Season 1, Episode 10: Rising Through Grief, Facing Adversity, and Building a Legacy with Emily Bingham

Written By Jamie Ratermann

Trying to find meaning in the face of grief is not easy. How often have you heard that you should focus on the positive? That kind of reaction is too common, and it can be unhealthy. It’s normal — and human — to grieve.

In this episode of The Limitless Podcast, grief coach Emily Bingham walks us through her grief journey and how it inspired her to build her thriving business, moveTHRU Grief. Resilience isn't ignoring pain and powering through it; it's learning to acknowledge and accept what life gives — even the negatives. A resilient mindset can help you through a lot, whether in life or business. Emily also shares how she created her brand to help people through their grief.

If you’re interested in finding out how to cultivate mental strategies during difficult times, don’t miss this week’s episode!

Here are three reasons why you should listen to this episode:

  1. Learn to acknowledge your emotions — especially grief — and develop emotional mastery.

  2. Get inspired by moveTHRU founder Emily Bingham’s entrepreneurial mindset and definition of true resilience. 

  3. Discover the benefits of a community for managing your mental health and creating a limitless mindset.

Resources

Episode Highlights

[05:10] Emily’s moveTHRU her Grief Journey

  • After losing her husband to cancer, Emily didn't know what to do with her life moving forward.

  • Emily's company, moveTHRU Grief, began as a group meeting in her spin studio. She created a safe space for her clients to feel their emotions without judgment.

  • moveTHRU helps people acknowledge and deal with their grief by finding their identity and purpose.

  • Once you find yourself again, you can go on to live your life to the fullest — even after tragedy.

[09:00] Stepping Up Into Business

  • It all began with Emily sharing her family’s grief journey through a GoFundMe page.

  • Without realizing it, she was already meaning-making by telling her stories online.

  • Emily found that sharing her experience was therapeutic and positively impacted other people. Sharing her life provided a new meaning to what she was doing.

  • A heart-centered business is about sharing the wisdom and knowledge you have to speed others on their way, but it takes a lot of vulnerability.

[12:53] Are All Grief Stories Supposed To Be Worthwhile? 

  • Not every share on your socials needs a profound takeaway. Think of your social media presence as an online diary connecting you to people.

  • Emily connected with other young widows, a connection she didn’t have before. Sharing her grief story was a mutually beneficial experience.

  • Death and grief are complex topics to tackle. However, you don't need to judge or compare yourself to others; everyone's grief is valid.

Emily: “My authentic experience of grief is just as valid as theirs. It's just that it's different. And, that's been a huge growth edge for me, in terms of learning to trust myself and not need that external validation, or permission to show up as I am.” - Click Here to Tweet This

  • Emily is still balancing showing up as a marketer and a widow online. 

  • There will be people online who will still support you even if your content evolves. You can still pursue what energizes you and not get pigeonholed by your niche.

[20:27] Grief Teaches Us Emotional Mastery

  • Love is beneath the pain. Allow yourself to feel the negative emotions and excavate them so that you get to the love. It takes time, but learn to trust your feelings.

  • Ignoring your feelings won't make them disappear; it might intensify them instead. Be curious about your emotions and ask yourself, "Why am I feeling this way?" 

  • It isn't about always being happy or being done with grief after some time. Don't let your mind make up stories about your feelings; trust your intuition.

[25:29] Resilient Mindset in the Face of Grief or Overwhelm

  • Businesses don’t run perfectly. A resilient mindset helps us handle low points and bounce back to better times.

  • You develop a "grief muscle" as you face grief. This muscle builds into a resilient mindset that you can use elsewhere, even in entrepreneurship.

  • You can grieve for someone alive, like when going through a breakup. You can also grieve for painful events like losing your job or living through a pandemic.

Jamie: “Talking about this in the grand scheme of things, for the fact that there's businesses or strategies, but we're never gonna grow without some type of emotional mastery. I honestly think grief is like a boot camp. It's a masterclass in emotions and how to handle that.” - Click Here to Tweet This

[32:13] How Ian’s Legacy Shaped moveTHRU

  • Ian, Emily’s husband, inspired her to pursue business instead of going back to corporate. moveTHRU has become her way of honoring his life through its impact on others.

  • Even if your loved one is gone, celebrate their existence by doing the things they did back when they were still alive. They become our reason to push through with life. 

  • We can’t control everything in life, but there’s power in choosing what to do with it.

[36:34] Surprising Part Of Being An Entrepreneur

  • Emily never thought that business would be fun, but she gets to be creative and share her heart every day. There's no right or wrong way to run a business.

  • Entrepreneurship is fun, but it's a challenge. Having a supportive community can help you overcome the obstacles in your entrepreneurial journey.

Jamie: “I'm the happiest I've ever been doesn't mean that I don't have a crying moment from time to time. But, I'm the happiest I've ever been because I know I can work myself through that. I know that I have a support system, a community, all of the things I would ever need to get back on top.” - Click Here to Tweet This

[39:18] Mastermind versus Course Programs

  • Emily likes Masterminds because they support people for the time it takes to improve. Masterminds foster slow transformation. 

  • The community built within a Mastermind feels like a family, which Emily likes because sometimes entrepreneurship can feel lonely.

  • It offers a community to fall back on. There’s no judgment or need to explain much, because everyone’s going through similar experiences.

  • Emily’s future mastermind will be about helping people turn their pain into a meaningful business. Just like her experience, but with the benefit of a community.

[43:59] Dealing with People who Judge Your Limits

  • Emily doesn’t have a background in mental health, and she does sometimes fear that her life experience alone won’t be enough. 

  • When people judge you and start putting limits on what you can do, it says more about their limits than yours.

  • Emily thinks she provides value through her experience as a widow, even without certifications. Knowledge from experience is powerful because you learn from the school of life.

[45:50] The Meaning of Limitless

  • Limitless is boundless and beyond time and space. Emily sees it through a grief lens on how love is an eternal connection.

  • Death kills a person, not a relationship.

About Emily

Emily Bingham founded moveTHRU Grief in March 2019 after the passing of her husband from cancer. She turned to physical exercise as a spin and barre instructor and as a former ballerina to deal with her grief. She developed the moveTHRU method, which uses the principles of Acceptance & Commitment Theory and the TEAR Model of Grief.

Connect with Emily to learn more about grief: Instagram │ Website │Tiktok │ LinkedIn

Enjoyed this Podcast on Using Grief for Emotional Mastery and the Benefits of a Community?

Feeling grief and other negative emotions is part of being human. We can use them to achieve emotional mastery. Having a community for support will be a great help during tough times. If you learned a lot from this episode, subscribe and help us spread the word by sharing it!

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Also, you can connect with me on Twitter, @jamieratermann, and Linkedin: Jamie Ratermann.

Thanks for listening! Stay tuned to my website for more episode updates and other exciting programs and resources.

Transcript

In a small way, I now go like, “Alright, turn on a timer. Let me just sit with this fucking emotion for like five minutes and then get curious about it, like, “What is it? What's actually happening?” Like, sometimes, it's small, where it's like, “You haven't eaten yet, maybe we should do that.” And then, other times, it's like, “Okay, I really have to talk through this. I have to talk to somebody about this.” So the biggest thing, even though you said so much good within that, is that we have to feel these tough feelings. There's no way around them. They will come back until we allow ourselves to feel them. 

Jamie Ratermann: You're listening to The Limitless Podcast, where we dig into all the possibilities that exist when you lean into the big vision for your life and your business. Hi, my name is Jamie Ratterman and I am a holistic business coach, meaning I am just as invested in growing your health as I am in growing your wealth. With 11-plus years in brand and social media marketing, I help rebellious entrepreneurs master marketing, embody leadership, and say “fuck it” to the hustle.

This show is here to encourage you to become radically aware of your self-imposed limits, to break free of your shoulds, and to expand your brand into a movement led by you. The way I see it, marketing is a way of spreading your mission, social media is a gift for connection, and sales are where you build your strongest relationships. Let's dig in. 

Hello, lovelies, welcome to episode 10 of The Limitless Podcast. Today, I introduce you to the one, the only — Emily Bingham. She is somebody that I have known, we realized, for just four months but feels like somebody I've known all of my life. So I am super excited to have her on the podcast today. We are going to talk about grief, we're going to talk about emotional mastery, we're going to talk about what it means to create a legacy based on some of the adversity, the hard moments you've had in your life. This is an interview that I have been looking forward to, so much for the fact that it plays such a big role in my life, but she has built a business out of helping people through their grief and how that actually takes form in so many different ways. 

Listen in, it's a really great podcast. We also talk about the benefits of a community, of how we're able to build the growth that we want in our lives through community. And we met each other in a mastermind. So you'll hear more about that in the episode, but this is me wanting to share with you and invite you into that experience. I am hosting a Thrive Mastermind, meaning talking about your business, how you can use emotional mastery, understand how marketing can be a beautiful backbone in your business, and to have a full belief in the resilience and growth that you want to see for your life. The Thrive Mastermind starts at the beginning of June and I would love to invite you. I'll drop it into the show notes so that you can experience what it looks like to have a community in your pocket for five months, so that you can grow your business to new heights. Take a look, listen in, I am so excited for you to hear more from Emily. 

Hello, lovelies, welcome to episode 10 of The Limitless Podcast. I could not be more excited to introduce you to someone really special today. But before we get started, I want you all to know that it's been lovely to be able to spend the last two and a half months with you. And it's been so amazing to hear all the feedback you've been giving. Here's my reminder: whatever you hear today, whatever you love about what I share and what my guest shares with me — I’ll introduce her in just a moment — do a takeaway for me, take a screenshot, share with your community what you found to be really poignant, something that got you thinking. I would love for you to tag me and Emily, just because this conversation is going to be so juicy. I cannot wait. Rate and review, all of the above. Thank you so much. 

Let me go ahead and introduce my guest today, Emily Bingham. Emily is somebody that I got to meet through a mastermind. We got to meet over one of the most amazing emotions, grief. Grief was something that I’ve shared with all of you, that was a part of my story with losing my dad, and how it became something so important. And then it was like a magnet that I was able to find someone else that built a business around it, built something that can help others heal but also decide that grief is actually an emotion we should all experience and understand the waves of it all. Emily is a grief coach who helps people heal and kind of rebirth themselves into a new phase of their life after they lose loved ones or lose a part of themselves, whatever it might be. But I want Emily to be able to fully introduce herself. Emily, thank you so much for joining me on the podcast. Feel free to tell us a little bit about yourself.

Emily Bingham: Hey, Jamie, thank you so much. I love that introduction and, yes, grief. It's such a hot topic right now, with the pandemic and it just being so prominent, and it absolutely is a universal human experience. I love that we are connected through this topic and that our grief is also love, and I'm sure we'll dive into that more. But my grief journey began a long time ago, when I was in my early 20s and I was on a little break from my romance with my college sweetheart, Ian. He found out that he had a cancer called uveal melanoma. We were both like 23 at the time, just starting out our lives together, and we ended up getting back together because he had cancer. 

I laugh about that now because after these events happen in your life, you kind of always look for the meaning and the significance of why your life has turned out the way that it has. But to make a long story short, Ian and I ended up getting married, we had kids, we started a family, we started a life together, despite his cancer diagnosis, because we really, really believed that we would beat this. We were young, he was strong, and we had this belief, like most of us do, that bad things don't happen and that we could beat it. After about 15 months of fighting his cancer, going back and forth to Houston, after the birth of our second child, Ian ended up passing away in Hawaii, in his hometown of Hawaii. It was a beautiful passing. 

From that moment on, I was just like, “I did not imagine my life going this way.” I was this solo mom with two young kids. I had been a stay-at-home mom and I really didn't know what to do with my life. That's actually when I started entering into the world of coaching. I hired my first coach, Jackie Carr. She helped me kind of create a vision for what my future life would look like. And movement had been a really, really big part of my grief journey. I was a fitness instructor, I used to be a ballerina, and ever since Ian's diagnosis, up into his death, the spin room, or the yoga room, or nature, going out and running — some way of moving my body became my medicine. And so I started a company called moveTHRU, which first started out as like a group of us meeting at my spin studio that I taught at, keeping the lights pretty dark and dim, turning on some sad music or angry music, and feeling what we needed to feel, in a space where no one needed to talk. We just all knew each other we were going through.

It was such a beautiful way to have our grief witnessed by one another. So that's what moveTHRU started out as. And then, with time and with the pandemic, I had to shift everything online, but it became another kind of beautiful silver lining because I took all of my services into the online space and have been helping people with their grief, helping them understand that there's nothing wrong with grief, that these feelings are normal, helping them learn to find tools that help them move through their emotions. I help them find their identity, and their purpose, and meaning after a loss, kind of rewrite the narrative on this tragedy that happened to them, so that they can go on to live really amazing lives after experiencing what they thought would be their worst nightmare.

Jamie: Oh my gosh, I hope — everyone who's listening, just listen to Emily's story of this really hard event that happened for you and how you've — great naming! You moved through it and it has become this whole other thing, which was what I love about it, is really understanding that some of these hard emotions can create a new life, can create a new source of meaning. And I think that's really a part of it. And even within what you were saying, you believed that you could work through it, you believed that you could handle it, and that's a good thing — that was a good thing. If we're like, “Why would we want to believe that Ian wasn't going to be with you,” but I think the core of that and understanding it — the grief journey really is never over. It's just kind of how you handle it. But at what point after losing Ian did you decide, “Okay, I'm going to be the leader who hosts these circles, who hosts these moments for these other people that have gone through grief.” Like what made you decide to step up and do that thing?

Emily: Well, I think like most transformation, it wasn't quite that clear to me at the time. It was a lot more subtle, right? And it kind of evolved into what it is now very organically. But I do believe that what kind of gave me that nudge, you could say, is I had started sharing openly about our grief journey. And when I say grief journey, I'm talking about anticipatory grief, too, because once you have someone who's diagnosed with a terminal illness, and even if it's not terminal but there's something chronic-related, there's a loss of normalcy involved in that, and that is grief. I had started sharing about our journey on a GoFundMe page where we were raising money for Ian's cancer treatments. And coming from a marketing background myself, I would always share the updates and then, at the end, I'd be like, “Alright, well, what's like the value?” Because when you're developing content, right, it's like, “Well, what's the lesson? What's the nugget? What can I give?” I’m like a marketing podcast here. 

I would kind of look for that little share, that takeaway, and, I didn't really know it at the time, but I was already meaning-making. I was kind of looking for the lesson, like, “Alright, well, where can I find the good and the bad?” just very early on. And so after Ian passed away, people asked me, they were like, “Are you still going to write about your journey?” And I thought about it and I realized how therapeutic it was for me to write down my thoughts, to share them with other people, and then people would respond and tell me, “Wow, your posts really made me think differently about my life,” or “It's helping me with my husband or child who has some terminal illness,” or whatever it may be. And again, provided new meaning, recognizing that, “Oh, if I share my story, I can actually help others,” and in helping others, I'm taking this horrible thing and I'm creating something that is good, and meaningful, and has a positive impact on people's lives. From there, I started a blog, and it's called Seeking the Silver, and started sharing openly on social media. And then, as soon as I decided that I actually wanted to create a business out of this, it kind of just snowballed from there.

Jamie: Oh, my gosh, I love it so much. A part of it too, is like, I'll talk to people who want to start businesses online, and they'll be like, “Oh, I need accreditation for this”, or I need something about that. And like your deeper part of this is like, yeah, the marketing helped, of course, you knew how to put the message out there. But there was a side of it that like, this is my school of life, and I want you to learn through me. And that is essentially what heart-centered business is. I want people to not have to spend as much time and understanding this as I did. I want you to experience through me, which takes a lot of vulnerability. How long it took me to start to share that, like, “You know what, I lost my dad three years ago, and it's actually a legacy.”

I hope you don't judge me for that. I hope you don't — I have all these thoughts that come up when even when I mention it, but like there was a part of it. That was like me going like, “I want to share this because it's something that motivates me all the time.” But also, there's so much wrapped up in talking about somebody's life that like there's meaning there's there's different pieces to it, for sure. It's such a brave move of kind of how you went from “Okay, let me just share my story because people are taking something from this”, but the other side of that is like, okay, like, “Is this something for me, would Ian love this?”

I'm sure like me asking this question, because I certainly have moments when I'm doing a masterclass and talking about my own dad's legacy, like, where I'll be like, “Okay, this is purposeful, this is something that I want to share, because it makes sense for me, but I know that putting this out there taking this risk is worthwhile.” Did you ever have those things come up early whenever you were sharing these pieces with people?

Emily: Totally. And I think it's also important to point out and you kind of touched on this is that, yeah, like not every share, like had like a lesson, right? Like a profound takeaway. And so it was, our coach Shoshanna says, like, it's like having this online diary. And that is what it was. Also, it was sharing the hard feelings and sharing my struggles and by voicing them, so publicly, people would also like, come to support me. And what was beautiful about that is, when you're a 32-year-old widow, you don't know too many other widows in your situation, and it can feel incredibly isolating. By airing my struggles and my pain points on my online diary, I was able to connect with other young widows who were going through the same thing. And so yes, this entire experience of me sharing was absolutely mutually beneficial. Because I was supported and seen and witnessed and in sharing my own struggle, others were too; they felt seen by just me sharing my story. 

I love that about social media like it's been such a powerful tool to bring these taboo subjects to light and to connect other people who would normally be in isolation. Sorry, I think I kind of got off the subject.

Jamie: I think this is the difference between early social media and now is that like this documentation, this version of a diary where you're sharing pieces of your life and like how it informs who you are and forms how you enter into each day. It's almost like when I get into a conversation anymore, if someone's talking about the perfect feed or curated feeds, I go, like, “Who do you follow?” I don't — I'm not in that environment anymore. And that's a big part of what you're sharing is that the more we can get as close as like, what our takeaways from the day are, what we're documenting about our lives, the more we have connection relation and like a fan club, even if they're not always people who are going to buy from us, but seeing somebody like, “I just want to root you on for how honest you are, how genuine you are in the way that you share.”

Emily: Yeah. And I think what's so hard about that Jamie is like, or at least for me, in my experience, I mean, we're already out there comparing ourselves to other people on social media, it's like impossible not to do, it's just so human. But with grief, and you know this too, through your own experience, I think grief is not — death isn't talked about, grief is not talked about. So when you're put into that situation, all you have to really inform your experience is external validation, and what you've seen in like the media and what other people tell you. It's really hard to trust yourself. And so when my grief looked different than the other widows sharing on social media, I would automatically not judge my content, but I would judge myself. 

That was really hard. And that's been something that I have really had to work on, and challenge and learn to trust that like, my authentic experience of grief is just as valid as theirs. It's just that it's different. And that's been a huge, like growth edge for me, in terms of learning to trust myself and not need that external validation, or permission to show up as I am, like I was before.

Jamie: Totally. Oh, my gosh, I mean, it's not light to be the representative of a new version of an experience. Like, it's absolutely, I think that's part of what makes it brave. It's part of what makes somebody go, “Okay, I'm not seeing anything like this.” I mean, I could listen to you tell stories all day, because there's a side of me that goes like, I don't see anyone else do this online, and it's needed. So you get to be a version of inspiration for others. But even though this all sounds pretty and beautiful, doing that thing, and doing it over and over again, it takes courage every single time. Like it gets easier, I hope, but it takes courage each time, pushing yourself to that edge. But that creates a lot of growth in the long term, too.

Emily: Totally. And I think what would get hard is when like, I would start to separate the marketer from the like Emily, just showing up as like the widow online. And that's still a hard line that I have to kind of like play with. And one thing that's come up really recently that I've talked to you about was this idea that like, “Oh, in order for me to sell my programs to people who are in like early grief, I have to only talk about early grief.” And that felt really hard and sticky for me because I was like, I'm not in early grief anymore. Like I'm experiencing all of the growth and the transformation. That's kind of a product of moving through the grief. So how do I still show up as like, who I am now and still acknowledge that like, yes, all of that grief, and that darkness and that really, really hard stuff is there too. And it's an interesting balancing act. For sure.

Jamie: Totally. I'm so glad you brought that up, though, it kind of goes back to this idea of like a niche versus what is energizing you at the moment. And Emily's bringing up because her and I got to spend time in Colombia together and we got to have a really long talk about this. But you know, what's really great about being a good storyteller and what's really being able to share like is that you have a fan club. You have people who may not be in the early stages of grief. But I've already been there to root you on and see you share those things. But once you create, and this is kind of me sharing the difference is, like you can start with your niche can start very, very strictly like so for Emily that was talking about the early stages of grief, how to work through them. 

Now, she gets to be the example of what happens after. And it's something that I as somebody who follows you, I'm in the after stage but I still double tap when you talk about grief. So being able to think about you as the leader or the content creator behind the account, we get to live through you and support you in that. So long way of saying, don't feel pigeonholed by your niche, you can still support the early stages. But the more you can pour that energy back into how you want to represent life after I think that's a big part of it. I'm like really excited for — so I know what's coming. I know that some things that are coming next, which are really fun. But I kind of would love to kind of go back a little bit to grief, I actually like wrote down this quote, I'm a Marvel fan, I'm going to like out myself a little bit here. But like “Grief is such a powerful emotion.” 

I already kind of alluded to the fact that like the grief journey never really is over. It's definitely something that like, using me as my own personal experiences that like, I never I forget that Ian and my dad passed away around the same time. Yeah. And but every once in a while I'll hear a song and I'm like, “Oh, I didn't think about my dad today. Damn.” Like I get really angry with myself that I didn't keep him ever-present. But that grief is different than the grief that came before but it's still the same emotion. In my mind. I'm so thankful that I'm like Oh, there he is, he's back around like even if I have to work through that hard moment at the beginning. The reason I brought up Marvel is that there's a quote from WandaVision, the people who love Marvel are going to, like be like, “Oh my God, she's a nerd”. Anyway, all the people that love Marvel will love this. But there's a quote, and it's like, “What is grief, but love persevering.”

When I listened to it, I like rewinded it and I was like, “Damn, that's exactly what it is like, that's exactly what this looks like.” And love is at the base of grief and I think that as you coach people through this and like really understand, like how some people are like, “I just don't want to feel this way anymore.” Like how do you kind of talk through what grief is and how it's a new version of like, emotional mastery.

Emily: Totally. Well, I absolutely love having like quotes, like you just mentioned to kind of like, show them that. Yes, like you are experiencing pain right now. But grief is connected to love. And I have a couple of quotes that I'll share too, one is by David Kessler. And David Kessler is who I did my grief training with. He's like one of the leading world-renowned grief experts, he's amazing. But he says “Grief and love are inextricably related. You can only avoid grief by avoiding love.” And the way that he explains it is that, the love is very deep beneath the pain. I try to help my clients recognize that when they are feeling anger, when they are feeling sadness, when they are feeling overwhelmed by this new reality that they're living in that they are actually that by feeling their feelings instead of suppressing them, they're excavating all the layers of pain to get to the love.

It takes time. And it starts with not making our emotions wrong. And recognizing that like, “Oh, like, anger is like when somebody shoves you down on the playground and you fall down, you retaliate with anger.” But the real reason behind the fact that you're angry is because you're hurt, right. And it's the same thing with like a loss. It's like, “I'm angry at God. I'm angry that the doctor missed the diagnosis, I'm angry at myself for not —” whatever it may be. But like, once we feel our anger, and we release it, we really like usually there's like sadness right below that. And we're just hurt that our person isn't here. And so, yeah, I tried to help them recognize that all of the feelings, all of the hard stuff that they're moving through is like they're excavating the pain to find the love. That's one way and I love that.

Jamie: I love that excavating the pain, like you're an anthropologist of emotion. We're going to get there dust things off until we get to the core emotion and what's really there? And I think that's a big part of it. Is that what you said, feel the feelings. Because this applies not only to people in grief, but even when you're having a moment of self-doubt, or having a moment of scarcity is that if we try to push ourselves to just ignore what's happening, it's not that it's going to go away, it's going to come up, maybe a little more elevated in the future, or it's going to prevent us from whatever we want to do like so in a small way. And I was so good about doing busy work, we're like, “Oh, like, it's not uncommon when someone like loses somebody” like “Oh, I'll just throw myself into work or something.” 

In a small way, I now go like, “Alright, turn on a timer. Let me just sit with this fucking emotion for like five minutes and then get curious about it, like, “What is it? What's actually happening?” Like, sometimes, it's small, where it's like, “You haven't eaten yet, maybe we should do that.” And then, other times, it's like, “Okay, I really have to talk through this. I have to talk to somebody about this.” So the biggest thing, even though you said so much good within that, is that we have to feel these tough feelings. There's no way around them. They will come back until we allow ourselves to feel them.

Emily: Absolutely. And so that's exactly what the moveTHRU method is all about. And so this is like an eight-step sequence that I created to help people get curious about their emotions. So M, it stands for motivation. It's like, let's explore the reason behind our behavior, the reason behind why we're feeling this way. And so it starts with a simple question, or a simple switch in the question, as if you're feeling anxiety, immediate, you're like, “Oh, what's wrong with me?” And it's like, “No, why am I feeling this way? Like, what is this all about?” Like you said, like, instead of trying to suppress it and shut it down.

I try to help clients realize that like, we've kind of been set up for failure in a lot of ways. Because, again, like our society wants it all to be sunshine and rainbows. We have been led to believe that in order to live a fulfilling and meaningful life that we need to be happy. And there's an Esther Perel, quote that I love she says like, “Happiness is a feeling it's not a state of being.” We don't live in happiness right? I try to help them be aware of all of these essentially like limiting beliefs around our emotions and why we get emotions around our emotions like why we feel shame when we get angry. Why do we feel guilty when we've been crying for too long or maybe we even feel guilty for being happy after a loss. That happens too. 

I literally have to help them work through all of these layers of conditioning that have told us that it's not okay to feel this way or that we have to be done with grief by a certain time. And really help them learn to trust that everything that they're doing is fine. Like your feelings don't lie. It's our mind that gets in the way, with all of the stories that we create.

Jamie: It's so true. And I think, like wrapping it up into a bow. But there's bullshit in saying that there's only one way life should be like, we should always be happy. we should always be successful, we should always be able to handle our emotions. And it's just this silly idea that — I think Shoshanna was the one that ended up getting some call-outs on this pod. But like, half piano keys, if we want to experience every aspect of life, we have anger, we have grief, we have sadness, we have happiness, pure excitement, like complete hype, all the things that I think it's so fun one to realize that it's hard to remove that.

I literally had this conversation in my group coaching program the other day where someone's like, I just want to figure it out where my business always runs perfectly smoothly. And I go, “I've been there. But here's the tea”, like, it's never going to be that way. It's just the better, you are able to handle the low moment. So you can come back to the high moments. That's the difference between Oprah and an early entrepreneur is that she's just figured out how to handle the difficult moments. And that's exactly what you're doing with moveTHRU. And I think that's amazing.

Emily: That's so true. And I love that you said that, Jamie, because I've heard grief referred to as you build like a grief muscle, you build like a tolerance for it. And I think that's what I try to remind people is that they're like, “Oh my God, my grief isn't going to go away.” Like I tell them ”no, it's a lifelong journey.” But it does change. And early on. It's like, all of these emotions are crashing down. And we don't know what to do with them. We don't know how to cope. We've never felt some of these emotions before. So it can be really scary and overwhelming. And with time, you start to learn like “Oh, like, I'm feeling that that's my grief, like that sadness coming up.” 

We get a little bit more — we build that muscle. Like you said, like Oprah and we learn how to weather the waves of grief that come just like we weather the highs and lows of a business as well. And so it is I've never really thought about them being kind of unrelated like that, but it's so true.

Jamie: A part of it really is is like when you can get to the belief that this is fun. You can get to the belief that like, “Oh, great, I get to feel some toughness. And I know this is tem—” like when you get to that point, and then you're like, “Oh, wow.” Because there's two things that are kind of rattling around that I want to share is that one part of this was that just about a year and a half ago, I kind of like was having a hard time figuring out what emotion I was having. Because I was in a place of like change. I wanted to change the way I approached my day I wanted to change the way in which I represented myself. And it was me kind of releasing this idea of like, I need to always know how everything works. I need to over strategize myself, I need to overwork myself. 

I got to a point where I was like, I don't feel like I'm sharing how I want to but I was like expanding. I was doing all of the things but I was feeling like this weird emotion when I decided to release that side of myself. And I said “What the hell is this emotion?” And I was so impatient. Like, in that moment, I couldn't get up and moving as much as I used to. I didn't feel the adrenaline that I thought I was supposed to to start the workday. There was all of these like weird things that I couldn't understand what it was. And then I finally had this like eureka moment where I'm like, “Fuck, this is grief. Thank you grief. I remember you from a while ago, okay, this is grief, I’ve got to realize what it is.”

It was exactly what you were sharing. Like I was angry that I had spent so many years like putting so much pressure on myself. I was sad that I felt like I was just like starting from like scratch. Like there's so many little things. And I was like, “Well, it's a good thing I have at least some evidence of what grief feels like so that it's easier to see when it happens again, for sure.”

Emily: It's an interesting feeling. And that's why I do like to have a broader conversation around grief. Like it's everywhere in life. Like I've had people reach out to me and say, “Hey, like, I've been following your TikToks and I feel like I've been feeling like what you've been talking about. But can you grieve someone who's alive?” And I'm like, yes, absolutely. In every breakup, in job loss, there's grief in the pandemic, there's grief. I remember when everything shut down and we had to quarantine at home and I started feeling I started feeling like some anxiety and just sense of like when are things going to return back to normal and some real material loss around just not having like my gym, my outlets to go to and those are all like very minimal loss compared to people who are actually losing lives, but like that same feeling came up and I was like, “Oh my god, like I'm grieving right now.”

David Kessler wrote another amazing article where he said, “That discomfort you're feeling right now is grief.” And the more that we can learn to recognize that feeling and to move through it, and to use it as a portal for transformation and growth, it's like, wow, can you imagine where we would be as opposed to shoving it down and making it wrong? And never giving ourselves that chance to learn about ourselves by embracing this experience?

Jamie: Totally. Absolutely. And I love kind of like, just like talking about this in the grand scheme of things for the fact that there's businesses or strategies, but like, we're never going to grow without some type of emotional mastery. I honestly think grief is like a boot camp. It's a masterclass in emotions and how to handle that and like, and I'm grateful to grief, I'm thankful for the grief I've experienced for the fact that now I get to walk through life with a little more understanding and a little more ease.

Emily: Yeah, absolutely. I mean, like, the loss of your father, the loss of — I'm just thinking of how it relates to identity, right? It's like, well, how does “daughter” show up for me now, right? Or it's like this invitation to really look within? And to, like, understand who you are without these external roles without these other people in your lives. And we're so afraid of going there.

Jamie: Yeah, totally. Because it's difficult things you have to really — you're having fully understand yourself. And it's hard. It's so difficult. We could talk about emotional mastery for ages. Like, I feel like if I had three hours, we could do it. But I think you brought up a really great point I kind of want to talk about it is that I see your business like a beautiful version of like legacy. And I think that being able to one know that you use Ian's story, you use your perception of what he went through and all of those difficult moments to help others view it for themselves. But it gets to be like a new version of your purpose in life. 

It gets to be a new version of why, by the way, follow her on TikTok — fantastic, but also like why you get to be more vulnerable share more parts of yourself. Like I think his legacy is something that I just feel so ever present. And how do you feel like, you know, legacy has helped you continue to grow as a business owner, but as a person, like his legacy? And what's going on? 

Emily: I love that you asked this question that you feel him in my content. And honestly, Ian was like a driving force behind why I decided to go the entrepreneurial route, as opposed to going back to corporate like nine-to-five and trying to create my life that way. Because when he was alive, he would always tell me like, “Emily, you got this, like, quit the job, do your own thing, you are fully capable.” And he was kind of my cheerleader. So when he passed away, I did really think about that, like, I'm doing this for Ian and this is a way that I get to honor his life every single day. And that he gets to make an impact on all of these people's lives. And not just in the story of him dying, but in who he was as a person. 

I talk to my clients a lot about keeping your loved one's spirit alive. And that can be through, like listening to a certain song that reminds you of them or looking for signs in nature, or just having a conversation. Because you know how they would answer. And I do that so often in my life, like with my kids, when I'm going through a hard time or in my business, like I'm like, “Oh, how would Ian handle this?” And it's like, he's definitely there all the time. And it is such an amazing way to extend his impact to carry him with me. So I love that.

Jamie: I love that. And I think in all honesty, like it's our perception of what they would want us to do, and like our perception of how we want to celebrate what they gave us. Like I have a bit of a ritual since I lost my dad. On his birthday every year I'll write him a letter of all the things that I can remember that I did for him and his name like since he's passed on and like sometimes it'll remind me like, “Wow, I'm pretty cool. Wow, that's amazing.” Like, wow, these are things that he may have never done himself but like he got to be one of the many reasons that I help people grow or I help businesses take the next level.

I think for you and I know this next phase of how you're wanting people to thrive through what they want to thrive through the fact that they went through something hard is like you feel like resilience. If I had to put a name over Emily, it wouldn't be like she is resilience by showing every stage of it. I think that's a big part of it. So this is a big question: What do you feel like your legacy is that was informed by Ian? How would you — in this moment what do you think your purpose, your why within your business, and how you show up? 

Emily: Oh gosh, my purpose, my why —

Jamie: I'm putting her on the spot guys. This is a big one.

Emily: I think when I go back to like all of it, and I think of the message did I constantly come back to it’s that we can't control what life hands us, right? And like, of course you didn't want to lose your dad. I didn't want to lose Ian, like my father's children, I didn't want to be in this situation at all. And it's like, what am I going to do about it? Like, I constantly go back to the fact the idea that like, Ian didn't have a choice, he had a cancer diagnosis, and he passed away, I am here and I do have a choice as to what I do now. It's kind of this like idea of control. At the end of the day, it is what it is, but it will be what we make it. And we need to be able to feel all of the hard emotions involved, when life hands us a shit deck, right? And then once we're ready to kind of like move through the emotions to get to this place of radical acceptance, and really ask ourselves like, what now? I am here and what a gift that is, and what am I going to create with the limited time that I have left?

Jamie: Totally. And it's also part of like how you continue to celebrate and keep him present. And then what comes up in my mind is like, what is going to be my driving force after I'm not here? Like, what is someone going to like, “What would Jamie do?” Like, how lovely would that feeling? Is that like, you don't have to always be here to be? I mean, I think that's the point, right? That's legacy that is part of what it is. I want to go to entrepreneurship and all of the things. So what do you feel like has been the most surprising part of being an entrepreneur for you?

Emily: What is the most surprising part for me probably how much fun it is?

Jamie: What's the most fun part — I love this. What do you feel is the like, if someone's like, How's entrepreneurship fun? What would it be?

Emily: I think it's just that I think you have this idea that it's going to be like working super hard and having to have like all of the answers. And like, I didn't know anything, like literally like I was a fitness instructor when I started my business. And yes, I had done marketing. And I had, you know, like I had my college degree and I had some work experience. But like, I just get to be so creative every single day, and I get to share with all my heart every day. And it's just a lot of fun. Like there truly is no right or wrong in how I run this thing. And it's definitely hard, like when the numbers are down, and business isn't doing as well. And that's why we have like communities that we join, like the one that you and I are in and we support each other through it. But like at the end of the day, it really is a lot of fun.

Jamie: Oh my gosh, it's a representation of being able to wake up every day and go like how do I want to be versus like in our previous lives in corporate world, we're like, okay, who do I need to cater to today, but all this ourselves, and sometimes it's hard, it is hard. But there's more joy than if — somebody asked me this the other day, I'm like, “I'm the happiest I've ever been” doesn't mean that I don't have a crying moment from time to time. But I'm the happiest I've ever been. Because I know I can work myself through that. I know that I have a support system, a community, all of the things I would ever need to get back on top, to get back to where I want to be. And I think I honestly before I was an entrepreneur, I was like, “I don't think I can make adult friends.” And I'm like, “Oh, I'm going to be like these people I met in Colombia and here and there.” Yeah. And I think entrepreneurship was just that invitation to go like, Guess what, like, there's so much more. There's so much more.

Emily: I totally agree with that. When I went to the retreat in Colombia, I was like, I'm just going to like spend this time by myself because I'm like a solo mom, I just wanted to like read a damn book and like call it a vacation. I did not expect to go there and to be so connected to everyone who was there. It was awesome.

Jamie: Yeah, I love it. Yes. So yeah, we keep dropping our mastermind we are currently in a Shoshanna Ravens leadership mastermind but we both — am I allowed to — we both are launching our own masterminds because we love the vibe of a mastermind so much. I mean, I've known you now for four months. Which it doesn't feel real. 

Emily: It feels like we go way back. 

Jamie: Yeah, Agreed. Agreed. But why do you love a mastermind? What made you kind of encourage you to launch your own but what do you love about the vibe of a mastermind versus like, you know, course programs, different things like that. 

Emily: What I love is I love the length of it. Like I love being supported for a longer amount of time. Sometimes it's hard for me to pack in all of that information into like a couple of weeks and then to go implement it. So I love the length of it. It really fosters like that slow transformation and growth because not everything is super fast. And I love our community. Like being able to drop into a Voxer chat and just say “Hey, guys, like I am in a rut right now or I don't know how to handle this client or you know what would be a great name for this program.” It can be as simple as that. But just to have like, entrepreneurship can be kind of lonely. So having a space and a community to tap into where we all already get it is like so instrumental. And it's great to be able to learn from each other. And I mean, I feel the same way about my grief groups. It's like, you don't have to explain yourself, we all just get it.

Jamie: It's like agreeing to never judge each other. Like, before you walk in, we're coming in as whole human. And like, the idea of like, you're doing life with the people in this group. Like, there's always like a — that's why it's sometimes really hard to describe what a mastermind is, because it's what you need. It is what you need, then there's like a theme of like, this is a business mastermind, this is a brief mastermind or whatever, like so but like, I've been in three different masterminds at this point. And there's been moments where it's like, “Yeah, what's the strategy for this?” And then the next moment, it's like, “Guys, I am like, I don't want to frickin open my computer. I don't want to do anything today.”

Then like, there's all these responses, like, “Maybe it's your period, maybe it might be tough right now.” Or like, what's it like? There's so many people that are ready to jump in. And then there's always at least one person is like, gives her permission? Like, maybe that's what you do today. That's all you need today. Like, yeah, just like this cheering section that goes like here for you. And then of course, the main coach would come in and be like, what this is how I've seen it work. But masterminds are, like difficult to describe for the fact that you're pretty much entering into a family that is determined to see you grow.

Emily: Everyone's invested in each other. And I always feel bad. Like, if I haven't been able to, like, chime in and share my, my two cents. Because everyone's so supportive of me all the time. Right? Yeah, it's like a team, it's like a family.

Jamie: I honestly see that this is like the direction of where we all want to go for the fact that all of us have been doing entrepreneurship for a while. And now it's about like, I want full-scale, nurturing environment. And I think that's why we keep seeing more masterminds. And I'm so excited for the fact that you are doing one within that because like, there's grief groups, there's, I mean. I know my family did like some stuff in the church, like I've gone to my own, like therapists working through grief. And yeah, of course, like one-on-ones and like a month-long container, they're going to be a nice start. But there's this evolution that you get to have when you have a five, six-month kind of like mastermind, where like you're able to feel through each stage, right. 

Emily: What I've actually had to do too is, you know, people will go through my programs, especially my 12-week one, and they're like, we don't want it to end. Because they become so close with each other. And it's an experience that unites you, I think we actually come together as human beings more through the hard parts in our lives than we do through some of these like happy and light experiences. I'm actually creating a year-long membership that people can get into after they go through these like shorter programs. And then for the mastermind, I'm very excited. I haven't really shared this, but that's really it paints a purpose. So it's helping people like me, where I was at six months after Ian's death, help them take their pain and turn it into meaning turn it into purpose, turning it into a way to help others whether that be by starting their own podcast, by building their own community on social media, by starting a blog, or doing their own coaching business. And so it's really like that next phase of meaning-making in the grieving process, but having someone community to like help walk with you along that journey. 

Jamie: Oh my gosh, how beautiful is that? Like, wrap up again, she's talking about starting a blog, like I wrote down your name, like Seeking the Silver, meaning-making, thriving through it all, like your own journey is baked within what you want to see for others, which is amazing.

Emily: Absolutely, that's the only way I know how to do it. Like, I don't know, how about other way.

Jamie: If everyone did life this way? What would the world look like?

Emily: Beautiful because yeah, we'd get a flavor there's a taste of, there's no right or wrong. Everyone just gets to own who they are and we get to trust who we are. And like, I talked to someone yesterday, who I thought was a fit for the program. And she was like, “I mean, I don't have a mental health like degree or I don't have the certifications.” And I was like, “I don't either. And believe me, I had the same hesitancies and fears and doubts as you do. But like you've lived this experience.” And remember that one time in the mastermind I had one person who did reach out and say, “I can't believe that you're charging these prices. You don't — you're not a PhD.” and man that took me back.

Jamie: I remember that. This is definitely worthy of talking about if you're willing to I know we're doing a little bit of fun time here. But like sometimes, like when you get outrage at talking about tough things or creating a business around tough things. You're going to get these people that are like, How dare you? Yeah. And that says more about where their limits are than where ours are. And I think that's what came up was that when I was in there, I was like, “Emily do not worry. Oh my gosh.” Because it was it was a whole side of it that I could see that she was just fully in her pain and not seeing the meaning behind what you do within your business. But it doesn't mean that it didn't feel like a wound when she came for you.

Emily: Totally brought up all the insecurities again. And like we talked about in our mastermind, it was such an invitation for me to get really clear on like, what value do I add without those certifications? And that no, like, I'm not, I'm absolutely not a PhD, nor do I pretend to be I'm a widow. And I've lived this experience. That was that's what reminded me is just that we've lived this, we've walked ourselves through it, and how powerful that knowledge to be able to share with someone. 

Jamie: The school of life is a certification that we all have. And it creates connection and relation more than ever. Well, Emily, you've spent so much time with me, I'm so happy that you did I have one last question to ask it here. What does limitless mean to you?

Emily: Limitless is boundless. It's past the dimensions of time and space. And I love seeing it through a grief lens because that's how I feel about grief and our love for our person. Love is boundless, connection is limitless. And death kills a person, not a relationship. So I can think of that in terms of limitless.

Jamie: How beautiful well clearly I am deeply already in love with you for all that you do. And I appreciate you so much. Please let everyone know how they can continue to connect with you and I will let you hop on.

Emily: Yeah, so you can find me on TikTok. That's where I spend a lot of time which I never thought I'd be on TikTok. But hey, place to be. 

Jamie: It's a beautiful platform. 

Emily: That's emily underscore moves through with the U underscore grief (emily_movesthru_grief). You can also find me on Instagram @emilypbingham. Um, I don't know Jamie, you might have to coach me on if I should have the same handles.

Jamie: I'll make sure to get these both in the show notes.

Emily: Yeah, and then loseyourgrief.com.

Jamie: Emily, thank you so much for spending your time and sharing your story. It was such a blessing to have you.

Emily: Thank you, Jamie. Likewise, I'm honored. So thanks.

Jamie Ratermann
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Season 1, Episode 11: Overcome What’s Limiting Your Growth
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Season 1, Episode 9: The Growth Secret - Balancing a Limitless Mindset and Powerful Strategy