5. My Best Friend Katie
About the episode:
About today’s guest, Alex Kuisis: Alex Kuisis is a best-selling, award-winning author, a professional organizer, and a life coach who thrives at the intersection of truth and kindness. Her coaching practice, Soul Fitness Coaching, joyfully empowers human beings around the world to design lives they love, one habit at a time. Visit her website here: www.goaskalex.org
On today’s episode, Alex and I discuss:
How Alex met her best friend Katie, and the grief after her passing
Learning to balance the anger of grief
Reactions versus chosen responses
How society pressures us to act “fine” as quickly as possible after the death of a loved one
The complexity of not crossing boundaries with our deceased friend’s family
The idea of our friend living on in us
Listen on Apple Podcasts | Listen on Spotify
Listen to “My Best Friend Katie” Deleted Scenes
Quotes:
"Grief is universal and highly personal. We all go through grieving, but rarely are we doing it at the same time. Even if you and I both lose someone equally important to us, we each had individual relationships, and so it's still going to be a personal response."
"I’m grieving. I don’t need you to hold my grief, but I do need you to hold space for my grief. There’s a difference, and I think a lot of people feel like it’s one and the same."
"The more often that it happens, you are able almost to bring joy into the grief. It’s less about ‘why did they leave?’ and more about, ‘oh, how lucky I was to know them.’"
"When she left the physical world, not only was it a crushing realization that she was gone, but I also felt the very acute loss of all those shared memories. She was like the only other person who held the other side."
"There is something about saying, 'Okay, my friend has passed, I am going to work to embody all the parts about her that I loved the most. And therefore, she’ll live on in me.'"