Grief is something that every human will experience on this planet and through that grief we can learn many things about life and ourselves. Krista St. Germain is a grief specialist and master life coach who lost her husband in 2016. Through her healing she transformed that experience into a way to help other widowed women find themselves and thrive in life. This episode is jam-packed with quotes that will change your life and stories that will open your heart. You will love this week’s episode with Krista St. Germain if you are grieving, have grieved or know someone currently moving through a loss!
In this week’s episode we discuss:
[1:09] Who is Krista St. Germain?
[2:17] What is post-traumatic growth?
[5:05] When do you know it’s time to stop grieving and move on?
[8:55] How to get back into dating after losing a spouse
[11:37] When in the grief process does someone usually work with you?
[16:21] About Krista’s program, “Mom, Goes On”
[22:35] Does Krista coach differently based on if someone has children or not?
[24:07] Krista’s deeper explanation of her six-month program
[25:41] What is the Emotional Freedom Technique?
[28:17] What Krista tells clients who believe they will never love again
[31:28] How Krista made this life changing career change
[36:22] Top three biggest challenges a client goes through when they start dating
[42:18] Krista’s opinion on two widows dating
[43:27] Krista’s favorite date
[45:37] Ways to find more about Krista
Who is Krista St. Germain?
Krista is a master life coach, a grief expert, widow and mom. She is the host of the “Widowed Mom Podcast”. When her husband was killed by a drunk driver in 2016 her life completely flipped upside down and through that she discovered life coaching and post-traumatic growth. She now helps other moms and widows to love life again.
What is post- traumatic growth?
Post-traumatic growth is a term that was coined in the mid nineties that explains that you can actually have better life satisfaction after a traumatic experience than you had before. In the past, they used to have a goal of coming back to baseline or where you were at before but they now know that you can have an even more fulfilling life.
It doesn’t matter what happens to us in life, it’s what we choose to do afterwards. We don’t have to just bounce back, we can bounce forward.
When do you know it’s time to stop grieving and move on?
Krista states that it’s personal and not a binary. You can hold the grief and also move forward. It doesn’t mean that we are happy this happened, it means that we decide this has happened, we can’t change it and get to decide what we want to create and who we want to be going forward.
It’s not morally superior to create something better but it is an option if you want to.
How to get back into dating after losing a spouse
Krista says that there is no right or wrong way to do this. It’s important to look at your intentions for dating and when you decide to hop back in. There could be some motives that aren’t specifically true or helpful to you in the process.
It’s important to see yourself as whole and full and then decide if this is something you want for yourself and then move forward from that place.
We don’t have to get lost in the how, it’s more important to focus on the why. Really the most important “how” is to find someone that you’re interested in and ask them.
When in the grief process does someone usually work with you?
Krista tells us that she is best for people who are experiencing a grief plateau. This is a word she created that means you are past the early acute grief and you’re back to functioning a bit more normally. You’ve accepted the loss, you’ve talked about it enough and whatever tools you had access to are no longer working for your progress. Krista usually comes in during that stage.
Further, she tells us that women get to the point of thinking that this is just what life is giving them and they must tolerate it, instead of creating what they really want. They lose the parent that helped them with many things so there’s an added pressure on themselves and in turn don’t show their kids the best role modeling.
About Krista’s program: “Mom, Goes On”
This is a six-month group program for moms of all ages and it doesn’t matter how old your kids are. These women come together to support one another and learn how to change whatever they are looking to change in their lives.
Krista has found that many widows are isolated and because grief is extremely misunderstood in our culture, a lot of the problems they are experiencing are turned on themselves as something being wrong with them. There is a lot of connection and normalization in the program and they can make progress faster.
There’s a really special dynamic because Krista starts a new small group every month and another group is leaving so they can all connect at different times in their healing.
Krista’s goal is to position the woman to move forward successfully without a dependence on the community or coach.
Does Krista coach differently based on if someone has children or not?
Outside of her group, because everyone in her group does have children, Krista coaches accordingly. She focuses on whatever is brought to her in public calls or different platforms. She doesn’t coach differently but her coaching naturally changes because of the different types of people.
Krista’s deeper explanation of her six-month program
Krista is a big fan of the application of tools and that is a focus of her program. Every week they are given two to three short videos that she has created. These videos are tools or concepts that they are working on. Alongside the videos is a workbook that is mailed every month with worksheets for everyday and progress can be made really on their schedule.
Krista offers coaching calls and coaching in the online community to address whatever questions that are coming up or struggles people might be having.
Krista also is a big proponent of tapping so she brings in her own personal tapping coach every two weeks to address top down cognitive work and bottom up emotional work.
What is the Emotional Freedom Technique?
Krista explains EFT as, using acupressure points in the body to calm the nervous system and turn off stress response. She uses it mostly to process emotions and shifting beliefs.
What Krista tells clients who believe they will never love again
Krista focuses on teaching her clients that they are not their thoughts and by diffusing with a thought like “I will never love again” is a choice. They can decide what they want to create and if they want to do something different they can change.
How Krista made this life changing career change
After she experienced her loss, she realized that her job in aviation wasn’t fulfilling her and had many times thought of being a therapist. After some schooling and contemplating she decided to move forward with coaching rather than therapy because that was offering her more transformation.
It was hard for her to let go of what she could hear her husband thinking and saying about her life choice and do it really for herself.
Top three biggest challenges a client goes through when they start dating
Krista notices that if a client has a solid sense of self they will become a chameleon and mold to what they think they need to be or what is out there and settle.
She also sees a lot of avoidance of things that require bravery or courage. This can be having a hard conversation with someone.
Getting her clients out of the “I don’t know” phase is extremely important when it comes to all aspects of life.
Krista’s opinion on two widows dating
Kristas says it’s highly individual. Although there are so many places you may be able to connect and have common experiences, they still might not be the right person for you. She also states that there’s a lot of people parading as widows and it’s not the true story.
Krista’s favorite date
She loved an ax-throwing date because it was so new and exciting. It gave her an opportunity to be silly and laugh.
Ways to find more about Krista
Krista has a podcast called the Widowed Mom Podcast that is niched but is for anyone who wants to learn about grief or support someone else in grief.
There’s a quiz through her podcast that can teach you more and give you episodes that might be helpful for you.
Thanks for tuning in to today’s episode. Come and hang out with me on Instagram @celestemooreimage.
Let me know your thoughts on today’s episode because I always love hearing from you all. You can find all the links and resources in the show notes of the episode on my website, www.celestemoore.com
Connect with Krista
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