We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Susan Hannifin MacNab. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Susan below.
Susan, looking forward to hearing all of your stories today. Was there a defining moment in your professional career? A moment that changed the trajectory of your career?
My career as a grief and trauma educator happened quite by accident. I had no intention of becoming immersed in the world of helping individuals heal from profound loss. I was completely content with my chosen profession. Twenty years of working as a teacher and social worker on behalf of children, youth, and families had been extremely fulfilling. But life has a way of shifting things. Sometimes the shifts are monumental. Sometimes they alter the course of life. Sometimes they propel one to take action.
My own monumental life shift occurred in 2012.
I was forty-one years old. I was a wife and a mother.
Until my husband went out for a Sunday drive and didn’t show up for dinner. Until he didn’t show up for breakfast. Until he was silent. Until police and investigators were involved and he was declared a missing person. Until the search began. Until weeks went by and his vehicle was discovered. Until his body was recovered in the wreckage. Until he never returned home.
Unable to move. Unable to see. Not a thing in the world made sense anymore. One moment I had been living overseas with my preschool-aged child and international business professor husband. We were in transition, moving across the world to settle back in America. Our personal belongings were en route, on a container ship bobbing across the Pacific Ocean. The next moment my husband—best friend, co-parent, athletic adventure buddy, travel partner, house chef, family comedian, devoted dad, creative artist, talented musician, brilliant young surfing professor—was . . . dead? Impossible. I sat ravaged, immobilized, and completely alone in that pit of darkness and despair for an eternity.
Until something bumped against me. Was I really alone? It was a young child. Our five-year-old son. He was in the pit too. I didn’t care about myself, but I did care about him. How could I save him? How could I get him out of here? I needed to save myself first. But where should I begin? My life was already in flux: no house, no car, no job, no community, few friends. And now I had a distressed child, a dead husband, unimaginable grief, indescribable trauma, and little desire to keep living. Where would I even begin?
At first I thought time would help us heal. But time marched on. And we felt worse. Something was missing.
Action. Intention.
As a seasoned social worker, I had been trained to research, organize, and connect other people to resources in their community. Certainly I could find some tools to help myself?
As a credentialed teacher, my heart had been trained to love, support, and provide the best care for children. Certainly I could dig deep to help my own child?
I was propelled to act, both personally and professionally, to find resources that would help me intentionally restore, renew, and rebuild a new life.
So I went searching. Actively. Intentionally. For tools that would help us heal. And I found them.
This alphabet of powerful healing tools is gathered in the book I published, A to Z Healing Toolbox: A Practical Guide for Navigating Grief and Trauma with Intention (2018). They are also at the center of the work I do now in my heart-based business A2Z Healing Toolbox®. As a social worker and educator in the field of bereavement, I have transitioned into helping others by combining my own personal experience with decades of professional knowledge.
Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.
A2Z Healing Toolbox® is a heart-based business that emphasizes healing with intention, education through action, and post-traumatic growth and healing. Through A2Z Healing Toolbox®, I provide solo sessions and peer support groups, live and virtual workshops for the bereaved, staff training and development for helping professionals, keynote speaking engagements, award-winning grief and trauma healing guidebooks and the brand new A2Z Healing Toolbox® Podcast. Our culture has so much work to do in the way of helping people heal after a profound loss and life-changing experiences. I feel grateful that I am now able to provide some assistance as I walk with others on their journey of restoration, renewal, and rebuilding.
A2Z SESSIONS FOR THE BEREAVED: I work with both large and small groups of youth and adults who are learning to navigate life with grief and trauma. This includes at-risk teens, families with medical challenges, bereaved parents and young widows with children. Workshop participants are at various points in their healing process and individuals have an openness and willingness to try new or varied approaches to healing through action and intention. A2Z workshops are tailored to 60 minutes, 90 minutes, half-day or full-day sessions. Each interactive class engages participants and features teaching techniques that emphasize an entire alphabet’s worth of healing tools. The focus of each workshop is customized to meet the unique needs of the group. A2Z tools that may be included in each particular workshop are as follows:
A = ANIMALS
B = BREATHWORK
C = COUNSELING
D = DOING YOUR HOMEWORK
E = ENERGY THERAPIES
F = FLOWERS & FRAGRANCE
G = GROUP WORK
H = HIGHER POWER HELP
I = IMAGERY
J = JOURNALING
K = KNOWING YOUR NEW ENVIRONMENT
L = LAUGHTER
M = MEDITATION
N = NUTRITION
O = ORGANIZING YOUR SUPPORTS
P = PEER MENTORING
Q = QUOTES THAT INSPIRE HOPE
R = RIGHT BRAIN RELEASE
S = SLIDING INTO EXERCISE
T = TOUCH
U = UTILIZING NATURE
V = VOLUNTEERING
W = WESTERN & EASTERN MEDICINE
X = EXAMINING YOUR POSITIVES
Y = YOUR SELF CARE
Z = ZZZZZZs (Sleep)
A2Z PROFESSIONAL DEVELOPMENT & TRAINING: I provide inspirational keynote addresses, conference presentations, and staff training for organizations and groups of professionals who work with grieving and/or traumatized individuals. Trainings have been provided for social workers, therapists, teachers, business groups, lay ministers, doctors, nurses, hospice interns, university staff, marriage, and family therapy students and non-profit foundations. My professional training as a social worker, educator and community organizer combined with my personal experience as a widow and mother to a grieving child give me a powerful perspective on grief, trauma, and the healing process. The topics I cover during training and presentations can be customized to meet the needs of the organization. Topics can include:
A2Z Healing Toolbox: 26 Powerful Tools for Health Professionals
Solo Parenting: Tools for the Family Healing Journey
Post-Traumatic Growth: Tools for Learned Resiliency
Totally Terrific Tools for Kids: 26 Fun Ways to Heal
Grief to Growth: A Personal Story of Restoration and Renewal
Taming Trauma: How to Harness and Heal Trauma with Intention
Broken Yet Blooming: How to Bridge the Grief-Growth Gap
Eco-Map Your Life: A New Way to Navigate Social Change
The Right Brain: Creative Techniques to Heal Grief and Trauma
Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?
As I stood outside the conference room door waiting to be called in, I wondered what sort of crazy situation I had gotten myself into. But I didn’t care. I was already living through the worst pain imaginable (the grief and trauma associated with the sudden death of my young husband) so how bad could this be? “In crisis,” I remembered, “you may find yourself experiencing emotions you have never felt before, attempting solutions you have never imagined having to contemplate, and responding with behaviors that seemed fastened together with psychological duct tape” (Daphne Rose Kingma, The 10 Things to Do When Your Life Falls Apart). So, yes, my life was in crisis. And, yes, I was attempting to find a solution by volunteering my face for study. Then, yes, I was responding to grief and trauma by sitting in front of fifty student practitioners while Jean Haner, expert in the ancient art of Chinese face reading and author of The Wisdom of Your Face, investigated every line, wrinkle, and angle of my face to assist me in personal healing and positive energetic shifts.
“You are the archetype called Warrior,” Haner began. “You are linear, logical, commonsense, and action-oriented. You have a large widow’s peak (yes, I see the irony here) which indicates that you are highly intuitive in nature. You are a highly spiritual person and have a depth of emotion that others may not know you have. Your forehead indicates that you learn hands-on. The natural arch and fullness of your eyebrows indicate self-confidence, logical thinking processes, strength, and assertiveness. Your eyelids indicate you are really good at stepping up to help others, but not so good at receiving the help yourself. The white underneath your eyes indicates that you are extremely stressed and that needs to be taken very seriously.”
“All my work is based on ancient Chinese medicine,” Haner continued. “The ancient Chinese culture found that in science, nature, medicine, and business, enormous change comes out of some tiny tipping point, some inconsequential energetic shift. There is energy I want to boost in your life right now, so let’s begin with colors. Colors have a frequency. The main color I want to boost for you is yellow. Add more yellow to your wardrobe, your home, your environment, your artwork. Energy of women is also important for you.”
But what fascinated me most about Chinese face reading was its capacity to suggest harnessing energy for positive change. Energy? I had never given much thought to energy and how it could help me heal.
After this experience, I started to pay more attention to lifting my own energy and meeting practitioners who used energy to heal. Over the last several years, I have worked with Reiki Master Teachers and Healing Touch practitioners to restore balance to my mind, body, and spirit. I have participated in Somato-Emotional Release sessions where negative energy cysts were cleared from my body. And I have practiced using Emotional Freedom Technique (EFT or Tapping) to harness the healing, centering, and balancing power of my own energy meridians. Learning from others and integrating their knowledge has helped me restore, rebalance and renew- and in turn, I can now reach a hand back to assist others who are in pain.
Putting training and knowledge aside, what else do you think really matters in terms of succeeding in your field?
In the field of grief & trauma education and bereavement, I believe that authenticity is the most helpful tool for success. It is of utmost importance that individuals and families truly understand that I have both professional knowledge and personal experience- and that my personal story is shared. For example, I work with many widowed people (in solo sessions, small groups and large workshops) who need to relate intimately. They want to know: How do you raise a child as a solo parent? What did you do with your husband’s belongings? How long did it take until you really cared to live again? Where did you go for therapeutic support? Who helped you survive the first months and years? I am as authentic as possible when working with clients because when they can relate to my story, they feel comfortable sharing theirs. It is in that communal sharing that healing begins- and continues for years to come.
Contact Info:
- Website: www.a2zhealingtoolbox.com
- Instagram: A2Z Healing Toolbox
- Facebook: A2Z Healing Toolbox
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/susan-hannifin-macnab-msw-ppsc-1b2549124/
Image Credits
Robin Litrenta Photography