34. The Secret to Joy in the Hardest Seasons with Leona deVinne

How do you find joy in the most devastating times in your life, the absolute hardest seasons when you feel like you're buried in grief and simply surviving?

Today's episode features Leona deVinne, an internationally recognized speaker, leadership coach, and author. Leona is also a mother of three and tragically lost her mother at age 22, when her first child was only three months old. 

Her passion is helping all women rise from their adversities by finding joy in the hardest seasons. Today, she wants to provide hope for mothers who have lost their mothers because she truly understands what that experience is like.

Listen to the episode to answer the following questions: 

• How can I find meaning in my life after the death of my mother? 
• What does it mean to really own who I am?
• How can I have more clarity, confidence, and courage in my life? 
• What are the secrets to joy in the hardest seasons? 
• How can I embrace and actually feel my grief? 

Resources from this episode: 

Help with grief: https://leonadevinne.kit.com/9ca32e66f8

Link to Leona's book: "Finding Your Joy Spot"  https://www.amazon.ca/Finding-Your-Joy-Spot-Unexpected/dp/0991707583/ref=monarch_sidesheet_title

Sign up for her newsletter here: https://leonadevinne.com/subscribe. Weekly tips and research-backed techniques to stay true to yourself

Leona's Website: www.leonadevinne.com

1. Want to join a supportive, heartfelt community with other moms who are also navigating motherhood without their mothers? Join our Facebook Group today!

2. Are you ready to build confidence and emotional resilience as a mom, even without the support of your mother? Access the free video training now: Five Steps to Navigating Motherhood Without Your Mother!

3. Want to chat more about what it's like to mother without your mom and get personalized support? Send Alyssa Carlene a DM on Instagram!

Transcript

SPEAKER_02: 0:00

How do you find joy in the most uh devastating times of your life? The hardest seasons when you feel like you're buried in grief and you are just uh surviving. Today's episode is all about the secret to joy when you are suffering and struggling in these very difficult seasons of life. I'm so excited for you guys to listen and to hear these incredible ways that you can find joy simultaneously because it's possible. It's a powerful episode. I'm super glad and thankful to have had my guests on the show. And I just want to say heads up, my side of the audio is a little bit echoey, so I'm sorry about that. Nonetheless, it's a great episode. Can't wait for you to listen. You're listening to Navigating Motherhood Without Your Mother. Here, we help moms with young children who lack support from their mothers to make peace with the past, build confidence in their present role, and break harmful generational patterns for the future through the Five-Step Roots Framework. My name is Alyssa Carleen. I am a motherhood empowerment and generational healing coach. My mission is to help you discover the root causes of your struggles so you can foster emotional resilience and create a healthy, loving home environment for your family. Please remember my podcast content is for educational purposes only and should never replace proper medical and mental health guidance from licensed professionals. Let's get started. Today I am with Leona Devin. Leona is a mother of three and an internationally recognized speaker, leadership coach, and author. Her passion is helping all women rise from their adversities to find joy in the hardest seasons. And today she wants to provide hope for the mothers that have lost their moms because she truly understands what that is like. So, Leona, thank you so much for being here today.

SPEAKER_01: 1:56

Thank you for having me, Alyssa. It's a pleasure to be here.

SPEAKER_02: 1:59

So, Leona, I would love to just start with your experience. Your experience of losing your mother. I know you mentioned that you were 22 when she passed away. And at that point, you had had a three-month-old baby, which is just, it's tragic and devastating. And to think, to think about yourself in that time, tell us what that was like. And yeah, just share that experience with us.

SPEAKER_01: 2:26

So, like you said, I was 22 when my mom died. Shockingly, I had a three-month-old baby. I come from a very traditional background that thought that was normal. My mom had been sick on and off. She would be acutely sick and then incredibly healthy for my life since I was nine. She had a near-death experience, not the esoteric kind where, yeah, she saw the gates of heaven, but she died, died during surgery for what she eventually uh passed away of at the age of 49. So I knew sort of this brush with death at nine. I already had gone to say goodbye to her. My dad told me that she would probably die. She did not, she lived and she had uh several other brain surgeries for the condition that she had. And so at 22, when she died, to be honest, because she was kind of the walking miracle, she would like have all these brushes with death and then come back. I mean, it's always shocking when somebody dies, but I was very shocking because we always would see something really horrible happen and then she would bounce back. So to have her die was extraordinarily shocking. And having a three-month-old baby, I mean, you're kind of running on fumes, anyways, when you have a three-month-old. I have children now that have three months old. And I was like, whoa, that's a lot.

SPEAKER_00: 3:42

Yes.

SPEAKER_01: 3:42

Yeah, yeah, yeah. Like you're really functioning already. We were joking earlier that I'm the oldest daughter and so hyper responsible for everything. And I think of how I navigated that. Even the day she died, I was the maid of honor in my best friend's wedding. And so I felt like I was obligated to be there for the wedding, which now I would not do that. So I went to say goodnight to her, goodbye to her in the night in between my baby's feeds, and then so that I could do this wedding the next day. So this tremendous sense of dilemma and obligation and doing things at 22, I wouldn't necessarily do at 55, although I'm not exactly that popular for bridesmaid material at 55 either. Um, and I I just remember going into what I would call my backgrounds in psychology, overfunctioning modes. So you just like do what you have to do, you don't think, you don't feel. I mean, I felt very sad and broken, but not the way I would have the maturity, I think, to create some space for that now. So it it was a very tough thing. And I I believe and I've read a lot and talked to other uh motherless daughters that it creates something really profound in your psyche to be a motherless daughter, but also to be a motherless mother has a tremendous impact.

SPEAKER_02: 5:02

Yeah, absolutely. And that's exactly why I started this show. And that's so wild that you also lost her, essentially, when you were nine, because the same thing happened with my mom just a couple of years ago. She was declared dead. I said goodbye to her, and then she survived. And so it was just like this insane thing. And so for you to go through that and then have all of these really tragic, scary things happen, but she lives and then eventually she dies and it's shocking. And you're a mom now, and she's gone that I imagine was just so devastating. But like you said, you all of a sudden turned to overfunctioning, to you know, what can I do to kind of get my mind off of this and also take care of everybody else, the people pleasing sort of thing. So tell me how you got from here, there to now where you are advocating for joy in the hardest seasons. And, you know, was that moment like a pivotal moment in your healing journey, or was there something else that happened, you know, in between? I'm sure lots of things have happened. A few things in 30 years. Yeah, absolutely. But I'd I'd love to hear why you became so passionate about finding joy and helping women, you know, find joy in these very difficult seasons of their lives.

SPEAKER_01: 6:27

I think for me, it was a more like surprise by joy. My mom, number one, was a very joyful person. I think it's how she got through a lot of things. And her joy was not, her life was not, you know, bliss and happiness. But what I learned from her, and I even thought about this the other day, is that she had to really cultivate joy to have life feel meaningful and good. It would be she at 22 had two little kids and was diagnosed with a brain tumor, and in our family, we're missing a tumor-suppressing gene. So we continue to grow tumors in a number of parts of our body, and the life expectancy is 49 for women. Um, and so I carry that gene. I found that out later in life. And so I admire her for cultivating joy. She was number one very grateful to be alive. I found out before I was born she had brain surgery and she had two little kids, and she was just so grateful to have lived through that. She had a 10% chance of survival. She lived every day, like just squeeze the juice out of it. And so I inherited that propensity to look at not the bright side, but the rich side of things, right? This is not, I call this, um, I won't swear, but this is not like icing on a crab cake. Like, this is not like, oh my gosh, my life is amazing. I'm like, my my life is my life. And I think that's what I help people do now. I work mostly as an executive coach, but I help, you know, any number of people who are seeking to have more meaning in their life. And I I joy to me now has come to mean like just own you. Like, who are you? Like, what is your story? Get clear on that. Yeah, I am. I have wounds from that happening. I ended up finding out when I was 30 that I inherited the same disease. So I thought I was going to imminently die. So I started cleaning out my own closets. So people who had to like, you know, come in after me wouldn't notice that I was like a closet messy person. I am still here. Um, I'm 55. I've outlived my life expectancy by six years. So that's a gift, but it really is about I look at joy as just owning you, just like what is my experience? To me, there's like three components of that clarity, confidence, and courage. And so the clarity is who am I? Like, what has happened to me? And how does that make me who I am? Would I be different if my mom didn't die? Yes, I'm fiercely independent. When I see those reels on Instagram, and there's like a lady carrying a washing machine and a dryer up like a set of stairs and going, no, I don't need your help. I was like, which is funny, but it's also not funny because it doesn't allow you to be seen. It doesn't allow for a certain sense of vulnerability. And so I'm kind of breaking out of that cast. So I'm trained in the work of Brene Brown, use her research in my my coaching and my retreats. It really is about like owning who you are. Like this is me, and I have issues just like everybody else. But I can help myself and other people integrate who they are and be more confident in who they are. I I think one of the best I use in air quotes for those who are listening, things that happen as a result of my mom dying, is part of the grieving process is finding meaning. And so originally Kubler Ross had this uh, well, everybody thought it was a framework, and they're like, if I climb this rung of the ladder, I'm over the depression part only to fall back down. I call it like I call it like a stew. And uh later on, David Kessler, when he talks about grieving, who was part of Kubler's Ross research, talked about the last part that was starting to show up was making meaning. And so I call it 4% good. And one of the ways that I've really created meaning is I'm way more empathic for people who suffer. And I don't care if it's suffering that your mom died, or you have a chronic disease, or you stubbed your toe and you love walking and you can't walk for the next week. We are all suffering in some way. We are also very blessed and privileged in other ways. Um, to have food on our table is an incredible gift. But that that's a big part of the joy piece is helping people live in their truth, really own and integrate what is part of their story. I facilitate support groups for cancer patients, um, which is very outside of my executive kind of work. And I think people will comment and they're like, you're really good at this. And I'm like, probably because I mean, I have some training, but mostly because my heart is in it, because I know how terrible it is to suffer. And you mentioned my baby being three months old. I remember literally probably six weeks after she died, realizing there was no space for me to grieve. Um, there was things going on in my family. I wasn't raised in a family that knew sadness. We just motored on. And I remember driving down a road with my baby in the backseat, thinking, I wonder if you can just tuck your grief away and still be okay. Wow. And I have paid for that with some chronic pain and some, yeah, some mental health challenges. I just stuffed so far down, and so that also is my commitment and how I make meaning is to help people find we find joy in pockets of truth. Like, who are we at our essence? Um, and sometimes that pocket of truth is a delicious popsicle. Like, I am here for it. Those I call those little joy spots, and they help us realize that there's some grace somewhere that's like, hey, I see you, Leona, I see you, Alyssa, I got you. Maybe this is the only good you're gonna feel today. But then there's these really beautiful spots of joy that I think if I could use my gifts and talents to hold space for people and really listen to them, and I know because of hard won truth how painful it is to have lost something, then I'll take that. Is that 100% good? No, but there is joy there knowing I'm there for somebody, they feel some relief and I'm living into my truth at the same time, which is that acronym of joy, just like just own you. Leona, this is who you are, this is what made you this way, and is there a way that you can make meaning of this mess?

SPEAKER_02: 12:35

Absolutely. That is so beautiful. I love that. I love just own you because in the beginning, when your mom passed away and you had that thought while you were driving, can I tuck away my grief? You know, I'm apparently you can.

SPEAKER_01: 12:49

Don't recommend it.

SPEAKER_02: 12:50

You can, but can we also figure out how do we own this story? How do we own and accept? And yeah, these stages of grief are gonna hit us all throughout our life at different points. It's not just, you know, acceptance, you know, finally we're there, we're never gonna grieve again. That's just not how it works. Well, so really tuning into that and owning your story and your truth. And so I love that you mentioned that you work and you were trained with Brene Brown's work. So tell us more about that and what that looks like when you're coaching somebody. Say you have a mother who is really grieving, and maybe they're grieving because they lost their mom or something else. How do you teach them to embrace that grief and then you know, find those joy spots like you mentioned?

SPEAKER_01: 13:38

So there's a number of different ways, but even coming back to the the story of like who we are. So the heart of courage is uh comes from um a Greek word of core, which is to tell the story of who we are with our whole heart. And so what brings a disconnection is when we're trying to mask up that something doesn't bother us or something doesn't hurt us, or we're not feeling some kind of way. And um, I mean, there's many researchers out there that do beautiful work. I just happen to do a lot of work around Brene's work, but is really again getting clear on who are we? Uh, who are we at our core? And part of the work that uh she's helped to bring up there is, you know, what are our values? How do we live by them? And if we know our values, which is something that I do in our first session with every single solitary client. I don't care if you're a CEO of a large enterprise organization or you are, you know, doing something significantly different, all of those roles matter. Knowing what our values are can make such a difference. Like I think of my two core values of love and courage. I think how does that help me to move forward in things? And when we know what our values are, my background's in neuroscience, so slightly nerdy. Uh it actually ignites something in our brain that gives us a hit of dopamine. And dopamine I call like a delicious, you know, treat for our brain, like the best, most uh delicious cookie uh we can possibly imagine. The brain just lights up. And so those are ways, and I think my son has the same condition that my mom has that was passed through me, and um, he had brain surgery, and I was devastated because I thought, how am I gonna survive and be a good mom? As in, like not eat a hospital bed next to him for my mental health challenges around my trauma. And um, and I thought every day I walked into that hospital room, whether it was just grabbing a cup of coffee to have a break, or uh in the morning and just thinking, okay, how does love and courage guide me? So courage just to show up. I might cry. I don't know. I had a coach that helped me through that. Um, what does love look like? I remember being very annoyed at some of the nurses who, again, are tired. They see a lot of people. Some of the care I didn't love. I was asked once at one point. Uh, the the nurse said, Why is he so sleepy? I'm worried that he's losing consciousness. And I was like, Whoa. Like, do not ask me, who is potentially gonna become unhinged. That's why my mom died. She had brain surgery and then she just slowly slipped into consciousness, uh, unconsciousness, and died. And so obviously he did not know that. But my son asked me later, he's like, Why were you so nice to that nurse? And I was like, Well, number one, he is our gatekeeper. Yeah. Number two, is my value is love. So that doesn't mean I don't have boundaries. I love me first, and then I love other people. Uh, if he continued to ask me those questions, I might have said, Hey, it's okay that you asked me how he is. It is not okay that you asked me about things that seem more medically focused because those are very triggering for me. He didn't ask me again, so that was fine. But I'm like, that's what matters at the end of the day. Can I flop in bed going, I was true to me, and that's what our values remind us of. So it sounds very dry, like, how do you get through something and you think of what your values are? But even when I think about people who suffer now, I used to send out socks I call joy socks, and not because they were experiencing anything joyful, and it ended up being a non-pro-profit where we gave away gift wrap, colorful socks to people and charities and shelters and hospitals. But I would send these to people just to be like, I see you. This is my act of love. And I didn't write on the note, this is my act of love. I'm honoring my values because that is super nerdy. Uh I just went, oh, what makes me feel good when I'm suffering and is to do something kind. The other thing that makes me feel good is to be courageous. And so to be courageous means that I've done things like being on a podcast, talking about vulnerable things. That makes me feel a sense of joy. Not maybe the blow your hair kind of back if you like won the lottery, but it makes me feel true to me. So identifying some of our values. My background isn't psych, but I am a coach. So, and and some of that it this sounds a little bit like therapy, but even identifying what emotions you have a hard time being with, which again is part of Brene's work, is really important. And what were the stories that we learned about those emotions? So I grew up in an immigrant family. We didn't do sadness, we just did hard work and we did gratitude because they came out of the second world war, like they were just happy to have food. Um so I've had to learn to get clear on what emotions I don't do naturally, and how do I engage with those emotions? And so that some of it is that. And then again, if I'm with a client and it it starts to feel like they are stuck, then those that's an opportunity for some therapy and work in partnership with um therapists. But even just knowing that, I had no skills to navigate sadness. I I didn't know what that looked like. If I cried, that was very uncomfortable, and so helping people just like what are those tools? Permission, there's a lot of shame that comes around with or along with grief.

SPEAKER_02: 18:53

Absolutely. Oh my goodness, yeah, and that's all Brene Brown.

SPEAKER_01: 18:58

So recognizing where we feel too much, like, oh my goodness, I'm too emotional. I sh I it's been 30 years, I shouldn't miss my mom. My babies just had grandbabies, just like within the last year. And I'm like, oh my goodness, my mom would be so excited. So that brings up more grief. And I'm like, can I be with this sadness? Yes, I can be with that sadness. And that's so the clarity to know where we are. That's the part of the joy framework, and then the confidence to just own it. And that doesn't mean I like am like feel great about this part, but it's like, can I own myself? And part of that comes from giving ourselves permission. Can what can I give myself permission to feel? Can I give myself permission to be me 30 years later and still miss my mom, like a five-year-old some days, and sometimes like a 55-year-old. So those are those are some of the just the little pieces. My three favorite things that she talks about is um, and we don't use this so much in executive work, but we I use this in more personal development piece, is three parts that she found that people who are grieving, this can help them work through the grief a bit. And the reason why I kind of look up and off to the side is grief is like a big, nasty ball of like knotted yarn, and you're like, what is this? I don't know if it was like this for you, Alyssa, but when my mom died, amongst the emotions, my body, I felt terrible. Like I was so tired and I couldn't think of what to eat. And I call it just like the when people are grieving, I'm like, how what is the care and feeding? So if I was talking to you about Alyssa, what's the care and feeding of Alyssa right now? They'd be like, What do you mean? I'm like, eat, sleep. Like that's all like are we taking care of, yeah. I don't care what your hair looks like. Whether you own shampoo right now, but just have you eaten? Are you sleeping at all or resting or napping? Or it's like the very basics, like survival. Um, and so once we get through that kind of m muck, then it's so complicated because what might make you mad doesn't make me mad. It makes me sad, or I didn't even think of that part. And so this is about owning that part of our process, also, is three questions that she found that can be helpful are what are you longing for? And I use that in retreats. I use that in, I do a meditation workshop once a month, uh, which um I can give you the the um uh the little link if any of your listeners are interested in. And it's just an hour of screen, like screens off, you don't talk, you just like hang out. If you took a nap for an hour, I would be like ever joyful, although I would never know because you have your screens off, your your video off. But that would be a joy spot for me because we as women need to hang out more on our backs and just relax. So, what are you longing for? And I'll have people free write for five minutes. And sometimes I'll use that not even about grieving, but just about in your life. What are you just long for?

SPEAKER_02: 21:54

I love that word too. What are you longing for? Like your deepest desires. Yeah, that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_01: 22:03

And as a coach, uh I I kind of call coaching like good to great. Like, so you're okay, but you could use a little zhuzhing up. There could be a little more, not that you're not good on your own, but you feel like I could use some support because I feel confused about who I am, what I want, is this what I'm here for? Particularly as busy women. So, what am I longing for? Such a good question. Such a good question.

SPEAKER_00: 22:26

I'm like thinking in my mind, what am I longing for? This is my assignment. Five minutes without stopping, Alyssa, when we get off the podcast. Tell me what came out. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01: 22:34

Um, then the next one is where do I feel lost? That's another really good question. Because don't you think as a motherless mother or a motherless daughter? I even just a couple weeks ago was thinking about something and I was like, oh, I think that's because I didn't grow up with a mom. And I mean, I had a mom when I was a kid, but like I didn't know how to, I didn't adult as a parent. My mom was sick when I was 21. I was in university uh um outside of my country before that. So I kind of missed her from like 18 and 18, you're not that impressionable for mom's like high five.

SPEAKER_02: 23:18

Those are you know, you're forming, you're growing.

SPEAKER_01: 23:21

Yes, our brains aren't even fully formed. Yeah. So that was just a couple weeks ago that I was like, oh my goodness, I think this is called the dead mom. I think this is a dead mom thing. Like, oh yeah, yes, yeah. So where do I feel lost? And even it can be in that moment. Like, where do I feel lost? And I do use some of this in corporate work, like they're in a role and it's a really intense role, or even as a parent or a partner, those kinds of things. Um, so where do I feel? Longing, lost L O S T and what are my losses? Grief needs to be counted. Um, when we look at the work of like Francis Weller, who is a grief expert, um, and in other cultures, um, they actually will sit by a tree. Mothers, when they lose babies, will sit by a tree in Africa and they will say all the things, all the losses. I miss their giggles, I miss them nursing. And we don't do that in North America. And so literally writing out a list, and it doesn't have to be definitive in that moment, but what are the losses like mine a few weeks ago, going, oh and then can I come back? Okay, I come back to clarity, I come back to can I be confident about yeah, this is me, this is me, vulnerable, true, authentic, this is me. And then how do I have the courage to move forward? Because I think where we can get stuck is if we don't have the courage to integrate what's happened, there is no possibility for joy. But because we have had the devastation of knowing the grief of losing a mom, there is actually more space to experience more joy than there is for people who have not integrated that. Because when we shrink one emotion or we don't allow ourselves to feel one emotion, research shows us that we also reduce all our capacity for the other ones. So grief, while it is painful, carves out more space for the emotions that we want and the experiences we want love, peace, contentment, and joy. And when we think about it, um, I've come to joy kind of reluctantly, not I feel like it like came and found me, but it's really the feeling we want. Like when you love something, you're like, oh, and then the byproduct is joy. So it's not only the just on you part of knowing and living into your truth with clarity, confidence, and courage, but it's also the byproduct, it's the emotion that we get, like the cherry on top of the cake of our lives that's such a gift. Um, and that's what I help people discover. And so it's those little joy spots along the way, and it's also that that that joy spot that we're made for, like what you're living into, Alyssa, that you're doing a podcast, you are making meaning out of such a mess, right? Of losing your mom. That's when we can go, oh, this is part of it. And it may not, it may be a podcast forever. You might be, you know, up there with Andrew Hoover Moon one day. Yeah, you. Um or it may end up being a book, or it may be how you parent, or it may be how you show up in your vocation. But that's that part of that North Star, also, that you know that you're like, yeah, this is part of what I meant to do. And it might require a lot of courage. That doesn't mean that the fear and the vulnerability go away, but it's you still are like, oh, yeah, that felt right. And that's the joy I help people find.

SPEAKER_02: 26:41

Yeah. Well, this is amazing. I mean, I've learned so much, even in just the short, you know, 30 minutes that we've been together. Oh, here comes my little one. Oh, yeah. Well, this is perfect because I was just about to close, but no, this is amazing, Leona. And you have brought such a beautiful perspective because, you know, my mother, she is actually she's still alive, but I grew up with a deep mother wound. You know, she was an alcoholic, and you know, I had to learn to live without her for so many years. And then she died, came back, and I mean, just a mess, you know, and so I am a motherless mother in that way. And I feel like, you know, I can only bring so much to the show when it comes up to really experiencing that grief because I know that there's someone who's listening that has lost their mother, and it's a completely different story. But in that navigating motherhood without your mother, it's still grief, it's all still a mess and difficulty, you know, because we're just we're just grieving. We wish that she could be there for us and show up, and maybe she's gone, she's in the next life, or she is up here, but she can't be. So truly, this was incredible. And I love that you shared this framework and these secrets to finding joy in the hardest of seasons of life and the values, all of it. So I really appreciate you coming on the show. Thank you so much for being here. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 28:08

And thank you for the work that you do. Uh, I I would just add that I think having a mom but not having a mom would be incredibly like at least death is definitive, but when we look at something like you, where there would still be that ongoing longing, like I just can't even imagine. So yeah, I commend you for what you're doing.

SPEAKER_02: 28:29

Um well, thank you so much. It's this has been a pleasure, and I can't wait for the listeners to find you. I will have you linked and everything and on social media. So can't wait. Thank you.

SPEAKER_01: 28:42

Thank you so much, Alyssa.