383: The Hidden Grief Behind Divorce, Empty Nesting, and Job Changes With Vickie Hagedorn

What if the stress and overwhelm you’re carrying isn’t just stress but unresolved grief? Grief recovery specialist Vickie Hagedorn joins Kate for a powerful conversation about how grief can show up far beyond death or divorce, especially during major life transitions like retirement, menopause, moving, job loss, empty nesting, and children starting school.

Vickie shares practical tools for grief recovery, emotional healing, leadership, parenting, and relationships, and explains why simply “pushing through” or compartmentalizing doesn’t always work. For early childhood educators, childcare leaders, parents, caregivers, and anyone navigating change, this episode offers a fresh perspective on grief and why becoming emotionally complete may be the key to moving forward.

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Transcript

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Childcare Conversations 0:00

Welcome to Child Care Conversations, the podcast where early childhood leaders like you get real-world strategies, honest talk, and a whole lot of support. Whether you're running one center or many, we're here to help you lead with confidence and clarity. This episode is brought to you by this quarter's sponsor, Playground, the all-in-one child care management software. We're all about managing monkeys and saving you time at your center. With this platform, you can. We're proud to partner with a team that's as committed to your success as we are. Learn more at tryplayground.com. Now, let's get into today's conversation. One we think you're really going to love.

Kate Woodward Young 0:47

Welcome back to today's conversations. And over the next six months, my goal is to kind of help you do your job even better. And sometimes it will be introducing you to resources that you didn't even know existed, and maybe didn't really think about the fact that you might need them. So welcome back to Childcare Conversations, and I'm Kate Woodward Young. And today, well, we might be talking about a topic that might, I don't want to say it's going to be triggering, but you might not expect to hear it on our show. So over the course of the last, oh, I don't know. Let's see, I've known Vicky now for over three years, four years, and I probably wished I had known Vicki over seven. And why do I say that? So, Vicki, welcome to the show. Tell folks a little bit about what you do, and then I'm gonna tell a story, maybe.

SPEAKER_01 1:44

Okay. I'm excited to hear your story. Um, yes, I am Vicki Hagadorn, and I am a grief recovery specialist, and I have been working with grieving people for 20 something years. I started in 2003, so I should do the math. Um, but yes, it has been uh an honor and such a journey to be able to coach people through transitions. So a lot of times people don't realize what they're experiencing is grief. And so it's it's always interesting when I get to work with someone, something might be presenting in their life, like a change, a major something, divorce or a loss of some kind. And then when we get to walk through the program, we get to reveal things that are underneath, and it's a very powerful experience. Absolutely.

Kate Woodward Young 2:37

So, how do I know Vicky? Well, most of you have probably listened to more than one episode, and you might hear me make references where you might not have ever put two and two together. But um, Vicky and I met a few years ago after my divorce to husband number two, uh, which was not a planned, not expected, and not even necessarily on my to-do list. And so uh one of the things that I thought I was working with Vicky through was the loss of my father, um, which had happened in 2019. However, it quickly became evident during the conversation that it wasn't just the loss of my marriage, it was also the loss of everything that was to come. And at the same time, I was becoming an empty nester. So the youngest one was off at college, and um, all kinds of things were going on in my world. And so, over the course of the last few weeks on social media, my early learning peers have had some very obvious grief situations happen in their world, uh, whether it's a loss of a staff person, a loss of a staff person's husband, or just loss of a friend. And a lot of those did not appear to be something we had planned. And not that even if it's planned, it isn't hard. But one of the things that I found so interesting through working with Vicky is I think sometimes we forget, and Vicki brought it up, right? Some of those things that some of those transitions might actually be grief. So if you're listening and you're going through menopause, you're going through the process of becoming an empty nester, maybe you have children who've gotten married. Maybe it's something what feels like monumental at the time. Your baby is now going off to kindergarten. And one of the things I wanted to do is to have Vicky help us kind of identify what might be examples where we might need to think through grief recovery, as well as um why we might need a grief recovery coach versus I just do it myself. So Vicky, tell me a little bit about some examples. Um, and again, obviously no real people, but when might people be grieving and what might they not realize is actually grief?

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Yes. Um, well, I know for for me when I came into grief recovery, my parents were getting divorced, and I was going through a lot um as an adult doing that. And I remember when somebody told me about this process, and my first reaction was, I don't need that. I do not need that because I don't have time for that. And what I have learned um very it saved me completely. And I learned that I didn't ever learn how to process emotions. I I learned how to continue to function and how to survive, how to pull up my bootstraps, how to keep going. And I heard this yesterday. Actually, it was my husband that said this. I had I compartmentalized and compartmentalized until I ran out of compartments. And when he said that, I was like, that's so good. And I think what we don't realize is that there are over 40 situations that happen in life that are are going to induce grief. And that is anytime we say this, this is a definition that we use. Unresolved grief is conflicting feelings caused by the end of a familiar pattern of behavior. So when you think about that, I think it really opens your mind to a lot of things that we experience, like you've named a child moving from into kindergarten, you know, is uh going off to college, um, all those things, divorce and death and losses. I know there's even been, I mean, you mentioned menopause, like the loss of um a job moving. There are so many things that change a familiar pattern of behavior. So those are things that all are in going to bring up grief.

Kate Woodward Young 6:49

So, Vicki, what are some examples of when people might be dealing with grief that they don't know that it's actually grief? Um, how do we determine um what might really be grief versus, I don't know, just life?

SPEAKER_01 7:06

Yes, that is a great question. And I got I I know when I was first introduced to grief recovery, I was going through the divorce of my parents and I was an adult. I was married, you know, but it rocked me. And I remember somebody telling me about grief recovery and it could help me, and I immediately was like, I don't need that. This is not what I'm dealing with. Um, no idea what I was dealing with. I just knew I knew how to get through things and I was going to just get through it. And so when I did go and I learned, the first thing that I learned was the definition, this definition. And it opened my mind so much. It's that unresolved grief is conflicting feelings caused by the end of a familiar pattern of behavior. And I related so well to the conflicting feelings that you really can't put a name to. You can't. There's so many feelings all at once. And so when something ends, and that can be anything from the big things like a death or a divorce that makes it a very, very major shift in everything. But it can be a child, like you said, going into kindergarten, your child, your kids going off to college, it could be a loss of a job, even retirement. It can be moving, it could be menopause, like it's changed things that are happening. We I call it a lot, any kind of transition that you're going through. You want to what help, what learning the tools of how to grief, grieve well, how to grieve in a healthy way, is what is the difference between stepping into a new, a new anything, stepping through transition in a way that prepares you to really step fully into where you're being called next, where you're going next, to be able to heal what you have here and get what we call this is a term that we use is emotionally complete. So we use that term and it's very powerful the process of that because what we do is we take our triggers from our losses and our trauma and the things that we've experienced, and we take it into adulthood and we take it into life, and then things happen and we're triggered, and we are just now reacting and responding out of pain.

Kate Woodward Young 9:19

I'm over here laughing, and I'm not laughing at you, Vicki. I'm laughing at the thought of every single one of us who are listening going, Well, that was just Monday. And um, you know, because we are so many of the leaders in early learning. We find ourselves, a lot of us, we've got um our own families that we're working with. We've got maybe another 50 to 150 families that we work with who all have their own life happening. And then they share it with us. And because we are such caring people, a lot of times we take on their life struggles, right? We want to try to be that solution. So even if you're listening to this and you're going, I'm all good, you know, that whole trauma response, but we're an overachiever kind of thing. Um, but you're thinking you're all good, you don't need this. Um, I'm gonna challenge it, you probably do. But if nothing else, absolutely make sure that you come back, you look through Vicky's website, Vicky's connections, um, and have it as a resource for your parents and have it as a resource for your staff. Um, the scenarios that I shared earlier um about knowing that there were people in the industry right now, today, who are um publicly struggling is one thing. But we know that there are probably thousands of you who are listening who are struggling privately. A lot of times in leadership as entrepreneurs, the last thing we really want to do is bring our personal life into the work setting. And because we are the the boss, we don't necessarily get to share that again with our staff, right? We don't really want to tell our staff what's going on. If we've got friends or peers, they may or may not be prepared or have experience in helping us through this. And so having somebody like a Vicky in your life, um, I I have used the skills I've learned from Vicky multiple times uh since actually having Vicky as um my um accountability partner and making sure that I did it. Um I think that's one of the things that as leaders, um especially ones who identify as maybe competent, we've got this, we're just gonna buckle down and get it done. Um, I think you brought up a great point, which is we don't identify all of this as grief. And so how does having a coach in this setting help versus maybe having a therapist? Like, you know, I know that sometimes people see mental health and therapists as kind of having a different connotation. But what I loved is that you were a coach and it felt very safe to me. So what might be the difference and why might somebody want to coach over, you know, their therapy that might be included in their health insurance?

SPEAKER_01 12:24

Yeah, that is a great question. Other than I said so. Yeah, yeah. Um, can you hear me, Kate? You hear me okay? I can. Yeah. Okay. Um, yes, that is a great question. And I think that first of all, one of the things I wanted to say is grief recovery, it works very well with therapy. If you are going to a therapist, this is something I actually have a few therapists that refer clients to me when they're dealing with grief that they haven't really been able to, they're like, let's deal with that, and then we can kind of move into these areas. So it goes very well. It is um one of the things about it is it's an action program. So it's eight weeks, so it has a beginning and an end. Um, I also, you can work with me afterwards. I do advanced coaching and we can work through other, we use the tools to work through more because Kate mentioned two. She mentioned her dad and her divorce and different, so we can use the tools, and that's the other thing is you leave after eight weeks equipped with tools to be able to do self-work. You you're able to take those tools and work on other parts of other relationships in your life. Um, I'm always here to come back and work on more. But if you are in a position of leadership, if you are a parent, if you are running like she was talking about, um, the tools that you're gonna learn are gonna help you every day in what you do. They're gonna help you as a parent, they're gonna help you as a spouse. Um, they're gonna, I I recommend this. I love working with parents because I feel like it's like healing two generations at a time, because all we know is what we saw modeled for us growing up. So if you grew up in a house where uh emotions weren't really allowed and you learned young how that emotions weren't allowed, were you ever told if you're gonna cry, go to your room? If you're, you know, if you're I was just working with someone yesterday that lost her her n um cousin, and they were she was six and her cousin was four, and she was told, you don't cry, you don't see anybody see you cry because that you have to be strong.

Kate Woodward Young 14:33

One of the things that I think is really quintessential when you start to think about using a grief recovery coach or just grief in general, is that we're doing the best we can with the tools that we have, and our parents did the best they can with the tools that they had. And I want you to have some additional tools in your toolbox. So, with that, please, please, please um connect with Vicky and Freedom of Grief. All of their um contact information are in the show notes. And with that, we hope that you will continue to listen to Childcare Conversations. Go join the newsletter at childcareconversations.com. So, Vicky, one of the things that it that just seems like kind of the the thought process here is so many of us have heard statements like, we're doing the best we can with what we know. Our parents did the best they could with what they know. And so my goal is to help those who are listening think about this as maybe another tool in their toolbox. So what might be what might be one tool other than naming? Um, because I think that's the big one, right? Identifying and naming that maybe what you're what's happening is grief. Um, since you said you were a compartmentalizer as somebody who had multiple therapists and coaches, because I was like, no, no, no, no, no. I'm working with you on this thing. Yeah. That stuff's going over here. Like there was just too much in my mind to unpack to any one human. I didn't want any of the therapists or coaches to quit. So they only got one piece at a time. Uh, so if somebody's listening to this and they're going, haha, I can identify, I compartmentalize, what might be just one tip that might go, oh yeah. Okay, not only do I need to call Vicky, I think I need to get a bigger toolbox. Um, what might be a resource or or just something to help them other than just being able to identify and name it?

SPEAKER_01 16:40

Well, I think the first thing is to realize that you will run out of compartments. You can't compartmentalize, you know, like it will happen. And um, I think when you have, you know, when you are in the second half of life sort of thing, the the compartments run out quick. So um I think that the main thing that's so amazing about this process is that there it has a way of taking what feels like a lot of things, and we look at, we look at it, we look at your life, we we unpack and we kind of just go through the thread. And what you realize is that when you are able to get emotionally complete, when you're able to really heal from some foundational beliefs that you have because of experiences, uh, the other things just start to fall in kind of in place. There's so much clarity that comes. I I know one of the things that made me know that grief recovery was different. I like you went to a lot of therapists uh the first in my 20s. I found grief recovery in my late 30s. And luckily, um, I had gone through a lot of different therapy, a lot of recovery, a lot of things. And I, you know, I had the book on boundaries, and I was trying to understand codependency and addiction and all the things that I grew up with in my family, and I couldn't comprehend having them or understanding. And when I went through grief recovery, what I experienced in eight weeks, the the incredible healing that happened on these foundational relationships, um, I had a different clarity where I was able to show up in real time and be connected to what I was feeling, being able to have boundaries, have clarity, have such more discernment. So I would say that when you're talking about that, and I hope that answers the question, it's like what we do is we can, we, we aren't gonna like attack everything, we're gonna go under and we're gonna deal with the foundation of the beliefs that built that. And once you do that, then then you're able to apply that, and then we can work through anything. And it doesn't feel so much like this mountain that can't be, you know, one of the things we say every week is I'm not here to fix you because you are not broken. And it's something that I say over and over because it's so important to understand that there's always a way to unpack and to heal. And that's what we do.

Kate Woodward Young 19:10

You know what's really interesting? So I know that there are a lot of early learning educators, so not even necessarily the leaders, that struggle with these same things. And there are folks in our network who we have interviewed, who we have referred people to, and a lot of them say things like, you know, the child gets your own energy, right? So if you've got a classroom full of chaotic kids, chances are they're they're feeling that chaos energy from you. And it might be something to consider as a leader in your organization. If you've got a teacher who, and again, teachers might be private. They may not have necessarily shared with you what was going on in their own life, but this might be a tool that's in your toolbox that really is a tool that you share and give to others. Because even if you're not sure Vicky's right for you, I am sure that Vicky is more than right for at least probably one of your staff, probably for 10 of your parents, because we all are going through those transitions, whether it's job loss, whether it's, you know, something that might happen, like your house burnt down, or um you're struggling because you know you've got kids in your program who are going through their own family's divorce and chaos. And you're watching it with the kids, you're watching it with the parents, you're watching it with the grandparents, right? So if you're a grandparent and you know that your kids, in other words, your mom and your adult children are going through some of this, sometimes that is also incredibly hard of a transition and that you also don't necessarily have the tools to process, the ability to name it, and it's gonna impact those kids for generations. So hopefully we've planted some seeds, and hopefully you're not sitting here going, I don't have enough eight-week periods to work with Vicky, because that was my thought. When I first heard about Vicky, and Vicky was referred to me by um another one of my coaches, and you know, it was definitely a healing process in my life at the time. And I constantly refer Vicky to everybody, but you know what I never do, and this is really, really important if you're listening. If you give Vicky's resource to somebody, don't ever follow up. It is now you have given the tool to the person you gave it to, and it's up to them to support themselves. Please do not nag them. Please do not follow up, do not be codependent in trying to make sure that they've done what they told you they were going to do, unless you are their accountability coach. Right, right. Don't go following them around. Right. So again, I'm I'm telling every one of the leaders who are listening, if you give a resource to a staff person or to a parent or to a friend, give the resource and let it go. Just channel your, your, your, your Queen Elsa. And this is just a let it go once you've given them the tool. So with that, I hope that you guys come back and listen to us in a couple of or in a few more days. Um, if you don't already follow the newsletter, childcareconversations.com, click up at the top and click newsletter and go ahead and sign up for the newsletter. All of the contact information to reach Vicky, Freedom from Grief, all of the links, websites, all that stuff is in the show notes. Um, if you happen to be watching this on YouTube, you can find all of it in our YouTube description as well. And if for some reason you can't find it, uh, please, please message us at um from the contact page from childcareconversations.com and we will absolutely get you connected to Vicky. Vicky. Well, I will give you Vicky's information. It will be up to you to connect with Vicky.

unknown 22:59

Yes.

Kate Woodward Young 23:00

All right, and we'll see you guys in a few days. Thank you.

Childcare Conversations 23:05

Thanks for tuning in. We love bringing you real talk and fresh insight from the world of early childhood education. Be sure to follow us on social media to stay connected and catch all of the latest episodes. And if you're planning a conference, training, or special event, Kate and Carrie would love to speak to your audience. You can learn more about their keynote sessions and workshops at kateandcary.com. If you learned something today, share the show and leave us a review below. We'll see you next time on Childcare Conversations.