Dr Edward: 0:25

Hello everybody. I'm Dr Edward the Healing Bit. We've got Erica Messer here as our guest today on the podcast which is Pets, people and Harmony podcast also Whole Energy, body Balance. So, erica, your passion is helping people move through and heal, I suppose with grief after losing pets. Could you talk about yourself and what you do and how you got to doing what you do?

Erica Messer: 0:53

Sure, thank you, and thank you for having me. Basically, I've been a musician my whole life and I lost my pet tragically, and suddenly Wolfgang, and my mom and I couldn't find a lot of tools and resources. I was reaching out to her for help, so I ended up just doing a lot of meditation and coming up with my own practices. And here we are.

Dr Edward: 1:21

I know that it's something that I work with a lot as a veterinarian, and I find that people often have unresolved pet grief that they've been lugging around for decades, years, decades, a long time and often very large amounts of it. What do you think our society is like when it comes to supporting people through pet grief?

Erica Messer: 1:46

Well, I think it's minimized and unfortunately, I think a lot of people that don't have pets try to dictate how we're allowed to grieve. And if you think about it, in our lifetime pets have gone from being protectors and kept outside to where we're now having birthday parties for dogs and celebrating the birthdays of our cats and all pets really. So there's been a really big shift, I think, in how we're treating and looking at animals and the human-animal bond. So to grieve the loss of a pet is like losing a family member, and at least it was for me. And since I've reached out to other people, even around the world, I have found that they lean in and whisper and will say you know, I grieve the loss of my dog more than my parents which isn't to say it is not to say that we don't love our parents.

Erica Messer: 2:48

But let's look at we're with our pets 24-7 for years and we see our families a couple times a year. I see mine twice a year, so it's a different dynamic, right? And I think, those things are in the process of changing even more, so we really need to honor our animals and treat them like family and help other people understand that it is valid and it is needed to. I think it needs to be treated just like anything else, with solutions.

Dr Edward: 3:27

Yeah, my feeling on that is that, well, the kind of bond and relationship you have with your pets is so much less complicated than that that you have with your human family. Humans have all sorts of weird behaviors and traumas and if you've grown up with your parents, often they've got into generational trauma and you might love them but you might not like them very much Sometimes. I think family can be a bit like that. So, yeah, let's get to it.

Dr Edward: 3:59

I can see that too, that in the light. Well, certainly since I started being a veterinarian some 28 years ago, I think there's been a huge change in the role that animals play. Now I don't actually do birthday parties for my pets. Maybe I'm still a little bit of a country boy who doesn't get into that sort of thing, but I love them heaps and they're a really big part of my life. I also see too that for single women who haven't had children, I think pets become far more emotionally important to those kinds of women than anyone realises, except the people who are experiencing the grief when they lose them.

Erica Messer: 4:39

I suppose Absolutely, and I think the same thing goes for senior citizens that maybe that's their only real family or companion, or I mean it's applicable to men as well. Our home is a childless home and my husband grieves as well.

Erica Messer: 4:58

He grieves differently and I think grief is processed differently by everyone. There are some stages of grief that are common but, like you said, circumstances really do play a difference, and millennials now are waiting to have children, if at all, and so the pets really fill that space of something to take care of and love unconditionally and have that love in return.

Dr Edward: 5:26

That can be both good and bad for the pets, I find, because often women's kind of infantilise the animals and don't necessarily treat them in a species appropriate way. But that's probably a conversation for another day. So obviously you losing your beautiful cat was really really powerful experience for you and probably not a very comfortable. Powerful experience we often talk about in this podcast, the one thing that you can share that will help people change their life for the better. So for you, what would that be? Particularly because we're talking about pet grief?

Erica Messer: 6:06

Wow, it's really hard to summarise one thing, but I think what comes to mind is that I'm lovable just the way I am. My pet loved me, regardless if I had a shower during COVID or was in a bad mood. They just want to cuddle and hang out, and friends Not so much. That's not to say that my friends don't love me, but it's different. And so to know that that bond is special to everyone and therefore the grief is also significant and it's okay. You don't have to question your sanity, there are helpful resources. So that love is strong and it deserves to be honoured.

Dr Edward: 6:58

I know that I experienced a lot of grief at the end of my second marriage. It left me a total mess. Thank you so much for being with us so much. I was such a mess that I finally had to ask for help for the first time in my life. Really, so do you think that's a helpful thing? If people are being, if you're really having challenges with grieving process, what kinds of help should people seek?

Erica Messer: 7:24

Oh, absolutely, and I'm sorry to hear that, but I am glad that you reached out. I think asking close friends and family first and opening up a conversation about getting help is the first step and then deciding me personally, I needed professional help. I was having suicidal ideation and I was really, really worried about my mental health. I do have mental illness so I didn't want to, you know, affect, I didn't want the grief to affect that and had a lot at stake. So for me, reaching out to a professional was the best thing. But really we spent a lot of time just talking about how I'm normal and my grief was normal, which was really hard for me to understand. So you know, there are support groups.

Erica Messer: 8:18

I've started a support group on Facebook which is free and so really finding, asking oneself what do I need to do to heal? What kind of help do I want? Do I want to read a book? Do I want to talk with other people? Do I want to remain anonymous and be in a Facebook group where I can post without my name, you know? Do I want a professional, a mental health professional? So, just opening up the conversation, I think one can find the solutions that will work for them and for me. Doing simple daily practices was really good for me, and so that's how my grieving cards evolved was just something simple and digestible. I didn't have the capacity to read a book or get into anything really in depth.

Dr Edward: 9:08

Okay and Okay Okay. I've been working with someone over the last six months or so who has a really terrible history of trauma and other things complex post-traumatic stress and she had a support dog. The support dog died and turns out that people that have this really complex post-combat level post-traumatic stress that have support dogs lots of them do commit suicide after they lose their support dogs.

Dr Edward: 10:04

It's a big thing. I just want to mention that if anyone is out there and you have lost an animal, if you do lose an animal and you really are struggling, do please reach out for help, call a hotline if nothing else, there's lots of hotlines that if you're having suicidal ideation I had one night of suicidal ideation when my marriage broke down and my understanding of the whole suicide type thing is that the emotional distress is so extreme that you just feel like dying would be better. That certainly was my experience. I just want to let you know that if you have that level of discomfort in your being, there are people who can help you move through it, come out the other side, be functional and be okay and re-engage with joy in life. It is possible. I just wanted to say that because it's super important. Thank you.

Erica Messer: 11:00

Thank you for sharing that and being vulnerable with us. It's uncomfortable to talk about there's a lot of stigma around that but I think it's important to acknowledge it.

Dr Edward: 11:10

Absolutely. Let me ask you what sort of things do you do with people to help them through their journey of losing a pet and coming through the grief? I reckon grief is a big series of storms that you can see on the radar that you're going to come in and sweep over you, and you've just got to find a way to get through them.

Erica Messer: 11:36

That's beautiful. That's exactly what I call them too. I call them grief storms. You see them coming. You've got to just like in the ocean. You're under the wave instead of fighting the wave, and then you get to calm again. It's scary, it's terrifying, because nobody wants that. We don't want to feel bad. Moving through grief is exactly what you have to do. I connect people with the resources they need. I myself am not a grief counselor, but I work with several all across the world.

Erica Messer: 12:09

We work with someone, tracy Woods, from Pet Eden in Perth, and I've got Carrie Kearns in England. They're admins to my private Facebook group. We try to provide answers and support for people in that group, kind of around the clock and from different perspectives. That's one thing that I invite people to do is to join that Also. On my website there's a lot of free resources. Like I said, finding the solution that works for one is oneself is important. If you want a book or you want to listen to a podcast or watch some YouTube videos or read a blog or reach out to a counselor one-on-one, there's all of those options available. I really love connecting and providing those type of resources, because I was just stuck with Google going okay, how does one recover from pet loss grief? What options are there? It's overwhelming to try to navigate that. That's why I think it's good to have support from friends and family or even your HR department or whoever you feel comfortable combining in to find those solutions and to help you dig through what's available.

Dr Edward: 13:24

Okay. So self-care is really important when it comes to getting through your life and you know, the better you get at self-care and the easy times of your life, the more you're going to have that self-care muscle when you get to the more challenging times. So what do you do for self-care and what do you think is the best kind of self-care that you can have to help you through these difficult times?

Erica Messer: 13:48

Well, that's a brilliant insight and I couldn't agree more. Prior to losing Wolfgang, I didn't really have any self-care routines. We were still in the pandemic and you know, we're all just trying to get through the day and adjust and still, you know, work with, with being isolated for the most part. And now, well, I definitely gave myself the time and space and was lucky to have that to process the grief. So I spent a lot of time in just quiet reflection. I lit a candle to honor Wolfgang, had a lot of tea, and I just call it quiet time. Some of the other practices I had were, you know, taking baths just as long as I needed to, with all the stuff that appealed to me, so bath salts, aromatherapy and really just being gentle and kind to myself. I think that grief affects the body and mind and so to work through tension and stress Definitely getting massages if you can afford it or, you know, going to salt rooms like whatever appeals to you I think is a great solution.

Dr Edward: 15:01

It could be float tanks. It could be getting into nature. It could be exercise. Exercise is a really important thing, self-care thing, I find.

Erica Messer: 15:12

Yeah, and of course eating and eating healthful foods is a no-brainer, but it's also, you know, some people lose their appetite. I did. And even Reiki. You know I'm a level two Reiki practitioner and so I was able to kind of pull out all the tools that I had available and, I have to say, a lot of those things didn't provide instant relief. I had to kind of sit with, being uncomfortable, even doing self-care. But I knew that my grief was a journey and a process and everyone promised me I would come through the other side and have joy again and enjoy life again and get through those really difficult emotions and pain. And I did.

Dr Edward: 16:01

Yeah, I so agree with that. You know you need to do the hard things when life is easy. Then it's easy to do the hard things when life is challenging, because you've already built that muscle up and certainly that's been my experience in my whole journey of life. So we might just kind of finish up with. You have these Wolfie's Wish grieving cards, which is a resource that you've created for people that are moving through the grieving process. What are they? How do they work? Let's pull a few of them out and talk about it.

Erica Messer: 16:36

Great. Yeah, I love that, thank you. So this is a deck of 30 cards and we have a few different options, but all the text is the same and the principle is the same to just read one a day. These are the new mini version, which is great for gifting and they're super discreet in case you want to carry them around throughout the day. So this first one says my pet will always be in my memory, and the back says when you're ready, have a small celebration of life in a way that's meaningful to you. So these are really based on just prompts, tools, affirmations to kind of facilitate that healing journey, and I think they're a great compliment to all the other things that we just mentioned.

Dr Edward: 17:18

Okay, could you read out one or two more for us?

Erica Messer: 17:21

Sure, yeah, okay, I imagine my pet flying free and happy. I close my eyes and imagine my pet in total peace. So a lot of us have guilt or fear or worry about the way our pet passed, or maybe those months leading up to it if they were a senior and ill. And so this is a yeah, these tools are for us, but really to alleviate some of that mental anguish of okay, I'm going to imagine my pet being free from pain and having all the affection and treats and just kind of going into that place of okay, I'm going to breathe through this and I have peace, knowing that they have peace.

Dr Edward: 18:06

That's a beautiful thing, isn't it? And you know one thing, I'd say that I've learned through helping a lot of animals and people through this whole end of life situations. You know, euthanasia is something that is a big part of the veterinary work that we do.

Erica Messer: 18:21

Yeah.

Dr Edward: 18:23

I reckon about 40% of my new clients that come in carrying a whole lot of guilt because they feel like they helped their pet transition too soon, I reckon about 40% are holding about the same amount of guilt because they feel like they left it too late.

Dr Edward: 18:41

Yeah, and one thing that I might just leave you all with before we wrap this episode up is my understanding of it is that the moment that you have come to the point of decision and you help your pet go to sleep or transition, it's just a point of inevitability and that particular time has just been the absolute perfect time for you and your pet. It's not too soon, it's not too late If you are holding any guilt around that really being willing to forgive yourself and forgiving yourself, which is very simple and easy thing to do. We make it really hard, I think, as humans, but if you can forgive it, well, I'm not going to say if you can, you can forgive yourself, yeah, and the sooner you do, that'll really help you move through your grieving process a lot more quickly too, I think.

Erica Messer: 19:29

I agree. One of the cards is I'm willing to let go of feeling guilty, and the other side says I have peace, knowing that I did the best I could with what I had at the time. And that includes we all got professional opinions, we all did the best we could and googled things and talked to people. So we berate ourselves over that. Our pets were so lucky to have us care to that level that we could give them the best care we could find, and so I think there's beauty in that and realizing that, oh, the guilt isn't serving me, the guilt is actually hurting me.

Dr Edward: 20:08

Yes, okay. Was there one thing you'd like to leave us all with before we say goodbye from this episode?

Erica Messer: 20:16

Oh, thank you. I think just letting people know your grief is valid and it's important, but you can move through it and have your life back and also love more animals. It's okay to adopt more at the right time. I know that was two things, but they're important.

Dr Edward: 20:33

Beautiful Thanks, erica. It's been lovely having this conversation with you. It's really important, and all of you give your pets a pat for us and hopefully we'll see you soon in another episode.

Erica Messer: 20:43

Thank you so much You're welcome. Thank you so much, you're welcome, thank you.