It’s My U-Box and I’ll Cry If I Want To

trigger warning, the Resilience Project provides an open space for people to share their personal experiences. Some content in this podcast may include topics that you may find difficult, the listeners discretion is advised.

Hello friends, welcome to radical resilience, a weekly show where I Blair Kaplan Venables have inspirational conversations with people who have survived life's most challenging times. We all have the ability to be resilient and bounce forward from a difficult experience. And these conversations prove just that, get ready to dive into these life changing moments while strengthening your resilience muscle and getting raw and real.

Welcome back to another episode of radical resilience. It's me, Blair Kaplan Venable and I'm here to tell you a story. So if you've been following along, you know what my life has been like, the highs, the lows, the cries, the laughs The cries. And if you're new to this world, let me give you a little update. So over the last few years, my husband almost died. He had a heart attack and quadruple bypass surgery. We were told we couldn't get pregnant after trying to have a child for multiple years. I got pregnant naturally, but unfortunately suffered a miscarriage. A few weeks later, my father in law suddenly died of cancer. Three months later, my mother suddenly died of cancer. And not even a year later, my father died. And it has been a lot and I run my own business. I'm the president of Blair Kaplan communications. I'm a social media expert and mentor, a writer, a speaker, a motivational speaker, you know, and a creator. Like I love creating, I have clients, I do work for privately, I do consulting, so I have a lot on the go. And when my mother died, it was like whiplash, like emotional whiplash. She was not feeling good. For a few months, didn't tell me my sister kind of knew. And from learning she had cancer but not officially diagnosed because they couldn't officially diagnose it without a biopsy, to when she passed away was only three weeks. And you have to keep in mind. The few months prior, I lost my baby and my father in law. So losing my mother was not even in my, like my, my mind, like my sister and I talked about this in Atlanta's biggest fear was my mom dying, where my grandma my mom's mom had a very steady diet of chicken fingers and Chinese food and lived to her 90s And I believe was like, very into smoking when she was younger. Like she was not like the, you know, picture of health. So I just thought my mom was probably, you know, gonna live a little longer than age 62. And she actually had a weird premonition because she died early February, mid February. And that New Year's she had this weird feeling that she wanted to redo her will. And in her will, she redid it, she managed to sign it just in time before she died, which is bonkers. But she made my sister and I the executor of her estate. Upon learning that we learned that it's better just to have one executor executor tricks that I don't know, it's weird one.

So my sister really relinquished her power and I took charge. And, you know, I'm still dealing with that process. Now. We're also managing and managing the beginning of our fathers. I don't even know if it's called an estate, but he didn't have a will. And we're navigating deep paperwork. So I'm navigating. We're not me, me and my sister are navigating the loss of two parents. And, you know, I used to not really cry. But let me tell you, I am a crier. And there has been a lot of tears like frustration, deep sadness, little sadness, big sadness, like moments of happiness, beautiful moments where like, I feel my mom or my dad's energy with me. There's been a lot of crying. And so when my mum passed away, she had a house in Winnipeg. I mean, neither my sister and I, we weren't going to take the house because my sister would have had to buy me out and she wasn't prepared to do that. At the time. She was living in Toronto, and we decided, you know if, you know, Alanna was to move back to Winnipeg. What she did it probably be better to not be in our mother's house. And so when I went to Winnipeg from British Columbia, when my mom was sick, I wasn't going because she was dying. I was going trying to help her. I didn't plan on bearing our mother. And so I was in Winnipeg for about a month from when I went there to help her to, you know, after the funeral and Shiva and starting to manage her affairs, and Alanna and I took a break and decided we needed a break to go back to our live sports and stuff out. And we come back to Winnipeg to pack up our mother's house. And my mother kept everything, like not a hoarder that you would see on TV, but anything that would, you know, I would make a daycare or a doodle on a napkin or a love note or science project, or mother kept everything for both of us projects, jewelry, like creations, I was a very crafty, creative kid. And she actually, you know, upon packing your house up, kept a lot of photo albums, like we got a glimpse right into our mother's like childhood, which was super cool. But my sister and I were now tasked with packing up this bungalow and basement of all of my stuff from my childhood, all of Atlanta stuff, all of my mother's stuff. And it was really hard. We started to do it alone. But then we decided we needed help. Luckily, we you know, worked with a company called seniors moving company leases amazing. And what we were going to do was we were going to pack it up, pack everything up that we wanted to keep put it in storage. And then the rest of the stuff we were going to try and maybe sell or give away donate throw out. And with the help of Lisa and her company, she did this. So our task was to make sure that we wanted to the everything that we wanted to save as and we weren't sure what to do us or we didn't know what we wanted to do with it. Or we for sure wanted to keep it was to put it away in storage. So Atlanta and I got a U haul storage locker filled it with the things that we knew we wanted to keep the stuff I knew I wanted to ship from Manitoba to British Columbia the stuff that we weren't sure of. And like it was chaos like we were in such a traumatic state. Like I couldn't even tell you what I packed like I knew I had a rocking chair. My auntie Heather made me when I was a kid or like got made for me and a table but I could not tell you what else was in there things that I knew I needed to keep or that I wasn't sure about. And so we put all the stuff we wanted to revisit in a storage locker. And we proceeded to pack up and work with this company on getting the house basically empty so we can do some basic rentals and get it listed. So fast forward to most recently it was time for us to empty the locker so it has been it had been about a year and a bit. Alanna had moved back to Winnipeg. I was coming to Winnipeg for our mother's unveiling. And it was now time to empty the storage locker move Alanna stuff into her house and move my stuff from Manitoba to British Columbia. I was on the road for a media tour. Really exciting things are you know going on getting our message out there for the global Resilience Project. So I was on a media tour. And

Alanna helped me book a company was like I don't even know what to do like please help me so she helped book a company through U haul. And the company. This package like a company comes in unpacks the storage locker and puts everything in something called a U box. And then the U box is then shipped from point A to point B so shipped from the U haul storage facility in Manitoba in Winnipeg to Kamloops and then in Kamloops on the date that I want it they were to deliver it to my house here in Kamloops. And then another moving company was going to come and unload it. Now I have a bad back Shane has a bad back. I knew there wasn't a lot of stuff in there. For me, it was more emotional labor. Like I haven't fully unpacked my house. And I've lived here since September. Because every time I start to unpack some boxes, I find my mother's stuff. And it derails me. And I'm slowly doing it. When I'm in the right headspace, you know, starting to unpack boxes that were in my office, my mother's jewelry, you know, stuff that I I want to have in my life. But it's hard. It's emotionally hard. And there were some big things like this coffee table that for whatever reason was like the crown jewel of my father and my mother's life. This coffee table was like custom made and really fancy schmancy back in the 80s. And it was very important to my mother and my father that we keep this coffee table and I don't even understand the logic. And in fact, it looks really good in my basement, in our media room. So that's good. But so the delivery date comes I've been coordinating with this moving company from another town who's going to come and unload and let me tell you this moving company, I don't even know the name of them because it's all sorted through U haul but they did not have good customer service like at all like telecom complaining to me about the job and the amount they were charging and the cost of gas and employing it like it was just like I didn't need to deal with that. You know if we had a relationship, maybe airing out your dirty laundry You would have been more appropriate, but this was not appropriate. And so I was coordinating with him while I was in New York, what time he was gonna come I you know, double check, triple check with U haul. And then the day that u haul u x was supposed to arrive. It didn't. It didn't. And it was very hard to get a hold of U haul. And finally someone answered. And they said that they were down a trailer, and that it wasn't coming till the next day. So I called the moving company and let them know they are down a trailer, it will be here tomorrow and the moving company lost it on me and basically had a little bit of their own breakdown saying like, they can't come for a couple days. And they're gonna let me know what time and this amount I said, Fine. Just let me know when because you will need their trailer back. So I had this orange U box sitting outside my house, you know, with the ghosts of my past locked inside. I'm like I could open it and start doing it. But I'm paying a company and like it wasn't even super full. My gut was telling me just unloaded Blair just unload it. But I didn't my sister came to visit which was amazing. It was our first time here we published on the global Resilience Project book, which is now available in print form on Amazon, go buy it. And I got a call. I got a call on the fourth on Monday from U haul, hey, we're gonna come get that trailer. I'm like, well, the moving company hasn't come I can't get ahold of them. They haven't told me what time they're coming to unload it. So like my stuffs in it. They said we need to come get it tomorrow morning at 9am. So I called the moving company and flat out the guy said to me, we're not coming, like what he's like, the date moved, you hired us for a day, the day came and went, we're not coming. And he proceeded to be very unprofessional. And in my professional conversation with him, I let him know that he was terrible customer service. And that was the end of the conversation. Probably I did not handle it the best. But then I called my husband to tell him what was happening and that we had to unload it ourselves. And I got really upset, like really upset. And I found myself aggressively unlocking the U box and like pulling out pins and untaken off the grade and going in and started moving this stuff out. And I was crying and I wasn't crying because the guy canceled. I was crying because like if this is not what I wanted to deal with, I'm running a business I have stuff to do. I've worked to finish so I can build clients and finish my obligations. You know, it's just not what I wanted to deal with. On Monday, I wanted to just have a good Cruzi day the day started off amazing with a workout and a hot tub and meditating and it did not end well. So in the middle, the afternoon I call my husband he was out. I was like I'm not waiting, I want to just start doing this and I start unloading the boxes. I left like the really heavy stuff for Shane. And I start unloading and I start crying and like it, it's like manageable crying like people rolling by, you know, in their cars can kind of see me. And then I come across a box. And the box is labeled baby clothes of Blair. And this is a box that my mom kept of my baby clothes. So when she became a Baba, she would be able to give them some of my clothes, you know, because I think that's maybe every grandparents dream. I don't really know.

And it's a big box and I just lost it. I cried like I had like I couldn't catch my breath, maybe borderline nervous breakdown, deep belly face brain full body cry deep into the UBox the echo chambers and the abyss of the UBox I'd be surprised if you could hear my cries probably down the street, let alone probably Winnipeg like it was a big, huge release. It was so upsetting. And this was one of those cries that took everything out of me. And so I cried for hours like I couldn't. I mean, like I got it. Like I got to the point where I can breathe, but I just couldn't stop crying like I open a faucet. And you know, it's one of those things where I'm poking at a bruise Right? Like you you don't lose grief. You learn to layer your life around grief, and it's painful. And sometimes the grief surfaces and you don't know when it's coming. But you know, I decided I'm going to cancel the rest of my day. The next day I was gonna get up really early and do all the work I cancelled and I laid in bed and watch rally TV. It was really hard it was really shitty. But you know what crying is healthy? Like why do you hold your cry it like you know like don't hold it in. Don't hold it in. So according to Medical News Today, I did some research because I thought I wanted to tell you this story and like crying like I'm just like I embrace it. Like if I need to cry in public or cry in public. I usually have some sunglasses with me. You know if I need to like hide in like I'd in my backyard and cry I do if I need to burst into tears and have a full body like cry into a you box. I will. And you know what, like, you're gonna cry in grief. You're gonna want to cry, let yourself cry. So, let's talk about the benefits of crying just like high level I looked up some research based on what I've seen on medical news. today.com You know, humans produce three types of tears basal reflex emotional, I'm really talking about these emotional tears. I cry when I'm happy I cry when there's a beautiful moment in Grey's Anatomy or a Procter and Gamble, commercial, usually around the Olympics. And lately a lot of sad tears, grief, tears, sad tears, mourning the life I never had, you know, back to that eat that the box of baby clothes. I made the decision to not have a baby. I'm not going to have kids, at least at this point in time. I don't think I'm going to have my own biological kids. I don't feel the need to be a mother anymore. So that box wasn't just like, oh, no, this is sad. It was my mom's she was saving it to be a grandma. It was a reminder that I'm mourning that I'm not going to be a mother the life that I thought I was going to have. I don't have I haven't finished morning that I haven't finished or even really managed morning my miscarriage because I've been in a grief sandwich. So I have had a lot of sad tears. So why should you cry? Both scientifically, it has soothing effects, helps you regulate your emotions, right? People sweat when they're hot to cool themselves down, tears do the same. Crying does the same. It helps to self soothe. Babies cry for a reason. It helps you know signal that something's wrong, that you maybe need support from others. And not everyone has empathy, like full disclosure, but there are people in your life that you probably can turn to and you can cry to. And there's also professionals like therapists, I really believe in therapy, and counseling and grief therapy and couples therapy and everything that you need. Like there's people there that you can get support from who are trained. It helps to relieve pain, heart pain, brain pain, physical pain. You know, research has found that in addition to being self soothing, shedding emotional tears releases oxytocin and endorphins, it really helps you feel better. And crying actually might even help lift up your mood and make you feel better because of those chemicals. And also, it helps to relieve stress, we hold so much stress inside of us, it releases those toxins, it relieves stress. And you know what, I'm always really tired after a big cry, and I hear it aid sleep. So if you're really upset and having trouble sleeping, maybe you need to have a big cry. There's a whole bunch of other reasons that crying is good for you. But I really just believe in not holding in your emotions. unprocessed emotions will manifest in other ways. Illness skin, you know, like it comes for me it comes out and acne and body pain. So I really do what I need to do to regulate my emotions, being sober has really helped practicing gratitude every day at nine o'clock helps meditating, journaling, having a therapist and showing up and telling you, my listeners what's going on. So, you know, the box is empty, it's gone. My mom's stuff is in my basement. I'm

slowly going to unpack it. You know, yesterday, I didn't cry. Yesterday was a good day the day before. I didn't cry also a good day, who knows what today tomorrow and the next day will bring? But I need to honor feelings of happiness, feelings of sadness, feelings of grief, and I really invite you to do the same crying is okay. And it's totally okay to not be okay. You're not in this alone. Our community, the global Resilience Project community is here for you. Our website, I am resilient info has stories of resilience. This podcast has stories of resilience. We are not in this thing called life alone. we're in it together. There's always a light at the end of the tunnel. Sometimes the tunnel seems really really long and that you can't see the end. But you'll get through it. You'll get through it and know that you are resilient. And I'm here for you. Again, it's Blair Kaplan Venables. Thank you for listening to my story about why crying so good and how I cried a really deep body cry into our you box or my you box. Thank you for tuning in to another episode when we'll catch you next week. Thank you.