Our guest  Lisa Richards talks about Resilience and finding Hope.

Lisa shares stories of loss and courage to give comfort to those who mourn.   May those who have loved and lost be comforted. 

We all suffer loss and experience grief in different ways.  Life happens as we lose people through death.  Covid-19 has snatched people from us.  Others have died from a range of debilitating  illnesses such as cancer, accidents and suicide.   Losses have also surfaced in other forms such as redundancy, dementia, closures of business due to impact of lockdown, divorces, separation, loneliness and isolation.   Lisa Richards gives her honest account of how her life changed when her mother attempted suicide unsuccessfully.   Faced with the choice of choosing life or committing suicide many years later Lisa  choose to live.  Today, she uses her life journey to help others who struggle in grief and loss.   She is a grief recovery specialist and gets a lot of fulfilment from walking with people who struggle when life gets tough and dark. 

When life knocks you down, it is sometimes  very difficult to get back up.   During difficult times we can learn some of our greatest life lessons through sheer determination and perseverance.  Lisa reminds us that we can boost feelings of self-worth after rejection by affirming aspects of ourselves that are valuable. “ Be kind to yourself and do things that make you feel good and give you joy”, Lisa reminds us.   With help of our friends, counsellors, mentors, coaches, sponsors and good managers we can find ways to heal anxiety and build trust within ourselves and between one another.   Practically. the power of encouragement works wonders.  “We all need to be encouraged.  We  can encourage others and be encouraged by others”  .  Fragility affects us all, but there can be light at the end of really long tunnels. The reality is that we may impress people by our strengths, but we connect with them through our vulnerabilities.  Brene Brown reminds us of benefits of vulnerability.   We are all human beings and we all experience loss.   Lisa’s story reminds us that we can experience hope to get through hard, dark times. 

Lisa Richards is  Certified Grief Recovery Specialist and  can be contacted at lisa@grmspecialist.uk