Growing Through Grief: Learning from Your Loss With Cindy Finch

Apr 13, 2022

Cindy Finch has experienced her fair share of grief and loss and now helps others process and grow from trauma. On this episode of Beyond the Balance Sheet, Arden and Cindy discuss coping with uncertainty and how ultimately, grief is good. Cindy shares her personal experience with grief related to life altering illnesses. She also talks about how unhelpful parenting techniques can cause further pain for children as they grow up. Listen in as Cindy shares about her work with affluent families and the challenges they face related to grief and the invaluable lessons that we learn from times of loss.

 

IN THIS EPISODE: 

 

• [01:48] How we can grow from times of grief and loss and what we can learn 
• [04:59] What led Cindy down this certain career path
• [08:10] How to help people cope with uncertainty
• [12:16] Parenting: How to avoid offering unhelpful help to your children
• [19:33] The misconception of there being a hierarchy of trauma 
• [24:05] What Cindy wishes she knew about the mental health field before she started
• [26:26] How to balance the heaviness of a career in human suffering

 

KEY TAKEAWAYS: 

 

• Grief is good. We want to resist things that are difficult, crushing, painful, and disappointing. Yet, we find that those very things are the best teachers that we can find to solidify ourselves and learn important lessons from.
• There is a skill called Coping Ahead that helps people walk through the unknowns of a situation.You lay out the details with all of the contingencies and possibilities. Work them through in your mind and mentalize that you could in fact deal with any of those outcomes. Then find something within yourself to rely on and also seek people out that can give you support.
• When you fragilize your child and protect them and try to smooth out all the bumps of life, you are denying them the ability to build the muscles needed to handle life. If you deny them of consequences and the opportunity to gain independence and confidence then everything in their life is going to be much harder. 

 

RESOURCE LINKS

 

Cindy Finch Website

 

Cindy's Grief Tribe

 

Cindy’s Journey: Cindy Finch on walking with God through illness 

 

Cindy’s Book: When Grief Is Good: Turning Your Greatest Loss into Your Biggest Lesson 

 

https://oconnorpg.com/podcasts/growing-through-grief-learning-from-your-loss-with-cindy-finch/

 

BIO:

Since completing her Master’s Degree in Clinical Social Work and training at The Mayo Clinic, Cindy has gone on to develop specialties in parenting today’s teens and young adults, post-trauma growth, Dialectical Behavioral Therapy, complex family interventions, traumatic loss and grief work, and the management of a life-altering illness. Since 2013, she has authored and published works that have appeared in the LA Times, St. Anthonys’ Press, Huffington Post, Chasing the Cure, Rochester Women’s Magazine and more. She has spent thousands of hours doing therapy, parenting, leading and helping others. She now works as a California-based therapist and leadership coach. Her new book, When Grief is Good - turning your greatest loss into your biggest lesson came out in September and was ranked as Amazon's top new book in grief, growth, and psychology when it was released.