What if the key to peace during grief isn’t moving on—but moving within? In this deeply meaningful episode, we sit down with the powerful and compassionate Eileen Bild—CEO of Ordinary to Extraordinary Life, founder of the Core Thinking Blueprint Method, Breakthrough S.P.A.R.K. coach, and host of OTEL Talk. With a Master’s in transpersonal psychology and a mission to help people become unstoppable, Eileen brings wisdom and warmth to a tender topic: finding peace in the journey of widowhood.

We dive into her five core principles for success, explore the science of neural pathways in the grieving process, and learn how to maintain a spiritual connection with those we’ve lost. Whether you’re navigating a personal loss or supporting someone who is, this conversation offers grace, grounding, and gentle guidance. So take a breath—this one’s for the heart.

I am sharing my experience of loving the same man for 32 years, a mother to two adult children, a retired military officer, a breast cancer survivor, and my connections with others. 

Anyone experiencing suicidal thoughts should reach out to a suicide hotline or local emergency number in their country: Psychology Today Suicide Hotlines and Prevention Resources Around the World

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From Ordinary To Extraordinary Life: Healing After Loss With Eileen Bild

Our guest is Ms. Eileen Bild. She is the CEO of Ordinary to Extraordinary Life, Founder of the Core Thinking Blueprint Method, Breakthrough S.P.A.R.K. coach, mentor, author, keynote speaker, and internationally syndicated columnist. She holds a Master’s in transpersonal psychology and is the host of OTEL Talk. She helps others live their best lives and become unstoppable. In this conversation, we are going to discuss her five principles of core thinking for success, as well as how we find peace in this grief journey. Let’s get into this conversation.

Eileen, welcome to the widowhood.

Thank you for inviting me. I’m excited to be here.

I’m excited to have you here, too. When you hear, “Welcome to the widowhood,” what comes to mind for you?

Loss can be very challenging. When I hear, “Welcome to widowhood,” I feel that you’ve got your arms wide open. It’s an opportunity to connect with others who have had trials and tribulations. It’s a journey into widowhood and being able to process that and come through with strength.

Thank you. All of those do relate in this space. The reason why I was glad for you to be part of this conversation is your background from being an author and a speaker, having a background in psychology, and you’re coaching in the idea of breaking through and S.P.A.R.K. Can you explain what S.P.A.R.K. means?

The Concept Of S.P.A.R.K. In Grief & Healing

Yes. Over the years, people shared with me, “You sparked me to look at things from a different perspective or have a different thought.” For me, the spark is when something gets triggered in ourselves that gets us out of a space where we’re stuck and we’re not able to move forward, whether it’s an action, a belief system, or a way of handling its life situation. Spark, to me, is bringing that light from within outward, and then using that to be able to propel forward in a beautiful way. I believe that there’s a lot of magic, grace, and beauty in the world, regardless of or in spite of the curveballs that life throws us.

I can relate to that. The biggest curveball for me is the passing of my late husband. You mentioned the different things that when someone is a widower or someone who’s grieving, a profound grief is experienced. How would you relate some of the things in your Breakthrough S.P.A.R.K. coaching mythology? I’m going to give you some scenarios, and then maybe you can share how you would engage someone very organically at a high level. When you’re coaching, there’s more involved than that. Let’s say I am working with you and I have not slept in my marital bed since my husband passed away a year and a half ago. What would be some things that you would see in that conversation, or how would you help me to get there?

That’s an area where, when you’re that close to someone in a marital bed and then that person is no longer there, there’s a void. There’s an empty space. It’s difficult for us in any situation, but it’s specifically for this one. It can be difficult for people to be able to be in that space and be at peace that that person is no longer there and no longer going to be there.

However, I’m a big advocate for imagining things the way you want them to be within reality. You can’t bring that person back. However, their energy, your memories with that person, and the love that you shared, all of that can be transformed into recognizing that when you get in that bed, that person is still there with you, but it’s not in a physical form.

What I would coach the person on being at peace with the fact that the loved one has passed on, and yet they are still holding that loved one in their heart, and to be able to get in that marital bed is it’s not from the perspective of, “I’m moving on. This person doesn’t exist anymore.” I would work with that person on imagining the person is there with them.

You can speak to them. You put your arm out like you want to touch something. You could get a favorite stuffed animal or something that would represent the person who has passed on and touch that surrogate. Over time, you’ll be able to sleep because in your heart, that person is still with you, and you know that. It helps to overcome the anxiety, stress, sadness, and all the emotions that come up when you try to get in bed and you realize that the person is no longer physically with you. Does that make sense?

It does. I would like to add that I’ve also seen people use body pillows. They would put a garment of their loved one on there and spray a scent that is something that their loved one wore to have that familiarity. Someone reading this may say, “You’re being delusional. You need to accept this is what’s happened and move on.”

I challenge you if that thought crossed your mind to think if you were with someone you had a covenant relationship with, whether it be a marriage or a bond, a committed life partner, and in a moment, they were gone and you never get to speak to them again, you never get to hold their hand, no more arguments, you don’t care if their socks are on the floor, and it’s over, the brain muscle takes time to recognize and create new patterns. You know they’re gone. You went to the service. The reality exists, but your mind and heart are still reaching for it. This is an excellent exercise as they transition into that space.

The other thing that I found helpful is when you are sleeping on your marital bed and you’re accustomed to seeing your loved one on the other side, you may want to consider sleeping on their side of the bed. You may feel closer to them because you’re in a place where they were, and it’s easy to see your side of the bed empty because that makes sense. I love that you didn’t say moving forward and continuing to live, because we will never move away from our loved one. We’re continuing to live our lives. Thank you for sharing that.

Neuro-Pathways & Paradigm Shifts In Grief

You’re welcome. A side note, neural pathways are very important in understanding how that works, where you change that brain activity. If you’re trying to do something without that change happening, then the difficulty of making that shift is going to be even more so. You have to step onto a different parallel way of thinking, way of approaching, or way of looking at it in order to come to peace with it, so that it’s not a stressor in your life versus it’s a blessing. It’s a gift that you give yourself when you can embrace that past loved one in a way that brings you that love feeling that you had with that first versus all the pain, grief, and sorrow.

I love that. There are a couple of things I like to circle back to. I, too, resonate with the idea of peace. Sometimes, people want to say, “I’m at acceptance now that my loved one is no longer here.” When I hear acceptance, I think of an award at work or something that I wanted to get. That’s not something I would want to accept.

I would want to reject that organically, but I can come to peace with reality. I live in a world where we don’t stay forever, and I had the gift of being with this person. I want to spend a little bit more time on you explaining neural pathways and the importance of what that looks like in our grief, because a lot of times, people look at their grief as an emotional experience. If you would expound on that, I would greatly appreciate it.

There are different paradigms. The paradigms are concrete, and there is reality in the moment. With a change in thoughts, a change in beliefs, or any change, we can shift that paradigm. When you’re in the beginning stage of grief, sorrow, anger, or whatever comes along with the passing of a loved one, you are walking on a physical path with a neurological path that’s a definitive pathway, but it’s only one paradigm of probably millions.

What I’d like to share with people is, what is it that you want? I believe in this context, it’s peace in the heart to know that that person is okay wherever that person has transitioned to, and that I’m okay and I’m going to get better over time. In order to shift from the grief, sorrow, pain, and the other emotions that are attached to the experience into that state of peace, it is allowing the self to go through the grieving process in a paradigm of health, healing, grace, and the things that allow you to still function in life, but know that you are holding on to that loved one in the heart center and mind center.

You know when you shift a paradigm when there’s a definitive or an experience that’s other worldly. Something will indicate to you, “You’ve done the work. You’ve worked on processing through the emotions and allowing yourself to shift the neural pathway of connection.” It’s all about connecting with the inner self, the energy, the memories, and the emotions that are connected to that loved one. It’s a beautiful experience because it wakes the person up to realize there’s more than grief, anger, and all the emotions that we process through when we lose a loved one.

Thank you for explaining that. You say that there’s more than the pain or the emotion. What is it about the concept that when someone dies, your brain is locked in only reliving the experience, or locked in that they died? It seems as if it’s very hard to access the good memories and the things that happen in this relationship that cause you to love someone. What is it about our makeup, how we’re created, and our brain that we’re struggling to stop replaying this movie of this final moment that we cannot get out of?

There are multiple layers to this from my perspective. One is that we tend to get a busy mind that plays that tape over and over. The key to stepping out of that repeated pattern is to learn to sit in quiet, meditate, and quiet the mind. The awesome results of being able to quiet the mind give clarity, clear images, thoughts, and feelings about what you’re going through. You’re more of an observer than a participant in that cycle and that pattern. When you can quiet the mind and observe, then you can see what steps or what things you can do to change, so you don’t stay stuck within that pattern.

The other aspect of this is that everybody is going to be at different stages and grieve differently. Some people can go through it quickly. For some people, it can take years. Some people never stop grieving.  My suggestion or my insights into how to live life to the fullest from losing a loved one is to ask yourself, “What do I want in the relationship I have now with myself, and the fact that this loved one is no longer with me physically?”

“There’s the fear of losing that connection with the loved one. How do I move on and keep that connection with me and not feel like I’ve forgotten the person or I’ve left that person?” It’s a different way of walking the earth as the person is still living. In a way, we’re okay with some of the letting go and bringing in that peace, calm, and quiet. Does that make sense?

Letting Go & Shifting Identity

The letting go is very hard because instantly, it’s the idea that I’m letting them go or that I’m going to forget about them. When I hear you say that I’m letting go of the possibility that the relationship cannot remain the same because they are no longer here, it is impossible. That reality is very difficult. You talked about the relationship I would want to have with myself. Can you expound on that a little bit more?

That’s a loaded one. For the concept of what we’re talking about, relationship with oneself, a person wants to look at how strong they are, how strong they feel, and the confidence and courage to step into that new neural pathway, to step into the change, and to let go of whatever is holding them back to live life fully. Think about it. Would your loved one want you to be where you are in that state? Would your loved one support you to release yourself from the home that you put yourself in in order to be around that loved one?

The difficulty, I believe, in the letting go of the relationships that you talked about and being different without that person around is understanding the authentic self of the individual, who you are, and the identity that you have with that person versus the identity you have now that that person is not there. The more that you come into center and ground yourself as that authentic person, that is rooted in love and rooted in the identity of, “This is who I was born as. This is who I’ve always been. Without this loved one, I’m still this person. I will go out in the world as that person with confidence, courage, and clarity. I want to have this person in my life. What can I do to still have them by my side and my heart, but not lose myself by being myself authentically?”

Thank you. The idea of who I was before I met this person. The loss of a spouse has a way of devastating your identity and destroying it because so much of who you were in this partnership no longer applies. That is what happens in a marriage or a partnership. We mold this relationship together. There’s the idea of, “Who am I without this other person?” I had to do the same thing.

I was a whole person before I met Mark. I’m a whole person after him. Who I am from knowing him became more of what I leveraged because of my relationship with him. I became this, this, and this on top of who I was already. I’m reminding myself that I have the capacity to still make decisions, make choices, and show up in the world. What caused you to move into the coaching and mentoring realm?

Ever since I can remember, even as a little girl, there’s something about me that when people start talking to me, they automatically open up. A lot of times, they say, “I told you my life story. I don’t know why I told you that.” I realized that as I grew into adulthood, I feel like I have a gift to hold space for people, whether I know it or not. When I was younger, I didn’t realize I was holding space for people to be able to express and share.

As I started to work on my own personal development and grow, I decided that I wanted to be able to help others and make a difference. A lot of people say that I shine a light on them, spark them, and help them to make their lives better. It can’t get much better than that as a professional to know that the people that you’re working with, you’re truly making a difference. They see it, know it, and recognize it. To me, that’s the epitome of being a professional, a coach, and a mentor. Your client began to live a better life, and they learned something from you that will carry down for the rest of their life.

Navigating The Challenge Of Living A Better Life After A Difficult Relationship

Thank you. The idea of living a better life when I felt like my best life was with my partner, how can that resonate with me? How can I even conceive such a thing? When I think of living a better life, it could be that there was life insurance and my spouse left me well. There could be a situation where it was not a good relationship. They didn’t wish me well. It was miserable until the end. There were very bitter things, and they didn’t want me to have a good life. How do I learn to live a better life in those experiences?

Better is relative to how a person feels their life is unfolding. We, as individuals, are in the middle of our life experience. We don’t necessarily see what those people who are outside of us see. I’ll give a quick example. It’s not so much about relationships, but it’s all about the idea of living a better life from what you may have had, whether it was an awesome connection or a challenging connection.

I want the readers to be able to understand what it would be like to have a discovery call with you. Also, how do you determine if someone, especially with your background, may not be ready for a coach? Some people may be like, “I don’t want a therapist. I don’t want a psychologist. I want a coach.” Those may not always be ready. I don’t want someone to be disappointed if they’re reaching out to other coaches and they’re hearing this same pattern that they need to work with someone in a different way. Can you elaborate on that?

Absolutely. A discovery call is to determine what the person wants as far as the next step or to go to another level in the process. The healing process can take time. People have different ways of healing from a traumatic experience in their lives. A discovery call would be my listening to what the person is looking for and wanting.

We would determine if they’re ready to work with someone like me who can help them process where they feel stuck or where they can’t overcome a certain aspect of the healing process. We would then set a strategy of how to take what they feel they’re either missing or wanting to achieve, whatever the goals are, and create a plan to achieve it and make it happen.

I only work with people when it’s going to lend itself to being a successful outcome. I want my clients to get results, and I will do everything in my scope of practice and my power to help them achieve whatever it is they want to gain in life, whether it’s peace or a quiet mind, to come to terms with the experience, and also to work on the self. That’s part of, I believe, the healing process from any trauma in life.

Five Principles For Success & Personal Growth

Thank you. Can you give a bit of a tease or information about your five principles of core thinking for success?

There are five principles that I live by, and I like to share them with people. I wrote a book that outlines them. The book is Embrace 5 Principles of Core Thinking for Success. That success can be personal and/or business-related, but it’s about the self. The first core principle is your confidence. How would you rate yourself on a scale of 1 to 10 on your self-confidence? It could be in different areas of life. The confidence can be stronger or weaker.

It’s a little bit of a homework assignment from the book’s perspective. Where are you in life with confidence? Confidence, for me, is key, and everything else that follows. If we’re weak in our confidence, then we question things. We don’t always have clarity in the choices we make and the decisions that follow any kind of experience.

The second principle is turning fear or transforming fear into action. You can ask yourself, “What’s the opposite of fear for me?” Everybody has different answers to that question. Fear is very debilitating. There’s the fear of what’s going to happen and the fear of, “If I let go of this, what’s going to fill that space?” Instead of looking at the fear, we look at whatever the opposite is for you. I’ll ask you, “What’s the opposite of fear for you?”

I never thought of the opposite of fear, but maybe feeling safe, secure, and loved, and being at peace.

What you can do is any type of fear shows up, you think of those words and take your thinking and your actions down that path. Fear minimizes the way you do that. When you work on your confidence, then the less you’re going to fear something. The more that you’re going to have the ability to control, but the word control is more about directing what happens in your life. You’ve got confidence. You’ve got love. You’re feeling safe and confident. As you go through these principles, I want you to recognize for yourself, as you’re reading this, if you physically start to feel better and stronger. I feel it happening already.

The third principle is that you want to come to clarity. Clarity is key in the choices, decisions, actions, and steps that you take. To spark oneself and to go beyond where you are if you want to become a better version of yourself, you want to get unstuck, or whatever the next step is, the courage comes before the clarity. Courage is important for clarity to work. We talked about clearing the mind. The clearer that mind is, the less attachment we have to the things that hold us back. You’ve got confidence, love, safety, and clarity.

The fourth principle is boundaries. I could talk for hours, days, and years about boundaries. Women especially have a very hard time with setting boundaries, saying no, or saying yes, even to how we show up in life and what we accept into our space. If you were to read the book, learn boundaries by heart because it will change your life tremendously with the strength and confidence in having boundaries with yourself, but also with others.

The fifth principle is a cool principle because it’s a way of being in life where we can shift that neural pathway we talked about. Let’s say, clearing the mind. When we clear the mind, we are able to take in more information, and we can hear things more clearly. The fifth principle is when you say out to the universe, “I want this. I want to have peace and a quiet mind,” what you want to do is wait, watch, listen, and see what shows up.  As things show up, you take action.

I’ll put a caveat on it. We don’t want to take action if it doesn’t feel good 85%, 90%, or greater. If something shows up and you want to make a decision, and you’re feeling 20% or 30% that it’s going to turn up the way you want, or it feels good, don’t do it. Sit back, wait, watch, listen, and then take action. When you feel awake in that gut or that intuition at this time, that’s going to be the best decision or best response to make. Principle five, when you master that, your life will be completely different. It’s the most amazing tool you can put in your toolbox.

Thank you. Those core principles that you talked about, I have not spoken to anyone who was grieving and was not struggling with one or all of those. Being able to learn how to address those principles could be a key part of someone’s healing journey in grief, which is why I wanted us to have this conversation. I knew that it would prove helpful for my community. If you can give us a little bit about the thing that you host and talk about, OTEL.

OTEL stands for the LLC, my company, which is Ordinary To Extraordinary Life. I sign off most of anything I post on social media with, “Live life fearlessly. Live life to the fullest.” Hold onto your dreams and live in a way that you show up where you can feel vibrant, feel alive, and feel like the world is there for you. Even though we had had four months of some of the most horrible life experiences, we are still physically here. We’ve got to honor the self in that.

If we learned to take all the information you and I talked about and then other information that’s out there, and apply it to ourselves, that will allow us and enable us to still be functioning in society in a healthy way. It doesn’t just impact us. It impacts everybody around us. The more that we can show up with strength and grace, we will gain respect from others. You build on these five principles, positive affirmations, and positive thinking, but there are so many things that can be added to what we talked about. Your world and your life can be so much brighter, not just for yourself, but for the others around you.

Understanding The Difference Between Therapy & Coaching In The Healing Process

I want to go back to something I asked. We pivoted before we got to answer. How would someone know if they need to work with a coach or if they need to work with a therapist or a psychologist? What would be something you would learn in that discovery call?

A therapist is someone who’s more clinical. They tend to work on the spectrum of mental health challenges. If they need to prescribe things for that person, then a therapist is available for that. They have their own protocol of what they do to help a person from a more clinical perspective. With a coach, if you think about someone training for the Olympics, the athlete already has a sport that they’re involved in. They’re already training. They want to win that goal, so they need that coach to give them that little extra push or spark.

Maybe there’s a new way that person needs to think before they take off. When they’re down on their knees and getting ready to take off to run that mile or whatever they’re competing in, the coach might share with them some visualization that they can do before they take off. Coaching is a different way of approaching healing and moving beyond being stuck. I am doing a lot of deep dives into not so much the past, but where we are and how we are going to move forward.

Thank you. I have asked you a lot of questions. You’ve been so great. Any questions you have for me?

What inspires you to hold the space that you hold for the many people who, fortunately, find their way into your helping them in all the different episodes, articles, and people like me coming on? It’s a gift that you’re giving them and yourself as well, because I’m sure you learn from them as much as they learn from you. How is that helping you as far as you being inspired and inspiring others?

Thank you. That’s a good question. There was a family member who had lost their spouse. She posted on social media about it being his first birthday. I reached out to her, and that led to a conversation that night that had me up way past my bedtime. I could feel God pulling on my heart about how I would help the next person.

My mother at the time was 79. My mother has a podcast called Timeless Journey that talks about her life and the things that she’s learned. She has lived 81 years in this world. You can find that on Spotify. God pushed me to create Widowhood Real Talk with Tina, which is a registered 501(c)(3) nonprofit, set up to support the bereaved and the three lanes in which we support people.

When you are devastated, you may want information from people, but you may not be ready for a one-on-one dialogue. We go to content on social media. Between our weekly episodes and content across six major platforms, we have over 4.3 million views in 111 countries, which tells me people are hurting, and they are tuning in to the content that we are providing.

The second way in which we support people is through resources. We donated a book, I Wasn’t Ready to Say Goodbye, to people who have lost a loved one. We list books, resources, mental health professionals, and coaches. The third way is through mental health events. We’re having a butterfly release ceremony. We’re developing a memorial garden. We have events before the holiday season with mental health professionals.

As I am writing my memoir, I’m able to see the principles that we’re utilizing in Widowhood Real Talk with Tina are a direct reflection of how I manage my own grief journey. With the number of views and being a 501(c)(3), we have opportunities for business partners that may feel like our niche. They want to get in front of the people in our community and advertise, or maybe somebody wants to support. Being a 501(c)(3), what we’re able to do between grants and funding is based on people supporting us.

From my own experience, when my husband passed away while we were on vacation in 2017, I immediately started operating on these three pillars that I’m seeing as a framework for Widowhood Real Talk with Tina. From 2017 to 2022, I was focused on my own healing journey, my mental health professional, healthy coping skills, and all those other different things.

By the time God opened the door for me to do this in 2022, I was no longer hyper-focused on my own journey, but pouring out of a full cup because my friends and family had shown up for me from the day my husband passed. They still show up as emphatic now as they did then. I’m able to pour out of a full cup of love to be able to support other people.

Oftentimes, people do not feel as if they have support. They feel as if they’re alone. When I say, “I can comprehend how you feel,” they know that because my husband and I were together for 32 years. From my experience of 21 years in the United States Army as an officer, I did a lot of mentoring and training, or a lot of coaching and training. I’m able to bring that to the forefront.

If you had told me years ago, when I was at the end of the hallway in this hotel we were in, losing my mind, that God would use it in this space, I would’ve never been able to fathom that. In answering that question, when my husband passed, I didn’t focus on how to make purpose out of pain. That was not where I was. It was, “How do I get up every day?” This evolved on its own. Something amazing can happen out of your situation, but first, work on your own healing, making yourself a priority in your space, and let what may come come out of it.I remembered the book project I’m working on. Can I share a little bit about that?

Absolutely.

There’s a book series. It’s a contribution book, so people contribute their thoughts and insights into whatever comes after. The next one that’s coming out is about peace. We talked about coming to peace. Teresa Velardi and I are working on this together. We talked about doing a special edition for people going through cancer, having survived cancer, and caretakers.

I’m putting a plug in for now. We’re still piecing together the information and resources to be able to get involved. Once I get all the pertinent connections and information, I’ll pass it on to you, and you can pass it on to your audience. For the whole series, there are three books already. This will be 4 and 5, the 2-piece edition. This will be in bookstores, and the cancer special edition will be in hospital gift shops and other gift shops, so they can be given as gifts so people don’t feel alone in their journey in cancer, whether it is someone they’re involved with, or they’re a survivor, or a caretaker.

That’s amazing work. Thank you for being here and sharing with the community. I allow my guests to close out the conversation. Before you do that, I’d like to share one thing. I am sorry for the person that you have lost who has drawn you to this conversation, but I am glad that you are here. I hope to see you again.

Thank you for having me. I want to share with everybody to be kind to yourself, and to not only give yourself love, but also to the situation and the experience. Know that there is a spark there somewhere that can take you from where you are now to where you want to be. There is hope, and there are miracles in the world.

Thank you.

Important Links

• Ordinary to Extraordinary Life
• Core Thinking Blueprint
• Eileen Bild on Facebook
• Eileen Bild on YouTube
• Eileen Bild on Instagram
• Embrace 5 Principles of Core Thinking for Success
• I Wasn’t Ready to Say Goodbye
• Timeless Journey Podcast

About Eileen Bild

Eileen Bild is CEO of Ordinary to Extraordinary Life, Founder of the Core Thinking Blueprint Method, Breakthrough S.P.A.R.K. Coach, Mentor, Author, Keynote Speaker and Internationally Syndicated Columnist. She holds a Masters in Transpersonal Psychology and is host for OTEL Talk. She helps others live their best lives and become unstoppable!