EP 16 Life after loss, with guest Carly Ritt.

Welcome to Episode 16: Life after loss with Carly Ritt. Enjoy listening to Carly's journey of finding her way and her voice after losing her mom and brother. She's a Wisconsin native living in Connecticut, mom of two, self published author, marketing and communications professional, and one of my brilliant past clients. 

This episode starts with a question we all need to ask ourselves: What do you want, what do you need?

Listen for Carly's take on processing grief and becoming a mom at the same time.

You'll hear how so much of navigating through the harder times is about prioritizing your needs and asking for what you need. 

Carly confesses that finally establishing a morning routine that works for her made a big difference. And how owning the need to show up for herself has become a great thing her kids to witness. 

Listen for Carly's take on how steering through hard feelings is about relearning to truly feel them. You can allow a bad day to be a bad day, instead of pushing challenging feelings away with work and distractions. This is how you give yourself permission to actually grieve.

Carly shares her heartache in becoming a mom without a mom, and how believing in signs of her mom still near ultimately inspired her to write her book.

Angels in the Sky is a children’s book for comfort and understanding during loss of a loved one. Carly shares how writing the book helped her process her own grief. “I had no idea what I was doing but I was determined,” she says as a mom of tiny humans at the time.

There is a difference between loss of life, and loss of the way you pictured how your life would look, Carly mentions. And you get to learn that how you grieve is personal to you.

As promised in the episode, here are Carly's tips/guidelines on how to offer support to friends or family members when they are experiencing loss:

1. Don’t compare losses. It’s so unique to that individual.
2. Help to NOT add decisions to their plate if possible. Just pick up the coffee or make that run to Target, just go. Get the mail, remove daily tasks.
3. Saying something is better than nothing, like a text saying “thinking of you, no need to respond!”
4. Ask specific questions, “want to talk about it, or want to talk about something to distract you?” Two options is better than an open ended question. OR
5. Ask, "how are you doing today or right now?" Make questions smaller, to make them easier to answer depending on the relationship.
6. Show up, no need to try and "fix" things.

Carly is proof that you can achieve, grieve, learn, and grow all at the same time. And that it’s okay to ask for help, take time off of work, and have a hard day. Carly shares her life on social in order to “normalize everyday lived experiences.”

Bio: Carly Ritt is a mom of two living in Connecticut by way of Wisconsin. She's a Midwest girl at heart but loves life on the east coast. She works in communications and shares more of her unfiltered life on social media — chatting about motherhood, work, grief, mental health and life's everyday chaos. 

Carly self-published a children's book Angels in the Sky in 2021 after welcoming her two children into the world while coping with the loss of her mom and brother. Carly hopes to inspire and connect with others who may be going through similar experiences.

Find Carly on Instagram @carlyritt and order her book, Angels in the Sky at carlyritt.com. 

Thank you for being here. Your needs matter, because you matter.

Please share this episode, rate the podcast and leave a review! It would mean the world to me. Let’s create positive impact together.

Thank you for listening! To get to know Ashley more, visit @ABLlifecoaching on Instagram and to learn about coaching together check out www.ABLlifecoaching.com.