Moving After Loss with “The Selfish Griever” Podcast

by | Feb 5, 2024 | Podcast

Moving Tips + Tricks For People Considering A Relocation - Mariette Frey | Significant Loss

 

In this episode, Mariette Frey joins “The Selfish Griever” podcast as a guest to explore the topic of whether or not to move to a different home or town following a significant loss. Mariette Frey shares her expertise as a certified professional organizer and life coach specializing in residential moves. The conversation covers various considerations before deciding, such as the energy of a home, the importance of personal items in grief, and the role of meditation and visualization. The concept of a “City Proof Of Concept” is introduced as a way to experience a potential new location without committing to a permanent move. The importance of community and relationships is also discussed.

In this conversation, Mariette Frey shares valuable insights and advice for individuals considering a move to a new city. She emphasizes the importance of exploring different options and gathering data before deciding. Mariette also guides couples with differing opinions on moving, suggesting open communication and understanding. She highlights the unique situations and alternative approaches that can be taken, such as living separately for a period of time.

While The Selfish Griever Podcast has come to an end, a big thank you goes to Whitney Samoran for allowing me to still provide this episode to listeners. It’s an important topic and reminder that everyone’s grief journey is unique to them and that it’s okay to be selfish in your approach. You can find 61 episodes of The Selfish Griever wherever you listen to podcasts. You can learn more about Whitney and her story on her website.

Takeaways

  • Consider your personal feelings and energy before deciding to move after the loss of a child.
  • Take time to process grief and emotions before making any major decisions.
  • Create a safe and comforting space in your current home to support healing.
  • Consider a city proof of concept to experience a potential new location before committing to a move.
  • Evaluate the community and support system in a new location before deciding. Take the time to explore different options and gather information before making a decision to move.
  • Open communication and understanding are key when dealing with differences in couples’ opinions on moving.
  • Unique situations and alternative approaches, such as living separately for a period of time, can be considered.
  • Navigating the challenges of marriage and grief requires sensitivity, patience, and support.

Chapters 

  • 00:00 Introduction and Personal Experiences
  • 04:12 Considerations Before Moving
  • 08:07 The Energy of a Home
  • 13:25 Regretting Getting Rid of Personal Effects
  • 15:14 The Role of Personal Items in Grief
  • 17:35 The Energy and Maintenance of a Home
  • 19:30 Processing Grief Before Making Decisions
  • 21:17 Using Meditation and Visualization
  • 23:32 Taking Time to Heal Before Moving
  • 26:03 The Importance of a City Proof of Concept
  • 33:32 Creating a Zen Space and Asking Permission
  • 37:39 Considering Community and Relationships
  • 41:14 Staying for an Extended Period of Time
  • 46:39 Defining Expectations in Relationships
  • 50:36 Considering the Community and Support System
  • 52:36 Exploring Different Options and Gathering Information
  • 54:05 Dealing with Differences in Couples56:09 Unique Situations and Alternative Approaches
  • 57:38 Navigating the Challenges of Marriage and Grief
  • 58:33 Closing Remarks and Contact Information

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Thank you for listening! XO, Mariette

Have a topic you’d like me to discuss? Send me a text here!

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Listen to the Podcast here

 

Moving After Loss with “The Selfish Griever” Podcast

Introduction and Personal Experiences

This episode is about a topic that I don’t have personal experience with, but I do get contacted by readers asking about whether or not they should move to a different home or a different town following the loss of their child because the memories can be too much or the community can feel too hard to continue to be a part of. It’s a very personal choice, and it varies from person to person on how you feel about things.

When I met our guest and heard her area of expertise, I thought that she would be great as a resource for anyone reading who is in that boat, that they’re trying to decide what’s the best choice for them moving forward, to either stay in their current home, current town, or to try and move and start new somewhere else. Mariette, if you could please introduce yourself.

Thank you so much for having me. My name is Mariette Frey, and I have a show called Mariette’s on the Move. I am a Certified Professional Organizer. I’m a Certified Life Coach, and my niche is in residential moves. It’s my specialization. I’m a Moving Coach, per se. I teach people how to move. I work with them six months to a year prior to them moving. I have a framework that I take them through that essentially starts with their dreams.

We reverse engineer them into their finances and robustness, which is their mental and physical health, and the ecosystem or community that they’re moving from and they’re moving to. Definitely a lot of relevance in what we’re talking about because there are certain areas that I coach around where I think that your robustness and your mental and physical strength is probably the most important part of whether you should embark on a move. I’m excited to have that conversation with you.

I didn’t end up moving. My son did not pass away in my home, and he didn’t pass away even where I live because we were visiting my mom when the accident happened. It was in another town, at another home. I do have experience, in general, in life, living in brief periods, a year or two, in different communities than where I grew up, and can speak to when there have been times that I’ve lived somewhere that I did not gel with the community and that that even blindsided me. I always think that I’m a pretty easygoing person, or outgoing, or that I can adapt to most anything.

Considerations Before Moving

It was surprising when I found myself living somewhere that I felt I was always a little out of step with everything else going on, the people in the area. I can’t imagine being in the vulnerable position that I was in when my son first passed, making a decision that I needed to change. I couldn’t handle continuing on in the environment, in the home that I was currently in, and then finding myself somewhere that it was even harder to be and trying to find a way. That’s the person I’m thinking of when I wanted to ask you to come on here and share. What are some things that somebody who’s considering should be aware of? Maybe even some things that aren’t commonly thought of but are big and can become big issues later on after you’ve moved.

If you Google, “When should I move after losing a loved one?” there’s always that year baseline that they give. I have several thoughts about that because I think that part of what happens in that first year, and I know you talk a lot about protecting your energy and the energy it took for you from a survival perspective to get up every day, I think that’s a tough baseline. Humans, as a species, need a line marker that says, “I’m ahead of the game or behind the game and I need to catch up.”

It’s important to remember that you are protecting your energy when you first lose a child. There are so many different stages of grief that you’re going to go through, and emotions and things that will catch you off guard that you don’t even anticipate. I know you can speak a lot to that. I think that it’s a very unique and personal journey when you’re thinking about moving from the environment that you live in, especially if this was the child’s home.

There are a lot of things that, when you move, people don’t think about. I know we talk a little bit about protecting your energy, but when you’re going to move into a home, there is residual energy in that home as well. It’s important to understand how vulnerable your energy is in that moment, even when looking for a new place to live, because sometimes you’ll be angry within the different stages of grief. Sometimes, you’ll want to cut and run. Sometimes, you want to isolate.

Looking at that energy, you don’t often think about the energy of the space that you would be moving into. We selfishly think about our own energy, and that could take on a life of its own. I think it’s important to understand when you’re in that place of “Should I leave?” It is because it’s a natural human instinct to want to leave. When you leave all those memories, and you leave that space, that brings on a whole different level of emotional discernment, so to speak.

08:07 The Energy of a Home

Even when I think about the energy that it takes to maintain a home, and depending on the setting of where your home is at, if you’re in a neighborhood that you’re very closely located to your neighbors, then the energy that it takes for that kind of relationship. If you’re in a home that ends up having a lot of land or area that you need to be responsible for, even if it’s not necessarily landscaping but maintenance and awareness of the space, then sometimes taking on all those new things that you’re not already used to, or you’re maybe not already familiar with, if it’s a new type of experience that you didn’t have before, that can take a lot of energy as well, in ways that you couldn’t anticipate.

I think it’s important to understand that oftentimes, when you’re moving into a new space, moving stinks in the best circumstances. If somebody’s getting married or buying their new home for the first time, there’s still all of the work that goes into it. I think you’re in a position where you don’t have the energy to even interact from a human perspective.

You talk about, on the show, having judgments and guilt and feeling all of those things. Even in the best circumstances, there are some elements that you’re going to be dealing with. I think, again, going back to the personal journey of whether you’re ready or not. There are some tips that I can give for that, but I think it’s understanding that no one has any right to judge or make you feel guilty in that space because you know you best. However, it is going to evolve.

Where you start off in your journey evolves probably ten times from where you end up a year later. Again, I don’t love that year baseline, but I think from a psychological perspective, the trauma that you’ve experienced, that year marker is when you start coming out of that fog and you can start processing some things. I think maybe that’s why because there’s no scientific evidence that says, “That year is the year that you have to wait.”

At the same time, I know that before we got on the call, we were talking about a situation that I was dealing with within my family. Their first instinct was to get rid of everything because they were angry at what happened in that particular death. She was going through a period of time when she was already moving, and she was becoming almost an extreme minimalist. She wanted to have a lighter life. Some of it she threw away, some of it she kept, and she ended up getting a storage unit because I think in her haste, she realized that she’s probably going to want some of that down the road.

It is a natural human instinct to want to leave after losing a loved one. When you leave those memories and space, you experience a different level of emotional discernment. Share on X

She couldn’t bear to have it in her home. She took it and put it into a storage unit with some of her other things because she was downsizing again. I think in my conversations with her, there was a little bit of guilt. She certainly wanted me to express to your readers that not making any rash decisions because if you want to come back to it and it’s not there, that will bring on a different level of guilt and emotion.

She hadn’t fully processed at that point when she was making these choices. What might not be important today might, down the road, be a little bit more important. Before making some of these moves, I don’t know that I would pack things up right away, obviously, because you want to stay in that energy, and you are going to ride those waves because they do come and go. I think that’s something that she somewhat regretted and then felt embarrassed by.

Regretting Getting Rid of Personal Effects

Those are hard emotions to pile on top of, and not that we choose to do that, but then to find yourself having these other secondary emotions as a result of choices you made because of the state you were in and your grief. I was thinking as you were talking about it that I think, too, there can be a misconception that changing your scenery or getting rid of those items is going to help remove some of the pain, that if you don’t have to look at those things anymore, if you don’t have to walk into the rooms that they used to hang out in or they used to sleep in, then it’s not going to be always in your face, the pain and the grief. It doesn’t work that way.

At a certain point on your journey, if it’s feeling like you can’t escape, but like you said, that’s a little further down the line, if you feel you can’t ever get away from the tragedy. Especially depending on the situation, I think that also plays a big part in the scenario of what happened, as to whether or not that is contributing to PTSD symptoms or other types of reliving the trauma all the time. I was the reverse in that. I didn’t want to get rid of anything after my son passed. I even kept all the clothes, even though they weren’t any clothes that his twin brother fit in anymore.

I had bags of them. I had all the baby stuff that they had even outgrown. We hadn’t quite been at the point that we were ready to donate them or that I’d had the time to go through them. I was suddenly keeping everything. I left their room with the cribs set up for at least a year, even though his brother wasn’t sleeping in a crib anymore. It made it feel like I was able to hold on to him tighter.

The Role of Personal Items in Grief

It wasn’t until I got to a point in my processing that I realized, which again was way down the line, at least a year and a half, that I realized all of those things were not what keeps him with me. I had him with me because of other work that I had done on myself personally, but it wasn’t because that bag of clothes was in the back closet waiting there for me.

The Energy and Maintenance of a Home

There were other things people recommend that can become mementos. They turn the clothes into stuffed teddy bears or they make them into quilts. Somebody did have one of those bears made for me. I don’t know, the thought of having his clothes made into a quilt. I kept thinking that if I used that quilt all the time, that type of clothing wasn’t meant to be a quilt, but it was going to wear out. Could I handle watching it fray and fall apart eventually over time?

I never took that step to try and convert any of his clothes into a quilt or anything. I also have other things. I’m always paranoid about somebody washing the walls at my house accidentally. I don’t even have anybody who’s over at my house cleaning, but it’s something I worry about because there are scribbles of pencil marks on the wall that Orion made. I think things like that sometimes help you remember he was real.

You kept those things because they were a comfort, and I think that’s normal. I think that’s a great way to comfort yourself. I think that it works. I think a lot of people go into these situations, and they are numb in different ways. Some people do it with alcohol. Some people go to extremes with exercise. Some people move. They take that distraction of packing up all of their things. The problem is, depending on how you grieve, when you move, you haven’t processed any of that. I know you found a great therapist, and you were able to work through her, and she had experience in this area.

Processing Grief Before Making Decisions

She was able to relate. I think that, first and foremost, whatever you’re doing to comfort yourself, don’t make any judgments about that because it’s working. When you get to a point where you’re ready to release, and it’s becoming less and less and less intense every day, I think then that’s when you would be able to make some of those decisions. When you do that prior, it puts you into a place where, like you mentioned, you don’t even know what you’re feeling in that moment. Your memory lapses are very real, because that’s a real part of grief.

I think taking the time to not use it as a distraction, work through some of those feelings when you’re ready because you’re not going to be ready right away. To use you as an example, Whitney, you talk a lot about how, when you went through this with Orion, you isolated. You did what you needed to do to survive at that time. I think a lot of people go into this situation and they use it as a distraction, because now, all of a sudden, they have a mission and a purpose in what feels comfortable. They go in and they pack everything up, and then they move. In that move, I think, is the hope for a fresh start.

If you are a griever who isolates, when you get to that new place, you might isolate again. Your fresh start isn’t a fresh start if you go to another home and isolate. I think taking some time to figure out how you’re feeling, working with a therapist and a grief group, I think how you’re processing it is as important as when you’ve decided to move or if you decide to stay for another year. It is because what you don’t want to happen is get into that next new place and feel, start feeling that judgment against yourself.

“When I got here, I thought I was going to take walks because it’s a new environment, and I was going to go out and finally be ready to meet friends.” When it comes down to it, you haven’t processed anything. All of a sudden, the grief of not being in that space or not having that energy around you is, all of a sudden, reality. You’re now judging, and you might be feeling like, “What did I do? I want to go home, and I can’t go home.” Those are things that you should think about.

Using Meditation and Visualization

A couple of tips. I know you love meditation as much as I do. I started meditating. I have bad ADHD. I have a hard time sitting in silence with music. To me, my brain goes all over. I started doing guided visualizations, and I had ruptured a couple of discs in my back back in April. I started on this guided visualization. My brother is basically a shaman. He was like, “I feel this is a strong tool in your toolbox that you can use to heal.” Fast forward several months, and within a week, I lost my relationship. Four days later, I lost my dog, who I was super bonded with.

I took my healing meditation, and I added a grief meditation because those were two very significant relationships that I bought. I built my home. It’ll be two years, December 29th, that I moved in. Those are two things that I had in this home that I have these memories. When it came down to it, right before I had that loss, I was working with a real estate agent to list my home. I was going to be moving back to Chicago. I know I didn’t talk about it in my intro, but I’ve moved eighteen times in the last 23 years to five of America’s top cities.

Unless there is a situation where you have to move, giving yourself a little grace is probably the best you can have when you are going through grief. Share on X

Taking Time to Heal Before Moving

Moving, to me, is something I do. Every 2 or 3 years, people know that I’m going to move somewhere else. I was out there. My cousin’s three-month-old passed away. I went to Chicago for two weeks. She passed of SIDS. We had no answers. We were processing that. I come back. I have a week of compounded grief on that. I looked inward, and I was like, “In my own framework, I talk about robustness and your mental and physical strength, and now I’m not strong enough to process what I’ve been going through, even in the last three weeks, plus picking up and moving and trying to find a new place.”

I physically wasn’t in a place to even want to pack things and move it from the inside of my house to the garage and things like that. When I was doing the meditation, because my meditation is very similar to yours, where you meet that person in a place that’s how you want to remember them, and you create this space, I started asking, “Is it okay to move?” When I was meditating and having this visualization, I would have 1 or 2 tears. Every single time I asked that question, in the end, I would start bawling.

I knew that that meant you’re looking at your spidey senses and your energy and reading where you’re at, I was like, “I’m not ready.” Over time, that was back in July, and now I’m getting to a point where I still do the meditation every day. I don’t cry as hard. I might shed 1 or 2 things, but I’m warming up to the idea that maybe in a couple of months, I might be ready to revisit this. I think it’s finding something that you can rest your laurels on and say, “This is how I’m feeling. I’m going to listen to that inner voice and that intuition that you talk about on the show,” because I think it’s important.

You know our body heals, and everybody’s body heals differently on different timelines. It might be that even in your situation, you were married, you could heal faster and come to terms with things before your spouse. What do you do? There are a couple of things that I tell people when they’re wrestling with this idea to move. One of the things is to grab 5 or 6 boxes. They could be Amazon boxes. You could go to Home Depot and bring them in the house and see how you feel. Let them sit for a day or two.

If you’re like, “I can’t bring myself to do it yet,” or you find yourself giving those boxes the evil eye every time you walk past them, maybe it’s not time. Maybe put them in the garage or put them somewhere where you don’t see them, and maybe in two weeks or a month, pull them back out and see how you feel. If you get to a point where you start packing them, I would say start with something easy, like a pantry or a kitchen. I don’t bake, but I have a ton of baking sheets. I don’t know why. I think one day I think I’m going to.

Packing things like that is something that doesn’t hold a whole lot of significance; you could donate, and you could get rid of it. Having those five boxes will give you a good indication of whether or not you’re ready to pack up the rest of the house. If you get to the point where you pack up those five boxes and you’re like, “That wasn’t quite as hard as I thought,” maybe get another five boxes. I think, unless there’s a situation where you have to move, giving yourself a little grace is probably the best tool that you can have in your toolkit when you’re going through this.

I was thinking, as you were talking too, about this house that I live in now, we coincidentally moved into it three months before Orion passed. We moved so that we could be in a better school district for the boys because at that point, Orion had already been diagnosed with autism, and Maverick, we knew, was more than likely to get diagnosed as well.

We needed to move where we were closer to services for Orion that he was already getting and to be set up in the best school district. I remember after he passed, which was obviously not on our radar at all as something, as a potential or future possibility, I remember spending a lot of time sitting in this specific room of my house, where the view is a mountain that’s near my house, and the new neighborhood that we live in has more space. It doesn’t feel like my old house, like you only see walls. Your whole yard is walls, and you see the roofline of your neighbors.

Sometimes, at certain parts of the day, you see your neighbors through the windows. We were in a very close master-planned community. This house has more space in that regard, that it’s got a lot of natural vegetation. It’s easy for me to sit and feel as though there is nobody else around. I don’t see my neighbors.

There’s a ton of wildlife because of the natural vegetation. I remember thinking, not immediately, probably at least six months, if not closer to a year, realizing how therapeutic that had been for me, to be in this setting that I didn’t used to have. It is because it could have been easy to wish that I was still living in the house that we brought my sons home from the hospital to.

I had two years with them instead of three months. There weren’t a ton of memories solidified in this house. Instead, I recognized that I felt that was for me instead of against me, that that was helpful because I had some memories in the house, but it wasn’t unbearable. It wasn’t constant, everywhere. That there were benefits to the setting that this house was in. When you’re talking about having your robustness, I think some of that is not how hard it would be to put yourself in a new setting, but also how much are you trading away?

What are the assets or the positives? Positives may be a hard word to wrap your mind around if you’re at that point, but what things are working for you in the setting that you’re in? Is there a way to embrace that? Instead of, it can be easy to focus on the pain because the pain can be so loud and crowd out everything else. I think that can even be true in your community.

If maybe where you’re living puts you close to somebody who always says the wrong thing or always seems to be judging you or making things harder for you emotionally that it can be easy to overlook that you have, meanwhile, like five other quieter supporters or people who are constant, but they’re giving you space and letting you indicate to them when you need help. As opposed to the person who’s always showing up like, “Are you better yet? Are you done being sad now?”

It is because I think community can be a big part too. You were talking about judgment, shame, guilt, especially if you’re in a smaller community where everybody knows your story, and feeling anytime you leave your house, you see somebody who looks at you and you are telling yourself that they’re judging you. I felt that loudly after my son passed, that I felt so much shame. It didn’t matter what anyone was saying to me, what I was telling myself in my head, even subconsciously. It took me a while to recognize it was this story of shame, even if other people weren’t voicing that. I think that can be a hard part as well.

Everybody wants you to have that moment and that fresh start, but there’s judgment if you leave, and there’s judgment sometimes if you stay. It’s where you are in your personal journey. It’s no one else’s journey. Sometimes, we look at it, and if you can create that safe space and it sounds like that room that you can see the mountains, is a place where you feel content and you can feel you’re connected. There’s a part of the practice in home design called holistic home design, where they help you create that Zen space, but you don’t need a designer to have you bring a place.

Take the positive things to the new home you are moving into and leave all the negativity behind. Share on X

The Importance of a City Proof of Concept

It could be a couple of chairs and a meditation candle in a place where you feel like, I’m going to bring two t-shirts, a teddy bear, and a binky. I’m going to create a space for myself, even if it’s in a corner somewhere. I think that that’s as important if you feel like you want to move and get a fresh start. One of the things that I talk about is doing a city POC or a proof of concept, and within a city POC, it’s you going to the place that you want to move to. Sometimes, it could be within your city but on the other side of the city, or it could be five states away, and you spend longer than a week there.

I know that sounds a lot, and it sounds expensive with hotels and Airbnbs and all that stuff being what it is. What that does is that it lets you experience moving without any of the risk. You’re not giving up a lease, you’re not selling and spending all the money to find a new place and all of that stuff. It allows you to go and get away from the environment that you’re in and take some time and live that life. Go to the grocery store, go to the library, put yourself in that position as if you have moved there.

Creating a Zen Space and Asking Permission

Meanwhile, you haven’t had to pack anything. You haven’t made any of those big decisions that could have big implications or repercussions if you decide that you regret it. By going to do a city POC with the people that I coach, believe it or not, half of the people don’t end up moving. That’s what you want. If you want to feel that I’m content and staying here for 1 or 2 more years, then I’ll make that decision. I feel like a lot of times when somebody has moved, you no longer have that benefit of making that decision.

Sometimes, people even will rent out their house for a year or two to get away, but you can still go back. I think giving yourself those options when you’re in that place where decisions aren’t coming easy. Sometimes, those decisions are the best decisions not to make. It’s to hold in your space for a little bit until it’s more clear, because I know many people that, they make a decision that they’re going to move, and then nothing seems easy.

There are roadblocks, judgments, shame, and all of these things. My brother moved from Sedona to Phoenix to be close to his best friend. It was terrible. His car got broken into, and he couldn’t find a place. It was hard after hard. He gets into that space and he finally finds a place. Two months later, his best friend’s wife’s mom ended up needing a liver transplant, and they moved to Chicago. He had nobody in his community. He had moved for them.

Considering Community and Relationships

I think the thing is, as an adult, in the best circumstances, it’s hard to make friends when you’re an adult. Think about moving into another community. That’s why ecosystem is part of the framework because you take where you’re moving from, and you have to take some of those things that are the pros, not the cons, obviously, into that new space.

If one of the reasons that you want to move is to be closer to family, to feel supported and feel loved in a time when you don’t have that support, then 100%, take that into consideration. It is because, like the community that you moved into, where you thought you were going to love it, and you were like, “It’s not as great as I thought,” that’s a hard reality when you’re emotionally in turmoil. It’s a hard decision to go back on.

I think it’s doable. I think going into a space, even if you decide that you want to start shopping around, there’s nothing wrong with that. I think going to a real estate agent and saying, “I went through a traumatic experience a year or two ago. I think I’m ready to look, but I’m not sure. Can we go and maybe look at five properties and go back and see what that feels like?” Come home and journal, talk to a therapist, talk to a friend, and don’t ignore any of those signs. You talk about intuition on the show as well. Those come up for a reason. If, for some reason, something keeps coming up, lean into it, figure out why.

It is because you have nothing but time when you’re not in a position where you have to leave. Take a moment because it might not reveal itself right in that moment, but it might down the road. A little trick that I give to people too, we talked earlier in the show about how there’s energy in used homes, obviously even when you build, but the energy going into a used home can dictate your experience.

Based on your energy and how vulnerable you are in that place, if you spend a little time becoming stronger, whatever residual energy is there can obviously be taken away with different things like staging and pouring white light into it. There are all kinds of different tricks that you can do. One of the things that I often tell people, whether they’re spiritual or not, is when you come into a property, taking a moment and asking permission to be there.

I didn’t ask for permission when I came onto my property. I bought it and I moved in. In hindsight, I think that if I had taken a little time and asked my spirit guides and asked the energy because I inherently knew something wasn’t right, but I knew that I was also getting outbid by a lot of different people. It’s me. I don’t have a family or a trust fund or something that I can use to bid $100,000 over everybody else. I was presented with an opportunity, and I jumped at it because it was spontaneous but I knew I wanted to buy a house.

I ended up building this home. I think having asked permission to occupy this particular space, I think, would have put me in a different role or a different position, maybe. Also asking when it’s time to leave. I think that that’s another thing that’s important, not necessarily in meditation, but in general, “Is it right for me to leave? Am I in a good place? How am I feeling?” That could produce tears, that could produce anger, that could produce something. Listen to it, lean into that, and then maybe journal or talk to a therapist again about what’s coming up and get a different perspective.

It’s hard when you’re in that space and talking to somebody that is in it with you, but getting an outside perspective, you might get judgments. You talked at the Podcast Movement when you told them about the title of your show, and they said they didn’t like it, but you took that as validation. Sometimes, even having a different perspective and something that they say will trigger you, like, “That’s why I was supposed to lean in on that. That makes sense. I’m okay with that,” and then you can move forward. I think when things don’t feel easy and you have a feeling, if you don’t listen to that, it’s going to come back in some form or fashion, whether you like it or not, unfortunately.

Staying for an Extended Period of Time

Where you’ll realize there’s a reason I was feeling that way all along. I think you can even take it. In my opinion, what I would do is I would even ask for a sign, either a sign that I should move or when you’re looking for a place. As you were talking, I was thinking about the importance of not being so desperate to get away that you are in this rush that you will take whatever is, the first thing that comes up on your radar that matches what you’re looking for, and making sure that it’s what’s meant for you. You asking for a sign, “If this is the house or if this is the town or the area, send me a sign,” and pick what that is, and then watch for it and see what happens.

I think when you’re talking about proof of concept, I think that’s such a great idea. It made me think about my sister, who lives in Denver and she loves it. I’ve visited her multiple times over the years. Every time I go, I think, “I hate driving in Denver,” and it sounds silly, but it is something about Denver and I, and every time, I’m like, “I don’t understand why exactly. What is it about?” There is something about that place. I don’t know if it’s that they have so many transplants. I don’t know that if it’s poor city planning, but it drives me nuts to drive.

Be careful in choosing a community to live in and the people you surround yourself with. Share on X

I always seem to come across people that I’m like, “This is so bizarre, and I don’t know why you’re driving like this. I can’t handle it.” I always think to myself, “There is no way.” My sister would love if our whole family transplanted to Denver someday from everywhere because she loves it so much and she never wants to leave. Every time I go, I think, “I don’t mind visiting, but I could not live here.” I feel similarly about Phoenix.

Phoenix is too much for me. I don’t want to live there when I go visit. I’ve been to other places where I’ve thought, when I visited for a short period of time, like, “I love the energy here. I love the way the people are.” I think, to your point about making sure you stay for more than a week, and especially if you’re considering going somewhere because you have family there, I think that that would be important to stay for an extended period of time because I think it’s easy to romanticize what it will be like based off of what a four-day vacation there was like.

Everything’s magical over a weekend.

Thinking that everybody is still going to keep showing up and supporting in that way. Maybe realizing this rude awakening of, “They have to go back to their lives. They have other responsibilities. They’re not going to be available to that extent that you were expecting or romanticizing what’s going to be,” that would be.

Defining Expectations in Relationships

I think that having that conversation about those expectations is important as well. It’s one thing when you go and visit a place. I find oftentimes, when I go and visit, I have to go to those people. I have to go and make the effort. I would hope that in my times of need, they would come to me, but that’s not always true. Having that conversation, staying somewhere for 2 or 3 weeks, and hopefully if you can, if you can work remote or whatever, but having those baseline conversations and saying, “If I move here, it is because I want to spend more time with you. Are you capable of that? What does that look like? Can we have brunch or a walk every Saturday morning?”

It is because what ends up happening is you put that pressure on someone else and then they feel the pressure that you had unmet expectations. All of a sudden, you’re the bad guy. I’m a very outgoing introvert, if that makes sense. I love my alone time in my full-time job, because this is what I do on the side. In my full-time job, I’m a sales manager and I travel all over the country and I’m with a ton of people. I find when I get back from travels, I retreat. I need a couple of days to fill my tank by myself and get some cuddle time with my pup. I can fill my tank up and then get back out there and expel that energy.

Considering the Community and Support System

When you’re moving into a new space or you’re moving to a place where you have old relationships, even somewhat talking through what that looks like, because that person could have changed or going through something themselves where they can’t support you, and now all of a sudden, you’re like, “I moved here for you.” They could be like, “I didn’t ask you to.” That’s an even bigger, harder relationship boundary to overcome, so to speak. I think that part of why I talk about the ecosystem and community is you look at the blue zones across the world, and they all point to the community as what kept them alive for over a hundred years.

I think carefully choosing that community and the people that you surround yourself with. I know we talked about people say dumb things because they don’t know what to say, but then there are some people that will go and sit with you in silence and be there for you, and that fills you up. When you’re making your pro and con list, and I have a workbook, if you join my mailer, you get the workbook, it has in there, it’s fourteen pages, but it has everything in there from, “Who are the ten people in your network that you are going to surround yourself with or that can help you move and thrive in that community?” Write those people down and then have those conversations.

Depending on where you are now, I have a values list. Do you love getting up in the morning and walking your dog to a coffee shop and having that quiet time and that reflection time, or do you want to be in a big city where you can’t hear yourself think and it distracts you? Spend some time because in that next chapter, everything’s going to feel different. It’s what brings you joy and peace versus what’s a distraction from you processing your feelings.

I was thinking about, I could see in people that I know that if I simply sat down and had the talk with them of, like, “I’m going to move here and this is what I’m looking for,” that even they themselves would have a propensity to romanticize. It’s like, “We’re going to get together every weekend, and we’ll have dinner once a week and then it’s going to be great.” I could see that I would need to spend some time there to see, does it end up working out that way.

Not through any fault of that person. It’s not like they’re lying to you, but I think it’s not a one-way street, like they’re romanticizing. Sometimes, even people are excited to be that person for you that you want, but that they almost forget. They get a blind spot about, “Four nights a week, I have other obligations. That would mean one night that’s left to myself I’d be giving up too,” or, “It only works if you’re available on every Thursday of the week. I end up traveling two weekends out of the month every year.”

If weekends are the only time we can get together, then it’s only going to be occasionally. Going back to those feelings and the intuition and being discerning about what are you experiencing and not what are people telling you, what are you researching and reading about an area, or what did you feel when you went there? Taking that extra step.

Unity is important. Crossing state lines, even if I were to move to South Carolina, like my therapist, who I adore, he has got me through some of the toughest. 2023 was the toughest year I’ve ever had in my life. I would have to give him up. I’m like, “Am I ready to give him up and find another therapist and go through the interview process?” It is because I think that’s important too, if you meet a therapist and you don’t connect, they expect that they’re not going to book every single client into their roster.

They expect some, and the good ones are going to interview you back, and say, “I don’t know if I can help you here.” I think that that’s important too, but finding the right schools, therapists, and specialist doctors in that ecosystem is important. It is because sometimes we don’t think about that stuff. I moved down to Central Illinois and I’m in remission for an auto-immune, but at the time, I didn’t even think, I assumed they had that kind of doctor, a holistic functional medicine doctor who specializes in gastroenterology. They didn’t.

Exploring Different Options and Gathering Information

I was traveling back up to Chicago, but even taking it one step further, if you decide to do a city POC, do some homework and figure out where within that city would be a good place to look. We talked about the coffee shop and taking walks, or if you need to have a certain type of support from an education perspective, even jumping on Facebook groups.

Marriage is hard even without the loss of a child. Share on X

There’s a ton of Facebook groups for anything you can imagine. I know that you know that, but moving to Florida, moving to Kansas, whatever that niche is that you feel like nobody’s going to understand, losing a child or your community, finding somebody to connect with prior to moving. If you go and do a city POC and you’re like, “I spent two weeks here, I felt good energy. I think this is something I want to do.” You don’t have to buy a place. You can rent your house out and rent a place there.

There are so many options, and people sometimes get tunnel vision on what to do. I have a Facebook group. I’m happy to answer questions and throw some things out there, and the people in the group also sometimes throw their perspectives out there. Take in all of the suggestions and find what works for you. It’s a personal journey and moving is a very tough, stressful, but can also be magical. If you build a solid foundation and you know that mentally and physically you’re strong enough to take on whatever comes your way, we’re here to support you, but I think that taking that time to figure out what it is that you’re in your heart of hearts experiencing, that I think is a great first step.

Dealing with Differences in Couples

That’s all great advice, and there are so many things to think about and actionable steps that somebody who’s interested in considering it and trying to take it further could take. I’m curious if you have any advice for couples who are split on whether or not one thinks they want to move and the other thinks they don’t.

It comes up a lot, as you can imagine. I would say taking some time to figure out where the differences are. If you are in couples therapy, this is a great place to start. Making a list, “Here’s the reason I want to stay, here’s the reason I want to leave,” and then on the other side doing that as well and talking through some of that, because I think sometimes perspectives, especially when you know that person so well, the different perspectives can help heal because they do know where that yin and yang is for that couple. I would say, if one person’s a little further ahead than the other, just wait. Do an extended POC or spend some time talking through and maybe pack five boxes and see how you feel.

That person might say, “That wasn’t as bad as I thought. Maybe I am a little further along than I thought,” and if it’s when you’re at that point when it’s like a complete stalemate, that person needs time to heal a little bit longer. Sometimes healing can happen in a day, in a week, in a month, so not having a timeline and extending a little bit of grace to say like, “How about we look at this again in another 30 days,” and giving them a timeline to start processing, because it could be that they’re not willing to process yet and you can’t do that on somebody else’s timeline.

Unique Situations and Alternative Approaches

That’s something that you have to do on your own timeline. I know couples that one has moved and the other hasn’t yet, and if you’re in a financial position to be able to do that, there was a lot of FaceTiming. I have a particular couple in mind that I’m thinking about, but the one was ready a lot sooner than the other and they were okay with that and they were in a financial position where they could live separately.

They made it a point to come together every other weekend and spend that weekend together so they could process together and where they were, and still have dates and still nurture their marriage. They were both in such different places, but it wasn’t a matter of wanting to get divorced. It was a matter of one wasn’t ready to leave and one couldn’t wait to get out, and it was two totally different healing processes and everything. I think that every situation is unique, and there are a lot of options.

There’s not all or nothing, and I think we as human beings, a lot of people, are very black and white. Do what works for you. If it’s a matter of coming back and spending the weekend together in different places and having different experiences, it might give you something else to talk about outside of having the grief in common. New experiences, new travel, meeting in a different place and vacationing and letting yourself not have the distraction of life. That might be something to do as well.

That’s a good point. Those are all great points, and thank you for answering because I think that is a hard place to be in and that then people start to feel like they don’t know what to do or there’s no way to resolve it and that it adds more stress, frankly, to an already difficult situation.

Navigating the Challenges of Marriage and Grief

Marriage is hard without the loss of a child. The day-to-day working on your relationship, it is so hard without that, and you compound that grief and that complication. I think that it’s being a little bit sensitive and patient and I think, if it’s something that you were already in a position where you guys were already headed down the divorce route, maybe this is a way to come together at a therapist’s office and say like, “Maybe it wasn’t what we were supposed to do. Maybe this brings us together.” Being thoughtful of that other person and where they are is, I think, helpful as well.

Closing Remarks and Contact Information

That definitely makes sense. Mariette, thank you so much for coming to the show and sharing everything that you know. Those were some great tips that I wouldn’t have thought of, and I think they sound helpful, so I appreciate them so much. If somebody wants to find you or learn more about your services, where’s the best place for them to connect with you?

You can go to my website, it’s MariettesOnTheMove.com. I’ve got all my social media on there, I’m @MariettesOnTheMove everywhere, almost all social media except for LinkedIn, where I’m Mariette Frey. Thank you so much for having me. I think this is such an important conversation. If any of your readers have any questions or want to DM me, by all means, I’m here to support. I don’t charge people. I’m here to support and help you on your journey.

Thank you so much. I will make sure to link your website in the show notes and everywhere that this will get posted so people can see or reach you easily, and I appreciate it.

Thanks for having me.

 

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