Hope is a powerful force that keeps us moving forward even in the face of life’s greatest challenges. In this episode, I am honored to welcome Patricia Pinchinat, a woman whose journey of resilience, transformation, and self-discovery is nothing short of inspiring. From overcoming life-altering health battles to redefining self-care and boundaries, Patricia shares her raw and deeply personal experiences with honesty and strength. We explore the lessons she’s learned, the power of saying no, and the importance of truly living life. This soul-stirring conversation will leave you igniting a fire within to live a life that’s truly, vibrantly yours.

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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Unbreakable Hope: A Journey Of Resilience And Inspiration With Patricia Pinchinat

Trish is our guest. She’s not a widow, but she has been through some things. What you’re going to learn is about the power of no, the power of setting boundaries, the real concept of self-care, and a lot more. Let’s get into this conversation.

Trish, welcome to the widowhood.

Thank you so much for having me. It is such an honor to have this invitation and to open up my voice to your audience. I don’t take lightly that you asked me to share your platform with you. I am honored and I am blessed.

Thank you so much. In widowhood, we often talk about grief is not limited to the passing of our spouse. My guest, who is about to be your new BFF, is going to share her lived experience. The reason why invited Trish here, she’s somebody else I found on TikTok, and watching her share her journey, doing a TikTok live with her, her passion to empower people, especially women, just drew her to this space.

We need spaces that are not actually embedded in our community because that voice can resonate. I know the things that Trish is going to share about her personal journey, her resilience, and the things that she’s overcome. You’re going to be able to take a piece of that and incorporate it into your life. Her voice, my desire, will ring in your ear when you think like maybe, “I don’t know if I can do this,” and go, “Trish was able to push through.” That’s why I wanted her to be in this space, to be able to share. Trish, what is your favorite color?

My favorite color is purple, but my favorite color to wear is actually black. I always say, “Black is easy and it makes me look thinner.” I found out from my daughter that when you wear a lot of black clothing, you’re actually hiding behind something. I wear 90% of my wardrobe is black, but purple is my all-time favorite color.

I did not know about the concept. When you heard that, what was your immediate thought?

It immediately resonated with me because since going through my process of all the illnesses and everything, I have joined therapy and she has also joined therapy. She found this out from her therapist, but it immediately resonated with me that it is actually a cover. I say that it’s easy and it makes me look thinner, but I’m actually trying to cover up and hide my body or it’s something. Immediately, it made sense. Will I start to wear more colors? I don’t know.

You saw me leaning into that next question. Thank you for helping me out with that.

I don’t know.

Overcoming Health Battles And Finding Strength

You said all of your illnesses. What does that look like for you?

In November of 2022, I woke up at 4:00 AM. I was transported to the hospital and ended up having a massive heart attack in the hospital that day, followed by four days later, open heart surgery. I had a quadruple bypass where 90% of the four major arteries in my heart were blocked. I could have passed away any moment had I not gotten to the hospital. That’s how serious it was. While I was there to make sure that your body is prepared for surgery, they do a plethora of tests and they scan your whole body and they do all those things.

That’s when they found a nodule on my thyroid and they found a cyst on my liver. They allowed me to heal from the heart attack and the open heart surgery. They did liver biopsies and all that stuff. Everything with my liver came back okay. I went and my thyroid, they were like, “We’re just going to watch it.”

I had a biopsy and there were some abnormal cells, but they said it was nothing to worry about and we just watched it. I went back to the endocrinologist and she said, “This is really pressing on your voice box and your esophagus. We need to get this out.” When they went in to take out the right side and they biopsied that when it went to pathology, it came back with two forms of cancer.

One is aggressive, which is called hurthle cell carcinoma. It typically starts in the thyroid, but once they remove the thyroid, it can reoccur in your esophagus, your lungs, or your stomach. I’ll be getting scans for the next 2 years every 3 months. After 2 years, it goes to 6 months. After year five, it’ll be once a year.

First of all, I know you rattled all of that off like somebody reading a resume.

That’s my new resume. That’s my new elevator speech.

The Power Of Having A Voice

There’s a lot behind each one of those things that you shared. I want to say thank you for being so transparent and being willing to have this conversation. Oftentimes, people don’t want anyone to know when they’re not feeling well. They don’t want anyone to know what is going on. In all that you shared, why is it so important to you to have a voice and share what is going on with you personally?

It’s because I started my TikTok, and I haven’t been as consistent as I should have been. I want people to know that it’s important to put themselves first and prioritize their health because I took care of everybody else except myself. Also, there were some traumas within my life that didn’t allow me to speak about certain things that were happening and illnesses and things within your family. In the African-American culture, especially the Afro-Caribbean culture, you don’t talk about illness in the family.

Although my mother was a nurse, we weren’t empowered to talk about it. You talk about it and break these things within our own families. Within our own generations, nor can we break them with the community at large because we’re not talking about it. We’re not telling women, “Go get checked.” That little pressure on your chest is a heart attack. Do more black women die from a heart attack than any other race? That is because we don’t recognize the signs, and we have been taught to be strong and push through. By the time they figure out they having a heart attack, it’s too late to get the appropriate help to reverse it.

Let’s talk about that. Why do you think that is that we are not only taught to be strong, but we’re continuing that narrative?

That’s a long one to unpack and it’s very deep. I think that we were taught when we were taken from our original home.

We’re on TikTok, girl. You can say whatever words you want to say.

When we were stolen from our land and ripped from our culture, we came here to this country as slaves. As slaves, you had to move and operate in a specific way if you wanted to survive, if you wanted your family to survive. Sometimes, if you did something wrong, it might be a result taken out on your family. I think that that has been passed down through the generations. To be quite honest, I know you have a very broad audience, but we are the mold.

If you read the Bible, we are made in his likeness. People of color, black people specifically, we are made in his image. If you read the Bible, he has coppery skin and he has coily hair. There has always been some level of intimidation where we have. We have to show up in a certain way. Weakness is something that is frowned upon. We as women, when we go into certain spaces, we’re not allowed to be vulnerable.

We’re not allowed to share what we’re going through. We’re told that we need to be strong. We’re told that for you to advance in your career and as a mother and as a wife, you have to do double. You’ve got to run that household. You’ve got to do all the things. They never once said in any of that, make sure that you take care of yourself because you won’t be able to do any of that unless you’re healthy.

Thank you for sharing that. Yes, I do have a vast audience, literally girl, like 4 million people across 106 countries.

I had no idea.

I sit in a space, obviously. I’m this melanated chocolate girl. My late husband was a White man. We were together for 32 years. There’s no mixed understanding that, “I’m talking from my lived experience. You’re talking from your lived experience.” We showed up in this world in the body we’re in and the world has treated us a certain way. That’s just the facts. It’s not shading or doing anything. When my late husband and I started to have children became the concept, we really had to start talking about I’m Black and he’s White because now we’re bringing children into this world.

How is the world going to treat them based on what that looks like? Never was really much of a conversation we had to talk about, but the reality of that became apparent. It showed up a little ways, like my husband would buy me cards, but he couldn’t find the card he wanted. It was White girls. He colored her brown because he was like, “I am not giving this to my chocolate daughter, my chocolate white.” I appreciate him for that. It’s just the reality. These are not missed norms. These are not things we’re making up. It is a fact.

The fact of that, needing to carry that pressure this subconsciously given to you and not that other races and cultures don’t go through those, because when I talk to other people in other cultures, they have this concept of strength and what that looks like. I asked my readers to go, “Grandma raised me like that, too. I never got to say I was tired or I never got to say I couldn’t do enough.” Even though we’re sharing it from our perspective, I believe that other people can take that same situation and go, “I can relate to that,” instead of pulling up a guard and just saying that you’re relatable to that.

I think that it’s something for all women. I was just speaking from my perspective. It is absolutely all women. There are so much expectations to be a working mom, to take care of the household, to make sure that the kids are taken care of and gotten to all different activities, and to do all those things. There’s this expectation that as a wife or a woman, you have to do it all. What I am learning is that people say, “I often refer to my husband as my life partner.” He’s my life partner because we’re in this together. We’re in this together.

If I only have twenty percent, he’s got a lady. I know that he’s coming in. He’s not going to be on 100%. I’m going to have to pick up whatever slack he’s not able to pick up this afternoon. Once I started to realize that I didn’t have to do it all and that I could ask for help, things started to change for me. That only happened since 2022 after having a heart attack. It took a major life event to realize that I needed to put myself first so that I could give to other people.

Reflections On A Life-Changing Moment

Thank you for actually going back to the heart attack in 2022. What were you thinking at that moment when this was going on, and what were your thoughts?

Honestly?

Girl, look. Yes, please.

Honestly, honestly, we were in the hospital. The ambulance came and I was able to walk out the door and do all the things. I got to the hospital and then they told me immediately that I didn’t have a heart attack, but they were going to keep me for observation. While I was in the emergency room and I hadn’t gotten the word yet on my status, my brother-in-law worked overnight. I called him and I held him.

I was crying and I knew he’d be up because he’s still working. He’s still on his drive. I said, “I’m scared.” I’m crying. I’m telling him I’m scared. I don’t know what’s going to happen or whatever. I said to him, “The only thing I ask is that you take care of your brother.” I knew that if he was taken care of emotionally, my kids would, in turn, be taken care of because he would have the capacity to support them if somebody supported him.

I hear you saying you were preparing. You left that hospital.

I was preparing that I wasn’t going to leave that hospital. To be quite honest, every day, I get up and move through my life as though it might be the last because I have learned how fragile life can be.

How does that show up in how you experience life? I want to hear before the heart attack, Trish. I would have done X, Y, Z in this situation, but after that heart attack, these different diagnoses, life and responses look this way.

For sure, the response looks like, “If you call me for something and you need help, I assess everything on the basis. Do you have the same resources and access that I have in which I would go to or get or perform this information?” If I can answer yes to that question, that means that I will probably say no, depending on who the person is. If it’s my mother-in-law, if it’s my mother, if it’s my kids or something, it depends on who the person is.

I am very selective on where I put my energy and whom I share my energy with. I’m a recovering people policer. Based on things that happened in my childhood, I was constantly seeking validation without knowing. I had trained the people in the world around me to need me, which meant that validated that I am needed and I’m valued. I’ve learned that my value comes from me, not from the outside world. I don’t need someone to validate me or say who I am based on the amount of need that they have for me in their life.

The Power Of Saying No Without Guilt

I want to come back to both of these. No is a powerful word. When people think of self-care, society gives us images of being in a spa or getting a massage, or someone going on a long walk. Being able to say no is self-care to me. The way you evaluated their ability to manage and handle the situation is equal to what you have. What really can I give you that you don’t have already?

You may need the friend part of me to be there and encourage you, but this is really your road to carry on and travel. People listen to this conversation, and they’ll listen to this, and they’ll have to choose to take some of this to make it part of their own lives and travel the road of life independently. I want to talk about the power of no and being okay with it. Was there guilt when you first started saying no or how did that work? You didn’t just come off the table, just start knowing everybody.

I started to get therapy because it is such a traumatic event to have open heart surgery. I found a psychiatrist and a therapist and they are now part of my care team because mental health is very important. My therapist taught me, we worked for weeks on boundary setting and I had a workbook. I had to work independently and read and do exercises on the power of boundaries. When we talk about boundaries, oftentimes, people think that the boundary that we’re setting is for the other person. It’s actually for you.

The boundary is for you. When you say no, that is a boundary that you have. I’ve set a boundary. The boundary is if you have access to the same things and tools and everything that I have access to, I am happy to share what you should do and how you should access it, but I’m not going to do it for you. There is so much power in no. I learned through setting healthy boundaries that no is a part of those healthy boundaries. No is the second part of it. First, you’ve got to know where your boundary is.

The no is the consequence of those boundaries because once you set a boundary, if you keep crossing it, there’s no need for that. Every time you say yes in an area of a boundary that should have been a no, you’ve crossed that boundary. That boundary is what you put in place to protect your peace, to have your rusa. People will take as much as they can from you once you’re willing to give. I also learned that I was in a very one-sided relationship world. As with most, I would show up for people, but then, when it was time for me, I felt that I had no one to really show up for me.

Thank you for explaining that. For someone who is trying to empower the no but they feel guilty when they say no, what would you say to them?

I would say that change takes time. Continue to prioritize yourself. Continue to give yourself grace and learn from the situation. If you felt that you could have said no in that situation and you went ahead because you were guilty, just take a couple of minutes, either jot it down or even go through it in your head. What could I have done differently in this situation to get to the no? What could I have said so that it could have been a win for me and a win for them? They felt supported, and I felt like I was able to protect my peace and my energy. You’re not going to get it right every time. I’m not going to get it right every time, but don’t be hard on yourself. Just go back and think about how you could do it differently the next time.

Breaking Free From People-Pleasing Patterns

I like that because we’re not going to get it perfect, but I like how you also said how it sets them up for success because it empowers them. It also puts you in a place with the boundaries. I want to go on to the second thing that you just mentioned about being a recovery people, please. I like the idea that you had to go back and evaluate a pattern in your life. What happened that caused that? A lot of times, we’re looking at our current pattern, our current responses, but it oftentimes requires us to go back into our life to see how we got to this place, why I do this, why I show up this way, why I respond. Before the heart attack, had you begun this back reflection to see your patterns in life?

No. Before the heart attack, I could say that I would just walk around Tina and be angry. I was an angry person. I was always ready to explode. I want to help people because that makes me feel validated. That’s where I got my validation. Also, it built a lot of resentment because it’s like, “Why are you calling me? You could book the day, go on fly on Southwest yourself.” What do I mean?

It was getting to that point where I felt like I was giving and then wasn’t getting anything back. I began to look at all the relationships in my life. I can say that I’m living in a space that is very much isolated. I’m very much isolated. I think part of it is by choice. I guess another part of it is because I just don’t have the energy anymore to put into certain things, going through radiation treatment and just a plethora of other things, like I am mentally tired.

Knowing is tiresome and thank you for that because I encourage people if they don’t know the why behind their behavior to take that time of self-care and reflection. Maybe you’re not ready to go see a mental health professional. Maybe you need to start journaling and I’ll give an example for me. My current husband, we were doing something and he was giving me some insight and I became very defensive and I just was disgruntled and I was like, “I’m going to leave.” I went upstairs. I literally put myself in the timeout.

I went upstairs, I sat down on the bed and I was like, “Why am I responding like this? This is not my normal mode towards him.” I was like, “I know he loves me. What he’s trying to give me is good information. His intentions are pure. It’s not to discredit or do something.” I started thinking of conversations I’d had with my dad when I was a child. We wrote our papers. He wrote those things down. I gave it to my dad for review. He would then write over it with red ink and then say how bad it was and berate me back and forth. When he started talking, I became that little girl, becoming defensive in this big girl’s body and clapping back.

I came downstairs. I told him about how that happened with my dad and I immediately felt fearful and defensive. “I’m sorry because that wasn’t him,” nor was that his behavior and what he was trying to do. If I hadn’t taken that moment to go upstairs and be reflective, our argument could have assumed back and forth, and then it just piles on top of each other and you have resentment and you don’t have communication. It’s really important to take a knee, take a moment, and try to look introspectively and see if our response is warranted to the situation around us.

I also believe that you have to really start thinking about and looking at where you’re putting your energy. Is this argument worth the energy? Is me pushing back worth the energy? How big or how small is the impact of this situation? Is this something that I can compromise on? Once you can do that and realize that not everything, sometimes no response is the response.

I just learned that at almost 55 years old is that no response is the response. You don’t have to respond to everything. Everything doesn’t have to get you hyped up. Everything doesn’t have to get you. You don’t have to always go there. Sometimes, not engaging is the best response at all because the next time someone is coming at you with that kind of stuff, they won’t because they see that you won’t engage.

Pushing Through Life’s Challenges With Resilience

That is absolutely true. You go from, I’m going to leave the hospital. The heart attack is not taking me out. We’re good with this. Now there’s something else and then there’s another something else. Was there ever a point when you just felt like you wanted to quit? If so, how did you navigate that?

There are days when I am extremely just tired because when I tell you I had open heart surgery, then my kidneys stopped functioning for a little while. They found fluid in my lungs. I couldn’t breathe. I had to go through the recovery process, and then start the biopsies and all the other things. I just felt like there are often times and still times when I’m like, I just can’t do it. There are times that I honestly say that I just can’t do it, but I am more comfortable with saying to my husband, “Today’s not the day. I just can’t do it.”

I try not to say that it would be best for me to pass away because then that means that I have totally given up and lost the fight. There are days when I am pretty close and tired like having to go get medications, having to take medications, and the side effects of the medications. All of those things take a toll on me mentally. I deal with that. I started visual journaling. How I capture my life is that say from you and I’ll take a screenshot of this and I have a mini printer and I’ll put it in a journal and I’ll make sure that there’s like red and black.

We just use scraps from around the house, any kind of paper or gift wrap, or anything. You just make it a visual journal of what’s happened and a few words about what happened that day or around that time. I found that that has helped me because it really helps me to appreciate the value of life, the value of continuing on, and the value of keeping and pushing through. That I can go back and tangibly look and be like, “My life ain’t all that bad.” What I’m saying? I went here. I did this with my daughter, and I did it with my son.

We went to dinner as a family for Jeff’s birthday. I can go back and feel that tangibly. When I was in Florida, we went to the outlets with my husband’s aunt and his mom and it was great to go out with the older ladies and just take care of them and pamper them. I came back, and I did a whole spread at the outlet. I’ll always remember those times. When I get down, I can go

back and look and be like, “Girl, remember that day you did this. Some people don’t have the privilege to do some of the things that you are able to journal about.”

Some people don’t have the privilege to travel. Some people don’t have the privilege to go out to eat with their families. Some people don’t have the privilege of receiving Christmas gifts, so you can actually tear the wrappers off and save some of them and put them in a journal. Some people don’t have that privilege. When I look at my journal, that’s one of the things that really helps me because it reminds me that, “You have a life. It’s not a bad one. You just got some bumps in the road, but it’s not a bad one.”

Thank you. For my community that has lost a loved one, life sometimes can make you feel like you do not want to be here. I’m thankful for Trish sharing that. Oftentimes, we’re not making plans to remove ourselves from this world. We’re thinking about what life would be like. If anyone is taking active thoughts or plans to remove yourself from this world, seek help immediately. Email me, text me, or call the suicide hotline because that is not a nap response to the difficulties of this life.

Feeling like sometimes, I can’t do it, it is natural. It is hard, but that is perfectly fine. When you see yourself putting things in place or orchestrating things to remove yourself from this world, that is not safe and that is not healthy for you. That is a time to seek help and to let someone come beside you on this journey of life to be able to help you because sometimes it’s just too much and it’s okay to ask for help. It is okay.

I’ve had those thoughts before. Also, what pulls me back is that the way I’m feeling because somebody has been lost in my life, I will now leave that gap in that feeling for someone else behind. I always say, “What I want that for my kids, what I want that for my husband.” I think about what it would mean to them and how they would like, what kind of hurt and grief and things that they would go through and it would be caused directly by my actions. Just the way that when you’re experiencing grief and you might hit a wall and say, “I’m done.”

Also, remember how you’re actually feeling and you don’t want to leave somebody with those feelings as well. There’s always somebody that you can talk to. Somebody is always a phone call away to be able to support you. We all are here for a reason and we all bring value and you just have to hold strong to what you can do. Begin to share your voice, and begin to volunteer to help others. Start to tell your story, jump on social media, and start to share your story and talk things through journal. Whatever you need to do because you’re here for a reason. Just hold on and tap into the resources around you.

Using Social Media To Share Your Story

I love that. I love that you made a journal less intimidating. Didn’t sound like you had to be an artist. Just sound like you could put some things together and put some memories there and be reflective. You don’t even have to be a writer. There are so many ways that you can capture the memory and the moment to remind you of the moments of joy, the moments of happiness. The more that book or place fills up that you’ve been capturing, the more it fills your heart and reminds you that you have purpose and value. You talked about sharing your story. Can you talk a little bit about what drew you to social media and how you share your story with others?

A heavy consumer of TikTok. There’s always been something in me about sharing my story. I don’t know if I’m ready to share that story publicly. When this heart attack happened, actually from my hospital bed, I did record some TikToks, but I never had uploaded them. My daughter kept pushing me and saying, “Go ahead, do it.” I just grabbed my phone, did all the wrong things, and just started talking. Is there a right and wrong? Just started talking and that’s how I started to tell my story.

I lost my purpose on social media because TikTok is a place where emphasis is placed so much on the numbers, the likes, the views, and all of those things. You get caught up and you’re like, “I’m in 2 to 300 people jail and this and that.” All of these things started going through my head. That got the better of me and I lost my vision and purpose for what I was on the app for. I have a lot of content. I just haven’t uploaded it recently. I’m still recording my journey. I just haven’t uploaded it because I found out that it was no longer fun to upload based on my personality type, and I was focused on the wrong thing. I lost my purpose of being on social media.

I am going to come back to it because there’s so much to share. Actually, God works in mysterious ways. When you invited me onto this, actually the one-year anniversary of my thyroidectomy, the partial where they found the cancer. In a week, I will get the news that I have cancer. In seven days, I will get the news that I have cancer. This was the one-year anniversary of my surgery.

When you found that out a year ago, what were your thoughts at that time?

They had to peel me up off the floor. I thought life was over when you hear those words, “Cancer, rare form, we’ve got to get you back into the OR tomorrow.”

I remember talking with you about that.

When you hear those words, time stops. You don’t know it’s a death sentence. You don’t know what it is. You don’t have enough information about your diagnosis to make informed decisions or even to be in the right frame of mind. Everything happened so quickly. I’m WebMD all the way, I’m on the internet, I’m searching this, searching that, searching this, searching that. That’s another reason why I started TikTok. When you look up hurthle cell carcinoma, not a lot comes up and not a lot comes up where it is women of color.

It was important to put a face that people could relate to out there as well. It’s a scary thing. Just outside of these office doors, I fell into my son’s arms. There’s one day a week at that point where my husband wasn’t home and that was Thursdays when he would go into the office and to think I got the word on the day that he was not in the, not at home. I was able to call one of my colleagues who was also a friend and she was actually on a business trip and I called her and she was in Miami or Atlanta and she took charge over the phone.

She got my son in order. She got me up off the floor and got me to breathe and calm down, but it was probably the worst day of my life. They talk about, “We can get an OR, we’re to get you in tomorrow.” When doctors are talking like that, it’s serious. They’re not saying to come next week, come next month, or come to my office next week, and we’ll chat about this. He was like, “I’m trying to get us an OR for tomorrow.” Unfortunately, you couldn’t get an OR until the Tuesday after. I went in, so exactly fourteen days to the day of my first barodectomy, I had the other half removed, making it total.

You have gone from falling apart to sharing your story to encourage.

Yes, to sharing and encouraging and something that your audience can relate to. People experience grief in so many different ways. I grieve my former self. I grieve the person that I used to be. I grieve the person who had the recall of an elephant and can’t think of anything now. I can’t remember anything. If I don’t write it down, I grieve that person who, when my daughter was moving, my husband and I moved entire houses, just me and him.

Now I’m the person who just has the cleaning supplies, and I’ll clean when we get to the new location. I grieve that person. I wasn’t so physical or so athletic, but I grieve that person who was able to really get shit done when it had to be done. I really grieved that so many days. I even explain it without getting emotional because I feel like I have a lump in my throat.

What I hear you saying is that when the pressures of life reduce your capacity, go with that. Don’t try to push beyond your ability because more harm than good can happen from that. Expect it. The weight of the journey, you have to take some things off your plate. You have to say no to some things. You can’t do it all.

You take that weight off your plate, but also you begin to create “a new normal” for yourself. You grieve that old person that you used to be, but then you evolve into a different person. I’m not going to say better or worse, but you are a different person. You evolve into another person and you find and you create new normals. I like to clean. I can get it done. I’ll clean. I can carry what I can carry. I can do those things.

You just figure out what you can do, where you can add value, and what also makes you happy. How can you add value to this process? Whether it’s a family process or whatever it is, if it’s something about you physically when you’re exercising, how can I still get the value out of exercising knowing that I might have shortness of breath or I can’t go as long as I used to? You figure out how I can still enjoy this, get value, or add value and still make myself happy in the process.

That right there is important. That’s in any process and journey that we’re going through. I know when my late husband passed the weight in my brain mentally, the grief fall, the grief brain, I used to carry a little memo pad and write stuff down because I could remember anything. I learned how to cope with that. I couldn’t walk around not forgetting everything. I found that notepad and I made do.

I said no to things I could not handle because the weight, pressure, and stress of his absence were deafening. I could not function at the same level that I was accustomed to. I was grieving my husband’s absence from this world and my incapacity to function as I was accustomed to. It’s such a layered process when we are grieving. I look at grief when there’s something that is no longer what it used to be and you’re accustomed to that, our health, our life, and experience. That’s why there is transferable skills in picking up some of the things that we’ve heard other people experience.

Navigating Grief And Ensuring Family Support

I want to circle back to something you said when we started this conversation. I know a lot of my readers and part of my community, widowhood, have lost their spouse. A lot of times, they have regret or guilt or struggle with living their life in the absence of their spouse. You said that when you thought you were not leaving that hospital, you wanted people to support your husband. You wanted him to be in a place where he had that support and that support would transfer to your children because he was in a good place. I hear you saying that if that was your last day in this world, what you wanted was for your husband to be well.

Want it because I know the bond that we share and how we move together and how we operate together. I often joke and say that to spend so much time together, it’s actually unhealthy. We’re always together. Typically, you see one, the other one’s not going to be too far behind. To give you an example, when I travel for work and he called me, he was like, “I’m kind of lost because the evenings were together.”

Sitting on a couch together, we’re together, we’re eating together. He said he was lost. He said he didn’t know if he should watch TV. He didn’t know if he should go in the basement and play his game. He didn’t know if he should go up to bed now because these are things that we typically do together. He was just moving through until I returned.

For a person who’s lost because they’re never returning. If you were that person who was no longer here, what would have been your hope or your desire? If you heard, “Trish, this is going to be your last hour, and you can hope whatever you want for your husband.” Oftentimes, people yearn to hear what that person would have said for them because they never got to hear it. What would you have wished for Jeff in his life?

What I would have wished and I’ll continue to wish for him that if I were to pass away before him, he would continue to live his life with the same vigor and the same fun and the same everything that we continue to do and find ways to continue to make himself happy without me being there. Find love, find hobbies. He’s very close with his family. It’s very important to him. Make sure that you’re still maintaining those connections and basically live life just because I am no longer here doesn’t mean that you have to stop living.

That’s something that’s very hard for people to do. It’s easy for me to say it because I’m not in that situation. You have to keep living. The person who has passed on, your spouse, they loved you. They loved you for what you brought into their life, how you love them. To be quite honest, my godfather said this to me at my wedding. He said, “I wish you the best.” He said something like, “I wish you something. I wouldn’t want anything bad for myself. I wish you the best, too.” He was saying, “I don’t want anything bad.”

Why would I wish you anything bad? Your spouse, even though they’re not here, would want to see you sitting moping if they were here? Would they want to see you lost? Would I want to see Jeff lost? Would I want to see him moping? Would I want to see him sad? No. I understand that grieving is a process and you have to go through that whole process. The first birthdays, the first Christmases, the first Thanksgiving, and all of those things.

First, second, and third, I don’t know what they’re talking about that person. The birthdays come back. You’re speaking from the person that could have crossed over and very close to that. You had to come to terms with those thoughts. You had to come to terms with it because people often say we never had that conversation, but in situations like this in life, that can be a gift to allow you to express things that you may have never expressed before because they weren’t imminent.

The Intentions Of Sharing Personal Stories

It wasn’t something that had to be addressed. That second chance that you have, you’ve been using it to show up. I know you haven’t been on social media a lot, but when you were doing the lives and having conversations with people, what was your intention and what did you want to have happen from sharing your story with others?

I just want to touch one person and anything above one is more than a blessing. Just one person to hear my voice, my story, and what I’ve been through. Even if they begin to journal, if they begin to set boundaries, if they begin to have conversations with their spouses or other family members and say, “If anything were to happen to me,” a lot of times, the living don’t give each other permission. While we’re living, there’s no permission because we don’t have to think about that.

Especially in this age group here, we still go and we still move and we still got it. We’re not having those conversations saying if anything happened to me, but have those conversations and give your spouse or partner or family member permission to find happiness. Find happiness, have those conversations, have those talks, and don’t think that anything that you are doing or going through for yourself is selfish because it is not. One thing that I don’t like to do is when people say, “Just give it some time. It’ll get better. It’ll do this.”

That’s not what people want to hear. Not while they’re in the moment. You want to surround yourself with people who will allow you to lean into your emotions, vulnerability, grief, and feelings. If those people are not that, find a support group. Tina, anybody who will allow you to be in a space where you can be vulnerable and express those emotions.

When you don’t express those emotions, you’re not allowing yourself to heal. That emotion stays in you and begins to rot. When we’re in certain spaces, we’re taught to push it down. People train us to push down our emotions around them. You need to grieve. You need to go through the process. When you said birthdays 1, 2, and 3, my pastor, my father passed away. She said to us that the grieving process takes three years.

Longer is a life journey.

It’s a life journey. She said it takes three years, but when you put it into perspective, imagine when you’re off work after day 3 or day 5, you got to get back to work. What I’m saying? There was no space to grieve there. You have the kids. I don’t want the kids to see you crying. What I’m saying? It is a huge process. The biggest thing that I have learned, I have learned to lean into my emotions.

If I’m not feeling it, I say, “Babe? I’m just not feeling it. Whatever is going on or whatever is happening.” You have to share those, and you have to surround yourself with people who will allow you to show up and grieve authentically. Not let you sit in it, but also allow you to get it off your chest, and then they can channel that emotion into another activity, conversation, or whatever it is. You want to surround yourself with people who will let you be.

That is beautiful advice. I am glad this was a good day for you to be able to have this conversation because I know your energy and your space are important and are protected. I’ve asked you a lot of questions. Do you have any questions for me by chance?

You know my story and your audience. Is there anything that I didn’t touch on that you think might be helpful for us to talk about that could help 1 person, 2 person, or 10 or maybe the 4 million that’s going to read this?

I think we did that. We talked about the ability to go back and revisit patterns that have led us to where we are now. We talked about the power of no. We talked about boundaries and self-care. We talked about being vulnerable and allowing other people to help us, and we realized we can’t do it all. We talked about mental health, and having that mental health team to allow people to help us.

If we don’t organically have those people to go out and find them, to go search for our tribe, get our community of people that can validate, understand, support, and encourage and inspire us to keep going. We talked about the reality that sometimes we want to quit. Sometimes, we envision a world without ourselves and we acknowledge that and we keep a journal to remember those full moments of life and continue doing that. Now we cover some stuff.

Making Health And Well-Being A Priority

I have one other question for you and for your audience. Have you scheduled your annual physical yet?

I had my mammogram. I just had my blood drawn. I have my physical.

Great, because that is a plethora of that. Knowing all that you just did and scheduled just warms my heart because had I been taking care of myself and doing the simple things, it’s like the annual physical. It could have avoided some of these illnesses. I would encourage your audience to get on the calendar at the top of the year if you haven’t scheduled it yet because we all know it takes a minute to get on the calendar.

Get on the calendar, get your annual physical done, know your numbers, understand your numbers, ask questions, do your own research, and follow Tina’s lead. She’s got everything coming up. Before Q1 is done, she will know all of her numbers. What I want to say to you is that I thank you and appreciate you. I’m not a religious person, but I’m a spiritual person. I would just say that I thank God pass had crossed on TikTok and that you have opened your platform to me on now multiple occasions.

It is not taken lightly that you are sharing your platform with me and allowing me to share my story. I appreciate that you are always there to uplift and support in any capacity and what they say is, “We listen and we don’t judge.” I know that you listen and you don’t judge. I truly appreciate you allowing me into this space. I think our ultimate goal, you and I, the same is the same thing. It’s just that we really want to help people through learned experiences.

Embracing Healing, Support, And Self-Worth

Thank you for that. I am so grateful. I know Mr. Go will be home in a little bit. My goal was to be done by the time Mr. got close-ish so then you could transition to what else you needed to do. I want to say thank you for your time. I would like you to close out this conversation with any final comments or thoughts that you have for our community.

To the community, what I will say to you is that you are valued, you are special, and what you are going through is something that many of us will go through or have gone through or are going through. You are not alone at all in any form. Seek support and remember to show up authentically as yourself and whoever can’t accept that, you have to keep pushing, and move on to the next.

You’re healing and you making it through this season in your life is very important. You have to do that with the right people surrounding you and make sure your loved ones know you love them. All I have to say is just always remember that you are valued. You are special. It’s hard, but there are so many hard things in life, but you got this. You have got this.

Thank you so much.

Thank you.

Important Links

• Patricia Pinchinat on TikTok
• Patricia Pinchinat on Instagram
• Widowhood Real Talk with Tina on YouTube