In this episode, we are honored to host the inspirational Christina Rasmussen, a celebrated author and educator known for her groundbreaking work in the field of grief and loss.

This heartfelt conversation delves into the concept of invisible loss, shedding light on the challenges many face in recognizing and handling their emotions. Whether you're dealing with personal grief or looking to support someone who is, this episode offers invaluable guidance and encouragement.

Key Points

✅ Grief can be hidden and keep us from showing up as our truest selves
✅ The work may start with unlocking your story and getting out of the waiting room
✅ How to identify the survivor, the watcher and the thriver and move into healing.

Our Guest – 👨‍⚕️ Christina Rasmussen

Christina Rasmussen is an acclaimed grief educator and bestselling author of Second Firsts (Hay House, 2013), Where Did You Go? (Harper One, 2018), and Invisible Loss (Sounds True, 2024). In 2010, four years after her thirty-five-year-old spouse passed away from Stage 4 colon cancer, she created the Life Reentry process, which launched her on a mission to bring compassion, grace, and validation to thousands, while simultaneously establishing an exit from what she termed the Waiting Room.
Christina holds a master’s degree in guidance and counseling (University of Durham). She is currently finishing her master of fine arts degree in painting and drawing (Academy of Art). Her grief work has been featured on ABC News and in Women’s World, the Washington Post, and the White House Blog.

🚀 Facebook https://www.facebook.com/Secondfirsts/
🌐 Website: https://invisiblelossbook.com/

Dr. Jill Carnahan, MD

Dr. Jill Carnahan is Your Functional Medicine Expert® dually board certified in Family Medicine for ten years and in Integrative Holistic Medicine since 2015. She is the Medical Director of Flatiron Functional Medicine, a widely sought-after practice with a broad range of clinical services including functional medical protocols, nutritional consultations, chiropractic therapy, naturopathic medicine, acupuncture, and massage therapy.

As a survivor of breast cancer, Crohn’s disease, and toxic mold illness she brings a unique perspective to treating patients in the midst of complex and chronic illness. Her clinic specializes in searching for the underlying triggers that contribute to illness through cutting-edge lab testing and tailoring the intervention to specific needs. 

A popular inspirational speaker and prolific writer, she shares her knowledge of hope, health, and healing live on stage and through newsletters, articles, books, and social media posts! People relate to Dr. Jill’s science-backed opinions delivered with authenticity, love and humor. She is known for inspiring her audience to thrive even in the midst of difficulties.

Featured in Shape Magazine, Parade, Forbes, MindBodyGreen, First for Women, Townsend Newsletter, and The Huffington Post as well as seen on NBC News and Health segments with Joan Lunden, Dr. Jill is a media must-have. Her YouTube channel and podcast features live interviews with the healthcare world’s most respected names. 

The Podcast

The Video

The Transcript

228: Resiliency Radio with Dr. Jill: Confronting Invisible Losses & Grief with Christina Rasmussen

Dr. Jill  00:00

Hey, everybody. Welcome to Resiliency Radio, your go-to podcast for the most cutting-edge insights in integrative and functional medicine. I'm your host, Dr. Jill, and with each episode, we dive into the heart of healing and personal transformation. Join us as we connect with renowned experts, thought leaders, and innovators who are at the forefront of medical research and thought processes. Today, we want to empower you with knowledge on your health and healing journey. 

Dr. Jill  00:25

I am so excited to meet for a second time. We've met at another conference. We were just going back to where that was. Christina Rasmussen, who's my guest today, is an acclaimed grief educator and best-selling author of Second Firsts through Hay House in 2013, Where Did You Go? Harper One, 2018, and Invisible Loss with Sounds True, 2024. In 2010, four years after her 35-year-old spouse passed away from stage IV colon cancer, she created the Life Reentry process, which launched her on a mission to bring compassion, grace, and validation to thousands while simultaneously establishing an exit from what she termed ‘the waiting room.' We're going to get into that today. 

Dr. Jill  01:09

She holds a master's degree in guidance and counseling. She is currently finishing her master's of fine arts in painting and drawing. And her grief work has been featured on ABC News, in Women's World, The Washington Post, and the White House blog. 

Welcome, Christina! I am so happy to have you on the show. 

Christina Rasmussen  01:24

Thank you so much for having me. I am so excited to have this conversation. And thank you for saying yes to this conversation—to talk about something so difficult but yet very, very important. 

Dr. Jill  01:37

This conversation is so, so important. I am so excited to be here. And your book, which we're going to talk about, Invisible Loss—I'm super excited to dive into this. First of all, I want to hear your story. But before we do, I just want to frame this because, [from] what I have experienced in clinical practice in the last 6 to 12 months and longer, I feel like the crisis existentially and otherwise for people is increasing. And everyone that I know has some sort of loss [or] grief, whether it's an illness, a financial loss, or a relationship loss. I feel like the universe is really stirring things up and allowing us to go to the deepest levels of ourselves: Who are we? What's our identity? What do we actually hold on to? And where is our source of strength? Because if we don't have some sort of anchor… And I want to get into all that with you because you have so much to offer. 

Dr. Jill  02:27

But I want to frame it because, if you're listening, I can't imagine that you haven't, in the last six months, experienced something or some sort of a crisis. So, Christina, tell us about you. Let's go back to your story. How did this all start? How did you get into grief counseling? Let's set the stage for what we're going to talk about. 

Christina Rasmussen  02:46

The one thing that people are very surprised to hear is that I chose to become a grief therapist before I experienced any tragedy. People realize this and are shocked, almost like it was destiny. I grew up in Greece, so you will hear a little bit of an accent. I grew up in Greece and then moved to England to do my undergraduate and my postgraduate degrees. And that's when I decided that I wanted my master's thesis to be about grief. 

Christina Rasmussen  03:19

I said to my professor at the time: “I couldn't imagine losing anyone in my life. I love people so much; I don't know how you would ever get through it. So, I would love to be able to know how to help others who go through this.” What I didn't know then was that very few years later, my 31-year-old husband was diagnosed and would be diagnosed with stage IV colon cancer, which was very rare at such a young age. He passed away at age 35. We had two young girls. 

Christina Rasmussen  03:56

And, Jill, everything I studied and everything I learned as a professional… I used to facilitate support groups for spouses in Houston, Texas, at the Houston Hospice. And having the experience, having the reality of it, it was so different. It's so much more catastrophic than I ever imagined. And I wanted to run away from my profession. And I did. I didn't think I could help anyone while I was suffering at the same time. And I never thought I would ever go back to do this work. So I ran away. I went back and did another postgraduate degree. 

Christina Rasmussen  04:47

I worked in the corporate world and human resource management for a few years as a single parent, making sure I had health insurance for my kids. And I hated my life. I never thought I would ever survive this or ever smile, laugh, or be happy. I thought it was the end of the world. And I mean, it was the end of the world. It was the end of the world that I knew. It was definitely the end of the world. And, Jill, I kept asking myself: “My goodness; how come nobody said anything?” I was angry that nobody said that this was almost unsurvivable. But this was—I don't know. Everything changed. I changed. The way I looked at the world changed. I just couldn't imagine millions of people experiencing this. Every day, someone is losing someone they loved so much and they couldn't imagine living their life. 

Christina Rasmussen  05:54

I remember thinking: “I wish it was me. It would have been easier for me to die versus me having to survive losing him.” We were young, and we were just starting our lives. Two little babies. It was unfair. It was wrong. And then, at the same time, it was destiny. It was the beginning of this journey that I really didn't know, I didn't want, [and] I was running away from. But ultimately, I said yes to it years later. 

Christina Rasmussen  06:29

Years after, like four years after he died, I quit the corporate job. I resigned and literally stepped into this, not knowing what I was doing, not knowing anything. And I started from knowing nothing. I mean, I knew a lot, but everything I knew wasn't what people needed. I felt like I had to rewrite not the script but the way we are doing this and how we're doing this and to acknowledge and validate what traditional loss was. And of course, that's where I started from—traditional loss. 

Dr. Jill  07:10

Wow is all I can say. I have so many thoughts as you share. First of all, I'm sorry for your loss, but the world is greatly benefiting. It's no wonder [that] as I went into your book and started reading, you can feel that level of deep understanding and knowing. It makes me want to cry because [of] my own journey at 25 getting cancer and going into the healing profession. It's so similar in a way that “Why in the world would I get cancer at 25?” Like, “What in the world?” I had to stop medical training. But you know what? The Divine had a purpose because what happened was [that] all of a sudden I went from doctor to patient. And both of us went from up here—the theoretical, analytical mind—and we went to the heart space. And we were like, “Oh wait, this is a whole other space to deal with this!” 

Dr. Jill  07:52

And I remember facing my own mortality and my own life and death. And then, when I sat with patients years later, I could so deeply understand what they were going through when they were facing their own illness, their mortality. I was like, “I have been there.” You too have been in the dark night of the soul, and there is no amount of book wisdom that can ever, ever, ever compare. 

Christina Rasmussen  08:15

And, Jill, you must have been so scared. I know that fear. It is such a scary feeling when you're diagnosed with cancer. And I'm getting goosebumps. It doesn't matter how many years go by. As you said this, immediately I said to myself, “My goodness, she must be an amazing doctor!” because you know. You understand. You have compassion. When a patient comes in and they're going through something really hard, you get it. You get it. Even without saying anything, your patients must feel this caring and this knowing. 

And I wish we didn't have to go through this. Absolutely, yes. 

Dr. Jill  09:00

But how profoundly it's changed us both; it allowed us to do what our soul was meant to do in the world. I now see it as the greatest gift. But only now, 20 years later. I'm like, “Wow!” I just thank the Divine every single day for the gift of that. But at the time, it certainly doesn't feel like a gift. So obviously you went through this really, really dark night. How did you get from there to coming back to this soul purpose and coming back to the work?—because I can't imagine how difficult that must have been. 

Christina Rasmussen  09:30

Yeah. I jumped back into this in 2010. Over the last 14 years, I've told people that it is the most devastating catastrophic event that you can experience, and you don't think you can do it. You think that it's impossible for you to ever feel happy, to feel joy, [or] to actually enjoy your life. I remember the first time I laughed or I smiled or I felt joy for a few minutes, and I remember it was exactly two and a half years later. And that was just a glimpse of—

Dr. Jill  10:16

A glimmer, right? 

Christina Rasmussen  10:17

I was like, “Oh, did I just enjoy myself doing this?” I don't even remember what it was. Did I go to the movies? It was a random Tuesday or something, and all of a sudden, I was like: “My God. Oh—I feel a little better.” And it was two and a half years. And I've told this story to people two and a half years later. And then it took however long it took to start feeling more of those moments and another day like this and maybe a weekend. Actually, weekends were hard. Maybe a Wednesday morning it was okay or something like that. And then when I started helping others… 

Christina Rasmussen  10:58

I hated my corporate job. And you probably felt the same thing, like you're an alien. After facing death and experiencing all these emotions at such a young age, then you're looking at the world, and you're looking at them going by their life and thinking: “They have no idea. They know nothing. And I don't belong. I don't belong here. And I don't belong there.” And you question your relationship with your friends; you question your relationships with everyone. And it's hard to integrate and re-enter. It's hard to go back. 

Christina Rasmussen  11:38

In 2010, when I resigned, I had no idea how it was going to be, and I started writing. And obviously, this is my second language. If you told me then, “Christina, you're going to write three books; they're going to be translated into multiple languages by three of the biggest publishing houses in the US,” I would have said: “Yeah, right! I don't believe it. There's no way.” And I started writing. And I started writing just a sentence here and there on Facebook. That was it. Now that page I started in 2010 has over half a million people. 

Christina Rasmussen  12:20

And I want to say this to anyone who's listening: Wherever you are in your life, when something is destined, you can't run away from it. And it will find you, and it will give you what is yours, and nothing will pass you by. If it's yours, it will be yours whether it's a new relationship, it's success, or it's something that you want in your life. If it's meant to be, it will just be. 

Christina Rasmussen  12:47

And I couldn't believe that whatever I was sharing was resonating with people. I couldn't understand it. And I started on this new journey. I think looking back, I was definitely surviving for a really long time even after that because I threw myself into work. And maybe you're familiar with that as well. The best way I knew how was to learn how to get through this. So I read every neuroscience book there was. I educated myself with everything to do with the brain, and then I threw myself into this community of people who were suffering. And I felt like my life had—not meaning but there was a purpose. There was something that I was here to do, and I did it. And I was doing it—maybe a little too much. I worked way too hard but it was worth it. 

Christina Rasmussen  13:44

And I'm sure you see this every day: Every day you work to help other people to make their lives better, and it matters. It really matters, Jill. It matters so much. And it mattered to me. And some of the community members over the years, even though I don't know them personally—I've met with some of them over the years in events and book signings and classes and all that—it's almost like we have a relationship with the people we help in a way that we don't have a relationship with other people. It's a different relationship. I don't even know if there's a word for it. I know it's a professional relationship, but it has a lot of meaning; it really does. So that was healing to me as well.

Dr. Jill  14:30

I could not agree more. And it's funny because my history: I used to stand up and lecture to physicians—I taught for 20 years—and I'd do all the science and all the studies and everything. Then one day, I heard—kind of from the Divine—”You need to start telling your story.” And it was so scary to start there, as you know—when you start to reveal parts yourself—because in that world it was very masculine; it was very academia. And it was very much like: Show the studies; wear your black suit. And what happened is that all of a sudden I started wearing beautiful, flowing colors; I started telling my story. And I'd stand up there, and sometimes I would almost cry with emotion sharing the depth of that story. And what would happen was that all of a sudden I connected on a whole different level. 

Dr. Jill  15:10

And now—just last weekend—I was traveling and speaking and someone stood up in the very back of the audience and he said: “Dr. Jill, ten years ago I heard you speak and it changed the trajectory of my practice. And now I'm doing this and this is happening.” And he stands up in front of everybody. But I know you know this too, as we impact people. I was like: “The whole conference was worth it just to hear this one man whose life was changed by something I said ten years ago.” And I feel so humbled because who am I to get to speak or talk or share and have someone whose life changes as a result of that? And I know your story is the same, but isn't that the most blessed, profound thing you could experience? 

Christina Rasmussen  15:49

And, Jill, can I just say something? I know we've met before, but it was with a lot of people. I think I remember when we met, but then again, I feel like I'm meeting you for the first time. I'm a very direct person. I know we're in an interview, but as soon as you came through, I said to myself, “This is a very nice, kind, and caring person”—immediately. That's what I felt about you. And I was like: “She cares. She's a good person.” And I know it's a very black-and-white way to look at the world, but that's the way I look at the world. I've met so many people through this book and [by] having these interviews over and over again, and I was struck by this feeling that anyone who's listening, I hope they're working with you. I hope that whatever you're offering, they're taking it for themselves because it comes from this amazing place that I feel from you. And we don't know each other. Really, this is the first time we're meeting.  

Dr. Jill  16:59

Right, exactly. But you know what? It's mutual. I loved you the moment we got on there. And at the core, I think that's where the heart comes from: We want to bring the unconditional love to the world. That, I think, is the only thing that really heals—additional love for ourselves in the crisis and unconditional love for others. But you're the expert. Say someone's listening—and like I said, I think people are experiencing crisis—where do they begin? How do they start? Give us some pearls of wisdom in this journey.

Christina Rasmussen  17:30

In this journey I have been on, I started with working with tragedy—loss of a spouse, loss of a child. Divorce is a very big tragedy as well. I just want to say this to people: It's like the person you love has died for you but is alive for everyone else. So it's a complicated tragedy. 

Christina Rasmussen  17:55

I was working with my classes in the groups with tragic losses. I created this model that I call the ‘life reentry model,' and it would take people wherever they were at, which I coined this term called ‘the waiting room' where I believe that when something devastating has happened to us, when something tragic has happened to us… In this book, I call these moments ‘moments of impact.' A moment of impact—whether it was from a tragic loss or from a moment of shame, public shaming, [or] a friend telling you something that hurt your feelings—something that is not considered traditional loss. 

Christina Rasmussen  18:40

When we experience something that [has] hurt us, we actually step out of life and go into a place in between whatever happened before that moment and what can happen next, and we stay in that place. We stay in that waiting room. We stay in that place to feel better, which is the right thing to do, which is great, which is awesome. Yes, go recover, heal. But then millions of people actually never go back to living fully never. 

Christina Rasmussen  19:15

And for what I call an invisible loss, for those considered trivial moments of embarrassment and shame, they don't think anything significant happened. They don't think they've really been impacted the way they have been impacted, and they let go of who they really are and try to align with whatever the world outside wants from them. So they can appear as if they're living their life; they can appear as if their life looks good. But when they are losing who they've been to become who they need to be so they don't experience a moment of impact again, they grieve their original self. And that's what invisible loss is. 

Dr. Jill  20:06

That's what's so powerful about this book. As I dove into it, I was like, “Oh, this is so different from the typical grief books” because it addresses every single soul who has ever walked this earth. Even for me, I'm like: “Yeah, I went through divorce, I went through cancer, so I definitely have had losses. But I didn't lose my spouse to death.” So I could say, “Oh well, mine aren't that big a deal.” But that's what you're addressing. You're saying, “Well, wait a second, these are all a big deal!” especially if we dissociate from them and start to live a partial shell of ourselves. I love how you say that.

Christina Rasmussen  20:38

And, Jill, I cannot tell you how important it is for everyone who's listening to feel validated. Especially as they're listening to this conversation, their memory takes them back to a moment where they felt shame; they felt impacted by the words of someone, by a teacher. Oh my gosh, the amount of stories in classroom. Teachers putting you down in public. Public shaming is the worst. 

Christina Rasmussen  21:06

Anything that has happened, whether it was with a parent or with a spouse, this is what I want everyone to take from this: When we don't even know that this has happened to us, meaning we know that it happened, we don't know what it did to us, and we abandon our true selves… I call it the original self because the original self is the identity; it's the us that we came here to be. So every time we're experiencing an invisible loss, we're being impacted. We abandon another part of who we are because we feel we cannot be that person anymore because it's going to be rejected and it's going to be hurt. So we let that part of us go. 

Christina Rasmussen  21:54

And I always get goosebumps with this, and I'm too passionate about this, too passionate: Imagine that when you're making choices and decisions—whether it's a job decision, a relationship decision, even the clothes that you're wearing, how you cut your hair, how you put makeup on, where you live, how you decorate your house—all those decisions are based not on the original self but on the self that's been changed to align with everyone else, and you end up living a life that is not yours. 

Christina Rasmussen  22:29

And then people say: “Oh, I don't know why I feel like this. I don't know why I feel stuck. I don't know why I feel down. I don't know why I'm depressed. Nobody has died. Nobody left me.” But you left yourself, Jill. You have abandoned who you are to fit in the world around you so you don't feel hurt anymore. And you're not living your life. And imagine that you spent the rest of your life in the waiting room because you're still in that place, protecting yourself from a real life—the life that you deserve. And imagine dying like this.

Dr. Jill  23:06

Aw, there's such regret there and the shame. I'll just tell personally, because I don't mind sharing and maybe someone can relate: I grew up in a pretty conservative midwestern area, and I always felt like I was too much, too loud, too wild, and crazy. It was more of a silly, playful way, but I made myself small. And I said in my book [that] I kind of dialed the radio down from a 10 out of 10, which would have been my true self, my original self, to like a 6 out of 10 or a 4 out of 10. I dialed the radio down. And then I went into medical school. Very masculine. I wore these black suits. Those black suits were not me. That was not the true self. Then what I've discovered: All of a sudden, I have pink and red hair. 

Christina Rasmussen  23:46

I love it! 

Dr. Jill  23:47

Recently, I did a photo shoot, and there were gowns and dresses and jewels. And one of my colleagues was like: “Well, that's not very clinical. That doesn't look like a doctor.” And I'm still learning, I'm still in the process, but I'm really embracing this wild and crazy and fun and joyful five-year-old who loves to be the life of the party and wear tulle skirts and ballerina clothes and jewelry and red hair. I'm 48 years old. I don't mind saying that in public. It took me 40 years to start to go back to that true self and say, “Wait, what does she need?” For weeks I had in my bathroom cabinet a little sticky note that said to myself, “What does she need from me today?” I started, every day, showing up for her in a way that was… And I still have the: “Am I too much? Am I texting too much? Am I calling too much? Am I saying too much? Am I too much, too much, too much?” But I'm starting to embrace that I am myself, and if it's too much, it's probably not the right relationship, right? 

Christina Rasmussen  24:46

Yes. And, Jill, I can't tell you how happy I am for you. First of all, I love the pink hair. I love that you're saying yes to yourself. I'm 52 years old, and the older I get, the more of that original, authentic, true self is coming here. And also thank you for sharing the story that you just shared and the way that you're saying yes to yourself every day. I just chopped off all my long hair and probably when you first saw me, you were like, “Is that Christina?” The reason why I believe changing our physical appearance to match our inner self—the you that is you—is so important: People underestimate changing everything around us to get closer to the person. 

Christina Rasmussen  25:37

You are going to be in for a big surprise as you keep on going down this road. And keep going. Do not stop for anyone or anything. There's a chapter in the book. It talks about divergency—like feeling divergent, very rebellious—because people will struggle to understand your journey because they will feel like they're losing you. They're losing you—the you that you were before. And that's okay. You're going to have to think about yourself. 

Christina Rasmussen  26:09

And, Jill, we're here to fulfill ourselves. We're here for self-mastery. We are here to live the life we're here to live. If we're living the wrong life, I don't know if you believe in… I believe that we come back over and over again, and living the right life every time we're here will get us to a better place every time we come back. Otherwise, we have to come back and do it over and over again until we get it right for ourselves. So it's very important to help others, but the most important thing is to say yes to yourself. Say yes to yourself. 

Dr. Jill  26:47

And the bigger thing with medicine and healing (I mean, that's my practice), what I've realized is that as I model this—and I don't have it all right, I just continue in the journey every day—as I encourage patients to do the same thing, guess what? You won't be surprised: Their health transforms because when we're living in a disingenuous version of ourselves… Gabor Maté talked about the metaphor of self-attacks and self-hatred. Maybe you can talk a little bit about that because what happens when we are not authentically ourselves, we are disowning parts of ourselves, and that results in physical illness. 

Christina Rasmussen  27:21

Yes. And it's funny because, when I was diagnosed with my own autoimmune disease… I have Sjögren's. And I was diagnosed with it in the midst of… It was 2018, 2019, as I was starting to feel like I was working way too hard, and I was giving everything to others, and I wasn't keeping anything for myself. There was nothing left for me. And I remember getting the diagnosis. And I was like, “I didn't even know what it was.” I didn't even know! I had to look it up. The doctor said: “You have dry eyes and a dry mouth,” and it's so much more than that. But I was shocked by it. But yes, autoimmune is attacking. I've never thought of it like this before. It's amazing. Yes. Attacking the self—that's the same thing. 

Dr. Jill  28:20

We have lots of women who listen to us. We can talk to men and women. But I'm just thinking right now [about] that woman right there about our age [who] is out there hearing and resonating with what we're saying, but she's still living in a bubble, in a box. I always say it's like a container that someone else told her she needed to stay in. Where does she start? Where does she start to open this box and be her authentic self? 

Christina Rasmussen  28:44

I want to say: For those who are listening who've never heard of me before or don't know anything about my work, thousands of people have gone through this work. We've had clinical trials on my work. Scientists have studied the work. Everything I say has been given to people, and I've seen it come to life many, many, many times over many years. When you start this journey, let's say [that] as you're listening to this conversation, you're saying to yourself, “Oh my gosh, I probably have a lot of invisible losses.” The reason why I say it's invisible: It's not just invisible from the outside; it's invisible to you. It is hidden from you. You don't know that you're grieving yourself—the self that you were here to experience and to express. You don't know this. You actually have no idea that this is happening. You're just feeling anxiety. You're feeling some depression. You're feeling like this is not exactly how you need it to be, but you don't know what you need to change. 

Christina Rasmussen  29:57

When you start your journey, it is important to discover some of these invisible losses. I no longer teach. I also want to say I no longer teach this. I no longer have classes. I don't have a private practice anymore. And I said to myself, “This is the way this work can continue moving forward.” When you track down your invisible loss, you start to understand who you are and why you behave the way you behave. There are a couple of exercises that you need to do in the book. They're very simple. They just help you track memories down. 

Christina Rasmussen  30:39

But let's say that you don't have the book. Let's say there's no book in front of you. You're never going to get the book. You're sitting here. You're just driving somewhere. What do you do? What do you do? The very first thing I want you to do is to consider the possibility that, just like we shower every day and brush our teeth every day, there are all these thoughts that you have been thinking and processing that have never been cleansed. They have never been shed. They've never been shared. Not even with yourself. 

Christina Rasmussen  31:11

So the very first thing I tell people to do is to do either a verbal cleanse or a written cleanse. And you might think this is very basic. But let me tell you, it's very powerful, especially if you are going to share your cleanse with someone else or if you're in a group setting and you're sharing your cleanse with other people. This cleanse is a stream of conscious. You basically write down—without filtering yourself, without lying to yourself, without any filter whatsoever—anything that's on your mind. Anything that is on your mind, you're writing it down. You're writing it down—and you're taking it from this autopilot place where you wake up every morning and your thoughts are driving you every day without you interacting, without you being in control—anything that you're experiencing. And for the first time, you have it down. 

Christina Rasmussen  32:13

Most books and most advisors and therapists and people out there will say that's enough as a first step. But what we do with what you just wrote is find what I call the survivor self. There are sentences in your cleanse. There are thoughts that help you survive versus thrive. Those thoughts are helping you stay in the waiting room versus living your life. And you have to find what they are. In order to do that, you have to be brave. And you have to look at what you wrote and read it to yourself and find the parts of that cleanse that come from fear, doubt, and shame. And then you are going to change that. You're going to change it. And when you change, when you rewrite those fear-based survivor thoughts into thriving and closer to who you are, you take your first step out of the waiting room based on that reframe of the survivor-based narrative that lives in your cleanse. 

Christina Rasmussen  33:33

And this might sound complicated, but I promise you it is not: That first step out has to be the right step. So if you take everything away that I just said and we simplify it even further, let's say you want to take a first step in your life to feel better, to be better. Make sure that that step is in the right direction because when our thoughts are based on survival, we are still deciding. Even the new things that we're deciding to do, they're based on surviving and not based on that original self. And I've seen this so many times. So many times. 

Dr. Jill  34:16

So powerful. I'm just thinking of my own experience and how do we really reach the people listening out there? And one of the things, my old narrative—I would say my fear-based narrative—was I'm too much. My 10 out of 10 self is too much for people. So how would I take that survivor self that says, “Jill, you're too much; you better be more quiet, not so loud,” or not so whatever—so everything, right? Even so joyful. Even so joyful, which makes me want to cry, because how can we possibly be too joyful? But that was the thing. So how would I talk to that survivor part of myself and reframe that? 

Christina Rasmussen  34:52

This is a perfect example. So let's say that in your cleanse, you're writing something about something that happened the day before. I was hanging out with my friend. I'm just kind of—

Dr. Jill  35:03

Perfect. Setting it up, yep. 

Christina Rasmussen  35:05

Hanging out with my friend, I said something, I did something. And here I go again: “I'm just too much. I'm too much. I'm just too much for people. And I don't know why I have to go and do this over and over again.” Like, “When will I stop?” And you could write about other things. But that's exactly right: That's a survivor-based thought. That's the fear of being your true self and therefore you take it away from yourself. So now we have to come in and say, “How can we reframe that?” And everyone I've ever worked with said this to me: “This feels unnatural.” It's very hard to reframe because, at first, it doesn't feel like a natural way to think. And it's okay that you feel like that. It's okay that you feel it's unnatural. You will maybe feel like you're lying when you're reframing this. 

So, Jill, is it okay if I ask you—

Dr. Jill  36:03

Yes, please. Let's do it. 

Christina Rasmussen  36:06

How would you reframe this sentence: “I am just too much”? And remember, when you wrote this, you also probably felt like you shouldn't be too much. “I shouldn't be behaving…” “I'm too loud.” “I'm too” this. How would you take this and reframe it and change it? 

Dr. Jill  36:29

Yes. I would say: “What if, sweetheart, by you being colorful and vibrant and joyful and living life at 100%, you actually inspire all those other women out there who are not living full 10 out of 10 vibrancy? What if being your true self is the thing that inspires someone else to be able to not suffer what you suffered?” 

Christina Rasmussen  36:55

This is perfect, by the way. Now you're going to take this, and how do you translate that into action? This is called the stacking practice. The cleanse, stack one. The survivor pattern, stack two. The reframe, stack three. The plugin, which is a 5% low-risk step out of the waiting room that is based on the reframe. So you take a small step, not a big step—something that is not going to make you feel afraid to do it. How would reframe translate into a step, into an action in your life on that day that you're doing this cleanse? 

Dr. Jill  37:33

I know one thing I did in that process, and it was put on my tulle skirt and my pink light-up roller skates and rolled down my hallway. 

Christina Rasmussen  37:39

Yes, that is the perfect plugin! How did you feel? 

Dr. Jill  37:44

It was amazing! It was amazing. 

Christina Rasmussen  37:47

And for anyone who's listening to this and saying, “Okay, you women, how is that going to change my life?” Because I remember [that] in most of my classes, I had so many people suffering so many things. In the beginning, people would say: “How is that going to change my life?” “Okay, I'll do it.” And let me tell you, I just wish the people who have not experienced this believed this. Imagine that every day you spend ten minutes a day doing a quick cleanse, finding your fear, rewriting that fear, and stepping out of the waiting room by taking action based on that reframe. Do you know what happens? And, Jill, you're going to tell me because I know you've gone through this path. What happened to you two weeks in, three weeks in, and four weeks in when every day you're adding a new plugin and a new reframe? All of a sudden, what happened? 

Dr. Jill  38:49

I had so much more energy and joy because I was really aligning with myself. And you know what came from that? I went to a conference in Las Vegas last year, and I brought my roller skates. In public, I roller skated through the conference because I had practiced at home. And I was like, “Who cares?” And you know what happened? You saw the delight because the adult physician teacher is in pink roller skates. But you know what? The light-up of the faces around me was worth every moment for me being out there. 

Christina Rasmussen  39:24

And what happens is you start making decisions from that self. That's the original self. You're integrating the survivor and the thriver. And there's another part that I call the watcher, which is the wise part of us. Everything comes together. We can never get rid of the big announcement here. I have tried to get rid of the survivor self—in our biology, ingrained in us—but we decrease the percentage that we interact with every day. So we decrease that. Without doing any kind of work, whatever work is out there that works to help you thrive, most people are at around 80% survival mode every day, minimum. And they're just surviving their life; they wake up every day. So that percentage goes down, and then you have the thriver self coming higher up. You have the watcher—the wisdom. Every time you reframe, it's that wise part of you that's helping you rewrite the script that's been automatically used from your survivor self every day and you're rewriting it. 

Christina Rasmussen  40:33

I want to share a personal story. In 2021, I started my biggest reentry of my life. And remember, I lost my husband, and I've reinvented myself many times. I've done many different things. So when I say the biggest reentry, the biggest exit out of the waiting room says something. 

Christina Rasmussen  41:02

In 2021, I applied… So this is about destiny again. Whenever you receive a no from somewhere, trust it. I applied to do a PhD in neuroscience at UT, here in Austin. And I said to my therapist: “Listen, if I don't get in, if I have time to do a PhD in neuroscience while I'm writing my third book and I'm teaching a million classes and doing all the things… ” Because I used to say, “I will never have enough time to be an artist.” That was my dream as a child. I was born, and I just wanted to be an artist always, and many obstacles came in the way that didn't make that happen. I said to her laughingly, “If I don't get in…” which my big head told me, “Of course, I'm going to get into UT to do a PhD in neuroscience. Look at all the work I've put out into the world.” My work was being studied by all these scientists. I was like, “Of course!” There was no doubt in my mind. I didn't even get an interview. I just got an automatic letter that said: “Sorry to inform you, very high demand,” whatever. And I told my therapist, “If I don't get in there, I'm going to go and do an MFA in art.” She said, “So?” I said, “Well, I guess I have to go and do it.”

Dr. Jill  42:40

You said it out loud. 

Christina Rasmussen  42:43

And I did. I started with one class. I got into a college in San Francisco, and I did however much I was allowing myself to do. So I started with one class and I added. And I'm going to graduate with my MFA in art in May, finally. But it's done. I did it. There are a lot of other things that I'm doing, but I changed my life so dramatically while writing a book, while teaching, and while doing all these interviews. I would go from this room to my studio to paint; come back here. Sometimes I had paint on my face. And just like your roller skates, just like your pink hair, I said: “I don't care. I don't care if I have paint on my face. This is the way I live my life.” And sharing this with my community has inspired even more people by me reentering in this way than [by] me teaching—just teaching this versus really living it. So sharing our stories, I think it's so important because it doesn't matter how old you are. It doesn't matter what your dreams are [or] where you are in your life. 

Christina Rasmussen  44:06

Actually, the best place to start is from nothing. From nothing. From just bottom. And that is the best place. That's the playground of reentry. That's the playground for a new life. That's when you take one step out after you reframe. Make sure that it's in the right direction because you can take steps in the wrong direction, not knowing what your invisible losses are, not knowing where your original self is hiding. 

Christina Rasmussen  44:39

And this is very important. Now I always want to make sure I say this: Your life can appear perfect from the outside. You may have been told many times: “What do you have to complain about? You have everything.” You may have the perfect-looking relationship. You may have the perfect-looking house. You may be financially great. Actually, invisible loss, moments of impact—survivor self is even bigger and greater with successful people because their survival mechanism is that success. They're succeeding to survive, to feel validation, to feel seen. But who is being seen is actually not who they are but it's the version of them that lives in the waiting room because when you're enjoying the journey versus the destination, that's where you're living the right life. 

Dr. Jill  45:39

Christina, your work is so profound and most profound because you're living it. I'm so sorry you had to go through loss, but it is just so powerful—your story and what you bring into the world. It's so clear. You saw my energy. I see you too, and I love you, and it's just so much joy to share. I feel you, and I know our listeners can too. 

Dr. Jill  46:04

What if fear is our biggest blockage? I want to speak in the last couple of minutes to the woman or man out there who's hearing this, but [is] like, “Yeah, that's easy for you to say; you guys have done this,” or whatever. And they're afraid, or they're stuck in the wrong marriage, or the wrong relationship, or the wrong job. And they've built this entire empire around something that's not authentic. What do you say to that person? 

Christina Rasmussen  46:27

The fear comes from thinking that we have to take a really big step out. And I'm going to speak directly to them: I don't want you thinking about the big steps or “What will happen if I do this?” I want you to start from the beginning. I want you to start by just checking in with yourself, doing that cleanse, and looking to see. And without assuming what your fear is, because I promise you, the survivor self is very smart. It's the smartest part of you. Unfortunately, I know, I know, I know. I wish it wasn't like this too. 

Christina Rasmussen  47:06

And I used to do this exercise: I would tell people, “We're going to talk without the survivor self here.” So let's say I had 150, 200 people in my class. I'd say: “I want you to send your survivor self away somewhere for the next five minutes. Where would you send your survivor self?” And 95% of the people would send them to a tropical island, [inaudible]. And whether I was doing that exercise in class, or on a book tour, or in a workshop, it would come back the same. And, Jill, I was like: “What? I can't believe it!” No wonder we have such an intense relationship with our survivor self, because we love that part of us because it has gotten us through some really hard places. So this is complicated, you guys. It's complicated to try and let go of that survivor self because there's a big part of us that is attached to that part. We feel like we need that part of us to get through the day. But if we are living the right life, we won't need it. 

Christina Rasmussen  48:10

Don't be afraid to do this stacking practice because it's going to reward you, and it's not going to put you in fear mode. You're already in fear mode. It's going to help you feel rewarded and happy. Just like you put on your roller skates. I don't know what your first plugin is—this person who is listening—your first step is, but be ready to be surprised of what that is. And it could sound and be trivial. The more trivial it is, the more right on track you are. The smaller the step, the lesser the risk, the better it will be long term. It means that you will keep re-entering; you will keep getting out of the waiting room every day. And then one day, you're going to look around you, and I promise you, you'll find yourself in a completely new life. 

Christina Rasmussen  49:03

I don't know what happens next for me, but remember, I've been in this re-entry process for the last three years for this part of my life. And I had said, “About six months after the book comes out, and when I graduate in May, after that, when people are asking what I do, it would be, ‘I'm an artist.'” And people could think of just a hobby. I have plans, and I trust the original self to guide me to my destined path ahead. And I'll tell you the experience of joy that I feel: Just like I didn't know how catastrophic grief was, I actually did not know how blissful joy is until now. 

Dr. Jill  49:58

I can second that. I can second that from the practice with the roller skates and much bigger things. Like I said, I started small. It's been profound because I have tapped into a joy that's deeper and more profound than I've ever experienced, and I know it's only going to increase. Christina, you are a gem in the world. You are a light. You are so important—what you've brought. And I'm sorry you've suffered, but it is so evident that that's transformed you and also transformed the lives of hundreds of thousands of people. 

Dr. Jill  50:27

One last thing that comes to mind is the words of Liz Gilbert. I recently heard her talking to her fear, and she said: “Sweetheart, we don't have to know what comes next.” I love that so much, because so often we're running ahead and we're saying, “After the roller skates, what comes next?” or “After the art, what comes next?” And then you're like, “Sweetheart, you don't have to know what comes next,” or we don't have to know what comes next. And it's freeing to think that way, isn't it? 

Christina Rasmussen  50:49

Because what's happening while you're roller skating, while I'm painting, is I don't want to be anywhere else. I don't want to be in the tomorrow. I don't want to be in the yesterday. And I know you feel this way too, Jill: I'm so happy in the present moment doing this thing because it's about the journey. When you're loving your life, you're not wishing it away. You're not thinking, “I just have to get there.” There's nowhere to get. You're here. You've made it. You're living it. You're living it. 

And thank you for having me. Thank you. Thank you.

Dr. Jill  51:23

You are so welcome. If people want to find your book—because this is the place to start—if you don't have a copy of this, where can they find this? Where would you like them to [inaudible]? 

Christina Rasmussen  51:33

They can just put “Invisible Loss” on Amazon. It will come out. Website: InvisibleLossBook.com. Anywhere books are sold, you'll find it. We're just getting the German translation. We just got the Vietnamese translation. So many people from different countries can get it too. And in my work, ChristinaRasmussen.com, right now I only support my community on social media, and I'm doing these interviews. And I hope the book is more than enough for you to take this journey. Please say yes to the work, yes to the stacking practice. It will take you ten minutes a day and you'll see—it will be an incredible experience. 

And thank you for having me, Jill. This was awesome. 

Dr. Jill  52:18

You are welcome. It was an absolute joy. 

And thank you all for listening to another episode. You can find all my episodes at JillCarnahan.com. 

Christina, you are a gem. Thank you again for coming on. 

Christina Rasmussen  52:27

Thank you, Jill. Thank you.