Rosa Ponce De Leon | Finding Beauty on the Other Side of Grief

SUMMARY OF THE SHOW: 

Rosa Ponce De Leon is a keynote speaker, the podcast host of Powerful at Work Radio, and a leadership coach who has spent over twenty years working in law enforcement in Orange County, California.
From her background in law enforcement and her personal experience, she has learned that tragedy is part of life that happens to both good people and bad people.

Today I am talking to Rosa about the tragedy and grief within her own family and how, over time, she has learned to accept and be okay with grief.

TOPICS THAT I DISCUSS WITH ROSA:

· The immigrant experience
· A career in law enforcement
· Family tragedy and grief
· Dealing with grief
· Learning how to see the beauty on the other side of grief

LIST OF RESOURCES AND CONTACT DETAILS MENTIONED IN THIS EPISODE
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Visit Rosa Ponce De Leon https://rosaponcedeleon.com/

LISTEN NOW:

SHOW TRANSCRIPT
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Claire Rogers  
I'm Claire Rogers and you're listening to Boot Camp for the Mind & Soul, the podcast that gives you an inner workout. Before we get started, remember, just like in a gym where you may not be able to use all the equipment, pick up what you can in this episode and leave behind what you can't.
 
Your inner workout starts now.  
 
Rosa Ponce de Leon is a keynote speaker, the podcast host of Powerful at Work Radio and a leadership coach who has spent over 20 years working in law enforcement in Orange County, California. From her background in law enforcement as well as her own personal experience, she has learned that tragedy is a part of life that happens to both good people and bad people.  
 
Today I'm talking to Rosa, about the tragedy of grief within her own family and how over time, she has learned to accept and be okay with grief.  
 
Welcome Rosa and thank you for joining Boot Camp for the Mind & Soul podcast.
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
Thank you so much for having me Claire I'm excited to be here.
 
Claire Rogers  
Rosa, you are the daughter of two hard working immigrants from Mexico, and I'd like to find out from you, first off, before we dive into everything... when did your parents immigrate to the United States and what was their motivation to immigrate?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
My parents actually met in the United States; they were from the same region in Mexico and they independently immigrated as the eldest of their families.  They both are children from big families - my father was the oldest of 14, my mother was the oldest of 10, and they wanted opportunity that they didn't have in their hometowns. And there was opportunity across the border that a lot of people tried to pursue, and they decided that it was for them. They each had family members, out here, that they were able to come and live with, and eventually they met and got married and had me and they started their family. Their dream was always to go back to their hometown, after they had some success and could maybe have a future in Mexico but that never really happened.
 
Claire Rogers  
Where abouts are they from in Mexico?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
The state is called Michoacán, and they're in a suburb of Morelia which is the capital of Michoacán.
 
Claire Rogers  
So they immigrated to the US, they raised a family which includes you as the oldest alongside three younger brothers. I would like you to tell me about your childhood... what kind of environment were you raised in?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
We were raised in a tight knit family - my parents and their siblings were also immigrants to the region, so we were very close to my cousins and we had a lot of playdates and they were always very community oriented, so I was raised in a home where we predominantly spoke Spanish. It was considered rude to speak English when people could not understand you, because they can't get involved in the conversation so as a general rule, we always spoke Spanish inside of our home and I didn't actually learn English until I started going to school. So, Spanish was actually my first language, even though I was raised in the United States.
 
Claire Rogers  
So was it a tight close knit family unit.
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
Yes, so, my parents had me and my three brothers, my younger brothers, the eldest one is four years younger. Actually, there was a brother too that actually we're going to speak about today. So growing up I don't speak about him as much because I only had my second brother for four years of his life because he drowned in a tragic accident. That's part of the tragedy that we're going to talk about today but growing up, it was really me and my two brothers, but there was such an age gap that I was almost like a single child. I'm the oldest and then the two of them were always bound together. So I always felt like I had a little bit of a deficit I guess because I didn't have my little play date, growing up.
 
Claire Rogers  
What kind of core values were you raised with?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
My parents were very, very clear on their core values. They wanted to make sure that we their children had a better life than they had. So we were always encouraged to work hard and to be grateful for the values that that they instilled in us in terms of being appreciative of life and of having an opportunity to contribute to society, to be an honest, hardworking person, and to also be patriotic because this country was so good to us.  And so we were always raised to be thankful and even as a young person I actually volunteered as a cadet for the Air Force and was involved in some of those activities, just because of our values. 
 
We were also raised to appreciate the culture that my parents came from that I'm very much a part of, you know, the music, the shows on TV, the old black and white movies that my dad would make us watch that I still very fondly watch on occasion. So we just understood that Mexico was such a family culture that we were raised around, and we were always grateful that we had family everywhere we went whether we were in Mexico or here, we always had aunts and uncles everywhere.
 
Claire Rogers  
You were just talking about your brother, Jose Luis. You were 11 months apart, and you shared briefly that unfortunately he passed away. Can you tell me how that happened, how he drowned?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
My mom's brother and his family were going on an outing. It was a holiday weekend, and there was a lake in our neighborhood. My parents were very hardworking - there were always projects at home whether my dad was fixing a car, whether he was doing upgrades to the home construction wise, whatever was happening there was always some type of construction activity or building activity and I was generally always helping my father and so was my brother. But that particular weekend, my uncle said hey we're all going to go to the lake, and the kids want to go. Are you okay with it? and my parents were said no problem. So they let us go. 
 
And I remember being at this park, and it was crowded, and I got in the water and we didn't know how to swim yet. I don't know that we knew about safety devices like vests and stuff, but I just remember getting in the water and thinking there's too many people here and I'm gonna drown, let me get out. And I just left. It didn't even occur to me that my brother was still out there. And so I went and sat with my aunt next to a tree and in a little picnic area and I remember at one point, where the lake was there was a crowd of people like something alarming had happened and I  remember my aunt shouting out to my uncle go check out Jose Luis, and I don't know why she knew to check on him, but it probably was because she was like I don't want to be the one that something happens to this kid that I brought to the park.  But long story short, the next thing I remember I was in a hospital waiting room. My parents were crying, and everybody was sad. And I think I realized from my father that my brother had died, and I wasn't gonna see him again. 
 
And long story short, we ended up burying him in Mexico because my parents still felt like that was their hometown and so we shipped him over there, and I spent a whole summer there. This happened in July, and I actually attended half of the first grade in Mexico. So I learned how to read and write in Spanish, I learned all of the stuff that you learn in the first grade there. And the other thing that I remember is that my parents were never hateful or mean to my aunt and uncle, they knew this was a tragedy and they knew this was an accident. No one meant for this to happen, even though they were super sad. I don't know how my aunt and uncle handled it privately; they may have felt some grief or guilt.  I never spoke to them about it, but I just remember that it was a healthy grieving process where everybody just accepted that this was a sad moment, and there was no hating or blaming at least not from our family.  And I remember as an adult thinking how far ahead they were that this didn't become dysfunction for our family. 
 
Claire Rogers  
Do you remember how your parents dealt with it? Or do you remember them even talking to you about it?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
Yes. Especially my mom. They spoke about it. Not to me directly. I don't think anyone sat me down or if they did, I was too little to really understand. I mean I got some advice from people like hey he's in heaven, you know, things like that but I remember my mom crying at night and I remember  she would just grieve him, and I remember when we buried him that she was holding my middle brother the next in line, because he was alone. He  just didn't go with anybody, he just wanted to be with either my Mom or my Dad. And so she was carrying him.
 
Traditionally in Mexico when you have a funeral you walk to the burial site because it's real close. So we walked in, she was just carrying him and then once they lowered the casket, that's when my mother just finally started crying - she was fine up until that moment and she grieved him and everybody kind of understood and then we went home, and we remained in Mexico for a while. But I remember there were times when she would remember him and just cry, and she was never the type, she was just very pure of heart, if that's how she's feeling, she wasn't over the top she just was very genuinely sad. And I just remember thinking, okay my mom's sad again. 
 
As an adult now I'm kind of more of a stronger character so I don't cry often, but I always appreciated the fact that my mom was so honest with her grief because she would cry and not try to be strong, when she didn't have to be.
 
Claire Rogers  
And your father, do you recall how he took it, how he managed his grief?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
He didn't  speak... I'm probably more like him now that I think of it because he was more intellectual about it; he was more like hey this is what happened. Of course he missed his child, and I think now as an adult, I understand a little bit more of the dynamics between him and my next brother in line because my brother that died Jose Luis, he was really just a perfect kid, he was a little angel. I was a free spirited kid. I would leave toys everywhere and he was very organized, very appropriate and if my Dad needed anything he would always volunteer and say hey can I help with this, he was just one of those good kids. And then my next brother, I was with like him in a way, in terms of being responsible of my next brother. He's very strong willed and wants to do things his way. And until he figures it out and navigates it then he comes around, but you have to let him try first and him and my father always butted heads and I feel like my dad was used to Jose Louis, and then maybe didn't have as much patience for the other kid and he probably longed for his boy. 
 
So I know that there was some healing process that my next brother probably had to go through just because my father's heart was maybe not as patient with him. I've never saw my dad cry. I never saw him really talk openly about his grief; I knew that his heart was pure in terms of how I mentioned he wasn't blaming anyone. He just accepted that this happened, and he moved on. But I know that in the end he did have some after effects from the loss that probably he didn't necessarily navigate. He didn't go to therapy; they didn't do any of that. They probably could have benefited from that but growing up in our culture that's not common.
 
Claire Rogers  
You said that there was no blame for your Auntie or your Uncle because it was a tragedy. Do you know how they came to that? Was it an immediate, it's not your fault, move on and we just knuckle down and remain the type close family we've always been, or are you aware if there was any discussion or  some uncomfortable tension within the family or was it literally, we'll do this together.
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
They literally lived around the corner from our house so even that night in the hospital, they hugged. They were like hey, this sucks we all realize this wasn't supposed to happen. And I wasn't part of any conversations that may have happened, but I know for a fact my father always spoke about how he never wanted my aunt and uncle to feel any type of guilt. He knew they didn't set out to do this, they weren't careless, they had all these kids there, it was a crowded environment. Looking back, probably there are things we could have done differently but no one really anticipated something tragic like this so as to us buckling down and being a tight knit family, I don't even remember that being an issue because I don't feel like the guilt part ever entered into the conversation,  it just never happened, it was just like we're just going to continue to be the same family we've always been.
 
Claire Rogers  
I think it's very emotionally intelligent of your family. It sounds very emotionally intelligent. I'm just wondering what gives them that emotional intelligence? Is it a solid grounding in family, or is it a religious upbringing, that gives them faith that enables them to have that emotional intelligence or is it innate within the family itself or is a combination of both?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
I'd say probably a combination. I mean, we were raised Catholic, I was raised in the Catholic Church I did all the rituals of First Communion, Baptism, all that stuff. And you are raised with an understanding that there's this God that looks after you and that provides for you. And so we did have that faith in that sense, but I think the intelligent part of it just came from the fact they knew hardship. My parents knew hardship from being raised on a farm where everybody has to pitch in. It wasn't a new thing - people in those circumstance lose babies, there's health issues that affect people and people are afflicted by very real tragic things. And so they had seen it in their upbringing, and they knew that this was part of life. 
 
Claire Rogers  
So how did losing Jose Luis impact your childhood? And also how did it, and again I appreciate you were really little, you were only five so you might not recall or know, but how did it impact your personality I'm wondering?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
In both ways I think it did impact my personality. It would be years before I understood this concept, but I guess when I was little, I made a decision to honor my brother by letting him hold a space in my life that no one else could really ever have. Being, you know, good friends or whatever I've always had wonderful people around me, but there came a point where I was at therapy and I realized that I was numb in some ways and, the profession that I was in certainly exposed me to other tragic events and I was very, I wouldn't say I was hardened, I still intellectually knew what was happening, but I realized that my emotions were taking a toll and that I was now limited to only a few emotions and the complexity of my emotions wasn't there. 
 
The depth of my emotions wasn't there, and I thought, man, I don't want to walk around the hallways like this robot. So, I did decide to go to therapy, and she helped me work through some of those issues and I went in thinking oh it's just  my job. But then she uprooted some of the issues from that  tragic death, and I realized that I needed to make a different decision about how I honored my brother and that it was more of an honor to say that he was an impact in my life and made me love me in such a way that I needed to allow other people to see what he saw as my brother. So, the kind of kid that I was, free spirited happy,  I needed to let other people in without reservation. And it wasn't detrimental to him or it took nothing away from who he was to do that. In fact it was more of an honor to him because he was able to see it and he would want that. So it was kind of a big shift actually; it wasn't something that I realized was an issue, it sounds simple, it sounds logical, but it made a big difference in my life because then I just started evolving and being more myself. I didn't realize that I had been so reserved.
 
Claire Rogers  
So, I'm going to come back to that, but I'm going to preface it by saying, you've told me that your father unfortunately died 12 years later in a car accident. You would have been roughly 17 years old when that happened. I would like to talk about how you shared with me previously how your mom was very free and open with her grief, yet it sounds like on the flip side, you were actually hardened to it.  So I'm just wondering why you didn't emulate your mom's behavior, or did you feel as though you couldn't emulate her behavior because you wanted to be strong for her?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
I don't think I had that cognitive decision; I think I'm just naturally built a little differently. My mom is a very unique person. She has a servant's heart. She loves people and she's very quiet in her love - she's not very descriptive of her feelings, but she just lives it. She would tend to us when we were sick, she cooked for us, she was always paying attention to people,  she's very caring and for her, the loss of my brother and the loss of my father, these were big people in her life in terms of her daily activities, these are people she cared for and attended to and now this was gone.  So it was more than just a loss of a child, it was a loss of her day  and I remember when my father died that actually a priest, he's actually my uncle, he sat us down and he’d had a close relationship with my dad, and he said, listen, it's gonna be tough for you guys because you've lost your father but just be patient with your mom because you guys still have each other, and you still have your mom. She lost her husband. She doesn't have anybody else that can fill that void. 
For us we had two parents. Now we at least we still had one. I just remember thinking that what he said makes a lot of sense. So I don't remember thinking I needed to be strong for her, I just remember thinking I needed to be patient with her and just to let her grieve, and I had already had the exposure of the loss of my brother and how she coped, and it was very similar with my Dad. Literally, it would be the middle of the night and I would hear her just grieving, crying just deep cries. And I would just walk over to her room and be like, Mom, it's gonna be okay. And, you know, but I knew that it's what she needed. To me it wasn't something I felt like I needed to fix for her, or that I needed to help her to get out of that grief , it was just her process and it was good for her.
 
Claire Rogers  
So how did you actually learn the process of grief? Losing your brother, losing your father. How did you learn to understand grief?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
Yeah, and I don't know if there's a right or wrong way to process. I think bringing an understanding is really the key. Understanding how this tragedy impacts your life today. 
 
There were some things I did in therapy, many people who have been to therapy have probably gone through that whole inner child exercise -  like what did your inner child experienced at that time? And maybe there's things there that you didn't have the capacity to understand but you do have it now and let's work through that. And so I did some inner child exercises to kind try to tune into what was happening and I don't even remember what the exercises were at this point, but it's just basically sitting down and taking the time to do what you didn't take the time to do before. And if you had taken the time you probably weren't equipped to handle it anyway, so it was just a very healthy thing to reach back and wonder, what was that pain like? and not run from it.
 
Claire Rogers  
Did you get therapy when you lost your father at 17?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
No, I got the therapy much later. I was in my mid 20s, like I said, well into my career - five years - it doesn't seem like a lot, but I was working in very intense neighborhood’s, I was working in very busy high crime, high activity neighborhood’s, and there was a big demand on my body emotionally, physically, and intelligently.
 
When you go through an academy you learn a tone, you're having to make decisions that have to be legally sound and so the profession is so demanding. But, again, for me it was a matter of, who do I want to be? do I want this career to suck the life out of me? or do I want to be a person who adds value to the community and actually is healthy?
 
And so that's when I kind of also had an encounter with God at that time .And I decided that I wanted to be a Christian person who has not so much religion but has a relationship with my Creator. And so, both of those things combined, the therapy and the fact that I had gotten back in touch with my Creator, helped me to realize that there was a different way to be healthy. And so it gave me the courage to really seek out that therapy and to be honest, in the therapy, because I majored in psych I remember sitting in front of the therapist and thinking oh my gosh she's doing projection right now, okay she's doing this right. I knew all those techniques because I had studied them. And I was like, but you're here for a reason, so just be a good participant, be a willing participant in this process. So I had to remind myself of that. I didn't love sitting on that couch, but I knew that it was important for me to put in the effort. And so I did.
 
Claire Rogers  
So was there a pivotal moment that made you seek the therapy? Was there like a tipping point when you thought to yourself, you know what, I need to get some help? Was it that moment with God? 
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
I think all of those things led to that moment, but I know there was one time when I was walking down the hallway and I saw one of my partners who was really good at having lighthearted funny exchanges with people at work. And I'm not big on elevator conversations or small talk doesn't work for me,  so unless I get to know people and have real conversations, people don't really get to know me, and so people knew me as this person that you could banter with but that's really all they knew of me at work. And so with this one guy, I was walking down the hall and he just stopped me and he's like, hey what's up? You're all serious? and I thinking, I’m having a good day, what's the problem? but I didn't realize I was task focused. There was two modes; either you were goofing off or were working and if we're working, I'm very in a zone. I look serious but it's not like I'm disconnected I'm just focused. 
 
So I remember him stopping me and I remember thinking man, how do people see me, how am I showing up for them? and it just made me wonder why would he think that? It just caught me off guard that he questioned whether I was in a good mood or not. To me I was just like, I'm not in a bad mood I'm just walking down the hallway, what was that supposed to look like?
 
It was just such a simple exchange, but such a life altering exchange because I realized that what people were seeing was a direct result of how I was showing up. I had to own that. I had to own that maybe I'm not allowing people to get to know me as someone who's just a regular person that has emotions and has thoughts and ideas that need to be expressed. I hadn't been doing that. I haven't been offering people the ability to just have a normal conversation outside of the job or the task that we're doing.
 
Claire Rogers  
And do you feel comfortable sharing with me and our listeners the moment when you have a moment with God? Do you feel comfortable telling me about that?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
Yeah, sure. 
 
I think I was 25, and I was coming up to my 26th birthday and I had my career, I had my degree, I had a home that I had just gotten the keys to a year before I was dating a really great boyfriend at the time. And so I felt like I had everything that I needed in life that I was supposed to be pursuing and I'd done it, you know by my 25 fifth birthday I had all those things. And so I was thinking what else is left? why do I feel like I'm still missing something?
 
And my boyfriend at that time had been raised as a Christian and he had a Bible, so I started reading it. And I have a cousin who is a literature major who's amazing, and who also had become a Christian in her life so I would just call her regularly and be like, what's this story about can you decipher this for me. And she's super patient, she's a professor, so she took her time explaining everything. And I did that for about a year and then my boyfriend and I had a conversation about whether we should start going to church again and I said sure, let's go find one. 
 
I didn't want to go back to Catholic church because even in college I had visited Catholic Church and I just never felt like - I guess what I was yearning for is what I later discovered was the presence of God where you worship, or you have an experience where you're actually in communion with God. I felt like it was absent in those services. So, there was a disconnect there. 
 
And so we started going to a little church locally, and we went there for a few months and it was really different than what I was used to from church. It was very conversational. It was very relatable. And it was presented in such a way to daily life. There's a way to connect what the Bible says with daily life, it wasn't just some, you know, you have to be a priest to be pure ,you have to be a priest to hear from God, none of that was there, it was just you can be a regular person, and have an encounter and a relationship with God and then I think it was November of, 2003, when there was a conference at church and it was mainly for young adults, but it was more for people my age. And after three days of being in that conference, I remember on one of those days that the worship was happening and people were getting prayer and I just remember sitting on the pew and thinking God is real. And I just remember having that encounter in terms of there was this real presence that knew me personally, and that had been with me my whole life.
 
Because I was really very decisive growing up in terms of where I went to school, in terms of what activities I need to be a part of, and I was a little bit of a groundbreaker because I didn't have too much guidance from my parents. I was first generation, and I had just learned that I had this innate quality about me that knew what to do. And in that moment in the pew I realized that the reason I had that innate nature is because God had been with me guiding me and showing me. And I realized that the thing that I knew to do, I knew to do only because he was there with me. So I kind of did the math and was like, oh my gosh, you've been real my whole life, and I thought it was just me. So from then on, I decided I don't ever want to ignore you moving forward, I definitely commit to serving you and you're a good God and you're my Lord and it was just a decision that I made. And I continued to study the Bible and study his teachings and it's been very different ever since.
 
Claire Rogers  
You say that you felt in that moment a presence of God. Can you describe to me what that feeling is? I've had similar feelings, which I'll describe to you in a moment, but I'm just curious as to how you knew what was the feeling was? Was there a tangible feeling inside or just like an aha moment?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
It was both. I mean it was just a very real experience of love, like I'd never felt before. I was loved by my parents, but my parents were not super like huggy, lovey. They were just providers, they're very responsible, they would tell us you know, it's because I love you that we're doing this and we're making the sacrifices – there was a lot of communication, but not a lot of physical affection because they weren't raised that way either. There was 14 and 10 of them and that just didn't happen so for me in that moment I just felt his presence in this warm. And this very deep love toward me that I had never experienced before. And so for me it was just something I couldn't deny. I was there. No one could challenge that because I'm experiencing something that is real. And to this day that's a marked moment for me.
 
Claire Rogers  
You know what, I'm so glad you shared that story with me Rosa because I haven't told you this before, but I have had a similar feeling.
 
So this was a long time ago, but one of my best friends died of a heroin overdose. And when I found out I was devastated; he was my one of my best friends from high school, I loved him intensely, he was such a good soul, a good, good person. And so I remember when I went through that grieving process, I would one day have this deep feeling of love for him, to the next day, just being so pissed off at him thinking how did you get into heroin? I don't understand. You came from a good family to my knowledge, we were all good kids,  I just don't understand, how did you go down this path? And so I really struggled bad for about a year -  I was oscillating between happy, sad, happy, sad and my husband I remember saying to me you know I don't know when you're going to snap out of this.
 
I remember about a year into this grief of oscillating between pure love to just pure anger towards my friend and then feeling guilty because I felt angry towards someone who's died. I remember, probably about a year into that grief process going to bed one night, and people will say it was a dream, or I was imagining things and I'm cool with people saying that I don't need them to believe my experience. But I went to bed this one night, and I must have been thinking about my friend's still. And I remember waking up in the middle of night, seeing my friend walk towards me and hug me and this golden light was around him, and I have never felt such pure love in my life. Never. It's, I can't even put human words to that feeling, it was a feeling of pure and deep euphoria. 
 
And I had that same dream, visitation, whatever you want to call it, I had that every night for about a week. I felt my friend hugging me and I felt this warm embrace and pure love and about a week later I remember consciously saying, towards the end of the week to my friend, are you okay? and I remember him saying to me, I’m good, it’s just pure love. You don't need to worry about me anymore. And I remember consciously saying in my dream slash vision, whatever you want to call it,  I don't need you to come back anymore. And I never had that dream ever again. 
 
To your point, that was a pivotal moment for me because I don't grieve him anymore, because I know he's okay and that was my God moment.
 
I have told you before, I had a Catholic upbringing and that did not work out for me, but I'm still a deeply spiritual person and I believe in God and I believe in pure love. And it's because of that moment. So I think it's very interesting that you just described that your moment was that feeling of pure love as well. 
 
I am wondering in your moment of feeling God, did that change your grief process or your understanding of grief? For me it certainly did. I don't want to embrace tragedy; I don't want to go after tragedy. But I have a good understanding of death now. I'm not so scared of it, and I have a good understanding of grief and it's almost I say to myself that that's human nature. Now, rather than a bigger picture. Does that make sense?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
Yeah, yeah, for sure. And I think that’s the complexity of our nature. You know, there's still so much that's being learned about how we're designed, like our design is crazy. The spiritual aspect, especially people. A lot of people don't understand that we are spiritual beings designed in the image of God I believe that anyway. But it's definitely complex.
 
Claire Rogers  
How did grief and tragedy impact your personal life and impact how you dealt you people in your career in enforcement? How did that impact how you dealt with other people in that environment going through grief? Did it formulate a different way of how you would deal with them or confront them or deal with it?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
I think that it's a normal part of the process of life; where there's life, there's death and I think for me it changed in the sense of I learned to slow down and appreciate the people in my life differently because you know sometimes, we have friends that are in our life for a season, and they come and go. But, you know, it's so easy, especially in the culture in the United States to just get caught up in your daily stuff, and not slow down for people and I had been doing that, so I think in that moment I definitely realized that God had put people in my life for a reason and I needed to slow down and get to know them and appreciate them. And I learned to appreciate how much the people in my life made me better for other people in my life. It was this compounding good effect that because I'm close to one person doesn't mean I don't have room for another person, they all complement the overall experience of who I am, to everyone else and I needed to be courageous and willing to have those moments of appreciation for my life.
 
Claire Rogers  
So for listeners to the show who may be going through grief or know of someone going through grief, do you have any advice you would offer them?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
Absolutely I know for me, it made me more patient I'm still on the job and actually I'm a field supervisor now, so I actually have to attend to every death that my team goes through. And so, I see them even more now, but ultimately, I've learned to appreciate that pain affects people very differently. I've learned to appreciate the fact that people are unpredictable. They behave differently. Sometimes they are as you described, one day being happy, or one day being sad or one day being angry. And those are all very real responses. And so, it has forced me to really have a deeper appreciation for what people are experiencing that you know not everyone is the same. 
 
And there's no wrong way. I mean obviously violence is wrong. But, if you're angry, don't go beating everybody up, acknowledge that you're angry and, and it's okay, don't fight yourself about it. So I think the way that I communicate with people is different in that you have to validate people's experience with pain, and it's healthier to express it than it is to just shut it down. Because if you shut it down, it's going to creep up later, so while it's happening while it's new, you really have to be more human with people and it's helped me to better connect to people. 
 
Claire Rogers  
I completely agree with you I think, talking about that moments of losing my friend and then going through the grief process and then having my moment of dreams/visualization with him. I remember waking up after all of this occurred thinking to myself, you know, what I have spent way too much of my life worrying about stuff that does not matter. And for me it taught great perspective, and that's where I thought actually almost this grief, this awful pain I've gone through is almost a blessing. It's not a blessing I've lost my friend but it's a blessing, how I've learned from it. Would you agree with that?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
Yeah, and I would add that grief doesn't only happen for people for loss of people. Sometimes it's loss of , a job, an experience, etc., Grief is an emotion that's very healthy, that's very natural. And I would encourage any listener who's experiencing grief for any reason, to be okay with it and to let it play out because on the other side of it is this feeling of thoughts of what are the things that matter? because now I know that the thing that I took for granted before was actually very important to me and so while I have it, I'm going to live differently with it in my life, so that when it's gone, I know I didn't neglect it.
 
So, it helps you to re-prioritize your life. To simplify your life so that you're not overextended into things that really don't matter at all. And I think there's something beautiful about living a life that is simpler, that is less about how many hours are in the day so I can do a million things and more about how do I make those hours count for something? And you show up differently when you live that way, and I would hope that grieving process helps you really make sense of what does matter to you because we're all different.
 
Claire Rogers  
So I know we've talked before and this really segues nicely into it… you're really into gratitude. Did that come from your parents, even before they lost their loved one, your brother, or is that something that you've actively cultivated even more growing up, because of tragedy?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
It was definitely fundamental growing up. We didn’t have everything…the latest and greatest. We grew up on used everything; and so we were grateful for every little bit that we had and little by little because of this my parents were so responsible, they were able to set us up to have better things like they've paid off their house in a lifetime, and they bought a new house and that's unheard of nowadays, and I think it was because they were grateful for that and for even what little we had that they were blessed with more. And so it's kind of one of those things that if you do live a life of gratitude, it, it comes with more things to be thankful for, because you are grateful in the little.
 
Claire Rogers  
And so how do you carry gratitude with you today? How do you practice it today?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
I carry it in the sense of, I still don't live outside of my means, I still very much am grateful. I'm very clear about what do I really need? And it doesn't mean I don't treat myself to things but I'm very clear about not getting caught up in all the things that are marketed to me and I’m really focused on what is it that's going to help me be the person that I want to be and that's what I need to invest in. I don't need to have everything. So I'm very focused in that way but I'm also very grateful to the people in my life. I spend more time making sure that people know that I do things to make sure that they know that there's no lost opportunities in those exchanges. And I try to be courageous with my emotions with people too because I know that that my natural tendency is to be very intellectual, so I have to kind of balance that out.
 
Claire Rogers  
And so, if, if our listeners were looking for a way to cultivate gratitude in their life., any tips, advice?
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
Yeah, just make the decision. That's really where it starts. There's no wrong way to be grateful. Just say thank you for my car that gets me to work every day, thank you for just the little things in life…and it's not the big events in life, those are obvious. It's the little things every day that you appreciate …appreciate people for the little things they do, and they mean in your life. And it starts with that awareness and that decision.
 
Claire Rogers  
And do you think that grief can actually make you more grateful? And the reason why I'm asking that question is it certainly was the case in my own life with the grief when my friend died.  Now if I travel around the world or I do something really meaningful or important or impactful in my life I stand there and I think of my friend and say, I'm doing this for you. And that makes me grateful. His passing has taught me to live my life to the fullest and to a degree I do it for him. I don't do things I don’t want to do; I still get to be me but for example, I'll go hiking on a beautiful mountain and I'll stand at the top and send a kiss to my friends and tell you inwardly this is for you. And, and that's where I think grief can be beautiful.
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
Yes, I completely agree. I have in my heart to do a foundation in honor of both of my parents because if it weren't for their risks, and their motivations  I wouldn't have the life that I have.
 
I think in the most basic sense in society is right now, certainly in America, we're a little bit dysfunctional. I think back to my father as the first feminist in my life. He was an example of feminism because, number one, he never treated me any differently than he treated my brothers, there was no double standard. I was seen as someone who was valuable who can sit next to them and hand them wrenches and who can also look beautiful and go out. But I saw how he treated my mother. Even though my mother was very set in her ways in the ways of her upbringing to keep the house clean - she was a homemaker, my father was like no, you get to do the bookkeeping for the household, you get to do all this, like we're a team. And so he was never the one that said where do the expenses go? they made decisions together about everything, which house they were going to buy, which car, and you they made decisions, but he just always gave her a place of honor, as an equal to him. And so I just remember thinking, how that teamwork was so healthy and for him it was ahead of his time, because the culture certainly was very patriarchal, I don't know how to say that one. 
 
So, for him he was very confident in his leadership, and the way the household ran was a reflection of their values of seeing people regardless of their identity or their gender. They were just very caring people. I think about him and how he was a model of great leadership in my life. 
 
Claire Rogers  
I'm guessing like me, that's how you find beauty and grief. 
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
That's  how I honor his life, even though I wish he would have been alive longer, I honor his life. And I find that it's beautiful. Even though I lost him at 17, his legacy still lives on and I'm able to be a part of that. So for me the grief is worth it.
 
Claire Rogers  
I agree with you. So, as we start wrapping up, I just want to clarify something here.  We've both gotten to a place where we can see beauty in grief. However, there could be listeners listening to this, who are in the depths of despair, losing a loved one, a child a pet, you name it. They could be in the depths of despair. What words of comfort would you give those people that are not in that place where they think there's beauty in grief and actually, we could come across as condescending how we've just been talking.  What comfort would you give them.
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
Definitely the beauty comes after the pain. And there's really no way around the pain. So pain is pain. It isn't a matter of whether who's in more pain or comparing whatever pain you're feeling. Don't run from it. it hurts. It's not pleasant. There may be nothing anyone around you can do to make it better or to alleviate that pain, and hopefully you do have an experience and an encounter with your Creator that can bring a little bit of relief, but at the end of the day, pain is pain. I've seen it, I've experienced it and really, you know, people may say things and do things that are well intended but aren't helping the situation. Just know that on the other side of this is that beauty that is waiting for you. And it may not seem like there's any reason to believe it but the only comfort I can bring you is that it is very much the case and you sticking it out right now and not running from that pain is the healthiest thing that you can do and the most courageous thing that you can do, so hang in there. I mean that's really all I can say. Hang in there.
 
Claire Rogers  
I think that's excellent advice and I would add to that, to just to know that they're not alone. There are many that have gone through it and onto the other side. You're not alone. You're really not alone.
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
Yes, it's what connects us as humans and it's beautiful.
 
Claire Rogers  
Rosa thank you so much for joining Boot Camp for the Mind and Soul. I very much appreciate you sharing your story and discussing grief with me and with our listeners.
 
Rosa Ponce De Leon  
You've been a great host and it’s a great interview. I really appreciate it Claire for having this conversation with me. Thank you.
 
Claire Rogers  
If you'd like to learn more about Rosa, or would like to get in touch with her, you can reach her at her website which is https://rosaponcedeleon.com/.