Angela Clement is a certified grief coach, speaker, writer, healer, and the creator of the online series “Awaken Your Soul’s Journey.” Formerly a school principal and distance-learning teacher, her path shifted after an energy healer helped her young son recover from a rare disease, which inspired Angela to train in multiple energy-healing modalities to help others find their inner light and heal. In 2021, after her husband Blaine, Angela’s best friend and the love of her life, died of colon cancer, Angela came to understand grief as a spiritual experience that was perfectly, profoundly, and proficiently designed for her to awaken to who she truly is. Tune in to hear why Angela firmly believes that grief is a pathway to transformation and growth, the difference between feeling lonely as a part of grief and being alone, what it means to be an angel intuitive, and so much more, for this uplifting and enlightening interview!
IN THIS EPISODE, YOU’LL HEAR ABOUT THINGS LIKE:
● The ways Angela’s knowledge of energy healing helped her husband Blaine with his cancer symptoms.
● How Angela moved from deep pain to a place of joy and purpose.
● Why reframing our beliefs about grief help us to navigate the process.
● The difference between grief and mourning and why mourning is key to healing.
● How Angela’s angel readings help people to heal grief and other issues.
SOME QUESTIONS IRENE ASKS ANGELA:
● What simple steps do you recommend people take when they’re too overwhelmed to take care of themselves?
● How do angel readings work with you?
● What is the best advice to reframe those beliefs to help you get through?
● What available tools can help with those feelings of loneliness?
● Why is community so important in the grieving process and how has it helped you?
● What advice do you give to people who feel like they’ll never find joy again after loss?
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Angela Clement: Is Grief Like a Helpful Friend for Healing that Shows Us the Way Back to Joy and Happiness?
Grief and Energy Healing
Can looking at grief, like a helpful breath for healing, help us find our way back to joy and happiness again? You’ll want to hear this incredibly wise and very touching interview that I had with Angela Clement, who tells us about the heartbreaking loss of her husband Blaine. Her husband of 35 years, her very best friend and the love of her life, how Angela used energy healing to help Blaine through his cancer symptoms and help herself to her intense emotions, how Angela’s angel readings help people with grief and other issues. There is so much more for you to benefit from and enjoy in this fabulous interview. Come join us, heartfelt. Many blessings.
I’m speaking to you from my studio in West Orange, New Jersey. I could not be more delighted to have the pleasure of interviewing Angela Clement who is a certified grief coach, a speaker, a writer, a healer, and the creator of the online series Awaken Your Soul’s Journey. Formerly a school principal and distance learning teacher, Angela’s past shifted after an energy healer helped her young son recover from a rare disease. Inspired, she trained in multiple healing energy modalities to help others find their inner light and heal.
In 2021, Angela’s husband Blaine who was her husband of 35 years, her best friend, and the love of her life died of colon cancer. In the aftermath, Angela came to understand grief as a spiritual experience that was perfectly, profoundly, and proficiently designed for her to awaken to who she truly was. Determined to support others, she launched her first online summit in 2022. Since then, she has interviewed over 100 experts on grief and spirituality. I was truly honored to be a contributor to one of Angela’s transformational summits.
Angela is now a certified grief coach, an intuitive healer, a podcast host, and a writer who firmly believes that grief is a pathway to transformation and growth. Her new book is titled Awakening Through Grief. Angela supports individuals in finding light in the darkness and discovering the beauty and healing that can come from honoring their emotions. Angela is also one of the 24 contributors to my new book titled Good to the Last Drop! Embracing Your Life’s Third Chapter. It invites us to see grief and aging in a new light, living with joy and meaning in life’s third chapter.
Angela’s chapter in Good to the Last Drop titled Awakening to Grief shares her emotional rebirth after her husband Blaine transitioned. I’m looking forward to asking Angela, who will be speaking to us from Saskatchewan Canada, about her heartbreaking loss of Blaine, her interest in energy healing, how she has experienced grief as a pathway to transformation and growth, her book Awakening Through Grief, the difference between feeling lonely as a part of grief and being alone, what it means to be an angel intuitive, and much more for what is sure to be an uplifting and enlightening interview with the truly wonderful person. Hi, Angela. A truly warm from the heart welcome to Grief and Rebirth.
Hi, Irene. Thank you so much for having me. I appreciate the invitation. You and I become friends. This is so fantastic to be able to have this time with you. It’s wonderful.
We have so much in common with our stories which is double the uplifting for all the people who are tuning in to this and are going through their stuff. Here we are, two widows who adored our husbands. Through much, we made it through and we have things to share about that. I know this interview is going to inspire and uplift many people. I’m thrilled to have you here. I participated in your summit. You participated in my new book and now we’re doing this. It’s wonderful friendship and sharing. I’m so grateful.
Thank you so much. It’s been a delight.
Thank you. Let’s start from the beginning, Angela. In 2021, your beloved husband Blaine of 35 years died of cancer. How did you use your knowledge of energy healing to help him with his cancer symptoms and yourself through those intense emotions that you experienced?
As you said, I had an interest in energy healing before. I was dabbling in it, reading about it, and playing around with it, but I never got serious until he got sick. I was searching for what I could do to help him and me through this. I have some energy healers that I know. I enlisted them to help us out and I also started studying more about energy healing myself.
I ended up taking a program called the Wonder Method, which is something a lot of people haven’t heard about. It was maybe a way that I could hone my skills a little bit and stay focused on the whole idea of mindfulness, sitting in meditation, and allowing the emotions to move through me. That’s what the energy healers did with me as well. They helped me release all those heavy emotions that were coming up to be healed because sometimes it’s so intense. For you to try to do it yourself is a lot. Having them help me through that and helped me lift some of that heavy emotion made all the difference for me.
Were you in meditation, these things came up, and you discussed it? How did that work?
In the Wonder Method, you’re feeling the energy come through you, and then it’s releasing and you’re expanding. They call it a shift. It’s a shift in energy because we put ourselves into a little box. We feel constricted. When you go through a trauma like that, the first response is to cower and hang on for dear life. What else do you know how to do? The energy healing forces you to feel those emotions and to allow yourself to release them. It’s sitting in stillness. People all talk about how beneficial meditation is and how beneficial it is to sit in silence and feel your feelings. That was a big part of that program.
Did you also see mediums and do other things to help you with your healing?
Yeah. Some of the energy healers that I was seeing were mediums as well. I did get messages from Blaine early on. I believe that helped me a great deal as well, just knowing that he was okay, that he was still with me, and that we were still going through this journey together although not physically, but spiritually, we’re still connected. That made a huge difference for me as well.
It’s such a comfort to know that you’ll be with him again.
We’re reconnecting one day once I do what I need to do here.
Once again, we’re on the same path. You move from deep pain to joy and purpose. Now you want to understand grief as a spiritual experience that was perfectly, profoundly, and proficiently designed for Angela to awaken to who she is. Can you talk to us about that?
When these emotions come up for healing, they don’t feel that good. We don’t want to feel sad. The pain is something else. I’ve discovered that grief is a process that brings up these emotions for a reason. It’s for your healing. My whole message is about how grief is not to be avoided. It’s not to be feared. It is to be embraced because it is the process. It is the exact process that is going to get you on the other side of that pain.
To answer your question, it’s unique to each of us because each of us has our journey through grief. The relationship that we had is unique. We are unique as people. We’ve had unique experiences. There’s not one program or sequence of events that are steps you can take to go through it to make it happen. It has to come from you. Our grieving process is natural. It’s within us and it’s bringing up those emotions in such a way and in such an order that is best for us. When things came up for me to experience those grief bursts that people talk about, that’s an opportunity for healing to happen. I learned to start to embrace those rather than try to push them away or be upset about the fact that they were happening.
As you’re releasing them, you’re saying that no matter who it is, as they release, they will get closer to who they are and the next steps of the way.
They talk about the onion and taking off the layers. The core of who you are is there. Once we start to let go of some of the things that are no longer needed, then we start to see who we are underneath all of that.
The core of who you are is there, and once we start to let go of some of the things that are no longer needed, we do start to see who we are underneath. Share on X
Importance of Self-Care in Healing
For me, so much came out that I wasn’t at a point to with until after Saul died, and they came forward. I’m sure you feel the same way. Grief also often takes some toll on the mind and body. You claim that self-care plays a big role in your healing process. What simple steps do you recommend that people take when they’re too overwhelmed to take care of themselves? I went through that too. What do you suggest they do?
It’s different for everybody. Some big things seem to help a lot of people. One of them is getting out in nature and having a walk. I know that when you’re in the depths of grief, the last thing you probably feel like doing is walking outside. It is getting with the trees, getting into the fresh air, putting your feet on the ground, in the grass, and grounding yourself. Anything to do with nature. Even just getting more plants around you can change that energy and change that feel, and help you move through. Also all the things like the hot baths or the comforting food. Those things are all important as we’re moving through that emotion because It’s so heavy and it’s so painful. Anything we can do to make ourselves feel better and comfort ourselves in that space is important. Everybody finds their own way.
Angel Readings
Some people also work out. Some people go for massages, depending on what it is. I’m very curious about your angel readings for people. I’m sure that a lot of people would love to get an angel reading. Tell us how they help people feel grief and other issues, and how that works with you.
Many years ago, I got a set of oracle cards. I found out that in the evening, sometimes if I was having something I was worried about or concerned about, I would pull the oracle cards and often, they would have messages for me. It would make me feel better. It would give me a different perspective. I have used them for many years. It wasn’t that long ago that I realized I could probably do this for other people too. It’s funny how we don’t realize. I started to do this for other people and found out that I could do the same thing. I can give them a perspective, a different insight, maybe a different slant on a situation that they’re in.
With grief, it can help you point to what you need to do for your healing. It can help you focus on what’s most important at that moment. I used that, and I also sometimes get messages from loved ones that will come in who are key or important that I can share. It’s using what I was naturally using for myself and starting to share that with other people now.
Reframing Beliefs About Grief
You talk about reframing our beliefs about grief which helps us navigate grief more gently. Do you want to tell people what they usually believe and what is the best advice to reframe those beliefs to help you get through?
The first thing, and I touched on this a little bit, is when we hear the word grief, it’s sadness. It’s anger. Sometimes it’s jealousy because you’re looking around and realizing everybody else has their spouse, and you don’t have your spouse. There are all of these feelings that come up. What we do is we tend to say, “Grief is a bad thing. Nobody wants to go through grief.”
What I’m suggesting is that we change our perspective a little bit and realize that grief is there for us, not against us. It’s there for our healing and to look at it in a different light. Look at it as a medicine. This is a way of moving through this deep pain. When we reframe it in that way, and we can start to embrace those emotions and start to learn to move them through us, then that joy starts to come back because we’re starting to have space to put it. It’s a different way of looking at the whole process of grief.
Awakening Through Grief
What I’m hearing you say is that it’s more of an acceptance that I’m going to have these feelings. They’re good to step by step lead me to a new way of being, which is so great. That’s along with your book. In Awakening Through Grief, you discuss the difference between grief and mourning and explain that mourning is key to healing. It feels like those two concepts are connected. Please describe how outward expressions of grief like rituals, writing, or creating can help us move towards healing. What else would you like the members of our audience to know about your book Awakening Through Grief?
Mourning is different from grieving or grief because it is an outward expression. We want to express our emotions to get it out, so we often use different modalities. Some dancers dance to help express what they’re feeling. I was using writing. I was journaling and blogging. Lots of people will listen to music or create music or they will draw or paint. It doesn’t matter what the expression is, but it’s important that we find a way to express it.
Finding a way to express our emotions is important. It doesn’t matter what the expression is. Share on X
Get it out. What would you like people to know about your book?
The whole mission of the book is to give people hope. When I first lost Blaine, I looked around and I felt like I didn’t know a lot about grief, to start out with. Also, there wasn’t a lot out there for me to hang on to. When the messages came in for me, when I was searching, I kept hearing that grief is something that you will learn to live with. You will learn to carry it and it’ll be with you. That’s the way it is and I couldn’t accept that. I didn’t want to live if that was the way this would be because that was too heavy.
What I did was I kept searching until I found somebody who didn’t say that. I met a lady by the name of Julie Cluff. Her quote, “Some people will say that you grieve for a lifetime. I choose otherwise. I choose the path from hurt to hope to healing every day,” led me to her on Facebook and do some work with her in coaching. The book helps people see that there is hope. You can move through the grief and you can heal, and you can find joy and fulfillment on the other side of that.
I’m now past the three-year mark. I don’t feel that heavy sadness or sorrow. It doesn’t follow me through everything that I do. It’s almost fuel for me. It inspires me and I want to do more to help people. The book is all about my journey. It’s how I moved through grief and I share all the exercises and journal prompts. The energy healing techniques are easy to do. I share all of those things in there for people so that they can start moving through their grief and live a life that is fulfilling and joyful again.
It sounds like a great book if you don’t know what to do for your loved one who is grieving. It sounds like a wonderful book to gift to people to get them started and to uplift them. They’re going through a tunnel, but there is light at the end of that tunnel. I also want to ask you this. You talk about the difference between feeling lonely as a part of grief and being alone. There are tools available that can help with those feelings of loneliness. What have you found?
I did go through a tough time. I used to love my alone time. When I had my family and my busy life, and I had an evening to myself, I always cherished that. When I had a day to myself, I cherished it. When I lost Blaine and I had all of this alone time, it didn’t feel good to me. I felt so lonely every time I had to do something, like winterize the camper, pay for insurance, or do things that I didn’t normally do. I felt so alone. I knew I wasn’t alone because I had guides, helpers, and all those people with me, but I hadn’t made a connection with them.
The key to this is not only connecting with your guides or your spirit partners, but it is to connect with yourself. It is to connect with the person that you are inside because you got you. In the end, no matter what happens, you don’t need to rely on other people necessarily when you have yourself. When you’ve learned how to love yourself and take care of yourself, now you’re no longer alone.
You have to connect with the person that you are inside because you got you in the end. Share on X
As a grief coach, I’m sure you take people through that to help them with that process.
Yes, this is part of what I do.
If they’re feeling alone, by having a grief coach like you, they’re not so alone anymore. They have that support that is so important for them. You share how you’ve experienced grief as a pathway to transformation and growth, which we see that you’ve done and you’re still doing. You explain that all we do in life is for us, not against us, no matter how bad we think it is. People tuning in to this are saying, “Really, Angela? This awful thing I went through is for me, not against me. You have to explain this to me because I think it was terrible.” How did you learn about that and how do you handle that difference in attitude?
I would never be doing what I’m doing today had I not lost Blaine. I will preface that it was a horrible experience. There is nothing that I would wish on anyone to lose a spouse. That is hard. As I work through this journey and I’m working through it with him, he’s he’s with me. He’s guiding me, supporting me, helping me, and bringing me opportunities. We’re doing this journey together.
I started to realize that with everything that happens to me, there’s a lesson in it. There’s something in it that I need to learn to find out more about who I am, to strengthen me, to build more understanding about the world around me, and what I love and what I don’t. It’s like redefining yourself and rediscovering yourself through these experiences.
Every time something happens to me now that I don’t think is right, I start to search for the meaning in that because I truly believe that there is. I know that people go through a lot of awful things. I’ve seen multiple losses, people who lost children. It is so hard, but even in that, there is a way through. There is a way to build that meaning, take it with you, and build a new life going forward.
The Role of Community in Healing
You can help them navigate that. Through your book Awakening Through Grief, your summit, and your support group, you create a space for people to come together, which is another way you help people to heal. Even if it’s not one-on-one coaching, you have a support group. Why is community so important in the grieving process? How does it help you personally? Would you like to share a special story of healing from your support group? Give us a success story.
There are several. When I started the community was after I took my grief coaching certification and I had run this summit and I had all these people. They signed up on my email list and what was I to do? I decided that I would start this group. Every ten days on Zoom, we meet. I found out that getting together and sharing what we were going through and sharing the resources that we were using became fuel for all of us. We were able to acknowledge each other in our grief.
Another important thing is that you recognize someone else’s pain because you’ve felt it. You can share it and then they realize that they’re not alone in that. They too have had that experience, and then you share what you’re doing to move through it. How are you moving through that? How is life changing for you? There’s a big spirituality piece along with this support group that I have developed. They have supported me a great deal through my process. I would say every bit as much or more than I have supported them. It’s been this wonderful space where we’ve built strong connections.
There’s a core group that has been there with me for the past two years. They have been there through thick and thin. One of the people has written her own book now. It is a lot of work. Another person who has become a dear friend of mine is helping friends and family with similar circumstances. She’s doing it naturally because as we heal, we naturally find out who we are. We end up doing things that we never knew that we would be doing. It’s in the plan, we just don’t know it.
I have a member in my group that I went to see who was in the depths of despair. He’s coming to the group all the time and he’s been a delight. He developed some psychic gifts too. He’s been able to do some mediumship for the group It’s been fantastic. One of the things I’m most proud of when I think about this journey and what I’ve done is that support group.
I have found, I’m sure that you would say the same, that after my husband transitioned, some of my friendships fell away. There are new rich relationships that came into my life to take their place because I’m in a different place. You meet people who meet you in your new place. Would you say that is true for you as well?
Yeah. At first, it’s devastating, and everybody feels that because you have the people who were your support system and now they’re not. Why aren’t they? I think that first reaction is like, “What?” You then start to recognize. Once you start to step out, that’s the other thing. You can’t power in your house. You have to step out a little bit even if it’s on Zoom to to start to meet new people, then you start to bring in these new friendships. Those become your friends. They are huge support people.
You’re on the same page with each other. Tell everyone about yourself, Angela, then I want to get to some of the other things that you do with people because you have so much and it’s such a rich source for people. There are so many things you do. First, tell us about your summit, and then we can go to your other services that promote healing, guidance, and transformation. You have grief coaching one-on-one. You have grief coaching we’ve been talking about in a group. You have discovery sessions. We know about your angel reading. You have the Awaken Your Soul’s Journey on grief. We’re going to talk about your summits. Let it rip. Tell them about all the ways Angela can help them.
I did four summits. I still have them and people can access them. Each summit has about 25 interviews in it. Each summit was focused on something that I needed at the time. They’re sequential in my healing. I think they would be helpful for others too to go through. I have them available and people can contact me and ask for them and I can give them away to access those. I transitioned into the podcast since then. Since January, I’ve been doing that and getting my feet into that and starting to get a feel for it. I may go back to summits. I don’t know, but for now, that’s what I’m doing.
What are your discovery sessions?
I do a free discovery session with people so that they can get to know whether I would be a good fit for them as far as a coach. I believe that it’s not just the coaching service, it’s the person who delivers the surface and how you relate to them. You need to resonate with the person you’re working with. I want people to have an opportunity to meet me.
It's important to resonate with the person you’re working with in a coaching relationship. Share on X
The discovery sessions are for people to have an opportunity to spend some time with me and find out if I would be a good fit for them as a coach because I believe that it’s important to resonate with the person that you’re working with, The coaching service is important, but it’s not as important as having that connection with the person that you’re working with and feeling comfortable. I offer that as an opportunity for people to meet with me, and then we can see whether they would be a good fit for the program.
I think that’s a great idea because then they can talk with you and see how they feel, and they can get help. Some people probably need the one-on-one because maybe they’re not as extroverted or they’re in so much pain and others need the comfort of community and other people and all that. I can totally understand that you provide both. Do you have a special offer for our Grief and Rebirth audience?
I do. My book is launching tomorrow. I’m going to offer everybody the first chapter for free. You can read it and download it off my website, which is HealingEnergy.world. You can go there and under the tab Books, you can find Awakening Through Grief and then you can download that chapter. If you feel that it’s going to help you, then order the book on Amazon because it’s available. That link is there as well. All of my other resources are on that website as well. All my meditations are there and the opportunity to do my angel readings.
The grief group get-together or that support group we were talking about is free. You can sign up for that and I will give you notifications when we’re having those meetings. With that support group, I keep notes. I put those on my website as well. If you want to access those, you can look back at what we’ve talked about for the last two years. All the resources that we’ve brought forward are available, and that’s all free too. I know a lot of people find that comforting as well.
Finding Joy After Loss
It’s so generous of you. That’s lovely. Let me ask you this. When someone is in the depths of grief, it can be hard to imagine life without that constant pain. We both know that. What advice do you give to people who feel like they’ll never find joy again after a loss? A lot of people feel that way, “This is it. This is where I’m going to be for the rest of my life in this world.”
The message is out there. That’s the other thing. You hear that. People say that, and some people have been grieving for a long time and they will tell you, “I’m still missing him.” We all have our timelines that we work through, but sitting and waiting for it to go away isn’t going to work. You have to be active in the healing process, so accessing a coach or doing more research on how you can move through grief.
Keep searching. Don’t give up and think that you’re going to be in this space forever because that’s not what god has intended. That’s not what is supposed to be happening. Be careful with your beliefs. Check them. Do you believe that? That’s what I had to do. Do I believe that? Do I believe that I’m going to feel this way forever? If not, then how can I change how I feel?
That’s so true. A lot of people feel, “Now I’ve had this loss and I can’t move. I’m frozen in time forever.” I remember feeling that way. Having to give myself permission, when something wonderful happens, I was feeling happy, but the truth is those emotions can exist together. One doesn’t have to cancel out the other.
The depths of grief, you do think you can’t come out. There is that. There’s something with the mind that puts you into that space that’s hard to break free. That’s why I love your podcast. I love what you’re doing because that message is coming out again and again. You don’t have to stay there, and so keep searching.
There are people out there like Angel who can help you. I could not have done it for myself without people who helped me. I think it’s wonderful to have you here. You are such an admirable role model for turning grief into a pathway for transformation, growth, and renewed purpose through your unique lens of personal experience, spiritual insights, and practical tools. Angela. I cherish our personal connection and I thank you from my heart for this uplifting and enlightening interview on Grief and Rebirth. It’s a blessing. As I like to say, to be continued. Thank you, Angela, and many blessings.
Same to you.
Guest Links:
- Angela Clement
- Awakening Through Grief
- Awaken Your Soul’s Journey
- Awaken Your Soul’s Journey – Facebook
- Connect with Angela Clement on Instagram and Facebook
Host Links:
About Angela Clement
Angela Clement is a former school principal, speaker, angel intuitive, writer, energy healer and the creator and host of the Awaken Your Soul’s Journey Series on grief.
A certified grief coach, she helps people in one-on-one and group settings reconnect with their authentic selves after loss.
“You have been such a light, help, mentor and most importantly a friend I wanted to honor my beautiful daughter by supporting the person that brings healing to me and so many. You are such a gift.”
