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Interview with Christina Rasmussen ~ Life after Loss Pioneer

Interview with Christina Rasmussen ~ Life after Loss Pioneer | #AspireMag

Aspire Magazine is honored to introduce you to Christina Rasmussen. Christina is a bestselling author, speaker and philanthropist on a crusade to change the way we live after loss.

As the founder of Second Firsts and Life Starters both organizations to help people create a pathway back to life after loss, Christina has helped thousands of people rebuild, reclaim, and relaunch their lives using the power of the human mind. Her thriving Facebook community intimately connects with over 200,000 individuals who embrace her message of love.

Her book of the same name — Second Firsts: Live, Laugh, and Love Again— takes her message even further. Tens of thousands of people around the world receive Christina’s magical, life changing & truthful ‘Message in a Bottle’ every Friday morning. Christina’s work has been featured on the Huffington Post, NPR, The Times of India, Beliefnet, the White House Blog, and MariaShriver.com.

Christina is the mother of two beautiful girls who watched their father die of cancer and saw their mother alchemize that tragedy into a new life of joy and laughter. She resides in San Francisco, California, with her husband, Eric, their four daughters, and their dog, Tyson.

 

Christina, you studied bereavement and grief in your 20’s. Later in your life you experienced the loss of your husband leaving you with two young children. How did the theory of your studies compare to the real-life experience? My real life experience of devastating loss was so different to my study of grief. I never expected grief to be so insane, devastating and so long lasting. Because of my experience I realized that there are millions of people out there who are as lost as I am and have nowhere to turn for real help. That is when I promised myself if I make it back to life I will go back to get everyone else. Second Firsts is my Noah’s Ark.

When did you know you could write SECOND FIRSTS and help people find their way back? Second Firsts Christina Rasmussen I had promised myself that the day that I was going to write this book was going to be the  day that I had healed and I was able to live life fully. Otherwise I would not be able to  take on this mission. So this book is important because it’s changing the status quo of life after loss. It’s changing the way we perceive grief. It’s changing the way we think about someone who has been divorced or widowed or abandoned or abused, any kind of loss. It’s changing the way we look at our identity after loss. Writing this book for me was the beginning of a journey, a journey into the lives of millions of people. This book changed the lives of thousands, more books are on the way and they will continue to build the true understanding of grief and why we as humans must experience it.

Christina, you often use the term “waiting room” as a way of identifying the problem of grief. How do you define the waiting room and how do you know you’re stuck there?   In my quest to free people from pain I stumbled upon a place, a secret hiding place. I called this place, The Waiting Room. The place between two lives. The life we left behind after our loss, and the life we have yet to have. In this world in between… we live life in a loop, in a repetitive pattern. It is safe from any new life experiences and we hide from the real world in order to protect ourselves from more grief and sorrow. I met people who have spent years in the Waiting room and didn’t even know they were in there. I know there’s millions and millions of people in that gap, in that space between two worlds. But they don’t know the gap. They don’t know it’s a waiting room. They don’t know that they’re to wait for something better to happen, for time to heal them. But the pain won’t go away until they take action. So every time I mention this to people, they go, “Oh, my goodness! That’s where I’m at. That’s the gap.” Grief is invisible most of the times and it happens to everyone but not everyone has the tools and the awareness to know what they are experiencing so they try to protect themselves from something they don’t even understand. My mission is to free millions from the Waiting Room and to help the world better understand grief.

Why is dealing and speaking and writing about grief so hard Christina? When I started writing the book proposal, people told me that it was going to be a hard sell that publishers are not looking to publish a book on grief. And I kept saying to them, “This is not about grief. It’s about the life after our experience with grief. It’s about what we do after grief.” And the stereotype in the world today is that grief lasts forever. I completely disagree. Grief does not last forever. Memories last forever. But grief is here to change us and evolve us into an amazing human being. This is the only reason humanity evolves because we feel pain, we grow from it, we change and become something better.

How can a person begin to get some distance from grief so they can start experiencing life fully again? Before we even begin to talk about healing, the one thing that I’ve learned through my grief and through the grief of other people is that we cannot move forward unless we get real with our grief. What I mean about that is that we have to understand our grief, understand our thoughts that come from our grief experience, understand what’s going on inside our brain and reflect on those thoughts and reflect on our feelings. Don’t run away from your grief! There’s nowhere to go if you do that. There’s nowhere to go. You’re going to come right back and it’s going to be here a year later, two years later, three years later. You need to get real and when you do get real you need to acknowledge and validate it and that’s when I think invisible losses are much harder to heal because there’s no validation. There’s no acknowledgment.

What are the challenges and obstacles you come across while on the path to free people from grief?  Grief is such a taboo topic and unless you fit in to the stereotypes the world does not want to hear what you have to say. My work on LIFE REENTRY and using brain science to heal was a tough sell for a while. But I did not give up especially when I started to see people change their lives right before my eyes. Some of the most beautiful experiences happen after loss…if we let them.

How do you use science to describe something so delicate and emotionally bound as grief? What a great question. Our brain’s ability to heal us is so underused by our world. Instead we allow people to create grief habits instead of life habits. We let our family members and our friends continue to relive the trauma and the loss. Imagine if we created a world where we could help people start over no matter the loss, no matter the magnitude of the tragedy. Imagine if it was possible to live again fully without being told that grief lasts forever. Brain science can allow for that to happen. If we let it of course.

I’m curious Christina about what a Second Firsts world looks like to you?   Big smile here…. a world of Second Firsts would be made of people who survived the unthinkable, they would be our leaders, our elders, our wise souls and our mentors. Our government and corporations would rely on the people who overcame the biggest challenges to lead the way. I believe that the older we get the more we are equipped to live a life worth living. Second Firsts is about respecting those who endured and overcame the worst and giving them the podium. Don’t get me started on this, I can go on forever.

After someone finishes reading your book and has gone through the Reentry process what one emotion or feeling will they walk away feeling? The one thing that people have told me over and over again is that they smile again and that they have hope again. They see their own transformation and believe in their own second chapter more than ever before. You can hear it in their voice and see it in their writing, they are no longer the same person. They have reentered and have started to live life once again. This time, a bigger life.

 

I invite you to learn more about Christina’s empowering work by visiting Second Firsts. While you are there be sure to claim Christina’s magical, life hanging & truthful Message in a Bottle delivered every Friday morning.  Join Christina’s Second Firsts Facebook page and join over 200,000 individuals who are reclaiming their life after loss.

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About the author 

Christina Rasmussen

Christina is a bestselling author, speaker and philanthropist on a crusade to change the way we live after loss.

As the founder of Second Firsts and Life Starters both organizations to help people create a pathway back to life after loss, Christina has helped thousands of people rebuild, reclaim, and relaunch their lives using the power of the human mind. Her thriving Facebook community intimately connects with over 200,000 individuals who embrace her message of love.

Her book of the same name —
Second Firsts: Live, Laugh, and Love Again
— aims to take her message even further. Tens of thousands of people around the world receive Christina’s magical, life changing & truthful ‘Message in a Bottle’ every Friday morning. Christina’s work has been featured on the Huffington Post, NPR, The Times of India, Beliefnet, the White House Blog, and MariaShriver.com.

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  • Debra Reble says:

    Such an inspiring interview! Thank you for sharing your beautiful souls. Wow Christina you do great lightwork for. the planet. Blessings

  • Minette Riordan says:

    What an inspiring story and beautiful mission for changing how we are able to deal with grief. Very empowering!

  • I suppose one can say that, in spite of the pain, grief can be truly transformational — and that’s a good thing when it’s transformation for inner growth. Beautiful interview!

  • Peggy Nolan says:

    Awesome interview! Thank you for sharing your light Christina – and for showing the world that life can be beautiful again! xo Peggy

  • Chara Armon says:

    I am inspired by anyone who transforms suffering into healing of the self and service to others. What beautiful work Christina has done in her own life and now shares with others. Thanks, Aspire, for featuring her!

  • This interview touched me deeply because of the loss I have experienced. Grief can help us evolve and grow, giving the strength and courage to step out of the Waiting Room and into the arms of a joy filled life. One of my favorite Aspire features Linda…thank you!

  • What a brilliant interview and such an important topic. Coming out of grief into something empowering and beautiful for ourselves and our own lives is such a beautiful opportunity that life gives us. Thank you for this inspiring interview and deep truth!

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