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With 27 years of nursing experience, Yvonne Heath has seen a lot, and not the kind of \\u201ca lot\\u201d most of us would choose to witness or experience. She\\u2019s worked in numerous aspects of health care, including the Emergency Department, ICU, Chemotherapy, Palliative Care, and Hospice.\\xa0

She has come face-to-face and heart-to-heart with grief, whether with a patient or through supporting their loved ones through some of the most painful moments of hurt and loss.\\xa0

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And not just the painful moments in others\\u2019 lives, but in hers, as well. At one point, her teenage son was spiraling into drug addiction, she was raising 4-year-old twins, and working full-time as a Chemo Nurse\\u2026 For a while she \\u201cwent steady\\u201d with Red-Red Wine, attempting to numb her feelings so she could keep moving.\\xa0

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Inspired by real-life physician, Patch Adams, she decided to offer a different approach, one that allows our humanness \\u2013 heart and humor \\u2013\\xa0 to come into the room.\\xa0\\u201cWe all experience these hard, heavy feelings,\\u201d\\xa0she explains.\\xa0\\u201cEmotion is energy in motion; it has to move through us\\u2026\\u201d\\xa0We need to allow those feelings to show up and sit with them; how we move forward in our lives is determined in large part by how to approach and embrace or avoid grief.\\xa0

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What she learned along the way is that we need each other, especially in times of grief. And even when we have no idea what to say or do, we can always \\u201cJust Show Up\\u201d and be there with people, hold the space for them to experience what we\\u2019re experiencing, and love them through it. Eventually, what we need to do or say will become evident\\u2026 but in the meantime, we let others know that loss \\u2013 of whatever kind (job, home, health, marriage, loved ones\\u2026) \\u2013 doesn\\u2019t need to isolate us as we attempt to navigate our way through.\\xa0

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She shares some signs of grief, as it often comes disguised as something else; part of the armor many of us take on in our attempts to not be vulnerable. She also speaks of the dreaded \\u201cpolite conversation\\u201d many of us engage in when we know someone has been through something traumatic because we\\u2019re not sure what to say, and perhaps we\\u2019re afraid if we discuss it frankly, it may touch us, as well.

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Yvonne has been a registered nurse since 1988, working in ten different hospitals in the US and Canada in many areas including emergency, intensive care, chemotherapy and hospice.\\xa0

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She became disheartened by our society\\u2019s reluctance to talk about, plan, and prepare for grief and life\\u2019s challenges\\u2014causing excessive suffering in life and at the end of life. She suffered, too, not knowing how to do it differently.\\xa0

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In 2015, she took a leap of faith, left her nursing career and blazed a new trail. By helping us prepare BEFORE, she brings heart and humor to grief, death, and dying. She shares her message as an Inspirational Speaker, with her book\\xa0Love Your Life to Death, as a television and radio host, and through social media.\\xa0

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In 2019, she delivered her TEDx Talk:\\xa0Transforming Grief, by Just Showing Up.\\xa0

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Driven by her vision that everyone lives, grieves, and dies well, Yvonne is traveling and helping great organizations along the way.\\xa0

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Yvonne\\xa0online \\u2013 Love Your Life to Death

Yvonne\\u2019s TEDx Talk\\xa0

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