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Stay Sparked #17 "Grief & Loss"
8 Plays2 years ago
On this episode of Stay Sparked, we talk about grief and loss. We share our personal experiences, and perspectives on the stages of grief. We talked about the transitory nature of things and grief lessons from Burning Man. We also talked about best practices and processes to move through grief and effectively carry grief.
HOSTS
BETSY FINKLEHOO is a healer of massage therapy, CranioSacral and Dharma Coaching. She is an 8 year burner and has spent the last several years seeped in the personal development world, cultivating her passion for transformation and growth. Her recent project, The Power Affirmation Journal and virtual group empowers women to cultivate self awareness and healthy habits so they can live in greater freedom, mind body and spirit.
http://poweraffirmation.com/
Click here to get a FREE affirmation for Stay Sparked Listeners!
HALCYON is full-time Love Ambassador. He is the founder of Hug Nation YouTube channel and daily zoom gratitude circles. He is co-founder of the Pink Heart Burning Man camp and the 1st Saturdays project for people experiencing homelessness. In his free time he coaches individuals on how to live joyfully and authentically. His other podcast is "Hard on the 80's."
http://JohnStyn.com
JANUS REDMOON is a 10-time Burner, and has spent the last several years as an advocate for psychedelic medicine research and treatment. He is the founder and CEO of NuWorld Nutritionals, a nutritional supplement company providing mushroom-based, all-natural products to improve and maintain health for both body and mind. (Use code "SPARKED" for 10% off)
http://www.nuworldnutritionals.com
MASSIVE Thank you to Dub Sutra for their beautiful opening music. Check out their incredible music catalogue online.
https://dubsutra.com
Recommended
Transcript
Introduction to Stay Sparked
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Speaker
Welcome to Stay Sparked.
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On this show, we explore how to stay inspired in the modern world through the most profound lessons from Burning Man, relationships, entrepreneurship, psychedelics, spirituality, travel, and more.
Exploring Grief and Loss
00:00:16
Speaker
On today's episode of Stay Sparked, we talk about grief and loss, our personal experiences, some of our personal perspectives, and the stages of grief.
00:00:26
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We talked about the transitory nature of things, lessons from Burning Man.
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And best practices and best processes to move through grief and learn how to become someone who doesn't get over grief, but learns how to carry grief with us.
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Enjoy the episode.
Meet the Hosts: Giannis, Betsy, and Halcyon
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Welcome to Stay Sparked.
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We are three friends here to share conversations aimed to inspire and to light you up.
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Thank you so much for listening.
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If you've been enjoying these conversations, we appreciate you leaving us a rating, five stars, please, and a review on the Apple Podcasts and check us out on Spotify as well.
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And please help us to spread the sparks.
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I am Giannis.
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And I'm Betsy.
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And I'm Halcyon.
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I am the founder and CEO of New World Nutritionals, a nutritional supplement company geared that provides a number of mushroom based products, all designed to help improve your state of mind.
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And I am a holistic healthcare practitioner here to inspire and light you up through mind body spirit practices and also the founder of the Power Affirmation Project, teaching life skills for sustainable happiness.
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I am the host of the Hug Nation YouTube channel and the creator of the Love More Fear Less t-shirt shop with lots of feel good slogans to wear about your day.
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Fantastic.
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Fantastic.
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So we always love starting these conversations with a bit of gratitude.
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So Halcyon, could you start us off and what are you feeling grateful for in this moment?
Gratitude Sharing: Halcyon's Practice
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Today I'm feeling grateful for a gratitude practice that I celebrated three years of doing daily gratitude circles in Zoom.
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Started at the beginning of the pandemic and so
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twice a day I've been leading these circles and we actually have three a day that are happening.
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And so we all got together in Zoom this weekend and people shared stories and impacts of their life.
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And it was just such a affirming realization of how significant a practice of gratitude can be.
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And in addition to that, one of our regulars, Aviv, in Israel, she couldn't make it because she went into labor.
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So we have a little gratitude baby that was born to help us celebrate.
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So I'm super grateful for that.
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Yeah.
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So thankful.
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Amazing.
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Nice.
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That's great.
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Beautiful.
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Well, I'll share
Betsy's Nature Reset
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my gratitude.
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I'll jump right in.
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I am grateful for a nature reset.
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I was able to take three days this weekend and go about an hour and a half outside of San Diego and be in Julian, which is the mountains.
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And I just soaked it up with...
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you know, just the stillness of the mountains and that fresh, fresh air from all the trees.
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And I got to watch wild turkeys and I saw deer and just being under the stars.
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And it was so quiet.
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I just, I'm so grateful for an opportunity to have that reset.
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It's kind of like, you know, just turning your computer off or your phone off and it just makes the system run so much better.
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It feels like coming back from that, I feel like I had a
Giannis's Health Journey
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beautiful reset.
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So really grateful for,
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for that nice nice so my uh my gratitude for this morning is you know gosh it's it's kind of speaking to our to our topic today and that um
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As far as feeling gratitude goes, sometimes gratitude isn't the easiest thing to suss out and to source.
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And we always, no matter our circumstances, we always have so much to feel grateful for, to be grateful for, even though we might not be feeling it so much.
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So I've got a number of challenges going on with me right now, but there is gratitude still to be had.
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And that gratitude in this moment is for
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My body, my health, I'm feeling really good right now physically.
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I feel energized.
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I feel like there's no... The older you get, there's always some aches and pains that tend to come along for the ride.
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And not feeling much of that these days.
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So I'm feeling like... Yeah, I noticed it actually the other day.
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Just I was like, wow, my body feels really good.
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I'm feeling kind of energized and getting up easier.
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I'm sleeping much better.
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And yeah, I feel like I'm eating better.
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That's making a difference.
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So I'm making some positive changes and it's reflecting in my body pretty quickly.
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So I'm feeling good and feeling especially grateful for my physical health.
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Bravo.
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Often it takes an injury to remind us how to be grateful for feeling good.
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It takes some effort to be grateful for feeling good in the moment.
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So well done.
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Thanks for that reminder.
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Totally.
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And also the reminder that even when life is challenging, that we can come back to the body.
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It's like, oh, wow, I'm facing some
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deep challenges in life.
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But oh, wait, let me feel my body.
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Oh, I'm healthy.
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I feel good.
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Okay, I'm gonna actually like amplify the focus on that.
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So that is beautiful.
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Yeah, I'm so glad you're feeling well and navigating life's challenges in the best way that you can.
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Yeah, yeah.
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You know, that's all we can do sometimes it's just to do our best, which is always changing from from day to day for sure.
Understanding Grief Stages
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So and
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On that note, our topic today is grief and loss.
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And how do we, how do we, you know, what is that for each of us?
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How do we deal with that?
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How do we process that?
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Because it's such a, it's such a part of life.
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It's, it's something that I, we all experience at some point and pretty, pretty early on.
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So it's, and it's, it's,
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you know, never really far from our, our life's experience.
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Like we can be like, we, you know, life is filled with static highs and some really like low depths and all sorts of, you know, waypoints in between.
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So, so yeah, I think what, what, uh, what is up for us today is to kind of discuss that and how, uh, how that has been a part of our, uh, our individual and collective journeys.
00:07:08
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So, um,
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One thing I would like to, well, first pop quiz for you two.
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So what is, if you're familiar with the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross model of the five stages of grief, what are those stages?
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Ooh, I cheated.
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I wrote them down on my hand.
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Denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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I feel like, I feel like she nailed it.
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Yeah.
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Yeah.
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So yeah.
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And you know, finding it, finding ourselves in, in that, now the, these are not like in order, like they're just part of the process.
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A lot of times, like those, those are like how we remember them.
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Um, but there's, they're not, that's not how it particularly unfolds for us.
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Like we can, we can find ourselves in each one of these, um,
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moments at any point along the spectrum.
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So speaking of spectrum, there is, for me, I'm going to come kind of come at this from a slightly roundabout way.
Spectrum and Appropriateness of Grief
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And that I feel when we're dealing with grief,
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it's important first of all and we all have our own process so there's no right or wrong there's nothing right or wrong that's going to you know transpire in this conversation but just our own individual perspectives and approaches i feel for me that the approaching grief is there's a there's a spectrum of experience of things that you can feel grief about um on one end of the spectrum is you know
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Trader Joe's discontinuing your favorite food item.
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What?
00:09:00
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Like that's, that's a level of, that's a level of tragedy.
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I can't live without those corn crisps.
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I can picture Bessie just dropping to her knees in the aisle.
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So, but that is like one end of the spectrum.
00:09:17
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The other end of the spectrum would be, let's say, you know, you're at your,
00:09:21
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family reunion and a tornado comes by and sweeps all 300 members of your extended family away and you're the only one left like ah so you know something something absurd like that but uh super tragic anyway that's the spectrum of like human tragedy
00:09:39
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For me, I like to pinpoint where am I on that spectrum just to make sure that the grief that I'm experiencing and feeling is appropriate to the situation.
00:09:47
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Because again, there's no right or wrong, but I had a conversation with a
00:09:53
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And a person I remember back in the day who was lamenting her, she was supposed to be head cheerleader in her senior year of high school, but she moved and so went to a new school in high school and wasn't the most popular girl in school anymore, so didn't get to be head cheerleader her senior year.
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I had this conversation with her when she was in her forties and she was still like processing this.
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And I was a little more, correction, a lot more judgmental than I am now.
00:10:23
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But I remember just being this, all I could do to just keep my face, just like salt stoic and be like,
00:10:29
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it sounds really tough sounds really tough so um but so for me i like to make sure that my what i'm feeling is appropriate for the situation so that's a really i i think that's interesting but i also think it's a really i mean the human experience is always relative you know and and the like
00:10:50
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It can be super traumatic to have something that from the outside people don't understand, you know,
Halcyon's Personal Grief Reflection
00:10:55
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why it's so traumatic.
00:10:55
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And in fact, you know, the kind of like to not get too off track, but like I'm figuring out, I used to have a story that I had no trauma because my life is so easy, but no, I had things that happened that affected me in a way that are still a part of my life.
00:11:11
Speaker
And so not making cheerleading could be a trigger in event that does cause, you know, a certain, um,
00:11:19
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reaction that is irrational and it does affect you in deep way.
00:11:23
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So I'm going to have some compassion for this poor cheerleader.
00:11:29
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But I think that to agree with your point, as we were preparing for this topic and I was thinking about it, I was trying to think about my experience of grief in my life.
00:11:41
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And for the most part, I've had a charmed life in the regards of what have I really lost?
00:11:46
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know, my parents are still alive, my brother's alive, I've never had a best friend pass, you know, and so I've had elements of grief and loss, but they have, I feel like they don't touch upon the tornado realm that you're talking about, you know, or someone who does lose a spouse before, you know, unexpectedly.
00:12:09
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These are levels of grief that are
00:12:12
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hard for me, honestly, to even to, uh, to speak to, you know, in the same way that I couldn't speak to what it's like to, to raise twins.
00:12:20
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I have no idea what that must be like.
00:12:23
Speaker
Um, but in this conversation about, you know, grief, there are, I think that's, maybe that's one of the pieces of it is that there is a, um,
00:12:34
Speaker
There's something about grief that is very personal.
00:12:39
Speaker
There is no right and wrong.
00:12:40
Speaker
And it is very difficult to say, I know exactly what you're feeling.
00:12:45
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I know exactly what you're going through.
00:12:46
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It's almost impossible.
00:12:49
Speaker
Yeah, everybody goes through the stages of grief differently.
00:12:53
Speaker
And in different timelines, too.
00:12:55
Speaker
You know, from my own personal experience of processing some loss in my life, it's been different.
00:13:02
Speaker
So I have lost my dad.
00:13:05
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I've lost
00:13:06
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I had to say goodbye to many friends, some that were closer to me than others.
00:13:10
Speaker
And each person that I had processed the grief around, it was always a different experience, different waves, right?
00:13:19
Speaker
It's like sometimes it was like more tumultuous and sometimes there was more grace acceptance.
00:13:25
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You know, for example, you know, my dad, when he passed away, it was hard, but I, for some reason, was able to get to that
00:13:35
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fifth stage of the grieving of acceptance much faster than I had ever imagined I would.
00:13:42
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You know, I thought that maybe when he would die, I would be in the depth of depression for some time.
00:13:48
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But I was able to get to a place of acceptance much faster with him versus saying goodbye to someone else, which many of you guys might remember Pumpkin.
00:13:58
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Nick, he was a dear friend.
00:14:01
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And when he passed, I went through four
00:14:03
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really, really painful waves of deep sadness and depression for quite some time, you know, and he's not my parent.
00:14:10
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I wasn't my, I was much closer with my dad, but for some reason the processing was, was different,
Betsy's Grief Processing
00:14:17
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you know?
00:14:17
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And so I think each person goes through these different losses at different paces and timing and layers and
00:14:26
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And it is, it's very personal, very personal.
00:14:29
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There's no right or wrong way to grieve.
00:14:31
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But I'll share, you know, the main thing that I got out of, you know, going through the loss of my dad was recognizing the importance of grief and seeing how valuable it was, you know, because if I would have bypassed it or shut it down, then I would have, you know, stored it in my body.
00:14:49
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But it became very clear to me the importance of going through the waves of feelings.
00:14:55
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Now, I wonder how different it is and maybe with your experience.
00:15:03
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I'm not sure what the circumstances were around your father passing, but my experience with it is when it is somewhat expected or you kind of know it's coming,
00:15:17
Speaker
there's a there's an ability or an opportunity there to kind of process that in a different way um almost almost like maybe not you're not quite planning ahead but you're able it doesn't necessarily come up and like just punch you in the stomach as opposed to you know losing somebody suddenly like in an accident or just you know heart attack or whatever there's a whole different level of gut punch uh with that and that can that can definitely
00:15:44
Speaker
hinder your, you know, your process or affect you a little much deeper.
00:15:48
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:49
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:49
Speaker
The shock factor is, is a whole nother layer.
00:15:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:15:54
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Um, I had a very unique experience of, um, when my dad passed because, um, we did know that he was sick for some time.
00:16:02
Speaker
And so there was sort of this anticipation and knowing that he was going to
00:16:06
Speaker
be passing at some point, but it was years.
00:16:09
Speaker
It was actually quite a long time of like knowing that he was going to be going.
00:16:13
Speaker
It was like, okay, any day now, but then he would carry on for many more months.
00:16:17
Speaker
And then, um, I actually was in a 10 day silent meditation retreat.
00:16:23
Speaker
It was the first time I'd ever done a Vipassana, which really focuses on, um,
00:16:30
Speaker
impermanence.
00:16:32
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The focus really helps you to get to a place of equanimity.
00:16:37
Speaker
It's a practice of really going into your own self-awareness to see that everything is impermanent.
00:16:45
Speaker
And so I was meditating on impermanence for 10 straight days in silence.
00:16:49
Speaker
And then about two weeks later is when he passed.
00:16:53
Speaker
And so I had really been cultivating that deep connection to this impermanence.
00:17:02
Speaker
And so it was like, oh, wow, here is the ultimate impermanence.
00:17:07
Speaker
And so I feel like that was one of the biggest blessings that I could have ever done for myself to prepare for his loss.
00:17:15
Speaker
because it brought me to that place of presence and acceptance and witnessing and allowing.
00:17:22
Speaker
And it helped me just to stay open and stay connected to His Spirit and let go of the longing and the clinging and the aversion and the suffering that that brings.
00:17:34
Speaker
And so I'm really grateful that it was the timing aligned for His passing for me to have had that practice.
00:17:42
Speaker
That's beautiful.
00:17:44
Speaker
You know, the mention of the
00:17:47
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Everything is transitory and I'm, as always, brought back to Burning Man.
Burning Man Temple: Grief and Connection
00:17:52
Speaker
And I feel like my whole awareness of grief and death was changed by the experiences I've had at the Burning Man Temple.
00:18:01
Speaker
If you're not familiar, it's a structure that is a beautifully built structure made out of raw wood.
00:18:07
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And then as the event opens, people start to cover the wood with messages to people they've lost and pictures and photos and tributes.
00:18:16
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And the messages are so personal and so sincere and so emotional.
00:18:24
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And I mean, you can just start reading them and just it's hard not to be overwhelmed with emotion.
00:18:31
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And my initial experience was like, this is so difficult.
00:18:35
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It's so painful.
00:18:36
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It's so painful.
00:18:37
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And then I had this just like wave of like every expression that I'm witnessing here is the
00:18:46
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echo of how profound their love was.
00:18:50
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You know, every expression of grief is a demonstration of the love that was felt.
00:18:55
Speaker
It's the same, you know, it's the oscillation.
00:19:01
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And so that's kind of letting go a little bit of my attachment of grief being bad and started to feel like intensity.
00:19:11
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And if I could experience the intensity of this humanness, the intensity of this human connection through the grief and through the love, it just gave me this like overwhelming, like beauty poetry of the human experience of it.
00:19:24
Speaker
not joyful in the yay, yay, yay sense, but in a kind of like, wow, so alive, this is so fucking beautiful.
00:19:32
Speaker
And it's something that I've tried to embrace with elements of loss myself of like, wow, this depth that I am feeling is only so dark and far down because of how much this person touched me.
00:19:48
Speaker
And that's one of my tools for dealing with grief.
00:19:54
Speaker
That's so beautiful.
00:19:56
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Yeah.
00:19:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:19:57
Speaker
Then isn't that the kind of, isn't that kind of the purpose of it as well?
Grief as a Reminder of Connection
00:20:03
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Just to kind of remind us like what, how valuable like so many elements of our life are.
00:20:09
Speaker
And, and I certainly don't want this conversation to just be us reciting a list of platitudes for, you know, how about life and grief and things like that.
00:20:20
Speaker
But, you know, that, that loss is,
00:20:24
Speaker
and those feelings of loss and those moments and experiences of loss.
00:20:28
Speaker
What, I mean, what are they, if they're, you know, if that like reminders of like, of the value of our connection, the value of our relationships and to really savor those moments.
00:20:40
Speaker
I, I've definitely found myself in places of whether it was, you know, any, any, among any aspect of life where I'm having just a blast with,
00:20:53
Speaker
and or i'm just really in my joy and there has been often a moment in that reminder a reminder in that moment to savor this there's like a voice in my head that says love this feel it dive into it and really embody this moment these moments are fleeting um these moments are so they're they're super juicy love it up because this too shall pass and we will find ourselves in those in those depths um
00:21:22
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sooner than later because that's what life is about and I think that's what allows us to really savor and cherish those moments of joy and pleasure and just in merely existence itself because you know we we are we're having the we're here for the full spectrum experience we are all
00:21:42
Speaker
our lives are set up for loss.
00:21:45
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They're also set up for pleasure.
00:21:47
Speaker
And so like there's, you know, we're all in this journey and none of us get to, you know, none of us are getting out of here alive and nor, nor are the people ahead of us or that around us.
00:21:59
Speaker
And, you know, the idea, like having a conversation about somebody who lost a parent recently, and they were really struggling with it, understandably.
00:22:10
Speaker
And, you
00:22:11
Speaker
Also, we were kind of talking and she kind of the realizations like, well, this is actually the best case scenario outcome is that my parent lives to be a long life and I get to witness that and experience that much worse or just another other aspect of grief for a parent to lose a child.
00:22:33
Speaker
That's not supposed to happen.
00:22:36
Speaker
supposedly.
00:22:37
Speaker
But, you know, there's, you know, a lot of suppose, like, we frame a lot of things as what's supposed to happen.
00:22:43
Speaker
That's not how it works.
00:22:45
Speaker
And it's easy to, you know, it's good to be able to be like, wow, so if I'm lucky, I will, you know, outlive my children, or I will, you know, my, I will outlive my pet, or, you know, what have you.
00:23:00
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But, you know, speaks to the, you know, the idea of, of,
00:23:05
Speaker
things being temporary.
Ayahuasca Insights on Life's Transience
00:23:07
Speaker
And that's that's certainly less than I first got from Burning Man and was really driven home, like via my experiences with ayahuasca about how death is absolutely vital and large part of life and existence.
00:23:21
Speaker
And this is all temporary.
00:23:23
Speaker
All of our possessions and relationships and loves in our life, they are all leaving us at some point.
00:23:31
Speaker
This is all temporary.
00:23:32
Speaker
And so realizing and really
00:23:34
Speaker
taking that in and via ceremony allowed me to come out after i felt like my journey with them and so it was complete to be like well okay so this is and so when i would experience things that are like ending like an ending of a relationship or somebody or somebody close to me dying
00:23:51
Speaker
I'm able to kind of process this in a way that similar to Betsy worth with your father and be like, okay, so this is, this is, this is happening.
00:24:00
Speaker
This is, this is how this, this is always happening.
00:24:02
Speaker
This is how this is happening.
00:24:04
Speaker
Uh, and being, and having a level of acceptance that I was like, that was, I was a stranger to, um, that medicine really helped me to realize like, no, this is always, you know, transitioning.
00:24:16
Speaker
This is how it is.
00:24:17
Speaker
And learning to be okay with that.
00:24:20
Speaker
Mm hmm.
00:24:21
Speaker
So beautiful.
00:24:21
Speaker
And we have the plant medicine can really give that opportunity to peel back the veil, right and see things more clearly.
00:24:29
Speaker
You know, I feel sparked in something around what you shared around the temple at Burning Man, and how it's the sacred place for people to put pictures of their loved ones and write messages and and share in such a deep way and allow them to be seen.
Communal vs. Individual Grieving Spaces
00:24:45
Speaker
something you didn't mention for those who haven't been to Burning Man is at the end of the event, it's burned.
00:24:52
Speaker
It's, you know, given back to nature.
00:24:54
Speaker
It is, it's a really powerful ceremony.
00:24:57
Speaker
And one of the things I've always found so much value in that is because there isn't really much like that in our lives.
00:25:05
Speaker
our default world, right?
00:25:07
Speaker
And our regular life here in America, I'm sure there's a lot of rituals around the world, but here in America, there isn't a whole lot of that.
00:25:16
Speaker
Funerals are very different.
00:25:19
Speaker
There isn't always these opportunities to do something like that, to ceremonialize our grieving process and to do that in a collective community way
00:25:32
Speaker
is one of the most powerful experiences I feel like I've ever seen when it comes to honoring lives of those who have lost.
00:25:41
Speaker
So if you ever get a chance to go to Burning Man, or for those of you that have, the temple is really one of the most beautiful ways to be able to come into the love and the acceptance of transition.
00:25:56
Speaker
and to be able to come back to that place of like, wow, these bodies are so, so precious.
00:26:03
Speaker
I know for me, it's like whenever death comes around, it just always brings me back home to, wow, this body,
00:26:12
Speaker
It's precious.
00:26:13
Speaker
Life is so precious to keep coming back to that remembering of like each hug that I give to a friend is like, this may be the last.
00:26:22
Speaker
And so to cherish it even more, right?
00:26:25
Speaker
To cherish these precious, precious moments even more because of witnessing the loss and the transitions of our loved ones.
00:26:37
Speaker
Yeah.
Cultural Limitations on Grief Expression
00:26:39
Speaker
The thing that you mentioned about the temple that I think...
00:26:42
Speaker
We do not have the spaces in modern society to truly grieve.
00:26:49
Speaker
You know, we have funerals, but there really is a protocol to the ones that I've experienced.
00:26:53
Speaker
You know, you dress up nice, you know, you sniffle into a handkerchief.
00:26:57
Speaker
There are some cultures and some communities where wailing, you know, is appropriate, you know, and truly letting go.
00:27:03
Speaker
is an acceptable response.
00:27:05
Speaker
But I had never experienced that until I was at the temple and was able to feel comfortable dropping to my knees and
00:27:14
Speaker
just not pouring out of me onto the ground and just truly releasing and i had an interesting experience where someone would like come up to me and say you know are you okay i'm like i'm incredible you know like this is exactly what i need to feel right now i'm i'm it's just it's that it's that it's just big feeling i don't i'm not even sure what's happening it's just like i'm just letting all this stuff out which is hard to do in the in this in the structures that we have in the default world
00:27:46
Speaker
Yes, absolutely.
00:27:47
Speaker
Moving it through the body, emoting, expressing, sounding, feeling.
00:27:54
Speaker
Yeah, I feel I completely agree with you, Halcyon, on that.
00:27:57
Speaker
It's like, how do we find a safe space to allow the emotions to be fully expressed?
00:28:06
Speaker
Right.
00:28:06
Speaker
I know for me, the beach and nature is always been a refuge for me to sometimes scream or cry or just go into the depth of feeling.
Music: A Gateway to Grief's Emotions
00:28:18
Speaker
Right.
00:28:18
Speaker
And, you know, right now in this conversation and the grief and loss, we're talking a lot about death, but grief and loss comes in so many forms.
00:28:26
Speaker
Right.
00:28:27
Speaker
relationships end, jobs end, you know, we lose a pet, we lose our house, different things happen in life that we go through this like deep grieving, you know, we lose our identity, right?
00:28:40
Speaker
We go through these really deep processes.
00:28:43
Speaker
in so many different ways.
00:28:44
Speaker
And so yeah, finding different ways to be able to move that energy and allow it to be expressed.
00:28:52
Speaker
I know another way that I do that is turning the music up really loud in my car.
00:28:58
Speaker
Music is so healing.
00:29:00
Speaker
My mom actually taught me this at a young age.
00:29:03
Speaker
She was like, if you're feeling some things,
00:29:06
Speaker
Turn on some music that will help to evoke the emotions even more, right?
00:29:10
Speaker
Because I'm sure there's been times where maybe you guys have felt this.
00:29:13
Speaker
I felt this before where it's like, I know there's some feeling in there, but I just, I don't know how to access it.
00:29:18
Speaker
I want to feel, I want to feel the sadness.
00:29:20
Speaker
I want to feel the grief.
00:29:22
Speaker
There's something in there that needs to move, but I just can't.
Personal Growth Through Grief
00:29:25
Speaker
Music.
00:29:26
Speaker
It's like, find those songs that evoke it.
00:29:30
Speaker
You know, there's this like, you know, incredible gift that music gives us to be able to
00:29:35
Speaker
to feel and so those are a couple of the ways that i'm help to get things to move because otherwise they just get stored up right and then it turns into tension in the body and it turns into dis-ease in the body yeah yeah so whatever you know whatever your process is for that and and it's unfortunate that we don't necessarily see what you guys are speaking of that we don't necessarily have those community
00:29:59
Speaker
moments to like share that with um we can always we can always call our friends in to be like hey so you know a little little let's let's circle up for housing today or or what have you which which i know should i understand isn't everybody's jam but uh there's something to be said for like
00:30:15
Speaker
that community process even if it's just a small group of people but um our society isn't necessarily geared for that so so yeah so doing this on our own having our we've spoken about this before in previous episodes but like yeah getting the body moving allows those those energies and those emotions to kind of flow um time out in nature has been a big thing for me as well um really like going deep in the woods desert the beach um anything out in nature where you're kind of away from everything
00:30:45
Speaker
away from things definitely helps to to process that and there's that's one thing that is universal about about grief is that or how to how to process that or how to handle that is that we it's not something that we that we get over it's something that we learn to carry as something that we grow to carry with us um and
00:31:09
Speaker
to there's many many ways and many ways like many ways to go about that but two of the things that are necessary for that are time and patience patience with ourselves uh this process that cannot be rushed um so we've got to really be in be in it and you know that's like like your mom is saying bessie too you know what you want to you want to evoke those feelings that that helps with the process and allows us to to to grow and expand and to become
00:31:40
Speaker
a version of ourselves that can carry this with us for the rest of our days, because it's not something that you learn to get over with.
00:31:46
Speaker
It's just like you become larger.
00:31:47
Speaker
You're able to carry this thing.
00:31:49
Speaker
So it doesn't feel like this big weight.
00:31:51
Speaker
You grow, you
Grief in Life Transitions
00:31:52
Speaker
expand.
00:31:52
Speaker
So it becomes yet another coin that you're able to carry with you, you know, moving forward into life and, you know, becomes becomes one of those experiences that just makes us, you know, larger, larger, you know, more lovable, more lovable people.
00:32:10
Speaker
More resilient as well.
00:32:12
Speaker
Stronger.
00:32:13
Speaker
I feel like I see losing somebody very close to you as like a rite of passage, right?
00:32:20
Speaker
It's stepping into this whole other way of being able to carry yourself when you really go into that experience.
00:32:27
Speaker
And that's what you're speaking to.
00:32:29
Speaker
It's like, it doesn't go away.
00:32:30
Speaker
You just become this new person because you've gotten to experience something so deep.
00:32:36
Speaker
Yeah, I was talking with a friend of mine.
00:32:38
Speaker
He's he's undergoing.
00:32:41
Speaker
His first real breakup in a relationship at the age of like 36.
00:32:47
Speaker
you know, or like mid late thirties.
00:32:49
Speaker
And that's something that a lot of us experienced pretty, pretty early on in life.
00:32:54
Speaker
So by the time we get to be in our thirties, you know, we've been broken up with a few times, we've broken up with somebody a couple of times.
00:33:00
Speaker
And so, you know, that's definitely a part of a part of life.
00:33:03
Speaker
And so he was really like, Oh, what is this?
00:33:06
Speaker
What is, what is happening?
00:33:07
Speaker
I'm like,
00:33:08
Speaker
yeah you're you're a little you're a little late to the game and that's that's good in some ways and not so good in other ways because what you're feeling now is something that we've a lot of people have felt multiple times by this point so but there maybe again there's no timeline for stuff like this i gotta tell you you know i i as someone who has recently had their heart broken and for the first time getting their heart broken like this i
00:33:31
Speaker
It is debilitating.
00:33:34
Speaker
And I find myself having so much understanding and compassion for all the rom-coms I've seen of all the behavior from these silly people.
00:33:41
Speaker
Like, how can't, why don't they just move on?
00:33:43
Speaker
Why can't they just, oh, I get it now.
00:33:47
Speaker
This is, I'm dealing with the kind of loss and grief that people write songs about and the change is who you are.
00:33:56
Speaker
Absolutely.
00:33:57
Speaker
Yeah.
00:33:57
Speaker
And you know what?
00:33:58
Speaker
It's just like the other side of the heart.
00:34:00
Speaker
right?
00:34:00
Speaker
Two sides of the heart is like love and sadness.
00:34:04
Speaker
You know, sorrow opens the heart in a much different way, right?
00:34:09
Speaker
It's like going deeper inward, right?
00:34:12
Speaker
It's like squeezes the heart in this way, right?
00:34:15
Speaker
When you're also like loving so deeply, it's the same space in our hearts.
00:34:23
Speaker
Yeah, there's so much music.
00:34:25
Speaker
Coming back to that is like so much love songs, but also heartbreak songs.
00:34:31
Speaker
It's a part of our journey.
00:34:33
Speaker
And I guess the spark I keep coming back to is that...
00:34:40
Speaker
what you just said you know that it's the same space and if you can kind of pull back and let go of the assigning a good or a bad to it and instead and feel into the the intensity of the experience um then there is something soothing about knowing that you are leading and living an epic life you know that you are truly you know having a human experience um and and that
00:35:09
Speaker
There's
Embracing Intense Human Experiences
00:35:10
Speaker
both of it.
00:35:10
Speaker
And so that helps to fight the desire to protect yourself from the pain in the future.
00:35:16
Speaker
You know, if you protect yourself from being hurt or that pain, grief, loss feeling, then you miss out on the joy and the love and the magic.
00:35:28
Speaker
So it's my leaving spark will be that, you know, trying to find an appreciation
00:35:39
Speaker
for the intensity of our experiences is the best way that I'm able to make sense of the pain of grief.
00:35:52
Speaker
Yeah.
00:35:55
Speaker
My experience with that and a spark that I've gained over the course of my life when it comes to dealing with grief and dealing with loss is that
00:36:07
Speaker
Yeah, the heartaches that I've had, particularly in a relationship, have gotten deeper as I've gotten older.
00:36:14
Speaker
And that's because that level of depth that I'm able to feel for somebody has also deepened as I've, you know,
00:36:23
Speaker
as I've gone through various loving relationships, that depth of that you feel upon loss or that I feel upon loss is directly proportionate to the amount of depth of joy and love that I'm able to feel.
00:36:39
Speaker
So it's, yeah, so it's not to be, it's, for me, it's to be, it's an interesting thing that I'm able to, so that level of heartbreak
00:36:50
Speaker
is that potential does kind of increase just because your, your capacity to love has, has increased.
00:36:55
Speaker
That's a good thing.
00:36:56
Speaker
So, um, and it's, you know, get, yeah, experiencing, experiencing these things is the gamut of human experiences.
00:37:04
Speaker
Yeah.
00:37:04
Speaker
That's, that's a life, you know, that's, and there's been moments where I've been really, you know, despairing, you know, over, over loss of death or over loss of relationship and really in it.
00:37:15
Speaker
And, um,
00:37:16
Speaker
There's still a part of me that's like, wow, I'm living my life.
00:37:21
Speaker
It feels like what I'm supposed to be doing.
00:37:24
Speaker
It feels like what I'm here for is for these experiences.
00:37:29
Speaker
And it's all part of the tapestry that is becoming more beautiful with age by year.
Support and Resources for Grief
00:37:36
Speaker
So that's something that helps me to
00:37:40
Speaker
to kind of deal and process and process that to be like, OK, yeah, this is this is what I signed up for.
00:37:45
Speaker
This is this is what I'm this is what I'm here for.
00:37:48
Speaker
And I'm surrounded by a bunch of like lovely friends who are kind of doing the same and, you know, creating their own epic, epic journeys and sharing notes and growing together in the community.
00:38:00
Speaker
So that's what.
00:38:01
Speaker
Yeah, that's that's what that's what kind of gets me through.
00:38:03
Speaker
Amazing.
00:38:07
Speaker
I think I'll just bring it right back around full circle to where we started as the five stages of grief that you brought forward, Janus, to recognize that these are processes that are different for everyone.
00:38:22
Speaker
We move through them in different pacing and different losses bring different processes.
00:38:30
Speaker
And so I really feel so inspired by that.
00:38:35
Speaker
It brings a sense of hope.
00:38:37
Speaker
And also kind of a comprehension around what the emotions that we're moving through, right?
00:38:42
Speaker
Because sometimes if we're so deeply emotional, it's hard to comprehend and make sense of things, right?
00:38:48
Speaker
It's just so swept up in the clouds of emotion.
00:38:53
Speaker
And so to anchor into these five stages to learn and to grow is such a valuable thing.
00:39:00
Speaker
And then also recognizing that the time that we live in, there's so much support, so much information, so much resources.
00:39:10
Speaker
You know, I'm invited to grief circles regularly.
00:39:14
Speaker
I see people putting on these beautiful gatherings to honor grief.
00:39:18
Speaker
There is
00:39:19
Speaker
support groups, there are books, there are podcasts all about grief.
00:39:23
Speaker
There's so many talks about grief and loss.
00:39:27
Speaker
There is just so much available for people to be able to move through the very challenging part of life, which is loss and grieving.
00:39:36
Speaker
And so I'll just, you know, close it out with that spark, knowing that we're not alone and we don't have to do it alone when we are going through challenging times.
00:39:45
Speaker
And then also, I think I'll just toss this in there too, is the, um,
00:39:49
Speaker
The episode that we had a while back called Holding Space for Friends.
00:39:53
Speaker
I think that there's some things in there too around how do we show up for the people in our lives that are grieving, right?
00:40:00
Speaker
This conversation has been very much about our own personal journey of grieving, but how do we get to be there for each other?
00:40:06
Speaker
you know, checking in with one another and listening to each other and just offering a hug and, you know, being there is such a powerful thing.
00:40:15
Speaker
So if you guys haven't listened to that one yet, it's a really good one.
00:40:18
Speaker
And I just love, I love being in this conversation with you guys.
00:40:20
Speaker
I'm just so grateful and so grateful for all of you out there who have been listening and who have been sending in
00:40:28
Speaker
your messages of appreciation and for the spark that also inspired this conversation.
00:40:33
Speaker
Once again, Thomas, thank you so much for instigating this grief conversation.
00:40:37
Speaker
We're always welcome to receive more messages from you guys.
00:40:42
Speaker
It just keeps our sparks going and we love sparking you guys out there.
00:40:45
Speaker
Indeed.
00:40:48
Speaker
Indeed.
00:40:48
Speaker
So cool.
00:40:51
Speaker
Halcyon, any final thoughts?
00:40:54
Speaker
You're feeling a
00:40:58
Speaker
um i will just i will just start us off with how to find us in the world that uh i my gratitude circles um my t-shirts and my other podcasts are all uh available at johnstin.com and i appreciate all sorts of connection if you ever you're ever in a grieving state i really recommend popping into a gratitude circle it's a it is a place for grief as well it's a beautiful place to to um
00:41:27
Speaker
Sometimes you can be grateful that you have a place to express your grief.
00:41:30
Speaker
It's that's that's part of it, too.
00:41:34
Speaker
Yeah.
00:41:35
Speaker
And I'm just going to fan the flames of that beautiful offering that you offer to the world as a free circle, virtual circle for three years.
00:41:44
Speaker
You just had your three year anniversary of these beautiful, beautiful groups.
00:41:48
Speaker
So thank you so much, Halcyon, for providing that for your community and creating a sacred place for people to just share their gratitudes and pump that muscle and, you know, whatever they're going through to be able to find their way back into gratitude.
00:42:01
Speaker
So amazing.
00:42:02
Speaker
Thank you for that.
00:42:04
Speaker
Thanks, Alcyon.
00:42:04
Speaker
For sure.
00:42:05
Speaker
For sure.
00:42:07
Speaker
I am out there in the world with my company, New World Nutritionals, which is, again, a nutritional supplement company.
00:42:15
Speaker
And our products are geared for improving one's state of mind, improving one's mood, helping with focus and learning, things like that.
00:42:23
Speaker
We have a microdose product that is getting really good results with people of all sorts of populations.
00:42:29
Speaker
And yeah, it's definitely been a product that has gotten me through some challenging times.
00:42:36
Speaker
And a lot of other people have had some good results with that as well.
00:42:40
Speaker
I'm happy to say.
00:42:40
Speaker
So you can find us online at newworldnutritionals.com.
00:42:44
Speaker
That's spelled N-U-worldnutritionals.com.
00:42:47
Speaker
And you can use the code SPART for 10% off of any of our products.
00:42:53
Speaker
Amazing.
00:42:54
Speaker
Love that.
00:42:55
Speaker
And you guys can find me in the world offering the power affirmation journal and virtual group, which really is a tool for helping to reprogram limiting beliefs.
00:43:06
Speaker
We do all kinds of different things with journaling and meditation.
00:43:11
Speaker
breath work, embodiment practices, gratitude practices to really help to cultivate life skills for sustainable happiness and creating habits of the mind, body and spirit.
00:43:22
Speaker
And I also work with people one on one virtually doing some Dharma coaching, incorporating all of those practices and also in person here in Solana Beach, California, doing body work and energy work, sound healing.
00:43:36
Speaker
And I just also love being a friend.
00:43:38
Speaker
So thank you guys out there for
00:43:41
Speaker
following my journey, poweraffirmation.com is where you can find more about that project.
00:43:46
Speaker
And then also my last name, finkelhoo.com, which you can learn more about the other modalities that I offer.
00:43:53
Speaker
And in the show notes, I have shared a link to a free power affirmation audio download.
00:43:59
Speaker
So you guys can use that to stay inspired.
00:44:03
Speaker
And I think you guys can also use Sparked as a 10% discount code on my website.
00:44:10
Speaker
So thank you guys for listening.
00:44:12
Speaker
And shall I close us out with an affirmation?
00:44:14
Speaker
Please, please, please.
00:44:15
Speaker
Please, please do.
00:44:16
Speaker
All right.
00:44:17
Speaker
So in the spirit of this conversation, an affirmation to honor where we are, honor our feelings, and to really come back to that beautiful place of acceptance.
00:44:29
Speaker
So closing the eyes if that feels comfortable for you and taking a deep breath.
00:44:33
Speaker
If you like, you can place your hands on your body.
00:44:39
Speaker
And the affirmation is, I allow myself to feel all the feels, and I trust that this too shall pass.
00:44:47
Speaker
I allow myself to feel all the feels, and I trust that this too shall pass.
00:44:54
Speaker
I allow myself to feel all the feels, and I trust that this too shall pass.
00:45:01
Speaker
I allow myself to feel all the fields and I trust that this too shall pass.
00:45:07
Speaker
I'm exactly where I need to be.
00:45:10
Speaker
Everything is okay.
00:45:12
Speaker
I'm okay.
00:45:13
Speaker
Life is good.
00:45:15
Speaker
Life is a blessing.
00:45:16
Speaker
Life is precious.
00:45:18
Speaker
Thank you.
00:45:18
Speaker
Thank you.
00:45:19
Speaker
Thank you.
00:45:19
Speaker
Thank you.
00:45:19
Speaker
Thank you.
00:45:20
Speaker
Thank you.
00:45:20
Speaker
Thank you.
00:45:21
Speaker
Thank you.
00:45:21
Speaker
Thanks guys.
00:45:26
Speaker
Stay sparked.
00:45:32
Speaker
Stay smart, friends.