We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Mindy Meiering. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Mindy below.

Mindy, appreciate you joining us today. One of our favorite things to hear about is stories around the nicest thing someone has done for someone else – what’s the nicest thing someone has ever done for you?

I grew up in the Midwest and lived there my entire life until age 30… for years, I’d been drawn to the West and in 2002 I moved to Durango, CO, where I’d taken a job at a small community hospital as their full-time social worker. I became friends with a number of coworkers. One nurse in particular, Stacy, became a close friend and I spent quite a bit of time with her and her husband and a small circle of friends during the first couple years I was in Durango.

During that time I found out one of my dearest friends from home, Maggie, had a recurrence of ovarian cancer that had progressed to Stage 4. I knew Maggie wouldn’t likely live much longer, but flights to get back to the Midwest were super expensive and I was still recovering from the cost of moving the year before and some other unexpected expenses that had set me back a bit financially.

One day at work I was telling my friend about Maggie and the whole situation, and how heartbroken I felt, and within an hour she took me aside and said “Mindy, please don’t question this, just accept it. My husband and I want to buy you a ticket to go visit Maggie.”

I still get teary when I think about how kind and generous a gesture this was! I was able to get back and see Maggie one last time and had such a sweet visit with her just months before she went into hospice and then died the next year. Even though I’ve been fortunate to be the recipient of many kindnesses in my life, this one really stands out to me. I’ve since payed it forward many times as I’ve been able to and always carry that act of kindness and generosity from Stacy and her husband in my heart as I plant the seeds of kindness when(where)ever I can.

Great, appreciate you sharing that with us. Before we ask you to share more of your insights, can you take a moment to introduce yourself and how you got to where you are today to our readers.

My name is Mindy Meiering and I’m a licensed therapist, professional life coach, proud dog mama to Izzy and Charlie, and author of the Rainbow Bridge Pet Loss Deck.

My professional training began when I got my Master’s in Social Work in 1995. I went on to work with thousands of clients, mainly in hospital settings, supporting people as they navigated different kinds of serious health issues, losses and life transitions. I became a professional life coach in 2004 and have been in private practice for most of the last couple decades. I’m also a certified mindfulness teacher and have been a writer since I started my first journal almost 40 years ago!

Aside from my professional training and decades of experience, it was my own experiences of touching into grief and loss that led me to create the Rainbow Bridge Pet Loss Deck.

In November of 2015, I was diagnosed with lymphoma and one of my best friends died from cancer less than two weeks later. I was also in the midst of a 7-year infertility treatment journey that did not turn out the way my husband and I had hoped it would. In the midst of grieving the loss of not being able to have our own children, we also lost our two senior dogs in 2017 and 2019. It was a string of really heartbreaking losses.

Ellie, who had been my first dog (I’d adopted her in 2003), died in January of 2019. I’d started to write a book about pet loss after our other senior dog, Trek, had died, but set that project aside when I began my cancer healing journey. Ellie’s death was a whole other level of heartbreak. She’d been my first dog, my beloved animal companion for so long… we’d shared so much life together. I’d companioned her through major surgery in 2015 to remove a cancerous tumor that was lodged between her lung and heart and she’d been by my side throughout so many joys and sorrows in my life. Even though I knew it was the right time to let her go that day, it was still so incredibly painful to say goodbye to her.

I gave myself the time I needed to heal from losing Ellie and as I began to near the end of two years of cancer treatment, I had the time and bandwidth to pick up a book project I’d started back in 2017, a few months after our other dog Trek had died. It was in the early days of the pandemic. But as I dove in, it dawned on me… a deck would be a better format for sharing what I wanted to share!

Anyone who is experiencing acute grief will tell you how destabilizing a force it can be. One’s ability to focus or concentrate is typically impacted, and while books may be helpful at some point on a person’s grief journey, I thought offering grieving pet parents these shorter, more concise messages in my deck would be a more accessible format. I basically created the healing tool I wish I’d had after losing my own pets!

In addition to my professional experience as a therapist, social worker and life coach, I also have a huge love of paper products, greeting/notecards, and collage art. I’m that person who is always sending someone a card or a handwritten note (long live snail mail!) so creating this deck made sense on so many levels. It was a way for me to “make meaning” of my own loss and honor Ellie’s life and our 15-year journey together plus I got to combine so many of my loves: teaching, writing, creating, and making my first ever paper product! Although to call the deck a “product” feels so sterile to me. It’s really a healing tool that combines 52 messages of support that I wrote with the most gorgeous, healing artwork by Amy Frank. There is an alchemy that arose from the combination that seems to really touch people’s hearts and support them on their pet loss grief healing journeys.

When I first published the deck. I thought that people who had lost a pet would buy it for themselves. I’ve been surprised, though (and deeply touched!), that most of the people who purchase it are actually buying it as a gift to give to someone they care about who’s lost a pet. The thoughtfulness, caring and compassion people show to others touches my heart regularly. I think we so often want to “do” something helpful or comforting for our loved ones when they’ve lost a pet, but many people say they don’t know what to do. Giving someone my deck is a way to show you care AND it offers grieving pet lovers 52 different coping strategies and ideas for honoring their pet’s memory. We all grieve differently, thus the variety of ideas for working with grief that I offer in these cards.

I think what I’m most proud of is listening to my heart and taking the time I needed to really feel like the deck was complete before I sent it off to my printer. There were many times I felt impatient and just wanted to get it done and get it out into the world, but I kept reminding myself that it would be worth it to take my time and make sure it was exactly the way I wanted it to sound, look and feel before I released it. And taking the extra time was so worth it. The overwhelmingly positive feedback I get each week from people using it, from veterinarians and pet professionals who are sharing it with their bereaved clients, makes the two years and couple thousand hours I put into this project all worth it 100%!

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

I lost my first dog, Ellie, in January of 2019, about 6 months into a two-year course of treatment I was undergoing for Stage 3 B-cell lymphoma. Ellie had been my first dog and we’d had an amazing fifteen year journey together. She had been my hiking buddy, my loyal companion, and by my side throughout so many life transitions, both joyful and challenging ones. Losing her helped me see that while my heart hurt deeply, I had the capacity to hold that grief and it really was a reflection of how deeply I had loved Ellie. I drew upon the tools and resources I had available to me – practices I had used and also taught to hundreds of others in my work – and allowed these to support me as I navigated that time of loss and moved through the ups and downs of going through my cancer healing journey.

I think two of the most helpful tools I drew upon were mindfulness and gratitude. Mindfulness helped me stay grounded in the present moment and not get too caught up in rehashing the past or forecasting what “might” happen in the future. My gratitude practice helped me stay connected to the goodness that unfolded each day. As I moved through that time of grief, it was often simply noticing the support that showed up for me, the comfort I found in spending time in nature and with people I loved, spending time with our surviving dog, Charlie. I let myself hold grief in one hand and gratitude in the other and that supported me not only as I adjusted to life without Ellie but also as I moved through the remaining 18 months of my treatments.

Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?

I think having a heart for this work is important. Underlying the business aspect of what I’ve created and am sharing with the world now, there is a deep passion for supporting people who have lost a beloved pet. Pet loss is considered to be a form of “disenfranchised grief,” which means it’s not as widely acknowledged or validated as pother forms of grief . Yet, when you talk to most pet parents who have lost a beloved animal companion they will tell you that losing a pet is often every bit as painful (if not moreso) as losing a human they’ve loved. I think my passion for helping to validate this kind of grief and offer support to people who are experiencing the heartbreaking loss of a pet underlies what I do. I stay connected to this when I’m sitting in my office doing bookkeeping or some of the aspects of running my business that are less enjoyable for me!

Contact Info:

• Website: www.rainbowbridgedeck.com
• Instagram: @rainbowbridgedeck.com
• Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/mindy.meiering
• Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/mindy-meiering-lcsw-88211b133/
• Other: www.mindymeiering.com is my personal/coaching website

Image Credits
Photo Credit (of Mindy in rainbow wrap): Allison Ragsdale Photo Credit (of Mindy & Ellie): @heavenmacarthur