know, pray for guidance. whether you believe in God or not, which you should. God said something in the Bible that I've always taken to heart. He said that if you want wisdom, you can ask for it and I will give it to you without any strings attached. He doesn't care what you've done. There's no requirement, no prerequisite. You don't have to do any Hail Marys or anything. All you gotta do is ask, and it's a freebie. So if nothing else, pray for wisdom. God will give you that wisdom to know what to do next. So. And Sylvia, what is the one piece of advice that you would give that parent out there that would help them see hope in that darkness? Wow, you know, when I went at my son's funeral, he was a teenager, right? Wasn't in business or anything, but half of our town showed up to this funeral, and there were adults telling me the great things that they'd gotten from Jacob. He was part-time at our office as a receptionist, right. But they'd say, yeah, we, we called one day and he helped us with our thing. Went out and got our sign. And just, people just tell you all these things. seek out the things that the child did that you don't know about. You're gonna learn. I've learned something new about my teenage son every, I'd say every month someone shows up with a new photo or a new story years after he, he died. Be ready for that and be receptive for it. And know that somewhere that child has touched another life besides yours, right. And you're gonna find out who, it might be a nurse that took care of your child. It could be a friend from school that grows up one day and comes and knocks on your door, right? And says, you don't know me, but I used to play T-Ball with Jacob and we were best friends and he took me to church, or. I had a child tell me that he was addicted to meth and that Jacob picked him up on Wednesdays and dropped him off at the church, our church, and I never knew it. And he took him there for therapy. And this guy is, uh, is a good friend of mine on Facebook now. And he's very healthy compared to where he was. But he was addicted to drugs and my son was helping him as, as a teenager. So, my best advice is your child's, the knowledge that you have of your child is not all that there is. There's another story that you don't know and explore it. You know, explore that child's story and don't be afraid to have people say, can I tell you something about your kids? Like, yeah, you can. You know, be receptive to that, it does help. We all leave a legacy of some sort behind. And your child has one as well. So, that's my advice. Don't memorialize the child's room, though 30 years from now, it shouldn't look the way that it did when he died. But by the same token, don't be afraid to have a memorial of some sort. It's okay to do that. And cry your eyes out. I do. But, yeah, you're gonna cry and those moments are okay too. So, it's all okay. Emotions were created as a way for you to heal yourself. You know, we cry for a reason. Yeah. And it's okay. Yeah. Yeah, Sylvia, how can people get connected with you? Begin to work with you, or you also do this for businesses as well. I do, I speak to businesses. I speak on grief recovery. You know what to do when your employee loses someone, and, how to deal with grief inside the business as well. And also, I talk about autism as well. I'm an autism specialist that I speak about. But to get me go to Gold Scars.com. Get The Seven to Heal free PDF. You also get my newsletter, you can cancel anytime. But the PDF is yours and it'll take you through The Seven to Heal. It's a great place to start if you've done nothing else to heal, that is the best place to start is The Seven to Heal. You can order my book there, you'll see, I'll give you the link tree for me. And the link tree gives you 20% off, but every time you see the 20, type in 40 instead, and everyone in your audience will get 40% off the book. So that's all of the publisher's profit he gives to you guys, instead as a gift for me being on the show. And look for the other book and the companion to the book comes out really soon, and that'll be a journal. And look for The Pear Tree And The Mistletoe, which will be another type of journal that you can have. And I think for me, out of all the books that I've written, my first one I wrote when I was 12 this one's my favorite that's coming out. And I think because it's so personal, I think because it's, it's meant to be, I'm pulling that grief out, of who I am. And for me, I'm the pear tree and mistletoe is in, just like it gets inside of a pear tree. Grief got inside of me and it changed who I was. But it made me a different person in a very, good way. And I think that's what people should know. You're not trying to get rid of grief. You're not looking for an eraser, you're looking for a highlighter. It's gonna change you, it's gonna change you in a wonderful way if you let it. And it's natural, it's normal. It's part of being human. And you can make it into something good if you, if you allow it to happen. That's great. Sylvia, thank you so much for coming on the show. Thank you for sharing your difficult but beautiful journey with us. Aw. Thank you, Carmen. I appreciate it. And really enjoy your show. Thank you. Yeah. I will include all of your information in the show notes so that people can get a hold of you and take advantage of the 40% off of your book. Thank you. Thank you very much. When you don't know what to say, keep it simple. I'm sorry for your loss. I love you. And offer a hug, then show up again in three months. Bring water, not words. Today we covered why you don't erase grief, you highlight it. In Sylvia Seven To Heal, she explains how forgiveness frees your brain and what to do when trauma revisits without warning. If you want to learn more about Sylvia Moore Myers, grab 40% off of her book Gold Scars. Download her free PDF A Simple Guide for Grief, Seven Habits to Heal, or connect with her head on over to createthebestme.com/ep139. And don't forget to share your comments below. Share this episode with a friend and subscribe. And most of all, and importantly, come back next week for another amazing episode, created just for you. Until then, keep dreaming big. Take care of yourself. And remember, you are beautiful, strong, and capable of creating the best version of yourself. Thank you for watching. Catch you next week. Bye for now.