Day 33: Michele Neff Hernandez

November 2, 2009 at 12:01 am, Category: Inspiration

“I have been blessed with so many stories of people who have deeply loved someone, and often when you think about grief, you think about only the loss, but there’s also the gift that was in people’s lives.  And so I’m regularly inspired by the way people have loved each other and the way that we take care of each other …”

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Toni Reece: Michele, thank you so much for agreeing to take part in this project; and before we begin with the questions, can you introduce yourself?

Michele Neff Hernandez: Absolutely.  Thank you, Toni, it’s a pleasure to be with you today.  My name is Michele Neff Hernandez.  I am the executive director of the Soaring Spirits Loss Foundation.  We are a nonprofit organization that creates a support network for people grieving the loss of someone they love.

Toni: Well, let’s go into the first question, Michele.  When you think about …  whether it’s through your organization or even personal inspiration, who do you think you inspire and how do you do that?

Michele: Currently, our mission at Soaring Spirits is to support people who are grieving someone they love as I said.  And the way that we reach out and, personally the way that I inspire people, I think, is to be willing to share my own personal grief story and the ways that it has changed my life both positively and negatively.  And so I am reaching out to them in hopes of opening my heart so that they will feel supported.  And sometimes the journey of grief makes you feel like you’re crazy, and it’s nice to know that other people have lived through those sort of circumstances and to be inspired to take the next step, even if it’s just a small step of getting out of bed today because, when you’re grieving, it’s hard work and that’s difficult to do sometimes.

Toni: Wow, that’s pretty powerful.  How do people find you?

Michele: Generally, they find us either through word of mouth or we have kind of thrown a wide web out through the World Wide Web, so we’re a nationally based organization; we have some international ties.  Often when you lose someone and you begin to discover that the grief process kind of tosses you around in the waves, you start to look for help.  And so most people I think find us either through someone who has been connected with us already or by searching through the internet.

Toni: Michele, when you’re working with people and you’re inspiring them by sharing your own story and opening up your heart and working with these people who are coming to you in need, do you also believe that you might help them explore potential as well?

Michele: I do.  I think the hardest thing about grief is trying to figure out what tomorrow looks like and then taking that one step further, believing that tomorrow can still be a good day.  And so what we really try to do is start to help people recreate their lives; because a lot of times when you lose something so precious, you have to redefine yourself.

And when you’re in the midst of grieving a loss, you’re not necessarily inspired to step forward and really think about what you still have left ahead of you.  And so we encourage people to really start to think about what they want their lives to be like and how they can honor the people they have lost by living their life to the fullest.

Toni: Can you share some examples of how you do that?

Michele: Personally, this foundation is a huge step in that direction for me.  My husband was hit and killed while he was riding his bicycle.  He was 39 years old — I was 35 — and really, my world just flipped upside down.  And so, I really needed to find a way to make his death mean more than just an accident.  And being able to reach out to other people and support them as they recreate their lives has really started giving me a map for my own in terms of being able to step forward and tell people this is how I live every day, this is how I get out of bed, this is how I take care of my kids.  And in doing so, I have discovered so many amazing people doing amazing things for others  just out of the goodness of their heart because they know what the pain of losing someone is like and they would like to help someone by giving them a hand when they’re in that situation.

Toni: And so that’s how the methodology … Are there tools that you use when you’re working with others to help them step forward?

Michele: The first thing we do is speak from a personal perspective.  We are not therapists; we don’t offer psychiatric help of any kind.  Really what we offer is a peer-based support.  And so we want people to understand that we have lived through something similar to what they’ve lived through, and this is how we personally did it.  So it’s really about sharing stories, and it’s about making sure that people know that there are others like them out there.

Because sometimes grief is such an isolating experience, you feel like “I’m definitely the only one,” even though mentally you know that’s not possible.  In your heart, you feel like “I’m the only one who’s living this.  Everyone else feels great when the sun came up today, and I’m wondering why it’s still coming up when the person that I love just died.”  And so, we really want, as a peer-based community, to be able to reach out and say “I felt that way too, but guess what, you know, four years later I’m happy to see the sun again.”

Toni: So your how you explore the potential of moving forward is really by providing that safe, trusting community.

Michele: Absolutely.  And a place where you know you can grieve.  It’s okay to grieve, and it’s still okay to look forward to tomorrow as well, and sometimes that’s hard to do.

Toni: Michele, when you look at your own inspiration and at times needing inspiration, what do you do?  What do you look for in  order to be inspired yourself?

Michele: I have been blessed with so many stories of people who have deeply loved someone, and often when you think about grief, you think about only the loss, but there’s also the gift that was in people’s lives.  And so I’m regularly inspired by the way people have loved each other and the way that we take care of each other and the way that other people will reach out when someone is in need.  And so, you know, I’ll go along my day providing a variety of resources for people and then being able to watch them give back and being able to see them reach out, and the willingness and the openness with which they share their stories with me regularly inspires me to keep going.

Toni: Are there any particular tools at times that you reach for as well?  I mean, I can imagine the inspiration that you receive from other people’s stories and the gifts that you receive in that way … Are there other sorts of outlets that you go to personally in order to seek inspiration or other, I don’t know, other things that you might do … taking a walk or nature that you find inspiring?

Michele: Actually, I really am very active and I love to run, and so I try to do two things.  One, you know — as a single parent now — it’s easy to work, work, work and not take that time for yourself, and so I really have been working hard at life/work balance and trying to keep my kids the focus, but at the same time be able to take time for myself so that I have something to give back.  And running is really an outlet for me in that way, as well as trying to read books that are not grief related, because it’s very easy to get sucked into it.  Grief is a 24/7 job and so to be able to say to myself, okay, I need to go outside.  I need to read a book that doesn’t have anything to do with what I do, and spend some quality time with my family; that’s just fun.

Toni: So it’s really looking for that fun.

Michele: Right, and managing that balance which, you know, sometimes it’s easy to go overboard in the work area.

Toni: It certainly is.  When you’re looking at taking that break for yourself and doing the work/life balance routine which we all tread so lightly on, how do you continue to explore your own potential?

Michele: I think in addition to working through the foundation and setting goals for what we would like to achieve going forward in terms of creating the support network that’s national, I also like to take a creative outlet for myself and work on my own writing and my own … sort of defining myself again.  Because I’m still very much in the process — as are all the people that I work with every day — of redefining myself as a single person; you know, as a single parent and as a person who now has learned the lessons that grief taught.  And I have to say those are really powerful lessons about what’s important, about how much time I spend working, about whether or not I’m taking care of myself and why.

And so I think that there’s always this continual redefinition that goes on for me personally about where are my priorities and how do I define them.  And so I think there’s a challenge for me to continually look for what is next for me personally, what is next for the organization, and what is next for us as a family, and trying to keep all of those balls juggling.  That requires management, but it also requires being present, and so I really personally work on being present.

Toni: Can you help me understand that last statement a little bit more?

Michele: What I mean by being present is that it’s very easy for me to think about the next thing.  If I’m planning for myself, it’s easy to have a back burner thing going on for the foundation.  If I’m with my kids, it’s easy to be tempted to check that email that I hear beeping on my Blackberry.  And so I’ve worked …  Recently, my focus has been to try to be present in whatever I’m doing so that I give my best to whatever’s in front of me; and then when it’s time to close that down, move on to the next thing and give my best to that.  I try not to multitask as much as I tend to.

Toni: Being present, do you think that that also will help you as far as being inspired?

Michele: Absolutely.  Because if you are able to be present, then you’re 100% in whatever it is that you’re doing.  Like I said, I’m often inspired by the stories that people tell me.  If I’m busy doing three things while I’m listening to a story, obviously I’m not going to get the full impact.  And that is the same with my kids.  If one of them comes home to tell me a story — I mean you know, they’re a regular source of inspiration in the ways that they grow and the things that they experience and what they observe — and if I’m too busy checking email, answering a phone call or whatever I’m doing and listening to them at the same time, I’m missing out on the opportunity to be inspired by the moment that I have with them.

Toni: I would imagine that that inspiration that you give to others as far as helping to inspire them to step forward may have also, I would imagine, translated into your own children as well.

Michele: Absolutely.  And I will say also that it is a continual balance, because you will find yourself pulled in so many directions.  And so sometimes they are irritated by the fact that I have a job that requires, you know, it can go at any time; you know, people reach out to me at all different times.  And you know, you can imagine that if you’re grieving, sometimes 3 a.m. is really the time.  Not that I answer email at 3 a.m., but I have been known to answer it very late into the night because I want people to know that someone hears them, and I understand — having been there — how powerful it is when you get that response.

And so balancing that, you know, continues to be a challenge.  But it continues to bring out the inspiration in my kids in terms of being able to see what giving back can do and how you can give back, and they’ve learned lessons from grief as well.  And I’ve watched them reach out to their friends in a different way because of the lessons that they’ve learned.

Toni: So what I’m hearing during this interview is that when  you’ve got to the point here where you talked about learning just recently to be present, how that can be a double-edged sword for you because it also … being present helps you to stay inspired and to be inspiring, but it also costs you as far as time.

Michele: Exactly.

Toni: And what a balance that is on that work/life balance; but it is the most powerful thing for you to be present for those who need your organization but also to be present for those who need you in the house, and yourself.

Michele: And I think, you know, people who reach out to inspire others often are givers and they want to give, give, give — which is a wonderful thing — but you end up giving to the very bottom of what you have left if you don’t take the time to be present and fill up.

Toni: And that’s absolutely the message for this interview based on everything that you have shared on your story — through how you got to where you are, how you help others, and how you’re trying to help yourself in the process and your family.  You have shared an amazing amount of wealth in this 15 minutes, and for that I thank you so very much for being part of this project and also for the work that you’re doing.  So thank you again, very, very much, Michele, for taking part in the Get Inspired! Project, and I wish you and your project well.

Michele: Thank you so much, Toni.   It was absolutely a pleasure.

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For more information about Michele Neff Hernandez:  www.sslf.org, www.widowsbond.com

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