#068 You Can't Think Your Way Out of Grief with Lou “The Grief Guide” Hynes
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Grief lives in the body, not the mind — and you can't think your way out of it. Grief Guide Lou Hynes on nervous systems, survival mode, and how loss can alchemise into a truer version of you.
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““Everything you are feeling is normal. Everything you’re going through is okay. You’re not going crazy. There’s no right or wrong way to go about this.””
Today's Guest
Lou Hynes
Lou Hynes is a Mum of three, a Human Design Projector, and a Grief Specialist.
After her husband died suddenly in 2022, she felt compelled to turn the pain of her loss and her lived experience of grief into a purpose. Realising the intense discomfort we feel around grief and grieving people, she has taken on the mantra of making the world a more grief literate place — helping to educate society at large on supporting grievers with more compassion.
She pivoted her coaching and hypnotherapy business into one of grief support, and is passionate about helping people heal from traumatic loss so they can learn to live a full and happy life again, alongside their grief. Lou offers 1:1 grief coaching, runs a free monthly online grief support group, The Grief Lounge, and has just launched a community membership space for those wanting to move through their own traumatic loss, The Grief Room.
Lou lives in Leeds, solo parenting her 17-, 12- and 10-year-old children. She loves walking her dog Rosie in the woods, getting stronger in the gym, and meeting friends for coffee.
How to get in touch:
Instagram - https://www.instagram.com/griefguidelou/
LinkedIn - https://www.linkedin.com/in/griefguide/
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Show Notes
You can't think your way out of grief. It lives in the body — and no amount of rationalising, staying busy, or being "so strong" will move it through you. In this deeply tender conversation, Amanda sits down with Lou Hynes, The Grief Guide, to explore the part of grief we almost never talk about: what's actually happening in your nervous system when the worst has happened, and why "just feeling your feelings" is impossible when your body has gone into freeze.
Lou knows this from the inside. In 2022, her husband Pete went from feeling a little unwell to dying of meningitis in a matter of hours — leaving Lou, at 40, to go from planning Christmas with her three children to planning his funeral. What followed was sixteen months of doing everything "right": functioning, coping, being told how strong she was — until one Mother's Day weekend her body simply stopped. She woke unable to move or hear, in what she'd later learn to name as a dorsal vagal collapse. That was the moment everything changed.
This episode is a masterclass in grief literacy — for those who are grieving and for everyone who loves, works alongside, or wants to show up for someone who is. Lou and Amanda dismantle the invisible "hierarchy of grief" that ranks whose loss counts, unpick why our society goes silent exactly when connection is needed most, and offer genuinely practical language for supporting someone (hint: stop asking "how are you?" and start asking "how are you this morning?").
And underneath it all runs a thread of real hope. Not the tidy kind that promises you'll get the old you back — because, as Lou says with striking honesty, you won't. But the kind that says grief can be alchemised: that the version of you on the other side can be more authentic, more purposeful, and more fully yourself than the one who came before. If you've ever carried a loss you weren't sure you were "allowed" to name, this one's for you.
Key Takeaways
You can't think your way out of grief — it lives in the body, not the mind.
"High functioning" is often survival mode in disguise, and it isn't sustainable.
There's no hierarchy of grief. Every significant loss counts — stop comparing.
To support someone, ask "how are you this morning?" — never the unanswerable "how are you?"
You won't get the old you back, but the new you can be truer and more purposeful.
You're not meant to grieve alone — human connection is part of healing.
Feelings move through fast when you let them; watch how a toddler does it.
What We Talked About
What grief actually is — and why so many losses (jobs, divorce, health, identity) come with a grieving process we never name.
Why we're a "top-down" society that lives from the neck up, and what we've forgotten about listening to the body.
The numbing we don't recognize as grief: the scrolling, the shopping, the third glass of wine — and how we beat ourselves up instead of connecting the dots.
Lou's story — Pete's sudden death from meningitis, and the moment her eight-year-old had to tell her to call an ambulance.
The Mother's Day collapse: freeze mode, dorsal vagal shutdown, and the wake-up call that redirected her whole life.
Why "just feel your feelings" can make a grieving person feel worse — especially when they're frozen and can't cry.
The invisible timeline and the hierarchy of grief — and why comparison (however well-meant) misses the mark.
How to support someone at work: what to say, what not to say, and why silence gives people permission to disappear.
The visible "lightness" that comes when someone processes their grief — and the client heading home to South Africa to start again.
Turning pain into purpose — Lou's work, her daughter as a junior youth ambassador, and the community she's building.
Guest Quotes
"Grief to me is the loss of someone or something significant to your life."
"You can't think your way out of grief. Grief lives in the body. We store it."
"If your nervous system is constantly on red alert, looking out for the next dangerous thing to happen, sitting in a grief counselor's chair, talking about your feelings is not going to help."
"I went from being a happily married wife of three children planning Christmas to planning my 40 year old husband's funeral."
"There's definitely no trophies for keeping busy and ignoring what else might be going on inside."
"An emotion passes through us very quickly. Just look at a toddler for a classic brilliant example of how well they manage that."
"It just feels like we live in such a grief illiterate society."
"We need human connection. We're not supposed to carry grief alone."
"Just asking them how they are feels too big. They can't answer that. They don't know how they are. What they can answer is how are you this morning?"
"You're not going to get the old version of you back. She's gone. She died when they did."
"It's like using the pain for a purpose."
"To become truly yourself, you need to face all of the versions of yourself."
"Everything you are feeling is normal. Everything you're going through is okay. You're not going crazy. There's no right or wrong way to go about this."
Resources to Learn More
The Grief Lounge — Lou's free monthly online grief support group.
The Grief Room — Lou's newly launched community membership space for moving through traumatic loss.
Child Bereavement UK — the charity where Lou's daughter serves as a junior youth ambassador, supporting bereaved children. - childbereavementuk.org
Human Design — the system Lou references in describing herself as a "Projector."
Terms & Tools to Dig Deeper
Alchemizing grief — Lou's idea of transmuting the pain of loss into purpose, meaning, or a new direction, rather than staying consumed by it.
Breathwork — conscious breathing practices used to help regulate the nervous system and find safety in the body.
Dorsal vagal collapse — a nervous-system "freeze/shutdown" state; Lou experienced this as a paralytic collapse where she couldn't move or hear properly.
Fight, flight, freeze, fawn — the body's automatic survival responses to threat or trauma.
Freeze mode — the shutdown response the body drops into when it can't fight or flee; can show up as numbness or an inability to cry.
Grief counseling — talk-based professional support for the bereaved; Lou notes it has limits while the nervous system is still in survival mode.
Grief literacy — the skill of understanding grief well enough to talk about it and support others through it; the focus of Lou's workplace workshops.
Hierarchy of grief — the (unhelpful) social ranking of whose loss "counts" more, which fuels comparison and minimizing.
High functioning (in grief) — appearing to cope and carry on while actually running on unprocessed trauma and survival mode.
Human Design / Projector — a self-knowledge system; a "Projector" is one of its energy types, oriented toward guiding and seeing others deeply.
Hypnotherapy — part of Lou's original practice before she pivoted to grief support.
Invisible timeline — the unspoken expectation that grief should be "done" by a certain point, and the pressure that creates.
Nervous system regulation — returning the body from a heightened survival state to a felt sense of safety.
Numbing — using distractions (scrolling, shopping, food, alcohol) to avoid painful feelings, often without realizing it's grief.
Reptilian brain — the primal part of the brain governing survival responses, referenced re: fighting the "woolly mammoth."
Somatic work — body-based approaches to processing emotion and trauma, as opposed to purely talk-based ones.
Survival mode — a prolonged state of nervous-system hyper-arousal that can masquerade as being "high functioning" or "strong."
Traumatic loss / traumatic grief — grief following sudden, shocking, or profound loss; the specific focus of Lou's support work.
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Episode Transcript
You Can't Think Your Way Out of Grief with Lou Hynes
Lou Hynes: [00:00:00] You can't think your way out of grief. Grief lives in the body. If your nervous system is constantly on red alert, sitting in a grief counselor's chair talking about your feelings is not going to help.
Amanda Parker: Welcome to Don't Step on the Bluebells, the podcast where personal healing and transformation take center stage. I'm your host, Amanda Parker, and I'm a fellow seeker on the journey of personal growth. Join me as I delve into the stories of gifted healers, guides, and everyday people who have experienced remarkable transformations.
Listen in as they share their practical wisdom to enrich your everyday life, and don't forget to hit subscribe and never miss a new episode Welcome to today's episode of Don't Step on the Bluebells. I am so excited to have you here with us today. I am speaking to the incredible Lou Hinds, and we have a beautiful, beautiful topic for [00:01:00] today because we're gonna be diving into all things grief.
So Lou is the grief guide. I have your name saved that way across all of my devices. Uh, she's a mom of three. She's a human design projector. She's a grief specialist, and she has been helping people to navigate this really often unspoken world of grief, both from the perspective of the grieving but also from the perspective of those supporting those in grief.
I am thrilled to have this conversation with you and so, so happy to welcome you here, Lou. Oh, thank you so much, Amanda. I'm really looking forward to this. Yeah, me, me too because this podcast is really all about different ways that we heal and ways that we transform. And grief is something that, [00:02:00] for me, I've faced it in many different ways throughout my life, in many different seasons, but also in ways that I feel you're almost not allowed to consider grief.
Like, there's so many different places, you know, leaving a job and all that kind- like, w- the feelings and emotions and not knowing where to put it. So I'm just really excited to be able to explore the many different facets of what grief actually means. And maybe if it's not too big of a question to begin, you could share a bit of your perspective on what is grief?
Lou Hynes: I, I love that you've already mentioned how many different guises and facets grief can take because sometimes we are going through grief or have been through grief and we don't even name it as that. And so that, for one, is really, really important. Oh, big question, how do I [00:03:00] define grief? Grief, to me, is the loss of someone or something significant to your life.
And that feels really big but that then encompasses, as you rightly say, things like leaving or losing a job, divorce, separation Health diagnoses, et cetera. The things that we don't always consider come with a grieving process, but it's the significant loss of something that means something to you. And if we look at, like, grief from the lens of healing, so, like, maybe it's the grieving process or something like that, but what relationship is there between grief and healing?
Or is there one? Yeah, I very much think so, and I, I, I, I didn't always recognize it as such. [00:04:00] But if we ... I think ... And, and what we're really good at in our society as well is suppressing our grief, ignoring it, um, numbing it through whatever way feels right or appropriate for us, whether that's healthy or not.
And so what we do is we don't tend to process it for consciously, and healing with grief, to me, means allowing yourself to consciously process and integrate this significant loss that has happened so that you can come through the other side of whatever it is, and normally we're talking about the, the, the death of someone, aren't we?
Feeling like you, you will never be the same person, particularly if it's profound, significant, traumatic loss of someone who- significantly close to you. You will never be the same person again. But through healing can come [00:05:00] an acknowledgement of a new version of you, and what I always like to believe is that that version of you can be even better than the version that w- that came before if you, if you choose to let it.
Healing with grief is also, I believe, um, it's, it's emotional, it's physiological, it is rational, it's subconscious. You can't think your way out of grief. Grief lives in the body. We store it. We ... Like I say, it gets, it gets stuck there a lot of the time. So there's many ... There's, there's so, so many facets to healing through grief.
You know? If your, if your nervous system is constantly on red alert, looking out for the next-
dangerous thing to happen, sitting in a grief
counselor's chair talking about your feelings is not going to help I think that's a pretty [00:06:00] powerful metaphor just for so many things- Yeah ... that we do. Yeah. I mean, I, in my work I talk a lot about just, like, overthinking and finding your way out of trying to rationalize and think, and I speak to that because that's something I always struggle with, you know?
Amanda Parker: I, myself, love to think and plan and analyze, and so my work is all centered on, like, get out of thinking, get into the body, get into something else that you can actually, like, process and hear and feel in a different way. And it sounds like a lot of us, a lot of people are trying to rationalize their grief, the feelings that they have, or just, you know, that are inconvenient, so you just wanna, like, stuff 'em away in a box, don't deal with them, and Yeah, and it's, we- we- we've become a very, I guess, sort of top-down society, haven't we?
Lou Hynes: We, how we, how we deal with things, how we process things, we, we work from the [00:07:00] brain, and pretty much it stays, you know, from the neck up. That's, that's how we deal with things. We've, we've forgotten and lost the art of tuning into how our body is actually feeling, what we are storing, what, what messages and what signals it's telling us, and we try to think, like I say, we try to think our way out of it, don't we?
And, um, that makes you think that you're either going mad, going completely insane, um, or you tend to numb and suppress and just pretend that those feelings, they- they'll go away eventually, which of course we know they don't. Um, or we numb through other things as well, you know, scrolling, shopping, eating all the biscuits, drinking that third glass of wine.
There's so many things that we do to, which we think we're doing to make ourselves feel better And yes, they do temporarily, don't they? You get that little dopamine hit from having that bar of chocolate. But ultimately, is that merely a [00:08:00] distraction from the actual process, the actual sitting with those painful, difficult, hard, challenging feelings and emotions that we're not used to dealing with, coping with, showing, talking about, or any of that?
Amanda Parker: And so there's so many questions that are coming up for me now. Um, one is really when you're supporting people through grief, like, what does that actually mean? What does that look like? So if someone were to come to you going through a grieving process, what is it that you help them to do? Don't eat the cookies.
Lou Hynes: No. I mean, like We explore that- What, what's there? ... with, with no judgment for what they're doing. Yeah. I'm like, "I do have some cookies that are, like, tucked away over there," but we'll talk about that later. We ... So, so first of all, it's about I, I help them create an awareness of what else is going on for them.
They'll, they'll mo- more often than not, they come to me think- saying, "I just don't want to feel this [00:09:00] sad anymore. I just want to be able to wake up in the morning and it not be the first thing that slaps me around the face as a, as a first thought as, as soon as I wake up. I want to be able to get to the milestones and anniversaries and not crumble, but be able to think fondly of happy memories with love, rather than it send me spiraling into a pit of despair and sorrow and sadness."
That's what they generally come to me. So they're talking about how they ... And that's generally, that's what they're conscious of, isn't it? What I then sort of sit down and work with them initially is where are you feeling all of this? One of the key things for me was my, my kids would sort of jump out at me and say, "Boo," and I would literally jump out of my skin, rage and shout at them because my nervous system was [00:10:00] constantly scanning for danger.
So them just sort of having a little joke with me meant that that turned all of my nervous system into red alert. So things like that might be happening that you don- you're not necessarily attributing to grief. You might just think you're going a bit crazy, or you've gone really grumpy, or whatever else.
And we don't necessarily connect the dots between the fact that we are grumpy and grouchy and shouting at the children, or that we are numbing with wine and Netflix and chocolate every night with grief. We beat ourselves up and say, "I'm such a bad mom," or, "Oh, I'm stuffing my face again." And we don't equate the two.
We don't connect those dots between what's going on in our bodies and in our nervous systems with grief. So the f- first job is to help them see and understand what's going on and help them create a sense of safety within their own bodies. [00:11:00] Because while their nervous systems are constantly searching for that next threat They cannot and will not be able to fully process and integrate the loss from a conscious, rational thinking point of view.
So we, we do that first. It, it's so interesting, just I wanna call it out because it's, like, incredibly valuable, and it's only the last couple years that I started to, I guess, more consciously understand the nervous system. I think I've been working with it for a long time, but I didn't know. Like, I didn't realize, and people were like, "Oh, are you doing nervous system healing?"
Amanda Parker: And I'm like, "No." And now I'm like, "Oh, wait. Maybe." Um, but that you say, like, you're on such edge, like, either scanning for danger or probably also, in some cases, just, like, trying to, like, stay sane or alive or functioning, that even the slightest things can just tip you over the edge. So the more that your nervous system is [00:12:00] in, like, hyperactivity, the harder it is for you to regulate your reactions, your emotions, to have maybe more of a healthy response to those things.
Lou Hynes: Yeah, that's exactly right. And what, what then becomes a heightened state of permanent arousal in your nervous system then b- then starts to become your new normal. So you forget what having a regulated nervous system actually feels like. You forget what it's like to not have that knot in your stomach.
You forget what it's like for your shoulders not to be permanently around your ears somewhere. You forget what it's like not to snap every time someone says something wrong. Um, and so it's, it's about kind of, yeah, understanding that. And there's, there's only so mu- you know, our, our nervous system, that survival mode, that survival state that we immediately get into when there's, when there's trauma, significant loss happens, it's only supposed to be there [00:13:00] temporarily.
It's supposed to help us run away, fight the, you know, wooly mammoth, so the rep- that reptilian part of our brain, and then it was supposed to then regulate and come back to nervous system safety again. Yet, so often in grief, because we haven't dealt with that trauma, because we haven't managed to process it, we're constantly in that state, and that is not a sustainable place to be.
So f- the first thing to do is to regulate, find safety in your body, whether that be through breathwork, movement, whatever that looks like, to help so that you're not jumping out of your skin The minute the kids peek, peek out from behind the door and say, "Boo." How is it that you came to start doing this work?
Amanda Parker: So what is it that brought you into the world of grief? In 2022, my husband Pete [00:14:00] wasn't feeling very well. He'd had a really stressful few weeks at work. He was having to make a significant number of his team redundant, and he was really feeling all of that. He was going through a really rough patch. Um, it was winter, so we'd all had coughs and colds and snuffles, and he, very unlike him, took himself off, back off to bed, uh, one Saturday morning saying, um, "Oh, I feel like I'm really maybe getting an ear infection, Lou."
Lou Hynes: And it very-- He wasn't a man flu kind of person. So he took himself back to bed. I sort of entertained the children all day and kept going up and taking him hot drinks and all the rest of it. And then in the evening, we heard a huge crash, and basically, um, Pete had collapsed, and he was lying down the side of the bed.
So my children saw this. They saw me panic. They instantly [00:15:00] saw my thinking brain switch off, um, because the first thing that I said was, 'cause I was supposed to be going out with my best friend for our sort of Christmas drinks that night. Um, and her husband's called Steve, and I said to the children, I said, "Oh, we need to call Uncle Steve and help get him to come over and help get Daddy back into bed."
And it was my son, Charlie, who was eight at the time, that said, "No, Mummy, I think we need to call an ambulance." And this just shows that immed- the moment that happened, my brain went into survival mode. My thinking brain went offline, and I didn't know what I was thinking or doing. So we called the ambulance.
We waited. I sent the children outside to wait for it, so they didn't have to see their dad, um, un- unconscious like that. He was rushed to hospital, taken into intensive care. They said there was significant swelling on the brain. They didn't know what it was. Um, and a few short hours later, the consultant came to me and said [00:16:00] that had moved down to his brain stem and that they believed it was meningitis, which it was then later confirmed that that was what he then unfortunately died of So he went from feeling a bit unwell and us all having, you know, we, we just didn't know at all.
So I went, and he was due to be having a week off work the following week, um, for us to go Christmas shopping and do all the nice stuff. So I went from being a happily married wife of three children planning Christmas to planning my 40-year-old husband's funeral- Oh my gosh ... in, in a heartbeat What then led me to do the work I do now was, it was very much a sort of, um, a bit of a journey really.
Obviously, I was in a complete state of shock. I was already coaching, I already had a coaching business. I was coaching midlife [00:17:00] women to help them figure out their next career move and life direction. And when I did go back to work, that didn't really feel like enough anymore. I've always been the sort of person that's kind of, right, if something like this is going to have happened to me, how can I use it to help other people?
It's very much the nature of who I am. And I didn't, initially I didn't know what that looked like at, at, at that point. I went to my own grief counseling. I found my own grief counselor, and she, what she kept saying to me was, "Lou, you're too high functioning." And what I can see now was what she actually meant was, "You are in survival mode.
The trauma is such that your fight or flight response is constantly activated." I went ahead with a building extension that Pete and I had been planning. I obviously had three children to support and get to school, and you know, all the home stuff. I was back working, supporting my clients and running my business.
You know, I had to. I [00:18:00] was now a solo parent, and I kept going, and I kept going, and I kept going until it was the following Mother's Day weekend, so it was about 16 or 17 months after Pete had died, and I'd been maintaining this survival mode and everyone telling me, "You're so strong, Lou. You're ama- you're doing amazing."
Which, believe me, is really greats on you when you know that you're not, when you're crumbling in the shower because you've had to hold it together all day. And the children came in that Saturday morning, and I felt like I had been put in concrete during the night and could not move. I literally couldn't move.
And the kids were coming in, trying to get me up, and I could see their mouths were moving, but their words weren't reaching my ears. And what I've now since learned was that when the body realizes that you can't fight it and you can't run away from it anymore, you go into freeze mode. [00:19:00] And so I had a complete dorsal vagal collapse it's called in, in nervous system speak.
My middle ear canal just went offline. It stopped working. It's why I couldn't hear my children. And I wa- it was a paralytic collapse, essentially. And that was a real wake-up call for me because I then knew at that point that I hadn't actually dealt with this as well as everyone had th- thought I was. It was then, well, I then took myself off for a sort of spa day a few weeks, few weeks after that, but I then had this revelation that, no, this has happened for a reason.
This, I need to retrain, I need to, to learn more about what's happening here, and I need to use the skills that I gain to further support other people, because I don't want this to happen to other moms like me and have their children looking really scared that I was gonna die as well, which is their worst fear now.
Um, and so that's, that's what I did. So it was a real... It was a sort of journey from [00:20:00] obviously Pete dying how he did, and that being so, so sudden, so tragic, so, so traumatic, um, to me thinking I was coping. You, you, and, and you just do. You do because you have to. You've got no choice. To then that ultimate collapse, to then me kind of going, "Right, I need to do something about this."
Amanda Parker: Well, it's a remarkable story, a very tragic story as well, of course. But it's not a tragedy the way that you're living it, because there's so much power to be able to tell someone else who's going through this, "I understand. You're not in this alone." And it's really remarkable that you... Because it's not a long time ago, and it's all still with you, and to be able to, yeah, almost have the clarity, the knowing [00:21:00] within that, "No, I don't want this to happen to other people, and I am now in this position to be able to support them, that they don't have to go through it in the same way."
Like, that is the most powerful story of someone answering their calling that I have heard. And I really like listening to you because as you're explaining the things that you're doing, and it's, it's like a performance, right? Because you're performing being fine. You've got the kids, you've got responsibilities, you have to keep functioning, or at least that's what we believe, and in many cases, that is also true.
As you were talking, I'm like, "Yeah, but what else could you have done?" Like, I really still am sitting here going, "Yeah, but what, what would or could you have done differently in that situation?" Also knowing that you have to take care of yourself and handle the grief and all of this, but I'd really be curious, like, with the wisdom that you have now, what, what could [00:22:00] have been different in those first, you know, year and a half?
Lou Hynes: I think we're very much conditioned, aren't we, to believe that we have to get on with it. You're a strong woman, and you're doing amazing. And it's, it's almost not acceptable, and it, it absolutely is in other cultures, but it's not in ours to just sort of crumble. And believe me, there were moments that I did In private usually, or with one of my best friends, my, one of my closest friends.
But that was quite few and far between, because I think we're under this notion that as long as we're carrying on, and as long as we are functioning in a way that seems normal and getting into, you know, a, a routine and getting out of bed every day and doing the do, then we're okay. And there's almost a sort of badge of honor, isn't there, of this sort of [00:23:00] busyness that we all wear, and, you know, there's definitely no trophies for keeping busy and ignoring what else might be going on inside.
Because, you know, there, there was such a long time where I actually avoided looking at Pete's photographs. I'd be cleaning the house, and I'd just sort of skim, skim past them because I just didn't want to go in, that deep into the, into the pain. And I think what the grief counselor at the time that I, you know, when I was seeing them did, was sort of, she kept saying to me, "You've got to go into it.
You have to go deep into it." And I was like, "But I've got builders in my house. I've got three children. When am I expected to do this?" And sort of finding excuses really not to, but really I think it's, with the wisdom I've got now, it's yeah, let, allow yourself to. It's so important that we feel it, but we're scared of those feelings because they're very, very painful.
Amanda Parker: It reminds me of, like, some of the work I've done in my coaching with clients about whe- whether it's sadness or [00:24:00] whatever the emotion is. For some it's been even, like, artistic expression, and s- for some it's sadness, and, like, they're so afraid to just let themselves go because they're afraid they're gonna, like, reach this peak or this edge that they'll never be able to come back from.
And so a lot of what I do in those moments is to reassure them that they can always come back, but mostly just to guide them through that moment, whatever it is for that particular person, so they can bring themselves back in the moment. Like, they can go through and experience a sadness, feel relief, and go, "Oh-" And then if I'm sitting there with them, go, "Look.
Lou Hynes: Look what you just did. You could take yourself through this whole thing, and you also came out on the other side." So it sounds like maybe there's an element of that in there as well. Absolutely, and one thing I say to clients a lot is, you know, "Look at how [00:25:00] brilliant young children and toddlers are at feeling their big feelings, showing it, and then after a few couple of minutes, it's, it's through and done, and oh, it's like it never happened."
It isn't socially acceptable for, you know, 40-odd-year-old women to have a temper tantrum in the middle of Tesco. Yeah. But there are ways for us to feel those feelings and allow them to move through us in a, in a healthy way that doesn't involve, you know, violence or breaking down or anything. We, we, we can, and actually when we do allow it, it, it's very quick.
An emotion passes through us very quickly. Just you'd look at a toddler for a, a classic, brilliant example of how well they manage that, and yet we're told that that's not accept- You know, it's... And, and it's isn't, but I think it should be in s- in m- in many ways, that we, we can find a way to express that in a healthy way so that it moves [00:26:00] through us so much quicker instead of just keeping it all inside like we do tend to do.
Amanda Parker: Yeah. There's, there's this feeling that we can somehow box it in, and, like, that only makes it bigger and feel bigger. It becomes something unspeakable that just grows in its, like, power all around you. So if someone is having an experience of acute grief, yeah, what would you tell them in those initial stages, whatever that means, right?
But in the beginning, what would you tell them that they should do? The reason I'm asking, I'm, I'm just gonna share a short story of a friend of mine who, she had lost her father a couple years back, and it was quite sudden, and her and her family had all been in the room when they, you know, had to turn off all the life-saving machines.
And everyone just kept telling her to feel her feelings and to be with it and to let it be, and she's like, "I'm [00:27:00] trying. Like, I don't even know what this means. I don't even know how to contextualize this and integrate it." And so I'm just wondering for someone who's really in that initial phase, who wants to feel it but maybe can't or doesn't know how, like, what could some of those first steps be that they take?
Lou Hynes: That's really common, actually. I, I hear that a lot when there has been that You know, again, that, that, that traumatic event of being there in that moment and seeing that and, you know, that, that father figure, et cetera. And that is when we go, that shock. And a lot of people feel bad and guilty that they, they can't cry because everyone's telling them that it's, you know, "You need to cry."
And so you feel bad for not, but y- when the, your body's literally kind of shut down in that moment because what it's doing there is, is doing the bare minimum it needs to get through those initial days, weeks, months of that, that, that shock, that trauma. And so it can feel quite jarring [00:28:00] when someone's saying to you, "Feel your feelings.
Let it out," and you can't because you, you are literally, you know, you, you, you've gone into freeze mode essentially. And I think it, it's about helping people understand that and helping them understand what, where they're at in that moment so that, there's, there's a lot of guilt in grief. There's a lot of thinking you're not doing it right.
There's a lot of, um, pe- well, everyone trying to fix you or make you feel better, and it's just simply not possible. It's, it's not fixable. And I think an awareness of knowing what, where you're at in that moment. Are you, are you in freeze mode? Are you literally going through the motions? Are you on autopilot?
In which case, not crying is absolutely fine, normal, understandable, and okay. That will pass. That will pass. We can't, like I said before, you know, with regards to my story, you can't maintain being in those states for too long. We're not supposed to be. It can become unhealthy, [00:29:00] dangerous, you know, not good for our health physically, mentally, emotionally to remain in those states for too long.
But an awareness of where you're at in that moment and a tuning in to, right, where am I feeling this? Where, where, where might I not be feeling anything? Why might that be? And being kind and curious to yourself. We think, we think there's a right way and a wrong way to, to do grief, and it's, the, there simply isn't.
We all grieve very differently. We all react and respond very differently. And sort of someone coming along with a one-size-fits-all approach to how you're dealing with it. You know, and someone might feel okay a few weeks later. For some people, it, it's years. There's a, there's an expectation of this sort of invisible timeline as well when it comes to grief that, oh, it's been a year now.
Are you ... I mean, are you not okay yet? Are you not over it? And so again, it's about taking the pressure off. Telling someone to feel their feelings is all very well and good, [00:30:00] but when you're in freeze mode and you can't recognize that you're in freeze mode, that's gonna make them feel worse that they're not.
Amanda Parker: And just listening to you, it's almost like there's different levels of acceptable grief. Like, you know, if you've, if you've suffered the loss of a partner or a child, it's like the unthinkable grief. If you've suffered the loss of a parent, maybe it's, well, you know. You know, oh, well, they were older or something.
Or, you know, if there's like what we talked about right at the beginning, you know, if you've lost your job, like that's like an unacceptable kind of grief. Or even a partner, you break up and you're going through a whole different process. So it almost feels like we kinda collectively decided this grading system of what you're allowed to be in big grief or little grief over.
Lou Hynes: Couldn't agree with you more, Amanda. It's, it is, it's like there's this sort of hierarchy, and what, what we, what we also tend to do [00:31:00] is compare. I've had so many comparisons. I remember my neighbor actually stopping me and saying, uh, she, she'd seen the ambulance, the ambulances come for, for Pete, and she started to talk about her 93-year-old mum that died t- a couple of years ago.
And I was just thinking, you ... There, there is no comparison. I'd ... I get this is your mum and you miss her, and that was a hugely significant loss for you. But I'm sorry, you can't compare my young, fit, healthy husband dying suddenly to your 93-year-old mum dying of old age peacefully There is no g- but we, we try to, and we, because, you know, we always have to assume people say these things with the best of intentions, right?
Um, and there's a, there's a need f- to try to convey empathy, you know, sort of a, "I know, I, I get it, I get you. I understand what you're going through" kind of thing. But it's not helpful. It's really not helpful. And there is this sort of, yeah, this [00:32:00] hierarchy of, "Well, that one's, that gr- that kind of grief isn't as bad, so, you know, why are you so upset?"
Amanda Parker: Ah. Yeah, it's not cool. It's not cool. It's making me angry just listening. Like, ugh. Um, so I know that a, a part of your work is also, it's supporting those who are grieving, but you also do a lot of work around helping people to support those in grief in a better way. So could you tell me a little bit about what that means, what that looks like?
Lou Hynes: I kept, I was in the fortunate position that I didn't have to go back into a corporate workplace in, in my situation. But I hear so many stories of people that have lost someone, had significant loss, gone back to work, and all of their colleagues completely ignore them because they didn't know what to say.
In many instances, they've been told by their manager or their boss not to say anything, because we don't want to upset, you know, our colleague that's returning to work. And so it just feels like we, we live in [00:33:00] such a grief illiterate society, and what we, what we find is that, and because, you know, we're, we're Brits, and stiff upper lip, and all the rest of it, we, we tend to think that, "Well, if I don't say anything, it'll kind of go away.
It might just go away, and they might forget that the person's just died." Um, which is clearly not true. And so what I have done, um, on a few occasions now, is go into the workplace, offer grief literacy workshops to help their, to help the colleagues, to help the managers know what to say, know what not to say, which is often more important.
Um, give them some short and long-term strategies for supporting that person, um, helping them understand where that person might be at at any given moment, and how they can best offer more genuine human compassion. You know, so many workplaces talk about [00:34:00] mental health, workplace wellbeing, and yet grief is often very much not part of that conversation.
And it's really important to me, you know, that those poor people who've just had this tremendous loss aren't ignored, aren't bypassed, aren't asked how they're doing today just because they've come back because it's been three days after the funeral. It's simply not acceptable. We, you know, we, humans tend to, we tend to isolate quite a lot in grief.
Again, it's a- It's a, it's a safety thing. It's a, if I just kind of retreat and withdraw and pretend this isn't happening and, you know, shy away from the rest of the world, then I just wanna be by myself 'cause no one else gets it. Um, but that can actually be a really dangerous thing, and what we do when we don't offer compassion, when we don't know what to say, is we, we're giving a permission slip for those people to withdraw even more.[00:35:00]
And actually, human- we need human connection. Gr- we're not supposed to carry grief alone. We w- we would've always been supported with a village, our elders, family, and yet because we're so dispersed across the country and the world now, that's become scattered, and what we need is a human touch, a hug, someone to check in.
Amanda Parker: That human connection is so, so vital, and yet in so many workplaces it just simply isn't there because we don't have the, we don't have the capacity to sit and be with someone that is in emo- emotional pain. And is there something like if you were-- Because people will be listening now and like, "Oh, okay, shoot, like, what am I supposed to say?"
And are there certain things that you have found-- 'cause obviously every person is different, every person's grief is different, so it's not that there's any one size fits all of how to do this. But there are-- are [00:36:00] there a couple of maybe best practices, like for example, just asking the person, "Hey, I can't imagine what you're going through.
Like, please you tell me what I can do in this moment." But then you're giving them responsibility, so I don't know. Is there something that you could think that is- Yeah. It, it, it, it's a really tricky one. It's a really tricky one to, to get right. The, one of the first things I say is understand that just asking them how they are feels too big.
Lou Hynes: They can't answer that. They don't know how they are. What they can answer is, "How are you this morning?" Because that feels more, "Oh, uh, oh, right. Okay, this morning I can-- I'm, I'm here. That's, that's, that I can get that." Um, and they can answer that because that's in the moment. Um, so always sort of say, "How have you been this week?"
What's tomorrow looking like for you? Or, you know, how's, how's today been for you? Br- you know, uh, anchor it in a, a moment in time. [00:37:00] And with regards to, yeah, what support do you need, that's, that is, that is putting responsibility on them to think, "Oh my God, I don't know. I literally don't know right now." Can you just be like, "Here's a lasagna."
Yeah. So, in, in the workplace context, it's what, um, you know, can I take X, Y, Z off your plate? Can I... Do, do you really need to go to this meeting? What- rather than put the onus on them to make those decisions when they literally won't be able to, um, it's thinking and, you know, having awareness of what their workload is and saying, "Can I give that report to John?
Can he... Will, will that be helpful for you over the next couple of weeks if I, if, if he, if he does that for you? Can you..." You know, use, g- you know, get s- get specific as possible, and you'll see the relief on their face, and they go, "Yeah, that would be great. Thank you." And conversely, some people, and this is again maybe sometimes an avoidance thing, they might want [00:38:00] to throw themselves back into their work.
They might not want anything taken off their plate at all. So it's how that person wants to deal with it, and having an awareness that that can change at any given moment. The likelihood is that if they do want to throw themselves back into their work, they are in survival mode. That obviously will come crashing down at some point.
It's not sustainable to be prepared for that, for them to collapse and to need that support for s- still to be there a year, 18 months, two years down the line. Well, it's almost interesting 'cause we're... Like, this is in the work context, and I could imagine, you know, that it would be helpful 'cause everyone has experienced grief in some form.
Amanda Parker: Um, I, I'm making that assumption, actually. I shouldn't, but I'm assuming that everyone has had some form of an experience, not always, let's say, traumatic grief, but to help people connect to what they needed in that moment and what would've been helpful to them. [00:39:00] Like, just to make it a bit more rather than like now all of a sudden this person who's grieving is this, like, strange creature who's showing up in this, you know, otherwise totally normal environment.
Um, and suddenly you have to interact with this, like, you know, it's a foreign language that you're speaking that you don't really know how to speak. Um, and giving people permission to maybe connect with some part of themselves that has experienced maybe something akin to grief to be able to, yeah, re- like, show up with empathy, 'cause I think that empathy can also be felt even when you're bumbling and awkward and maybe say the wrong thing and say like, "Shit, I don't know what to say here.
Lou Hynes: I'm sorry if I'm getting this all wrong. I'm just trying to say I'm here." Yeah. You know? And that would, will be so much more welcomed. Yeah, that, that honesty of, that vulnerability of, "God, this is awful. I, I honestly, I don't know what to say," is so much more welcome because it's honest [00:40:00] than an empty, "I'm so sorry for your loss.
What can I do for you? What can I do for you?" Without any feeling or empathy or, or anything. And you're right, you know, but not everyone has experienced grief. Some people are fortunate enough not to have had any sort of loss that, that way. But it, it is, it's just being, it's being genuine and honest and as empathetic as you can be in trying to put yourself in that person's shoes, and like you say, Amanda, thinking, "Well, what would I need in that, in that moment?
Amanda Parker: What would be helpful to me?" And there's, like, this element, and I know this is the opposite of the work you do, but there is this element of almost like it's impossible to, to get it totally right, so you have to also just be honest about that, too. That, like, you can do your best and also be honest, "I am just trying my best here.
Lou Hynes: If I'm getting it wrong, feel free to let me know," because that opens up a pathway for, like, communication and genuine support. Yeah. And [00:41:00] connection and, and that, that... a, a conversation, a helpful conversation. You know, "If I'm not doing this right, please let me know. Let's have a conversation about it, 'cause I want to, I want to get it right.
I realize I'm probably not. Please tell me where I could be better at this." And I think if we can, if we can acknowledge that we're not very good at grief, that is the best starting place, because then you're, you're giving the griever permission to kind of go, "Oh, well, actually, what I need right now is, is this."
Amanda Parker: Yeah, and I can just think of different, uh, situations with, well, clients or friends, like, going through a divorce or going through a breakup, and it's really like, "Yeah, but the divorce was a few years ago. Aren't you over it yet?" You know? Like, m- no, maybe not. Maybe they just need the time that they need, and that's the process that they have to go through.
So you bring... I hear that you bring this work into workplaces as well, so it's something that you support people with on a one-on-one basis. Is that right? And then also helping [00:42:00] workplaces? Yeah, it can vary. Um, what, what usually tends to happen is I will go and deliver a grief literacy workshop to a team, that, that team that needs to be supportive of that, you know, particular person, that they...
Lou Hynes: There's usually someone in mind or something has just happened, and they want to be, you know, as, as, um, responsive as they can be. Um, and then sometimes tagging on to that, some one-to-one grief support with that grieving person to help them come to terms with it and, you know, tune into their loss, process it in a, in as healthy a way as possible, and to help them communicate with their team as well.
It's a two-way thing, isn't it? Everything always is. So yeah, it, it, it can vary, but some businesses who have got a grieving person in their team and want that, you know, and want to b- know how best to support them, um, and then, you know, and if they are aware enough and compassionate enough to know that they probably aren't gonna get it right, then I will go in and, and [00:43:00] support them to be better.
Amanda Parker: That is very kind. Rather than letting them stew in it and try and figure it out on their own. Yeah, yeah. So what's, what's some of the, um, maybe there's a particular situation or someone that you've supported that you could really see the impact of what you do. You could really see a bit of a transformation either in that person, maybe it's within the team context, but yeah, I'd be curious to hear if there's any stories that you're able to share.
Lou Hynes: Yeah. There's, um, there's a private client I've, um, just relatively recently finished with actually, and she moved to Scotland from South Africa, ooh, a long time ago, uh, c- like 20 or so years ago. And her mom passed away, uh, relatively recently, a year, a, a year, 18 months ago. [00:44:00] And she lived with her mom, and she looked after her mom, and she was with her mom at the time that she, she died, and so it's been hugely traumatic for her.
And now this client of mine is left in Scotland with the sort of, you know, remnants of this life that her and her mom had built together. Um, she's got a really supportive friendship network. She's got a really supportive workplace, and yet what she has decided to do, and I love this for her, and I've been able to visibly see the lightness, and this is something that I c- I can see it, and I, I try to sort of create a little picture in my mind of when they first come to me and what they look like versus what they look like when they finish, and there is visible lightness is the only way I can describe it really, like it's, it's something has lifted from their shoulders.
Their eyes sparkle a little bit again. Um, she has decided to move back to South Africa and figure out who she is now Because her [00:45:00] identity was very much sort of intertwined with that of her mom, and so she's like, "No, it's my time now. I'm gonna go back, back to my roots, back to see a lot of my family, and figure out what it is I actually want from life."
And that, to me, is, well, amazing, because to get that far in your grief journey where you've processed it, you've found safety in your body, where you can actually think about what your next chapter could look like, and view that with hope and possibility and excitement, rather than through the lens of I'm running away from any, you know, the, the pain.
Amanda Parker: I am just so delighted that she's chosen to do that, to go and f- figure out. And that, and that's the power of the work. It really is. And there was something that you mentioned towards the beginning of our conversation, and I hear it a bit now, like, through working through the grief [00:46:00] and being able to face it, there was something you said that life can get even better.
Lou Hynes: I, I can't remember the exact translation, but if you allow it, you can create something for yourself that feels maybe even better than before. I believe so, and I, I... That is very much where I come from and how I approach things. I think if we, if we let it, you know, and I said this at the beginning of our conversation, didn't I?
That g- you are fundamentally forever changed. You... I know I am not the same person that I was three and a half years ago. And yet, there's a version of me that exists now that is more determined, stronger, has this huge purpose, mission, calling to do what I'm doing now, and I, I think that if you, if you let it, you can either be consumed and become a victim of what's happened, and sit and wallow and, you know, and there are people like that, um, and if that's, if that's how they want to do it, that's, that's kind of up to them.
But I very much [00:47:00] am a believer in if you, you can choose to do something with this. It's like using the pain for a purpose. I mean, my daughter was six when her daddy died. Um, she is now a junior youth ambassador for Child Bereavement UK. And she chooses to do, to, you know, do something similar to me in as much as I want to help other children with me.
I want to share what my experiences and what's helped, helped me, and she's been chosen to be part of this amazing support group. It's, and it's incredible. And it's, uh, you can, you can choo- you know, that it's, it's a choice, right? We all, there's always a choice. You can choose to figure out who you are again and use that, and use that pain and turn it into something, alchemize it.
Or you can choose to stew in it, wallow in it, and, and never heal. But I d- I don't think that's choosing to heal. I think the healing path is coming back to this new, new version of yourself. [00:48:00] Not finding... It's, everyone says, "Oh, you know, you'll, you'll get the old you back." It's like, "No, no, you won't. You won't."
I'm always very, very honest with people that you're not gonna get the old version of you back. She's gone. She died when they did. It's about figuring out who you are now. You're 90% the same person Kind of, but there's, there's these fundamental shifts that happen that you, you are just never, ever the same person again.
Amanda Parker: And I, I fully believe that, and this is sort of a message of, of hope really, that you can, you can find something. This... You can, you can utilize this, this pain. You can alchemize it. You can transmute it and use it for something, and do, do good with it if you choose to. It, it feels like you are coming to an even more authentic version of yourself.
Lou Hynes: Yeah, hugely. Hugely. I think, um, I think at the life stage I'm at now, I mean, I turn 50 in a few months, I think you give, you give fewer fucks, [00:49:00] don't you? Anyway, I have less tolerance for the BS, um, and that, and I know that is partly age and life stage, and also partly the, the grief. You know, the, the worst thing possible has happened to me, and, and so I've...
I don't have... I have zero tolerance for the, you know, people's first world problems. I'm here for, you know... And I'm a projector as well, as you mentioned in human design. I'm here for the deep conversations. I can, I can see things that other people can't see. Um, and so it's about just sort of using all of that knowledge and, like you say, yeah, just becoming the, the most authentic version of me.
Amanda Parker: What you see is what you get. To me, so that is my definition of healing, so it is beautiful to see that. It's really, healing is coming, like, I guess, closer and closer or coming back to who you truly are. That's how I see it, becoming more wholly, [00:50:00] fully yourself. And obviously we're always evolving, we're always changing, so as you put it, that, that person is also evolving and changing.
But there's something about going through this kind of experience, it is an initiation into more authenticity, and you can choose to accept that invitation or not. But if you do, you are being initiated into more of yourself, more of what feels true, more of your calling, purpose, everything that you wanna bring to the world, because as you said, the, the tolerance for bullshit is gone And that could be a journey too, right?
And that doesn't mean that that journey to that place you've just described is necessarily going to be easy. You can ... It's a rollercoaster, isn't it, of that journey of self-discovery as you go through some dark times and, and face, face all of it. So important that to become truly yourself, you need to face all of the versions of [00:51:00] yourself, don't you?
I really believe that. And like, just like the conversation we've been having, if you don't face those parts that are, that ha- are consumed with guilt or that is full of anger and resentment, um, you know, all of the things that grief can bring along with it, we need to face those as well, because we can't just keep saying, "Yeah, I'm okay.
Yeah, I'm fine," and pretending that everything's okay. We have to deal with those darker emotions and feelings that we're, we're not used to Talking about or dealing with So what are you looking forward to in the growth of your work? What are you looking forward to in the future with this work? I am hoping, um, don't know when it will be, but it's certainly in my plans to start a traumatic grief and loss membership community space, because I think we can heal together.
Lou Hynes: I think there needs to [00:52:00] be a space where grief and trauma and nervous system work and somatic work all come together, and people can learn the tools and be given a, a toolkit and find the bits and bobs that work for them to allow them to feel that sense of safety, to allow them to, um, start that work. So I very much have that in my plan, semi-plan at the moment.
Um, and like I say, is that, you know, we, we, we seek and we crave human connection, and while we're all sort of scattered, um, you know, across the globe and all the rest of it, as, as much as we can to create a community of people that are going through or have gone through a similar thing and heal together, that's something that I would very much love to bring into the world.
Amanda Parker: I don't see many other people talking about all of those things in the same, in the context of, you know, that, that one thing. So yeah, and [00:53:00] supporting more people on their journey. Oh, that is so needed. I, um- Yeah. It-- to me, this already exists, so I'm glad for you it's a fragment. I'm telling you, like, I see it.
People definitely need it. They really need that space. So keep your eyes and ears open, listeners, because that is coming. And for people, for people who wanna follow along your journey or get support, what's the best way that they can reach you? You can probably on Instagram, uh, is where you can find me. I am griefguidelu, uh, over on Instagram.
Lou Hynes: Uh, yeah, pop me a DM. Send me a, you can send me an email, lu@luhindscoaching, and, um, yeah, you can get in touch however you like. Perfect. I will be linking all of that in the show notes, so you'll have that information to get in touch. Yeah, just as we're closing up our conversation for today, is there any advice that you would give to someone who [00:54:00] is finding themselves in a period of grief?
Is there anything that you would wish to let them know? Everything you are feeling is normal. Everything you're going through is okay. You're not going crazy. There's no right or wrong way to go about this. People will try to fix you, but you can't. You will come through For me, I think it's what I was saying earlier about understand where, where you are right now.
Understand that you, you know, you, you, you are going, you are giving yourself the bare minimum right now, or you're, you're, you are at bare minimum capacity for anything other than mere survival. It's what happens in traumatic loss. So acknowledge that. You don't have to accept it, but a- an acknowledgement and an awareness of where you're at [00:55:00] right now, that you, you don't have capacity for anything else, I think can really help, because with knowledge comes power, right?
It's if you can understand that this is where you are, or you're in fight, flight, freeze, or fawn, that understand- I wish I'd known that instead of just being told that I was too high-functioning. I wish someone had explained to me that, "This is what's going on for you right now," because I would've been able to do something about it sooner and not had that really scary weekend of me not being able to move or hear or, you know, do anything.
So it's, it's, it's that. It's a, you know, develop an understanding, and be kind to yourself. Be gentle to yourself. So it's a, it's a process with no timeframe. I'm so grateful that we could have this conversation, and one that's often, like, taboo, and that you're bringing it out into the light so that people can really find themselves and hear themselves in your story, but also in the work that you [00:56:00] do.
Amanda Parker: So thank you so much for coming on to share that with us. My pleasure. Thank you so much for having me. And to everyone who is tuning in, thank you so much for listening to this episode of Don't Step on the Bluebells, and I will see you next time. Thanks for tuning in to today's episode of Don't Step on the Bluebells.
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