From Trauma to Triumph with Alexandra Galviz

What is a grief doula? Why might a young person suffering from great loss determine to write and speak about it? What growth can come from a miscarriage?

Alexandra Galviz is a young woman who has experienced a great deal of grief. Today she is here to talk about her experience with miscarriage and the fallout that caused her to spiral down to into a depth of grief and despair that caused her to metamorphose into Authentic Alex, a blogger, a speaker, and a guide.

In this episode, we learn more about Alexandra, her miscarriage, her spiritual odyssey, and her blog.

Helpful Links Related to this Episode:

Website: https://www.alexandragalviz.com
Alexandra's newsletter: https://crossingthethreshold.substack.com 

Transcript

Alexandra Galviz: 0:00

I was becoming a different person. And that also played a factor into that around who am I? What do I want in life? What do I want to do before I have kids--and that led to a lot of choices and actions.

Michael Liben: 0:22

What is a grief doula? Why might a person suffering from great loss determine to write and speak about it? And what growth can come from a miscarriage? Welcome to "Bereaved But Still Me." Our purpose is to empower members of our community. I am Michael Liben, and the father of three children Idan, Sapir, and Liel. Liel, my youngest daughter, was born with a heart defect, and later she developed autism and epilepsy. Losing her at 15 is what has brought me here to be the host of this program. Our guest today is Alexandra Galviz, a young woman who has experienced a great deal of grief. Today, she's here to talk about her experience with miscarriage, and the fallout that caused her to spiral down into the depths of grief and despair that caused her to metamorphosis into Authentic Alex, a blogger, a speaker and a guide. Today we're going to learn more about Alex, her miscarriage, her spiritual odyssey and her blog. So Alex, welcome to "Bereaved But Still Me".

Alexandra Galviz: 1:11

Hi, Michael, thank you for having me.

Michael Liben: 1:14

Let's start by learning more about your experience with the miscarriage.

Alexandra Galviz: 1:18

About four years ago, almost in April, I had a miscarriage and it was unexpected. I didn't know I was pregnant at the time. And I'd fallen very, very ill and decided to go to the emergency room. And when I got there, I checked in for the doctor. And pretty much one of his first questions after I told him my symptoms was, "Do you think you're pregnant?" so I had my pregnancy tests done. And then he came back to me and said, "You're pregnant. And because of your symptoms, it's likely you're having a miscarriage". So I went from not knowing that I was pregnant to knowing I was pregnant to knowing I was losing a baby all in the space of one sentence. And that absolutely floored me it was such a roller coaster of emotions. But you know, one of those moments that you go in that moment changed my life.

Michael Liben: 2:23

For sure. What happens after that?

Alexandra Galviz: 2:25

Yeah, so I was in this strange limbo for 10 days, my hormone level.... yeah. So my hormone levels kept going up, which showed that I was still pregnant, they weren't going down. But they weren't going up as quickly as they needed to be. So normally, they'd double. And mine weren't just hitting that. But because it kept going up. There was maybe maybe not, I'm having conversations with my partner. What happens if I'm pregnant? What are we going to do? Is this something that we want? Are we ready for this? And at the same time, what happens if it all doesn't happen? How are we going to deal with that? So it was a very confusing 10 days, I was in the hospital every other day, coming back for blood tests coming back for ultrasound scans. And they couldn't find anything for the first 10 days of post kind of finding out that I was pregnant. And it wasn't until 10 days later that they found the egg in my fallopian tube, so I was having an ectopic pregnancy. So I didn't even know what hormone levels and ectopic pregnancies and all that sort of stuff was because I wasn't prepared to be pregnant. I hadn't read up on books and stuff like that, I was very fortunate that I had the support of my sister-in-law, who's the midwife that could fill in the blanks and help in that process. But it was all a bit of a kind of whirlwind when I looked back at that, trying to figure out all this sort of new world that I wasn't ready for. Yeah.

Michael Liben: 3:52

I was gonna ask you, what's that? Like? This was unplanned. So it's not like you were trying to have a child. But here you are now on the cusp of maybe having a child and maybe not-- where's the conflict? In terms of your emotions? Do I even want a baby? And now that there might be one and we might be losing one? What are we gonna do about that? So where's that conflict or...

Alexandra Galviz: 4:12

100% and it was really strange thing for me because I had gone through different phases in my life of wanting kids and not wanting kids. And I was in a not wanting kids phase. Fair and I was in a space of that's not on my radar. I can see myself not having kids. What was really interesting was dealing with losing something you didn't know you wanted until you lost it.

Michael Liben: 4:39

Well, that's the thing. So having it there, did that make you want to have a child that will make you want to

Alexandra Galviz: 4:43

100% Yeah. And I think more than anything, it be a mother? was due to an experience that I had just before I ended up in A&E, in hospital, was that maybe I would say three weeks before that had happened, it was really cold in London. In March, April time, and I was wrapped up in loads of layers, so I had a top jumper jacket, a coat on top and this coat had a buckle and zip and buttons. And out of nowhere when I was in the supermarket doing my grocery shopping, I dropped the basket. And this is without thinking, I just put the basket down, unbuckled my coat, unzipped it unbuttoned it, lifted up my top, and my jumper, and put my hand on my belly. And the moment I did that, I just came back into awareness. And I was like, hang on a second, like, why did I just do that? And the moment I asked that question, in my head, I just knew the answer. Like, I just knew I was pregnant. So when the doctor had said, do you think you're pregnant? I was like, well, no, but kind of, maybe. That was a very strange experience. I was thinking like, why would I do that? If it wasn't for that reason?

Michael Liben: 5:58

I think Mother Nature kicks in. Before we had doctors, before we had medicines, before we had dead rabbits, and before we had home pregnancy tests, people knew they were pregnant. And it's funny that you say that because the hormone shift made you at that same moment think well, maybe I do want to be a mother. And so it all comes together. And just when that's supposed to be a really good moment for most women, whom it's really not, and then you face what you had to face. I would extend my very heartfelt feelings about that, I'm sorry that you had to go through that. Personally, in my life, we went through that a number of times, but each time we knew we were having a child anytime we wanted that child. But that doesn't make it any better or any worse, it's just a terrible, terrible thing to have to experience.

Alexandra Galviz: 6:36

For sure. Yeah.

Michael Liben: 6:38

Now, you've experienced multiple losses in a very short period of time, the loss of that baby, the potential loss of future babies since you had an ectopic pregnancy. And then there was another loss. So can you share how those losses affected your relationship with your partner?

Alexandra Galviz: 6:52

Yeah, when I experienced that, as we discussed previously, I realized that that was my first loss. And I realized that I wasn't really prepared for this. So I was trying to figure out how to deal with it. And I was Googling miscarriage, baby loss, trying to find information about what I was experiencing, what I was about to experience that grief journey. What happens with couples and I had read, I can't remember the percentage, but it was a really high percentage of couples that don't survive miscarriages in terms of staying together as a couple. I think it was, yeah, it was pretty high. And so I was semi prepared for the fact that that might be a reality, until then my relationship was in a good place. But I just knew that was a possibility. And I think what had happened was my partner at the time had suggested I go to therapy, because he could see I was really struggling. And that had happened in April, and by December he said, I think you should see a therapist. Now, in hindsight, the mistake we made was not going to therapy together. Because what happened was that began my healing process. But he hadn't dealt with his loss in relation to that. So that was one aspect of it. And I think the second aspect was understanding that people grieve in different ways. And again, I'd read something like, unless the man has a physical baby in his hands, he doesn't feel the loss in the same way.

Michael Liben: 8:20

Though, I might dispute that having been through four miscarriages with my wife, I might dispute that. But I will say that men and women grieve differently. And we've discussed that openly on this program. And there's nothing wrong with that. But each has to recognize in the other what grief is. So there's a tendency sometimes for women to say you're not grieving, or you don't care, or it's my loss, not yours. On the other hand, as the father of that child, he's intimately involved in this loss and he probably really does feel it but in a different way from you. Sure, I should recognize that together. That's a real thing.

Alexandra Galviz: 8:52

Definitely. And we clearly had very different ways of coping with our grief. And so yeah, in the end, I think led to the beginning of the end of our relationship, and which was a sad thing, but it was a very difficult thing to go through in a relatively young relationship, I would have said it was that dealing with a loss of a relationship on top of that, that grief changes you as well. So I think that I was becoming a different person. And that also played a factor into that around who am I what do I want in life? What do I want to do before I have kids and that led to a lot of choices and actions.

Michael Liben: 9:32

I have to defend the name of this program,"Bereaved But Still Me" to say that I don't think you were necessarily becoming a different Alexandra but you were becoming an Alexandra that was still Alexandra but hardened in certain areas and changed and maybe a little bit reshaped.

Alexandra Galviz: 9:45

Yeah, I think that grief strips you of things, and that's how it changes you. It's not like it changes you into a different person, but it makes you more you because it takes away all the things that aren't serving you or the things that are no longer aligned with who you are now, after you've experienced something like tha

Michael Liben: 10:04

I think also you lose some of the superficial.

Alexandra Galviz: 10:07

For sure, yeah.

Anna Jaworski: 10:12

You're listening to "Bereaved But Still Me". If you have a question or comment that you would like to address on our program, please send an email to Michael Liben at Michael@bereavedbutstillme.com. That's Michael@bereavedbutstillme.com. This content is not intended to be a substitute for professional medical advice, diagnosis or treatment. The opinions expressed in a podcast are not those of Hearts Unite the Globe, but of the hosts and guests and are intended to spark discussion about issues pertaining to congenital heart disease or bereavement.

Michael Liben: 10:48

Alex, we were talking about how you discovered you had an ectopic pregnancy and miscarriage and then the loss of your relationship. Now let's focus on your spiritual odyssey. Let's start by talking about your own experience with the dark night of the soul.

Alexandra Galviz: 11:01

At the time, I didn't know that that's what I was experiencing. And for those that haven't come across the terminology of the dark night of the soul, it's really where there's some sort of death of a life that you've been living or some kind of identity, nothing makes sense. You feel purposeless, and everything falls apart around you. And that was pretty much my experience post miscarriage was that I was in such a dark place. I'd left my corporate job three years prior and, at that time, I'd had depression, stress, anxiety, suicidal ideation, like it was a massive turmoil in my life. But this kind of dark night of the soul was nowhere near in comparison. It absolutely floored me for a very long time. And it was really like a process of trying to find, as cliche as that sounds, trying to find the light at the end of that dark night of the soul.

Michael Liben: 12:02

It's not a cliche at all. And I want to point out what you experience what everybody experiences at one time or another is that, I'll take advantage of the Oscars, everything everywhere, all at once going completely wrong. At the same time,

Alexandra Galviz: 12:15

it was just such a difficult time and totally triggered by my grief by my miscarriage. And this is where everything, like I said, all of a sudden things like achievements, like success in my career. Like my visibility, and at the time I was at the peak of my business and my visibility online, and I was doing really, really well. And all of that came crashing down. I just could no longer do anything. And nothing made sense in terms of what I was doing. I thought I loved what I did. And I thought I was fulfilling my purpose and to an extent I was but it just all of a sudden didn't mean enough. Like it just didn't work anymore.

Michael Liben: 12:55

Sometimes things change, and you're not always in control of the conditions that change. But you have to learn to go with that flow. I think everybody can relate to that, right?

Alexandra Galviz: 13:04

Yeah, for sure. So I sort of accidentally set out on this quest, because I ended up invited to a women's retreat in the woods in Hampshire, in the UK, through a LinkedIn connection of mine that I had become quite close with, with our losses. That was the beginning of my spiritual journey where I'd not really done anything until then not really understood that there was this whole other world and this whole other level of consciousness. And I had just begun voraciously trying different spiritual modalities in search for healing and in search for hope. And I've been on that journey now for four years.

Michael Liben: 13:45

Well, can you tell us more about that journey? Where is it taking you?

Alexandra Galviz: 13:51

Well, if I kind of fast forward the four years, I started off in the Hampshire woodlands and now I'm currently in Colombia doing some ancestral healing to do with my family. So it's taken me very far, literally a different continent to work with ancestral grief and ancestral healing. Because what I then learned was that grief isn't just the one we experienced, but it's also the one that we carry, or the one we inherit from within our family. And I got to where I could get to in terms of the things that I was doing back in the UK, and even in Berlin when I moved there to also do some of this work. And then I thought, I need to get to the root of this. And if I get to the root, I need to go to the roots. And so that meant coming to my motherland, which is Colombia, and I've been here for two months now.

Michael Liben: 14:40

Wow, that's exciting. I'm floored when I hear this story every time because the idea that your trauma may be rooted ancestrally is very intriguing to me personally, and I think there's a lot of truth in it. So for example, what have you found?

Alexandra Galviz: 14:54

Well, there were two things that I've been looking into. So I'm studying to become a death doula at the moment.

Michael Liben: 15:00

Explain that.

Alexandra Galviz: 15:02

So a death doula is someone that provides spiritual, emotional and psychological support for people that are dying, but they also provide support for the family post death of a loved one. So with the grieving process, it can sometimes give some respite for carers or family members looking after this person. Doula comes from the word dual in Greek, which is female seven. And I felt really cool to get into this work not because I see myself becoming a death doula, although never say never, but more than anything, just wanting to learn more, educate myself more,about grief, death and loss, because it was showing up a lot in my work in different shapes or forms. Because there's different griefs. As we know.

Michael Liben: 15:45

I have a neighbor who was a nurse at a hospice, and I don't know what she knew about death doulas, but she used to say, I'm not a nurse, I'm a midwife to the next life. That's what she would say.

Alexandra Galviz: 15:56

Yeah, I've heard that expression as the same thing in terms of death doula-ing. So I joined this course. And in that course, we looked at ancestry, and what we inherit from our family. And at one point, we did a grief circle where everyone goes into the center and expresses their grief. And I remember expressing my grief. And I'd been triggered earlier in the day from someone who was talking about their own baby loss. And whenever I hear stories like that, sometimes I don't get triggered and at times I do and in this occasion, I wasn't, I had to leave the room to just get some air. And I just remember these tears pouring and pouring out of my eyes, with very little control. And then I thought, is this just my grief? Or is this ancestral grief for the same loss? And the moment I thought about that, my tears just instantly stopped. And then I messaged my mum, and I said to her, have you had a miscarriage? Or do you know if your mum had a miscarriage? And she said, I didn't. But I know that my mum had two. If I think back to the time where my grandmother would have had a miscarriage, especially in Colombia, which is a Catholic and conservative, generally, in those times country, that wouldn't have been an expression of grief. And knowing her as a person, she was very strong, she was very get up and go, and she wouldn't have dealt with that. And so in my mind, when I was in that process, I was like, am I carrying her grief too? Is that in me too, am I needing to process this grief, not just for me, but for other people? And that question was answered when I came to Columbia, and I did a Family Constellation. And again, for people that don't know what a Family Constellation is, it's a kind of therapy, you could call it, where you come with a challenge. And then different people play or represent different people in your family. And you can start to see the subconscious dynamics that are in family and things that are blocking the flow. And so I had been wanting to do one for ages and I thought, what better place to do it than the land that I'm on, that's my roots. I ended up in someone else's Family Constellation, that apparently happens quite often, I was representing her. And she also had a baby lost, and she also was struggling to find her voice. And it was exactly the same situation that I was in, and a ritual had taken place to heal the shame and the loss, the grief this person had been experiencing because someone in her ancestral line, in her female lineage, hadn't done that. And at that point, it was let go, and a ritual was done to heal them.

Michael Liben: 18:44

We have to change the name of this episode to Alex, Very Interesting Person. I didn't even know how to break in and have a conversation your story is so riveting to me, it's just amazing. If you've enjoyed listening to this program, please visit our website, heartsunitetheglobe.org and make a contribution. This program is a presentation of Hearts Unite the Globe, and as part of the HUG Podcast Network. Hearts Unite the Globe is a nonprofit organization devoted to providing resources to the congenital heart defect community to educate, empower, and enrich the lives of our community members. If you would like access to free resources pertaining to the CHD community, please visit our website at congenitalheartdefects.com. For more information about CHD hospitals that treat CHD survivors, summer camps for CHD families and much, much more. Alex, let's talk about how your experiences have resulted in what we like to talk about as post traumatic growth. I learned about you from my executive producer because she read your blog. So tell me about the blog.

Alexandra Galviz: 19:51

The blog started about four years ago. My partner when he'd mentioned I think you need to go to therapy back in December of 2019, I was thinking, okay, I'm gonna go to therapy. And when I left the room, I just thought, what if I documented this healing process? As you do. And so I thought video feels a little bit too raw, a little bit too vulnerable, and writing has always been my medicine. So I thought, what if I started a newsletter called "From Trauma to Triumph", documenting everything that I'm learning in therapy. And so I basically did that. And I did that of all places on LinkedIn, but a place where it's purely corporate people.

Michael Liben: 20:43

Where everybody sees it, too, because LinkedIn is so popular.

Alexandra Galviz: 20:45

Exactly, yeah. And I already had a big audience, so it grew very quickly. And I started writing what I was learning about myself and all the things that were coming up for me in therapy, I've always been big on destigmatizing issues, whether that's miscarriage, or depression, or mental health. And this was just another version of it. And also, I was on my own journey. Like someone very recently commented on the blog saying it's such a privilege to be your diary friend. And it really is like reading my diary. Only many people read it.

Michael Liben: 21:17

I want to point out that's your choice, though. It's not like anyone's sneaking in, you've invited us to see that.

Alexandra Galviz: 21:23

For sure. And I always say to people, I write for me first and for you second. And if someone manages to see themselves in this or get some insight from this, like, I never say, go and do this, or go do that. I just write my story and my experience my heroine's journey, and people see themselves in it. And it prompts people to think about things it prompts people to see where they're in their own journey. And I've had that blog for about four years now. But probably around this time last year, I stopped writing it for almost seven months. And I think it was a mixture. Yeah, it was a mixture of something's happening in me, inside me, something's changing, I can feel it, I need a break, because it's quite intense to put your life out there for such a long period of time, quite vulnerably. And I was in the thick of a transition, a personal transition and career transition. And I felt like things needed to evolve. As I had evolved and changed post grief, I then wanted to come back to it. But I really had this block in my voice. And after I did the Family Constellations that I was talking about. The next morning, I got my voice back. And it was just magic. And I just started writing, writing, writing, and I changed the name of the blog. So it went from "From Trauma to Triumph" to "Crossing the Threshold". Because I realized that actually, a lot of my work as a coach and as a facilitator has always been providing spaces for people to cross that threshold into the underworld and back how we talk about in the mythology because I do believe that that's what happens. When we experience grief, we go into that underworld that strips us of everything. And then we come back out. And so I wanted to also evolve the newsletter in the sense that a lot of it had been primarily about what am I learning in therapy? What's happening in my mind? What's going on psychologically? And then because I've been on this four year journey, where I was looking at what's happening in my body, what's happening with my soul? What is my soul? My thought, it's about time that I change, or evolve the newsletter to include this sort of holistic approach to healing that I've been experiencing.

Michael Liben: 23:35

I want to ask you about the rock. And I want to ask you -- how I felt when you told me the story originally, that the rock was a metaphor for your ancestral grief. And since we've already spoken of some of the ancestral grief, let's see how that all comes together and what that rock means to you.

Alexandra Galviz: 23:51

Sure, just before I went for my death, doula retreats, it's a one year course but it starts with a retreat in Ireland. And we've been asked to place an item on the altar that represented our ancestry. So the night before, like a child that's not done their homework, I go to my mom and say, "oh, my God, I totally forgot I need to find something to put on this altar for my retreat". And we'd had some conversations about my retreat with my mum, because she was really nervous about me getting into this work. She's been a carer for quite a while. And so she was like, I know what it takes to do this work. And I'm worried that you're going to do it. So we had conversations about that. And then we collectively found an object and the first one that she came to me with was a stone. And as a child, I used to collect stones. So I recognize that as one of my stones, but I wasn't sure why she was giving it to me. And I was like, No, not that. And then she came back with a cross. And my family is very religious and it was across one of my uncles that given my mom I recognized that it was always hanging on the front door of my house. And so I said, "Yeah, perfect. Give me the cross". So I took it away. Then when we started the retreat, we got asked to talk about the object why we chosen that and then put it on the altar. Three days later, I'm looking for something in my bag and I find the rock. And my instant reactions like, my mum must have put the rock in there. Why did she put that rock in there? And then I messaged her, and she said, "Whenever you leave to go away, I always put the rock in your bag". And in that instant, I felt like oh, that's so cute. It's so beautiful. It's a protection, like a kind of like a talisman protection object. And then instantly I was like, huh, but what if it's not? In the context of what I was studying in thinking about ancestral grief, I was like, this could also be the weight of ancestral grief. And the reason I thought it might be that was because after we did the grief circle, that I'd expressed tons of my grief in relation to the miscarriage. She sent me a message and she said, "Are you okay?" and I said, "Yeah, it's been a difficult day, a bit heavy, but I'm okay". The next day, she said, "Are you okay?" and I said, "Yeah, I'm fine. Things are better. I don't really have time to talk". And then on the last day of the retreat, she was like, "Can you call me?" and I thought, okay, something's up. And I called her and I was like,"Everything, okay?" and she said, "No". She said, "I've been feeling super low. I've been so sad. I've had a black cloud over me. I've been wanting to cry". And I said, "Did you cry?" She said, "I cried a little bit". She said, "I don't know why I get the feeling it has something to do with what you're doing out there on your retreat." So I shared this with the facilitator on the last day. And she said to me, "When we process our grief, we hand back the grief that we've been carrying for others. That's not ours". And all of a sudden that rock to me represented -- yes, it could have been that and I don't think it's either/or, I think it's and, and it represented the grief that I was carrying for her that I have done because in the death doula course, I realized that I've actually been around a lot of grief in my life. And I even wrote a poem called "The Daughter of Grief", because it was just, wow, this realization of this has been super present in my life. Of course, I'm doing this work. Of course, I'm studying this. And so this rock kind of became a symbol of that, that what I carry and what I have been carrying, because I'm a bit of an empath that sucks in this sort of stuff. And learning that, yeah, this is mine to want to carry or not and it wasn't something I wanted to carry because then it's the hard thing of seeing someone you love, handed back thei grief and having to deal with that. And that's currently happening for her, and that's a hard thing.

Michael Liben: 27:47

Well, that brings me beautifully to the next question, what advice can you give to the listeners regarding living with grief and how to process it in a healthy way so that we don't pass it off back on to our loved ones?

Alexandra Galviz: 27:58

I think there's two questions that come to mind for me is, where do you express your grief? And how do you express your grief? And I think the first one around, where do you express your grief is that it needs spaces to grieve. And if we go back in time, we used to sit in our tribes in our villages, and we've grieved in community. And we've lost that sense of community, unless you're part of a religion. We don't tend to have that in our society, we don't create those spaces. They're starting to exist, but many people aren't aware of them. And things like grief cafes, I run one mine is called"The Cafe of Endings and New Beginnings". And we just meet online once a month. And we just talk about what's present for us in terms of loss. And it doesn't have to be the traditional, "I lost a loved one", it can be smaller losses or disenfranchised loss, which is the losses that are stigmatized. And so I think it's really important to find a space to grieve in terms of friends, family therapist, grief cafe, whatever that is, find a space to get it out of your system, and express it in some shape or form. And the next one is a how do you express your grief. But for some people, it's talking for some people, it's traveling for some people it's working out. For me, it was creativity. I am a creative being. So writing my blog, writing poetry, I got really into quite recently ceramics, we talked about in the retreat, mapping the unseen landscape. And this is mapping our ancestral grief and so I made a kind of a moonscape based on the palm of my hand. And I put myself with like little footsteps behind and I placed it on an altar that I created out in the earth and the land that I was on. And so that became a way to express what had happened that past week around bringing up all this sort of ancestral grief that I was working with, and where I am in the picture of my kind of generational process and journey and again, right now, when I'm doing all of this ancestral work here in Colombia, I go to ceramics every week, because it's the thing that grounds me, it's working with the earth. But it's also a meditative practice that calms me, especially when doing such heavy work. Those for me are personal. But I do feel that creativity is such an important thing to express that grief, but also to connect with something, a power higher than us, whatever people believe in.

Michael Liben: 30:27

Alex, you weave pictures with words. And so I'll ask you to close out the program with one of your poems. Thank you.

Alexandra Galviz: 30:35

I would love to. The Daughter of Grief. "When grief couldn't hold your hand, I held you up so you could stand. When grief couldn't dry your tears. I gently wiped away your fears. When grief couldn't untighten your chest I bestowed you my last breath. And when grief couldn't take the pain away, I told you I was here to stay. When grief couldn't revive the happy you. I promised I would carry you. When grief couldn't give you words. I formulated all the verbs. When grief couldn't feed you. I helped you plant all the seed in you. When grief couldn't remove the fear of lost. I reassured you, we'd walk across. When grief couldn't gift you a peaceful night. I made sure I held you tight. When grief couldn't be quicker than a while. I distracted you with a smile. When grief couldn't let go of all your strife. I reminded you of what was life. And when grief left you bare, he sent his daughter to be there.

Michael Liben: 31:36

Alexandra Galvis, thank you so much for joining us on "Bereaved But Still Me". That was beautiful.

Alexandra Galviz: 31:41

Thank you for having me. Pleasure.

Michael Liben: 31:44

And that concludes this episode of"Bereaved But Still Me. I want to thank Alex for sharing your experiences with us. Please join us at the beginning of the month for a brand new podcast. I'll talk to you soon but until then, please remember, moving forward is not moving away.

Anna Jaworski: 31:58

Thank you for joining us. We hope you have felt supported in your grief journey. "Bereaved But Still Me" is a monthly podcast and a new episode is released on the first Thursday of each month. You can hear our podcast anywhere you normally listen to podcasts at any time. Join us again next month for a brand new episode of"Bereaved But Still Me".