Real Talk with Life After Grief Chris
Real Talk with Life After Grief Chris
Widows Mentoring Widows: The Super Survivor Journey
Ever wondered what separates those who merely survive trauma from those who transform it into a force for change? Carolyn Moore, founder of Modern Widows Club, returns to the podcast to introduce us to the concept of the "super survivor" – individuals who don't just overcome personal tragedy but return to create support systems for others walking similar paths.
Drawing from the groundbreaking research of Dr. Stephen Southwick (whose book "Resilience: The Science of Mastering Life's Greatest Challenges" enters its third edition this September), Carolyn shares her personal journey from struggling widow to recognized change agent. The transformation wasn't immediate or easy. Initially motivated simply by providing basic needs for her young daughters, Carolyn gradually discovered the profound impact widowhood had on every aspect of her life – physically, emotionally, financially, and spiritually. Her turning point came during an appearance on Oprah, when she was described as "a hero who didn't know it," prompting her to ask: what if I became the hero of my own story?
What makes Carolyn's work through Modern Widows Club so powerful is how it addresses the exact components of resilience she once lacked – role models who had navigated similar losses and spaces where widows can both give and receive support. The four-stage journey she describes (choosing life, reaching out, getting moving, and giving back) serves as a roadmap for anyone navigating grief. Her latest project, "Legendary Widows: Stories of Legacy," highlights twelve extraordinary women including Coretta Scott King and Eleanor Roosevelt, showcasing their remarkable accomplishments after losing their spouses – contributions that often go unrecognized in historical narratives.
Whether you're personally navigating loss or supporting someone who is, this conversation offers profound insights into how trauma can become a catalyst for positive change. As Carolyn reminds us, "A formidable woman is a terrible thing to waste," and recognizing someone as a super survivor might be the most powerful gift you can give them. The journey from surviving to thriving begins with understanding that resilience isn't just about enduring – it's about taking responsibility for writing the next chapter of your story.
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Welcome to Real Talk with Life After Grief Chris, where we talk about relevant issues as it relates to individuals in grief as they navigate finances and the advisors who help them. We help clients in grief navigate financial matters. We also teach advisors how to emotionally and financially work with clients in grief through an unparalleled process. This week's podcast is sponsored by Life After Grief Financial Planning and Life After Grief Consulting.
Speaker 2:Hello and welcome back to another fabulous episode of Real Talk with Life After Grief, chris. In today's episode I have superstar slash super survivor Carolyn Moore on the episode for a second time. Carolyn is actually the person that introduced me to the idea of a super survivor. She actually called me a super survivor in, I think, our first meeting or subsequent meetings, and I didn't really have any idea what that meant and she kind of forced me to go and read about it and I figured it out and I was pleasantly wowed.
Speaker 2:So, carolyn, if you recall she was on a previous episode she is the present founder and development director of the Modern Widows Club and basically I'm going to describe the Modern Widows Club in her terms. I'm going to describe the Modern Widows Club in her terms and then I'm going to make it easy in my terms so I can understand it as well. So the Modern Widows Club are pioneers in solution support and research for widows worldwide and I like to make things very simplistic so I can understand them. It is simply widows mentoring widows, and that's how I describe it when I introduced the idea and the thought to any client or any prospect that comes with me and I was just telling Carolyn before we got on here, there was a lady that is a widow about a year and a half widow and the first thing that I did is I recommended her to go to the Modern Widows Club and seek out support before we interact. Carolyn, welcome back. Thank you for agreeing to be on the podcast. How are you doing?
Speaker 3:Great to see you again, chris, even if we're not live, which is our favorite. Yes, even if we're not live.
Speaker 2:So something else that funny, that happened. So I show up, I can see Carolyn, she can see me, and so I am very casual. Today I have a just do it Nike shirt on and Carolyn looks like she's getting ready to walk on the red carpet, so I almost turned my video off this morning. So, carolyn, I want to dive into super survivor. You obviously are a super survivor to the nth degree and if folks don't remember Carolyn's background, she is a widow, obviously, and that is what sprang everything that she is about in this second phase of her life and career and what she does, and for a lot of people she's known worldwide. Um, she's famous and um. So I just want to you know, let you, you know, tell us what has brought you to this status. And I'm going to probe you a little bit from the book, very specifically but what makes you a super survivor?
Speaker 3:Well, according to Dr Stephen Southwick, who was my mentor and who wrote the book Resilience the Science of Mastering Life's Greatest Challenges, which, when I first was exposed to it, I was exposed to the first edition and then they updated it in the second edition and now me and my organization are going to be in the third edition of the book, which comes out September 11th, but in my connection with Dr Steve, who actually passed away last year, his lifetime of resilience, science and stress and personal growth. Research said that people who have gone through a tragedy and are coming out the other side are called survivors. However, the people who take that experience and then they come back and they help others with a very like circumstance, those people are considered super survivors. Those are the people who come back and change the dynamics of maybe what you know in my instance, very little support for widows. I came back and I questioned the lack of social systems for widows to be supported and I said, well, what would it look like if we had programs that brought more hope and healing and growth and, you know, set women's lives on a different trajectory than maybe what I had experienced?
Speaker 3:And so a super survivor is that person that initiates that real change that needs to happen in the world. And all of the people whether you're a survivor or a super survivor are people on what he called a survivor mission. On what he called a survivor mission and I had just never really thought of like my life, like on a mission as a survivor. But it's so true because when we experience anything, any kind of sudden trauma, whether it's realized at the moment or realized later on, when it's when we're in a different space as an adult, and we look back, we realize that yeah, I came through that and a lot of times people just haven't really given the thought of how heroic they were in that and in rebuilding and coming back and helping others. So super survivor is sort of how would I would call extraordinary, ordinary people becoming extraordinary change agents.
Speaker 2:I would agree with you 100% and I am going to reference the book that you described. So in the first two podcasts of this season, season five, I referenced the book and I'm going to put a reference in the notes section as well. But very specifically in the book, what Carolyn has described so eloquently, I'm going to kind of highlight it. So what Carolyn has done is she has chosen life. That's one aspect. She has reached out, she's got moving and she's given back. And so what made you decide to wake up one day and choose life? Not that you had a choice, but what made you choose life and not look in the past?
Speaker 3:Well, initially it was. I have two daughters. I had two daughters who were two and four years old who required food and shelter and basics, right. So that was my motivation. It's just at a very core level. I think when you go through trauma, you really go from this self-actualization, like we see in Maslow's hierarchy of needs, and you go back down to the bottom, you go back to basic sustenance, right, and you have to rebuild a life, back up to a self-actualization. And so no one really explained it to me like that in the beginning, but I felt that I felt that my life crumbled right. So a big part of Right, so a big part of for me. But motivation was simply the people I loved the most and the people who needed me.
Speaker 3:But as time went on, you know the motivation had to become bigger because you the the impact, I think, on widowhood, the impact on every aspect of your life. I had no idea that it was going to obviously impact me emotionally, mentally and also financially. But what I didn't know is how it was going to impact every relationship I had Spiritually. It was going to impact me all the questions of doubt and anger and fear. I was struggling immensely from that, but I would say in 2006, when I was on the Oprah show, was really the defining moment for me, because I was seen as this person who had it kind of all together and I was not at all in the background of my life. I could barely get a shower, I could barely operate, I had adrenal fatigue. It took everything that I could do to wake up every morning and do the day, and these are the things. I just had no one to speak with, I had no one to even uh ask. You know, is this normal? And what I now know is, of course, literally widowhood was an all upfront attack on my health. It went unidentified by the healthcare industry. You know, counseling can only do so much, but the actual physical impact to my body was what I really severely underestimated and I struggled because of that. I had PTSD, undiagnosed. You know, I was in a car accident. I was in a very bloody car accident that was extremely traumatizing.
Speaker 3:So when I was on the Oprah show, she, she, really she said I was a hero and didn't know it, and that kind of reverberated out and there were so many widows that saw that show and they said can you help me be like you. So I had to step back for a second and go. I don't really feel like I'm a hero. I don't really feel like I'm that person that Oprah just said I was and now is like millions of people are seeing. But I said, what would it look like if I was the hero of my own story? What if she's right? And that was what really set my trajectory at year six on a completely different realm.
Speaker 3:And that was when I said what would happen if I did become the hero of my story? And as I did that, I started realizing, you know, what makes me feel alive Not just taking what I've learned and sharing it with someone else because they may need that information. And so that's what really, you know, I I started and and you know it's all research backed now I I'm, you know Dr Steve's work, the there's, you know the, the 10 key components of building resilience. The two that I needed the most were the two that didn't exist, and that was the imitating resilient role models. I needed to find other widows like myself and also have a space where I could both give and receive right, we can't just receive, we have to give. And so when I started giving back that just completely. It was the end of the cycle of healing for me. And then that continued on as I gave and, you know, actively listened, and that is where the real healing happens in trauma. There's your work and then there's your give back.
Speaker 2:You eloquently described the next three phases. So what I was hearing is that you didn't have necessarily a situation where you could reach out and connect with other survivors. So you created your own situation to where you could, and then you went a step further and you created this system that other widows could chime in and you in and now reach out. They didn't have to reinvent the wheel and I think that in itself is what elevated you very quickly from the choosing life stage to reaching out and not necessarily having anybody to reach out to, but took you to that next level of super survivor.
Speaker 2:And then the other things started falling into place. You had to get moving. You know you had set goals and you know you were taking action and taking no prisoners, as I know you pretty well. And then you know giving back and you constantly give back. And for anybody that has ever met Carolyn seen Carolyn she is a firecracker in regards to the passion she brings and the energy for her organization and putting widows first and getting them all kind of access and things that they frankly deserve and getting them all kind of access and things that they frankly deserve. So I'm just and I was telling- Carolyn.
Speaker 3:Every time that I meet with her I have to take notes because I'm just learning so much so quickly.
Speaker 2:So yes, you're learning. You're learning what I call my PhD in uncommon knowledge, so I have to take a lot of notes and Carolyn, so I'm kind of on this journey myself about reading a lot more and um, so she had, you know, encouraged me to, you know, read the book on resilience, and then there's another edition that's coming out, I think, in september, is that correct?
Speaker 2:yeah, september 11th yeah, so I've already, um, I already have mine pre-ordered and I now, in turn, recommend that to some other folks. And there's a part on the book. I don't have the book, or, yes, I do in front.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I have an advanced copy of the third edition. You're going to love it.
Speaker 2:I pass this on to some very dear friends. So I have the second edition in my hand, and so on the title page of the book, it says every parent, coach and organizational leader should read this now and pass it on to those they care about the most. And so I'll pass this on to folks, and so I always have a method as to why I pass this on, or I'm very methodic and some folks catch it very quickly. And one of my dear friends, um, she was in kind of a funk or doing something, um, on her own and um, I sent it thinking about this message, about, she's one of the people that I care about the most.
Speaker 2:She lost her daughter, um, over a year ago and um, so she was like I just read the quote on the front. She's like I'm one of the people that you care the most about and I've known her since high school and I and she and I was like yes, you finally got it, uh, hello. And so it was like you're pretty slow, but I said you're a super survivor, um, you just don't know it yet, um, and so I was kind of setting her up, you know, to be in a situation where, um, she could be comforted and, um, you know, she reaches out to me. She's in kind of that reach out stage and so I recognize that and I wanted to give her a little bit of boost. But the reason I'm sharing that is because Carolyn shared that with me and so now I can share it with other people. So thank you for that.
Speaker 3:You're welcome. I really well, because Dr Stephen Southwick shared it with me just in one of our conversations and getting to know me and understanding sort of the background and you know he's used to working with veterans. He's used to working with amputees and people who have had what he had never thought about widowhood as a traumatic detachment experience. And he's, you know, a renowned psychologist. And he's, you know, a renowned psychologist.
Speaker 3:So I think curious people constantly are looking for new knowledge, but also new knowledge that we can easily pass on. And recognizing someone as a super survivor and actually telling them that they are is like this beautiful million, you know chain link, you know thing kind of gift of saying, hey, have you did? You know that you were this? Um, because I think a lot of people who give back and I have met so many people who are doing such great things in nonprofits and and you know, not, not even in nonprofits just acts of kindness and um, you know these. You often will talk to them and they'll say had some of the. You know these. You often will talk to them and they'll say had some of the most calm people, have had the most complex backgrounds and they worked hard to get there.
Speaker 3:And so when you ask someone, you know what's your story. I always, my goal is always to show up, like you said, like in this beautiful Barbie pink that I have on. People don't know, at first glance, that I experienced a severe trauma and tragedy in my life and but now I'm here and I'm the best role model that I possibly can be, because I live out this research every day in my life and that's why I'm in the third edition. I'm. My chapter is in the survivor mission section. I'm the story that they tell.
Speaker 3:But Survivor Mission section I'm going to share. Just you don't have the book, but in the parting words it says resilience is about understanding the difference between fate and freedom, learning to take responsibility for one's own life. Responsibility for one's own life and working within your scope of control, that's, I mean, that's really you know. This is why the exchange of knowledge and accomplishments, where you see, when you mention you know you're a super survivor, people just aren't told that, they're not given any awards or accolades over it. But it's wonderful in these very intimate conversations that people will, like you will say you're a super survivor. Oh, thank you.
Speaker 2:It makes a difference.
Speaker 2:It does make a difference, carolyn, I'm I'm always in awe when I speak to you. I appreciate you know you spending some time, and I'm going to be spending some time with you tomorrow. I'm going to introduce you to a group of women in transition, so I'm excited about that, and you've invited me to a couple of events that you are either hosting or a major part of in the next couple of months. So I appreciate that. Yes, is there anything else that you want to talk about or brag about? Yes, please do.
Speaker 3:Well, two years ago we had we have a golden committee at Modern Widows Club and it's really. How do we come up with bright ideas of not only changing the narrative about widows but also creating revenue streams, because to find grants to support widows organizations is extremely hard. It's so unknown and so invisible. So what we did is we embarked on writing a book, and this book is now out on Amazon and it's called Legendary Widows Stories of Legacy, and it's 12 extraordinary women's stories, some of them you'll know, like Coretta Scott King or Eleanor Roosevelt. You know these are women that we know.
Speaker 3:We don't really think of them in the perspective of what they did in widowhood. There would be no King Center with Martin Luther King if not for Coretta Scott King. There would be no UN Women if not for Eleanor Roosevelt. We look at these women's stories, and so it's these 12 stories about women. Know, we look at these women's stories, and so it's these 12 stories about women, but we share the bios. We actually, modern Widows Club, has a book club, so we utilize the talent that we had within there to write these 12 bios.
Speaker 3:But then I write a companion piece called More Thoughts, and I talk about why this particular woman was chosen for this book and how she's inspired my life to then, of course, then pass along and share with all the women in our organization, and so it really shows, I think, what women and anyone who reads this book will go.
Speaker 3:Wow, I never really thought about this woman's story and the perspective of what she accomplished in widowhood, and it's really everyone who has written the book so far has gotten to the foreword and started crying because it was so affirming that they have great things to do.
Speaker 3:I always say a formidable woman is a terrible thing to waste, and we're doing going to create, but it's out now and hopefully every year on International Widows Day, june 23rd, we'll have one of these in the series, and so it's this one. The next one we're doing is Stories of Strength, and I was really grateful to Paul Chavez from the Cesar Chavez Foundation. Oh, wow, okay, he wrote the introduction and he talks about his mother, helen Fabella Chavez, and this book is actually now going to be in the Cesar Chavez National Monument Bookstore. Wow know, you know what happens when you go back, and Paul Chauvet said he was so grateful because his you know, people always said, people always say that you know every great man, you know there's a great woman behind him and he was like let me make it clear my mom never stood behind my dad.
Speaker 3:She always stood next to him or sometimes ahead of him, and so we need to give these women the recognition for what they, how they have contributed to the good that exists in the world today. So I'm really excited about this book because it's it's been a two year passion project for me and it's been taken a big team and big investing and and it's available and 100% of the proceeds come back to Modern Widows Club.
Speaker 2:Awesome. Can you repeat the title of the book again?
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's called Legendary Widows Stories of Legacy.
Speaker 2:Got it. I'm going to make sure I have that in the notes, as I am also taking notes. Thank you, awesome Congratulations, thank you. Thank you, awesome Congratulations, thank you.
Speaker 3:Thank you.
Speaker 2:Is there anything else that I missed, Carolyn, or anything else you're going to force me to take notes on?
Speaker 3:No, I don't think that's it All right.
Speaker 2:You can find Carolyn at themodernwidowscluborg and again, I will put a link to her organization and also a link to be able to purchase the book. Uh, with the notes section on this podcast. Carolyn, I'm a grateful for all the tutelage you give me. Um, you are a book of wisdom and um, I appreciate learning from you every time that we meet. So, and I will see you tomorrow, yeah, that's right, thank you, yeah, I'm excited.
Speaker 2:So for anyone that's listening, thank you, Appreciate all the listeners and please feel free to pass this podcast on to any of your friends, family members or colleagues. And please remember you can also support the show so I can continue doing great things for other people and supporting very, very good organizations.
Speaker 1:Thanks for listening to our podcast. If you are a client and are looking to work directly with Chris and or our firm, head on over to Life After Grief FP. That is Life After Grief FP. The FP is for financial planning. If you are an advisor looking to emotionally and financially work with your client in grief, or if you are a client looking to get your advisor's head in the game, head on over to lifeaftergriefconsultingcom. That is lifeaftergriefconsultingcom. Any related information referenced in this week's podcast will be located here in the podcast section.