How To Mourn The Life You Thought You’d Have

The hardest goodbyes aren’t always to people, they’re goodbyes to the version of life you were sure was coming.

If you’ve been telling yourself you should be “over it” by now, consider a different truth: your brain is doing update work, rewriting the future it had already started to expect, and that process often feels like grief.

We start with mindfulness as awareness without judgment, then get honest about what it’s like to be in a season of expansion while your doubt gets loud. From there, we dig into grieving the life you thought you’d have, the identity you built around a relationship or career, and why “I miss them” is sometimes really “I miss who I thought I was becoming.” You’ll hear a clear breakdown of the five stages of grief (denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance) and why they don’t always happen in a neat order.

We also untangle a big misconception: acceptance is not approval. Resistance can keep you stuck in “this shouldn’t have happened,” while acceptance helps you reclaim your power with “this happened, and I love myself anyway.” You’ll leave with grounding reframes, body-based ways to move energy, and journal prompts to process the future that never came to be, so you can choose what you want next with real, aligned confidence.

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Transcript

Welcome And A Mindfulness Reset

SPEAKER_01 0:00

Hi friends, and welcome to Believe Like a Buddhist. I'm your host, Life Coach Monday Camille. Join me as I teach you how to smash your goals and expand the possibility of your life through mindset management, spiritual alignment, and authentic action. I'll teach you how to create what I like to call a life of thrive with ease and authenticity. It's time to play with what's possible. Are you ready? Let's go.

SPEAKER_00 0:27

Hello, hello, hello, and welcome back to another episode of Believe Like a Boss. I am your host, Life Coach, Nandi Camille. Welcome back, my friends. I hope you had a beautiful weekend. I hope you had a wonderful week. If you didn't, I hope that you were just with yourself, with your grief, with your frustration, with your anger, with your anxiety, just with it, without judgment. I think that that's such a beautiful first step when we are feeling grumpy, when we are feeling not ourselves, is to not judge it, right? Simply not judge it. I've been having to practice that a lot more these days. I feel like I'm in a really big expansion mode. Um, again, like I, if you're new on the podcast, welcome to the podcast. If

Expansion Season And Self-Doubt

SPEAKER_00 1:05

you're an avid listener, thank you for being a listener. And if you are a listener, please leave us a five-star rating. But for my listeners, you all know that I just signed a modeling contract. I'm going through that process. I'm also actively building a matchmaking business. I've expanded my uh life coaching business beyond women into couples now. Um, so there's a lot of expansion that's happening. As I'm saying it out loud, the all of the doubt, the scary things in my brain are like, who are you to do all these things? Doesn't Marie Forleo say to only do one thing at a time? And truly, she actually does. She does say to what do one thing at a time. I'd say most people say to do one thing at a time. And I would even advise you to do one thing at a time. But I am just truly, when I sit with it, when I meditate on it, when I pray on it, I am feeling so excited about all of the things that I'm doing. And all of the things that I'm doing are not competing. And I think that's the beautiful thing. It's not, none of the activities I'm currently putting my time into, expanding in and breathing life into, feel like they're competing at all. All of it actually feels really symbiotic and feels like it's all helping each other. Me being a model now, all of a sudden, I've always cared about my health and my wellness and my fitness and my body. But for whatever reason, you sign that modeling contract, and my brain's like, oh, it is my job to take care of my body now. It is actually literally my job. They say it in our orientation. They're like, y'all need to take care of yourselves. And they said it in a kind, professional way. There's nothing that made me feel uncomfortable and at any point of disorientation. They've been so kind and truly they've been about bringing your whole true self to this. We want you to have fun with this. Um, and it's your job to take care of your body. And so it's been interesting to have that perspective and just sit with that and notice that for myself of like, why is it that you signing this contract made you feel differently about how you care for your body? Um, and there's been a little bit of judgment around that. How come you didn't care for your body differently beforehand? You know, all of that. And so, again, welcome to the podcast. This is what we do here. We talk about mindfulness, which is awareness without judgment, awareness of our thoughts, of our actions, of how we're showing up, and then deciding from that place do I like the way that I'm showing up? Do I like the results that I'm creating? Do I like the life that I'm living? How do I know by my feelings? Our feelings are the result of the thoughts that we're having, right? And so we talk about all that on the podcast.

Grieving The Life You Expected

SPEAKER_00 3:11

But this week, what we're talking about specifically as I segue is grief. We're talking about grief. Oh, yeah, it's a good one. It's a good topic. It's one that whenever I revisit, yeah, I always get another nugget. I always uh feel like I know myself a little bit more. And it also, I think this process of learning the grieving process has always given me a little bit more space, space to be. And I love that. So grieving the life that you thought you would have. That's what we're talking about today. Not just grieving a loved one, though you might be doing that as well. But when we're talking about grief today, I'm talking about grieving the life you thought you would have, right? Because sometimes life doesn't end up the way you think it's going to go. From a neuroscience perspective, grief isn't about losing what was, right? It's about losing what your brain had begun to expect. When I first went to a therapist years ago, my very first therapist, she was actually a grief counselor. And when I was thinking about my process through therapy, through coaching, where I am now, the tools that I'm using, this was a tool that really served me. So when you think about grief, again, we're talking about the life that you thought you were going to have, right? It might have been the wedding that you imagined or the version of you of yourself that you thought you'd become in that job. It might be the family that you pictured. Maybe you thought you'd have three kids by now. I'll raise my hand and say that that was a 1000% me, right? The timeline you counted on, the identity you built around a relationship or a career. Our brains, friendly reminder, are prediction machines. They're constantly creating expectations of what's coming next. That's why I love mindfulness so much because it's the pause button on this. It allows us to look at our brain. When our reality diverges dramatically from those predictions, from what we thought was going to happen, the brain has to rewrite those mental models, has to rewrite what we thought was going to happen. That rewriting process often shows up as grief. That rewriting process often just is grief, right? And I don't know that we always think about it that way. If grief is a rewriting process, but I want to offer that to you in case that serves you. Grief isn't just this, oh, something bad happened to me, and so now I feel bad. It's what your brain is doing, it's rewriting what you thought was going to happen. It's rewriting the life that you thought you were going to have. And so mindfulness helps us to slow down and notice the predictions our brain is making and decide, do I agree? Would I like to change these thoughts? What are the predictions that my brain is making based on the new information that I have?

The Five Stages Of Grief

SPEAKER_00 5:44

So let's go through the five stages of grief just so you can understand what they are. And again, this is what my very first therapist taught me. And I'm so grateful for her. Truly, she was she was in a church, and so when I was looking for a therapist, a few notes for anybody that is looking for a therapist or for a coach. Um, I listen to yourself, first and foremost, always, always, always. And what I needed in that time is like, I need somebody that is spiritually tied, somebody that is gonna have God at the center that's important to me. And so I asked around, looked around. I actually don't know how I found her. I feel like somebody told me about her, and that's how I found her because she was literally in a church. I don't know that she was affiliated with it, but that's where her office was, was inside this church. And so that's what I was looking for. I was not necessarily looking for a grief counselor. And when I met her, is when she told me that her background was specific to grief. But when you're looking for a coach, when you're looking for a therapist, get clear on what's important to you. Do you want somebody that's spiritually grounded, that's focused on God? Do you want spirituality in it at all? Make sure you voice out when you're talking to a therapist, talking to a coach, and then make sure you feel comfortable talking to that person. That's what I tell people on discovery calls all the time. If you don't feel comfortable talking to me, if in, you know, the first five, 10, 15 minutes that you're talking to this person, whether it's across from you in a room or across from you on a screen, and you don't feel comfortable to tell them what you need to tell them. They haven't made you feel comfortable, that's probably not your person, right? Because you can only grow to the level at which you're willing to share. And if you're not willing to share a whole lot, you're not gonna grow a whole lot. That's my just like a little five cents on coaching. Okay, so back. The five stages of grief. I'm gonna go through these slowly but distinctly so you can hear them. And then if you need to pause the podcast, come back to this. You can also just like Google research this. But five stages of grief. First one is denial. Denial is the difficulty of accepting the reality of the loss. This is where people might feel numb, shocked, they might think this can't be happening. That's the first stage. The second stage is anger. It's where you're feeling feelings of frustration, resentment, maybe towards God, maybe towards somebody else, maybe a feeling of helplessness. Anger can be directed at yourself, others, circumstances, or even just life in general. So just feeling angry. And know that these things, uh, these stages of grief are not necessarily linear. You can bounce between them, um, one can show up before the other. The third one listed is bargaining. So this is when you're trying to make sense of loss by imagining what if scenarios or wishing things could have been different. So you're trying to change a thing that cannot be changed. That's what the bargaining is. This often involves thoughts like, if only I had. So again, you're going to try to go back to change something that you cannot change. What if I had done this? What if I had done that? What if I had done this? Then maybe it could have been different, right? You're going to try to change something that is unchangeable, right? You cannot go back and change the past. The fourth one, depression, right? This is a feeling of deep sadness, emptiness, or withdrawal as the reality of loss that's in. The stage reflex morning, not this is not necessarily major depressive disorder. So check in if you're a friend that has been feeling depressed, that has been feeling excessively sad, check in. It could be that you're going through the grieving process. I know sometimes we like to label I'm just depressed. This is just what it is. Maybe you are grieving something, someone, a life that you thought you were going to have. And it might be that you're going through the stages of grief. And if that's the case, yeah, hope, my love, because depression is darn near towards the end. The last stage here, number five, is acceptance. This is recognizing that the loss is real and beginning to adapt to life with it. Acceptance does not mean getting over it. We're going to talk about this a little bit more in a second, or feeling happy about the loss, right? But that's the last step. You're no longer trying to go back and change what happened. You're no longer trying to go back and change the things that happened to you, or the loss of the person, or the loss of the job, or the loss of the relationship. You see it as it is. It doesn't make it less painful, but it's no longer something you're trying to change. Acceptance is this is what happens. Acceptance thing about like mindfulness, right? I'm I'm aware of this change and I am reserving my judgment. You may not be at that place yet, but that's okay. Reminder that we don't only grieve people, we grieve futures, identities, routines, certainty, innocence, versions of ourselves, expectations, right? Often the deepest grief isn't, I miss them. It comes across that way. We think it's that, right? I miss them, I miss them. It's them that I miss. And if I had them back, I'd feel better. If I had that job back, I'd feel better. If I had that person back in my life, I'd feel better. But what I want you to do is zoom out. What might be more true, what I think is more true, is I miss who I thought I was becoming. Let that sit for a second. I miss who I thought I was becoming. This was 1,000% true for me. So when I went to that therapist, I was grieving a relationship. I was grieving, I thought I was just simply grieving the relationship. I was like, oh, I'm so sad. I'm not going to be with this person. I'm not going to be with my ex-boyfriend anymore. I thought I was going to have this life. And as I talked to my therapist, the thing that we worked out, though, she pulled out of me, she's like, it sounds like you're grieving the life you were going to have. And that was eye-opening for me, right? I kept putting my energy into him. It's him that I miss. If he was back, my life would be better. If he was still my life, my life would change. And those things might be true. But what was more true is I miss who I thought I was becoming. When I was with him, I thought this was going to be my life. And now that I'm not with him, I don't know what's going to happen with my life. And that uncertainty is so painful. Let's sit with that for a second. It's okay. It's okay. That uncertainty is painful and it's okay. Check in. I'm going to throw a little quick check-in question for you. Who did you think you were becoming that you can no longer be now? When I was in that relationship, I thought I was going to be truly a singer and singer, songwriter, couple. That's what I imagined. We were going to travel the world. We were going to sing across stages in the US and abroad. And I was going to be singing with his family, and I was going to inherit his sister as my sister. And I was like going to marry into this beautiful Hispanic family. And I was going to like live this very different life than now that he's not in my life. And now I'm in Colorado. Like, I I don't I don't know what my life is going to look like. I built a specific vision. And now that he's not in my life, I don't know. I don't know what my vision is anymore. I don't know if I can be confident on Sage. I don't know if I can be with X, Y, and Z. I don't know. So check in. Who did you think you were becoming that you can no longer be now? What do you want? I love those questions, especially when we're in painful spots in our lives. Because not always, but sometimes that pain helps to clarify what we do want. What do you want? Allow that pain to help to clarify what you want. Not from a place of pain. And that I think is very tricky. But from a place of learning. Based on what I know about the experience that I went through. What did I learn? Based on what I learned, what do I want next? I love this quote. I don't know who it's by, but it's grief is love with nowhere to go. Our attachment system doesn't immediately shut off after loss. Your brain continues reaching towards something that's no longer available. That's why people instinctly check their phones, imagine conversation, replay memory, that's when you're really bargaining. Picture a future that won't happen. Your nervous system hasn't updated yet. And I'm telling you this so that you can give yourself some grace. If you are going through a transition, if you are grieving a loss and you're frustrated with yourself for not being okay already, your nervous system is updating right now. And it is okay that you're not okay. It is okay that you're not okay. Mindfulness, again, awareness without judgment. I'm gonna be aware that I'm not okay right now. I'm gonna be aware that I'm frustrated right now. I'm gonna be aware that I'm angry right now, and I'm gonna let that be okay. And then it would offer do something with it. Join a kickboxing class, go and doodle somewhere, go swimming, go for a jog, move that energy. That's my the holistic life coaching me. Right? Move that energy.

Acceptance Without Approval

SPEAKER_00 14:12

When we're talking about acceptance in this process, when we're going through the grieving process, right? The snag that sometimes we get caught on is like, I don't want to accept this, right? Because we think acceptance is approval. If I accept this, it means I'm okay with this. It means I'm okay with how this went down, I'm not okay with this. Acceptance isn't this is it's okay how it went down. You don't have to be, you don't have to bless the situation. You don't have to bless the fact that he left or he cheated or she, whatever, right? I don't want to label he, she, or whatever. But the thing that happened that hurt you, it's we're not saying that it's okay, but we're saying it happened. It's not, I'm glad it happened. I'm saying it happened.

unknown 14:52

Right?

SPEAKER_00 14:52

Again, mindfulness, awareness without judgment. This happened. Resistance, let's dig into this. Why should I be accepting? Why notice this without resistance? Because resistance prolongs suffering. This shouldn't have happened, this shouldn't happen, this shouldn't have happened. Think about the energy that you're in when you are saying that thought again and again and again, right? A belief is just a thought you think again and again. So if you believe this shouldn't have happened, this shouldn't have happened, you're marching around thinking that, even if it's true, my offering to you is that it doesn't serve you. It does not serve you to walk around thinking this shouldn't have happened, this shouldn't have happened. I'm so angry about it, it shouldn't have happened. Go to that place. What kind of energy are you in? Angry, frustrated. What kind of action do you take from that place? I'm gonna offer it to you. Limited action. It's not that you can't take place anger, take action from a place of anger. Uh anger is a useful emotion. But what I think would serve you more is this happened and I love myself anyway. This happened, and I'm going to go for my goals anyway. This happened, and I'm so proud of myself for. Right? Instead of focusing on this happened, this happened, victim mentality. It makes me small. It's out of my control. I want you to take your control back. What is within your control? Your thoughts, your patterns of behavior, how you show up, how you move your energy. Acceptance doesn't mean like I'm glad it happened, it's so great. Acceptance says, okay, it happened, and then you get to bring your power back to yourself. What am I gonna do about me now? Just as a little tidbit, I think that this is helpful. The brain needs time to update. So when something ends, your brain has thousands of associations still linked to it. Songs, restaurants, morning routines, future plans, smells. Every reminder becomes an opportunity for the brain to slowly learn this is different now. And that can be a painful process. So let's honor that. Right? That when you drive down that one street and you have that memory with that one person, that your brain, it's a moment, right, to acknowledge this is different now and notice that. Are you driving down that street being like this shouldn't have happened? This shouldn't have happened. Are you driving down the street noticing things are different now? And I'm okay. And if you're somewhere in between that, that is totally fine. Right? The the objective and the dance is to love yourself through every point. Love yourself when you're feeling depressed, love yourself when you're feeling angry. Love yourself when you're not quite to the place where your brain is like, this is different now. That's okay. It's okay. And then trust and believe that you will move through this, that there is a reality on the other side, we'll say, where you're not worried about it anymore. You're worried about yourself. You're excited about the work you're putting into the world, you're excited about how you're showing up in the world, you're so in love with the relationships that you have, romantic or otherwise, that you're not worried about the past. You're so excited about the present. Healing isn't forgetting, it's updating.

Healing Means Updating The Brain

SPEAKER_00 18:07

All right, so allow yourself to update. Allow yourself to let it be painful, allow yourself to grieve, and then decide on purpose who is this newie that I'm becoming? What is this next best version of me? How does she show up? What are her habits? What do they think about themselves? When hard things happen, how do they navigate them? When the past pokes its little head up, how do they choose to move through the pain? Not avoid it, not push it down. How do they choose? How does my best self choose to move through the pain or let the pain move through them? Whichever way serves you. I think it's um The Untethered Soul is the book that it's from, where I cannot remember if the author is male or female, but the author talks about allowing emotions to simply pass through you. Truly just like pass through your body like a ghost walking through your body. If that imagery serves you, use it.

Journal Prompts And Coaching Offers

SPEAKER_00 19:12

My friends, I have four and a half, 4.5 check-in questions for you. I say four and a half because one is a subset question of the of the question. So I have some questions for you. Take what six of you, leave the rest. You can pause the podcast, come back later, use these as journal prompts. Um, you can just listen to them now and maybe pause in between each question and answer them if you're on a long drive, if you're on a plane ride right now, just to think about it. If you have your journal out, that's another way you can do this too, is pause in between each question, journal out your answer, and then come back to the next question. And my friends, I have to add, if you're enjoying this and you want some help with checking in with who you are now, moving through the grieving process. I had so much fun and I'm having so much fun in the art of magnetism. We're doing, oh, I think we're cheese and crackers. I think we're on week three, if not week four this week. I get it together. But my second week, I was so excited about and I just felt so strongly about we need to do this again now. So round two is already up. Sign up for round two now, my friends. If you have questions about it, hello at naundicamil.com. Send me an email. I'm happy to answer any questions that you have. I have payment plans and then I have pay in full, and then there's different tiers, whether it's just the course, if you want the course and coaching, I have that option available as well. But in the art of magnetism, it's truly about learning about yourself. It's identity work so that you can be confident from an aligned place. I don't want manufactured confidence. I want true grounded confidence because from that place, you are clear. From that clear place, you take aligned action. And I want to give you tools to help you to understand that speed bumps will happen. And when those speed bumps happen, here is my tool belt. So the art of magnetism starts again in August. Round two, come and join us, naunticamil.com. I believe it's slash learn more. That might take you to the events page. But go to naughtycamille.com. It's under life coaching, the art of magnetism. We start round two in August. Okay, so here are your checking questions. Number one, what are you still carrying because you've never paused long enough to grieve it? I'm gonna read each question two times for you. We do this in coaching sessions as well. In case you're like, what is it like to coach with you, Naughty? Just like this, except I'm talking to a person, not just to myself. Well, I'm talking to all of you, but y'all don't respond when I'm doing the podcast. And you respond in coaching. This is exactly what we do. Okay, second time, first question. What are you still carrying because you've never paused long enough to grieve it? Second question. What expectation, identity, or dream are you ready to acknowledge with compassion? Whatever comes up is the right answer. There's no such thing as wrong answers here. What expectation, identity, or dream are you ready to acknowledge with compassion? Third question. This is the 3.5. So I'm gonna read the first one, second one, both of them twice. What future did you imagine that never came to be? If grief could speak, what would it say it's still holding on to? What future did you imagine that never came to be? If your grief could speak, what would it say it's still holding on to? And then your fourth question. What have you lost that no one else realized you were grieving? What have you lost that no one else realized you were grieving? Those are your 4.5 questions. Again, pause up the podcast if you need to, rewind if you need to listen to those again. I really find them to be so helpful. Whether you do some self-talk out loud and answer them or journal them, but just processing these questions I found to be very helpful. Sometimes we think we're stuck because we need a new plan. And sometimes in reality, we're stuck because we're still grieving the old one, my friend. So some of you, though, yeah, truly you do. It's time for a new plan. You're not grieving anything, like the systems that you built aren't working, it's time for new systems. But for others, you're stuck because you're grieving the old plan and you have not taken the time to acknowledge what you thought was going to happen. You keep fighting against it or feeling like a victim and it's not serving you. You cannot fully embrace the life that's unfolding while you're holding your breath for the one that didn't. As always, my friends, take what sticks you. Leave the rest, go to naundycamil.com to learn more about coaching. Come sign up for the Art of Magnetism. Round two starts in August. I can't wait to see you. And hey, if you're in the Denver metro area, July 19th, I have an in-person retreat. It's a summer reset retreat, and I'm so excited about it. Email me hello at nautticamille.com if you have any questions. I'll see you guys next week.

Ratings, Sharing, And Discovery Call

SPEAKER_00 23:58

Hey, friend, if you like this podcast, I would love it if you give us a five star rating. Share it with your friends. If you're interested in one on one coaching, if this podcast resonates with you and you're ready for some one on one support, support for you and your journey. Go ahead to nandicamille.com to learn more or head over to nandicamille.as.me to sign up for your free discovery call.