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48. If You Can't Tell What Someone Needs, Ask Them! -With Dave Grammer
73 Plays4 years ago
Dave received his Masters Degree in Clinical Psychology with an emphasis in Marriage and Family Therapy in 2011 from Pepperdine University, he has been a licensed therapist since 2017. He then worked in community mental health with adults battling homelessness and prolonged substance use. Dave worked with adolescents in residential treatment focusing on substance use and major mental health disorders from 2014-2019. In 2019 he founded Grammer Family Therapy. Dave believes therapy is a process that should be goal oriented, focused on solving the problems the individual is facing, and can be on and off depending on the needs of the individual.
Dave has dedicated his life to service of others in many different forms. He lived in Africa for a year doing volunteer service between high school and college. He co-organized a free open mic night in Los Angeles for several years and has assisted in provided food and clothing to the homeless.
Dave has been heavily involved in the capoeira, an Afro-Brazilian martial art, community in Los Angeles. He has been training for 10 years and teaching for the last 7 years, Dave has taught students from 2yrs old up to 80yrs old.
In our conversation we talk about his grief process after the death of his mother to cancer, as well as how his mom helped him navigate his grief, many years earlier, after the death of his best friend by not letting him stop his life and continue going to school just days after he passed. When Dave’s mother died years later, he did exactly the same thing, he kept his life going. His mantra in life is “when these awful things happen you can’t stop!” Now this does not mean that we don’t grieve, we grieve but we still have to keep moving forward with our grief.
Another topic we talk about is about the importance of having an emotional vocabulary. How this emotional vocabulary has played a part not only as a therapist, but also as his role as a father.
Contact Dave Grammer: https://grammerfamilytherapy.com/
Contact Kendra Rinaldi to be a guest or a complimentary coaching session: https://www.griefgratitudeandthegrayinbetween.com/
Logo: https://www.pamelawinningham.com
Music: http://www.rinaldisound.com
Production: Carlos Andres Londono
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Transcript
Introduction to Grief
00:00:01
Speaker
It is true. Grief does not end. There is no timeline for it. There's no set prescription for it, how it works. It's different in everyone. But I think what I should, but that becomes a mantra for people to allow themselves to sink deeper and deeper and deeper. I'm sure that my friend who dropped out of college was not like, sweet, I'm dropping out of college. This is wonderful. No, she like had every intention to go back.
00:00:27
Speaker
but then was just wallowing in the sadness for so long. It was no longer processing, it became just wallowing in self-vigilation and become self-punishment, right? So we have to be careful as we go through our grief work to make sure that we're using, we're doing it productively.
Podcast and Guest Introduction
00:00:52
Speaker
Hello and welcome to Grief, Gratitude, and the Gray in Between podcast. This podcast is about exploring the grief that occurs at different times in our lives in which we have had major changes and transitions that literally shake us to the core and make us experience grief.
00:01:16
Speaker
I created this podcast for people to feel a little less hopeless and alone in their own grief process as they hear the stories of others who have had similar journeys. I'm Kendra Rinaldi, your host. Now, let's dive right in to today's episode.
00:01:39
Speaker
Welcome to today's episode. Today we have Dave Grammer with us, who's going to be sharing a little bit of his life story, as well as his own journey with grief. So Dave, welcome. Hi, thank you. I'm so excited you're here. Now, let's just start with like,
00:01:58
Speaker
a few like getting to know you kind of questions. And actually, Dave and I have never met. I've only met your wife over the phone, by the way, I've never met your wife in person, even that, which is hilarious, but that I've like been friends with Roz for a while, and I've never even met her in person. So that is just the world, right? Yeah, the digital universe.
00:02:22
Speaker
It is, yeah. And we know each other through common friends and stuff. So anyway, so yeah, tell us a little bit about you.
Dave's Family Life
00:02:31
Speaker
So I am a licensed marriage and family therapist in the Los Angeles area. I've been in LA for about 15 years. My wife and I have been married for 10. We have two children. One is six and one is the baby is a year and a half and a chaotic dog.
00:02:52
Speaker
I know we were just talking about our puppies. Energy upon energy upon energy. She is actually a month younger than the baby. So she's still a puppy. He's a baby. The six year old has boundless energy and instead of tying each other out, they feed into each other. So it's just tornado upon tornado.
00:03:13
Speaker
Oh my gosh. Yeah, that makes it fun and interesting for sure. What time do you go to bed? At the end of the day, is it like, oh, let's go to bed? Or do you guys normally want some quiet time? I need quiet time. So my wife works pretty early in the morning, so she goes to bed shortly after the boys do, but I tend to stay up a lot later just because
00:03:36
Speaker
I need that quiet time to myself that doesn't exist during the day. Right. And now with the situation, because at this moment when we're interviewing, all kids in LA are still virtual learners due to COVID. So you've been able to juggle leading your work life. Able is a strong word.
00:04:00
Speaker
Hanging in there, hanging in there. Hanging in there is better. Yeah. Cause our six year old just started kindergarten this year. And so he's been trying to learn what that means. What is kindergarten? What does school look like? He's been in preschool, but you know, it's a bit different, the expectations and the standards. Um, so he's been learning that while also we signed him up prior to all of the COVID stuff, we signed him up for a dual immersion program to learn Mandarin Chinese.
00:04:29
Speaker
So he's trying to learn Chinese distance. It's like, so there's a lot of struggle with that. But, you know, we got the dog a week before the shutdown and the whole sales pitch to my wife was that Chase will be going to school.
00:04:42
Speaker
It'll be me and the baby. Me and Connor got this. I can take the dog. I can train her. We'll do long walks. It'll be great. And a week later, everything shut down. And Chase was home. The dog was home. And there was no training or anything. And so it's been a little up in the air. I typically see clients in the evenings when my wife gets home. So that has been able to continue. But it's been like every parent that's working from home or trying to, it's been challenging to do the administrative stuff.
00:05:11
Speaker
Redoing my website, that kind of stuff is all just what it is. Yeah. Cause you're, yeah, you're the one that's home with them. And, uh, yeah. And with a six year old, it's not like you could just let him sit and do his thing. You got to
Masculinity and Emotional Vocabulary
00:05:24
Speaker
be there, make sure that the zoom or whatever, whatever way you're connecting is working. Um, now how do you, with, when you see clients, do you normally see adults, children, everything in between? So my.
00:05:37
Speaker
General, the window I shoot for is, you know, 14 to about 40, 45, typically male. I've really kind of found my niche as working with men and young teenage boys who are struggling with masculinity issues and trying to figure out how to be themselves within kind of the really twisted view of what masculinity should be that our society projects.
00:06:06
Speaker
So that's a lot of your focus. That's so interesting. What you're saying is actually so funny because I had a friend whose son knits and he's 12 and he looks at her, he's like, mom, do you think I'm the only straight kid that knits, you know, like kind of like, you know,
00:06:23
Speaker
easy as like something like that like of you know and them kind of choosing my son would always say you know they say that it's like that that we're sexist against women but it's like how come boys can't wear pink or not you know like you know it's it's really tough because you know it really does go both ways however from male to female is so much more
00:06:48
Speaker
So much, I don't want to say worse, but more physically effective, if you will, like it stops people, women from getting jobs that they deserve. It stops women from being paid the same amount that they should be paid. They don't get listened to these kinds of things. So like, I don't want to equate, um, the social elements as the same, like, Oh, men have it just as hard as women. Let no.
00:07:10
Speaker
Like, let's acknowledge that being a white male, middle-aged male is kind of a, you know, that's a win, you know, in a terrible way. And so we definitely want to acknowledge that there's a major difference there that needs to be rectified. But in terms of the emotional expectations,
00:07:29
Speaker
It is, you know, women get these horrible messages all day long, you know, magazines, movies, TV shows, radio, everything about look, be thinner, be beautiful. Don't be smart. Don't do that. You can't do this. Do that. But you know, they're told constantly what it how to be. And what is not often recognizes that men get a lot of those
00:07:49
Speaker
types of messages just as frequently that are equally detrimental. I mean, when was the last time you saw a positive, strong, courageous, yet emotional male lead that cried, that was not gay? They don't exist on TV. The male archetype is literally superheroes, literally in humans. Thor is a god.
00:08:14
Speaker
He is literally a God. Like that's what we're supposed to be. Men are expected to just take all of this emotional trauma and difficulty, swallow it and move forward. And the only things we can really show are joy and anger. And so a lot of the work I do is helping men find the gray area between starting to develop a lot more emotional vocabulary. A lot of boys are not taught to say, I'm sad. I'm hurt. I'm lonely. They just are told, stop crying and move on. And so,
00:08:44
Speaker
Boys don't cry. Boys don't cry. Like, what are you doing? Don't cry. Yeah, like the other. I'm 40 and I've been working on myself since I, my mom put my, my first stint in therapy was when I was eight. So I've got 32 years on and off of working in therapy. I still have to fight myself to allow myself to cry in a movie.
00:09:03
Speaker
like because i'm just the innate things just stop nope don't cry don't cry like that kind of stuff is just there so there's a lot of this going on on a daily basis and so men who are effeminate or maybe not physically strong you know these kinds of things are don't have a a way that the society views is tough like your friend's son who knits there's nothing wrong with that he should be able to knit and feel comfortable with that he's art he's being artistic that's his medium you know and we start we kind of forget that
00:09:33
Speaker
For a long time, the top designers, the top upholsters, these people who do sewing and knitting and things have been all men. Like, so it's this weird thing of like, you can't do that as a boy, but if you can make millions of dollars doing it, by all means, do what you want.
00:09:49
Speaker
How does that work? Yeah, same goes with barbers, even before barbers were, and they used to be straight men, right? And now it's that where they still are a lot, but it's still that notion, right? It's stereotypes that create. Now, in that, how
00:10:06
Speaker
how knowing that aspect of it, how has it shifted? And we're kind of, as I told Dave, I'm like, well, just going to be chatting. We'll see when we get to the actual reason of why we got it. But all these things are so important because they all actually fit in into the aspect of even leaving too, right?
00:10:23
Speaker
So how how do you parent then different these two young boys you're raising, being aware now of these aspects of stereotypes, knowing that for you, it, you know, it took you so it still, as you said, is something you still have to work through to be able to allow all these emotions. How is it different for you as a parent? So I think the thing for me that I got from my mom because my mom had a really difficult childhood.
00:10:51
Speaker
And, well, both of my parents did. I think my mom had a lot of trauma in it though. And so she started doing her own therapy work around the time that I was eight or nine when she started with me, putting me in therapy around the same time she went in. Really, she kind of got us all in therapy at the same time.
00:11:10
Speaker
Um, but, uh, watching that transition from her starting to try and help me learn the emotional vocabulary and then, you know, going to grad school and learning a lot about psychology and therapy and, you know, emotions and things. And so, you know, the thing for me that I'm really focusing on is trying to help my, uh, six year old develop that emotional vocabulary. So instead of just let, when he throws a tantrum,
00:11:39
Speaker
or gets really angry, you know.
00:11:42
Speaker
helping him understand that anger comes after another emotion. No one is just angry. That doesn't work that way. Yeah. That's just what you could see over the iceberg. The tip of the iceberg, the bottom, right? What is below is sadness, hurt, frustration, other emotions. And so trying to, you know, with kids, young kids, I don't really work with too young, but with young kids, it's about providing that language to them and asking questions like, okay, do you know why you're so angry?
00:12:11
Speaker
And if they don't, or they can't verbalize it, then starting to provide that and saying like, Oh, are you sad? Are you hurt that I took your toy away? Are you sad that you don't get to play with that Lego right now? You know, are you, are you upset that, you know, just providing a lot of these, are you embarrassed that your friend called you a name? Like trying to give those words so they can go, Oh, and there's times when he says, Oh, what does that mean?
00:12:35
Speaker
All right, well, being embarrassed is when you feel like guilty or shame or like, he says something, you know, you feel really bad about this toy that you really loved, but your friend made fun of it. And now you're like, like, and that's embarrassing. Oh, yeah, that. Okay, great. Now you have a word. That's, you know, because so often this language is not taught. I mean, I worked in residential treatment facilities for teenagers.
00:13:00
Speaker
Um, with mental health, but mainly with substance problems like, you know, meth, you know, heroin, alcohol, these kinds of things. Kids would come and stay with us for six weeks, six to eight weeks. And so many of them had no concept of emotional vocabulary. Like they're just like, I'm angry. I know you're angry, but what else is going on? And we act literally had to provide them with a list of words. Like here's a sheet in your paperwork. Here's a list of emotion words that you can choose from. And they would go through that. Well, what does that mean? What does that mean? And you have to describe it to a 16 year old.
00:13:30
Speaker
that's terrible. We shouldn't have to do this. And it's not just kids in rehab. This is like, I run into this in my private practice now where like kids are like, I don't know what I'm feeling. All right, well, can you describe it? And trying to describe it and picking out the words that match the best through that. So it's right now, you know, being he's six and the younger one is one and a half and not really talking yet. We spend a lot of time on emotional vocabulary and then, you know, starting the process of
00:13:59
Speaker
figuring out how to talk through things so he screams and yells and gets upset and runs in his room okay give him a few minutes you know and trying to teach him ways to manage those so like if he's too upset if he's starting to build up to a tantrum i can say to him like hey you're starting it seems like you know i'm starting to get upset you're starting to get upset should should we take a little break do you want to go in your room for five minutes to try and cool down
00:14:23
Speaker
go give him some space in his room, go in and talk to him in a few minutes and see if that helps. It doesn't always help. And we're not always perfect at it. Just because I can teach other people to do it doesn't mean it's easy. Yeah, absolutely. Yeah, I feel it's even harder. It's even harder, right? When it's your own children. I feel that way when I worked with kids before and before I had kids.
00:14:44
Speaker
I was so good at it too. I could tell them what to do in a way that was just nice.
Emotional Dynamics in Marriage and Work
00:14:50
Speaker
I wouldn't say the word don't. I wouldn't say the word no. It was just like, it was like, oh, keep the balls in the ball pit instead of saying don't throw them out. He's like, up the stairs, down the slide, while they were going up the slide instead, things like that. Then of course I have my kids and it's like, no, no, no, no, no, no, no. Don't, don't, don't, don't. What are you doing?
00:15:11
Speaker
It's that emotional attachment of course to the outcome of our own kids that makes it so much harder. Now with emotional vocabulary and then emotional intelligence, are those then linked? Are those like vocabularies like kind of just having the words and emotional intelligence is just knowing how to navigate our emotions through it or what's the difference between those two concepts? I think emotional vocabulary is having the words to identify how you're feeling.
00:15:40
Speaker
emotional intelligence, I think is a bit broader. It is knowing what you're feeling, knowing how to respond to your feelings. Um, so like the idea that if I know that I'm starting to get depressed and I feel myself going down over the last week of like, Oh, low gray and I hate gray, rainy weather. And that's why I live in sunny Southern California, but it's been gray and drizzly. You did grow up in
00:16:09
Speaker
Didn't you grow up in Oregon? I grew up in New York. Oh, New York. I don't know why I thought, you know, I thought Oregon because of another friend we have in common that knows your mom. And I thought for some reason that it had been from Oregon or something like that. No, that's just from moving back to LA. So I was born in California, but moved to New York at a young age.
00:16:31
Speaker
I lived in New York for 20 years and that's why I live here now. Okay. So now you moved to the sun, you're staying in the sun. That's like, so, okay. So then emotional intelligence is knowing. It's knowing that I'm going down and saying, Hmm, I'm starting to feel my energy go down. I'm starting to feel more depressed. I'm having less patience with my kids. Um, I there, I, you know, it's about recognize being able to recognize that and then take the steps necessary to mitigate the depression.
00:17:01
Speaker
okay, I know that I need to start to eat more healthy. Like I got to cut out the sugar because that's a big thing that takes me down further. I can't stay up so late at night. I have to make sure I'm getting exercise, you know, these kinds of things. It's, it's having the plan and knowing yourself well enough. And then eventually you start to be able to recognize that with other people and utilize that intelligence to in your interactions with others of like,
00:17:26
Speaker
I had a boss that he had a cycle, man. The first day of the month, the first week of the month, he was the sweetest, nicest, most wonderful boss ever. The second week, he was tired. The third week, he was angry. And the fourth week, he was hunting for a fight. And so you start like you having this emotional intelligence allowed me to recognize very quickly, don't ever ask him for a day off and last minute in the last week, don't ask him for anything.
00:17:57
Speaker
Yeah, it's so you know, like this is television where screaming and yelling and cursing at each other is very commonplace. And so
00:18:05
Speaker
the fourth week of the month every time there was three of he was in three or four screaming matches with different co-workers and employees and i'm looking at these people going are you dumb or do you like the fight like what is the miss here and to me looking back on it now i look and i go they didn't have the emotional intelligence to recognize his cycle and say this dude is like
00:18:28
Speaker
He has no effective outlet for his anger. So he just bottles it up. And then the fourth week, he can't keep it anymore. And so it blows off. He blows his top. He screams at whoever's in front of him. And then he's got it done. And so that next week, he's wonderful. That's when you go and ask for a raise. That's when you ask for a week off or a day off in two days. That's when you kind of start to figure this stuff out. Like it's a little silly, but at the same time, it's so helpful. This dude never yelled at me.
00:18:58
Speaker
I worked for him for six years. He never yelled at me. Everybody else in the office got yelled at. Because you didn't talk to him that week, four, three, or if I did, if I did talk to him, I was like, Hey, George, how can I help you? What do you need? I got you. And he's like, uh, do this. I'm like, got you, man. I got to take that for you. Thank you. No problem. Like I got a few minutes. You need something, you know, like just trying to be helpful.
00:19:20
Speaker
Because I was like, this dude's gonna blow his top at anybody and everybody. And I'm just trying to be helpful. So it was just an interesting thing. But it's this emotional intelligence, like that's a very work related thing. But I mean, think about a spouse, like, you know, if you don't know how to read your husband's emotional state, it's gonna lead to so many more fights. And arguments and discussions and
00:19:44
Speaker
issues or it will allow problems to continue. If we want these relationships to progress, whether it's friendships, romantic relationships, familial relationships, we have to be able to read these signs and cues and figure out to some degree where somebody else is. Now, I don't think we should be mind readers, but having an idea of like, oh, something's wrong.
00:20:13
Speaker
And I should go into the bedroom and ask her how she's doing instead of turning on the video at the PlayStation and spending the next four hours out here. That would be a bad idea. Let me go talk to her. Cause yes, I want to play the game, but talking to her and solving the problem will probably make the next week and a half much easier for both of us. You know, it solves her, can help solve her problems, all that kind of stuff. So this is where Natalia comes in.
00:20:37
Speaker
And it prevents also, and not only solve the person's problems, but at the end of the day, make it just more pleasant for everybody else. Now, that aspect of also being aware, it's not only the emotional intelligence, but is being aware of just our surroundings. That's something I tell my kids all the time. I'm like, if you walk into the kitchen,
00:20:58
Speaker
I'm cooking don't just say what's for dinner. I'm like it is one of my it is one of those triggers right for me and I'm like you walk in and you say how can I help like that's as easy as it because that makes you know that you're aware of what's going around you instead of just like
00:21:17
Speaker
What's for them? So, you know, like if you walk in and you like you could start washing the dishes right away or doing like there's certain things you have to start just doing on your own like being one step ahead before you're asked to do something and it's by being aware of your Surroundings and and by doing that it's also just being aware of people's emotion aware of people's emotions and stuff. That's so helpful Thank you. I I like that that explanation and the the difference between the two I had never thought of it implying
00:21:45
Speaker
the emotional intelligence of knowing how to relate to others, too. Like, I don't know why I just thought it had to do with just expressing our own emotions. So that's very helpful. Thank you. Yeah. All right. So now let's dive then. We spoke a little about your mom. And so let's talk then about your mom and what happened and her and so forth. So we're going to go back now.
00:22:14
Speaker
I'm just going to preface this by saying that I'm terrible with times and dates. So I absolutely, I honestly have no idea how long it was. Like I, I know she passed in January of 2009. Um, and
Grief and Family Support
00:22:26
Speaker
I think she was diagnosed with breast cancer maybe a year before that, a year and a half. I'm really not sure.
00:22:33
Speaker
You're not the only person. There's so many people that when I ask, there's some that it's like they know to the T and that dates, but then there's others that it's like, I don't really know. It becomes this blur, so you're not the first person.
00:22:47
Speaker
I wish it was just in this area, but it's not. It's in everything. Like if it's not in the last six weeks, it could be sometime in the last 10 years. I don't know. So unless there's big markers, like right now I'm like, okay, cool. I got pre COVID. I got post COVID. All right. So I know when it was this year. All right. Did I have, did I have a child at the time that happened? No. Okay. So then it was before.
00:23:11
Speaker
Was I married? Was I not? You weren't married then because you've been married for 10, right? Yeah. Well, so we had met, um, I met my wife about a week and a half before my mom passed, maybe two weeks before. So we met right before she passed. Um, so it was, but she, yeah, she was diagnosed and she, I mean, you know, it was kind of like, it was weird. Like I wasn't super freaked out about it.
00:23:40
Speaker
when she was diagnosed because a couple of things. One, she was always kind of, I don't want to say frail, but frail, um, and not physically strong. Her immune system was not very strong. She got sick pretty regularly. Um, like she would slip and fall and she would break her, like she broke her arm, um, like things like that. Like it was, and it wasn't like a big fall. So it was like her body was just not physically very strong.
00:24:10
Speaker
Um, in that sense, uh, her personality was incredibly strong, but the body was not. So, I mean, I'd been used to her having a weird diet from the time I, as long as I can remember, she was making two dinners, one for my brother and I and one for her. Um, you know, just like, because she was eating like boiled chicken and brown rice. And that was about it. Like for, for as long as you know, that kind of dietary restriction thing for a long time. So it,
00:24:40
Speaker
It was like, okay. But it was also like breast cancer. Like, I know this is not terrible. Like, you know, if there's one you got to get, that's the one that's kind of treatable. So let's get cool. Um, and she seemed to get better after, you know, a bunch of the radiation treatments and stuff really helped, but she was also diagnosed at stage four. Um, it was already in the bones and they found it because she couldn't walk real well. And because it was in her hips and was stopping her hip joint from moving properly. Um,
00:25:10
Speaker
So she was never able to take chemo. She did one round, one dose of chemo and it took her out for six weeks and she was like, I'm not, that's not happening. Um, so they just kind of did radiation for a while. Um, and then, um, it was kinda in the middle. It wasn't really like the first couple of months after the radiation started, when the tumors were reduced in her hips and she could walk again, it was really great. But.
00:25:40
Speaker
After a couple of months, it kind of went back down to this middle area. And she wasn't very mobile for most of the last year. And then my dad, my brother, and I traveled to Florida. We did a conference. My dad was performing and asked if, well, I guess they asked him and my brother if they would perform. And he had wanted to do a performance about men. So he asked if the, my dad asked if he and my brother and I could do this performance.
00:26:10
Speaker
Um, at the conference, which we did, it was great. Um, and that was where I met my wife. Then I came back. It was cause my dad had to go travel somewhere. So he couldn't be home with my mom. So I went and stayed with her for like five or six days. And there was a series of people that were coming and staying with her to, you know, friends that would fly out and help or that would, that were local, that would come and stay with her for a couple of days. Cause she couldn't get around real well. Um, but that last week that I was there was very.
00:26:41
Speaker
She was detaching, you know. So she was sleeping all night and then kind of dozing all day on the couch. And we didn't really, it really was a very weird situation because I didn't feel like I was visiting my mom.
00:26:58
Speaker
We weren't talking very much. Like we were, the TV was on and I was texting with this new girl I just met. You know, kind of thing. So it was a very strange thing. And then I went home, somebody else came to stay with her. And I went home and the next day she was rushed to the hospital because she couldn't breathe. And she was in intensive care for about four or five days. And then they moved her to palliative care for, I don't know, 36 to 48 hours. And then she passed.
00:27:26
Speaker
Were you there? Were you there when she passed? Yeah, because I only lived about an hour and a half from them. So I drove up. My dad was flying in from somewhere else. And my brother was doing a gig in Czechoslovakia. So he had to pull some emergency international travel to get back. Wow.
00:27:51
Speaker
But we were all able to be there. It was a bunch of, we got a couple of friends there and had some people drive up from LA to visit and stuff. So it was nice. Everybody kind of got an opportunity to say goodbye and kind of chat with her and talk with her a bit, which was really cool. And then, you know, she passed in the middle of the night, one night. Was your mom into music? Are you into music as well? I mean, yeah. Are you musicians?
00:28:20
Speaker
Yeah, not as professionally as my dad and brother are, but yeah, I play music and I sing more for myself and the kids than anything else.
00:28:31
Speaker
So was there, was there singing like at her side? Like, was that something that helped you guys or not or prayers? Like what? Not really. When she was sick or what would help her during that time when she was sick? Just company sitting? What were the ways in which you connected with her during that time? She was a talker. So my dad is music. My dad and brother, the music is their language for everything. Like if they want to, if they have a big issue they need to work through, they write songs about it.
00:29:01
Speaker
And my mom helped my dad write a number of his songs early on. Oh, that's awesome. Yeah, she co-wrote all of his music for the first three or four albums, I think. Oh, I grew up listening and marching along my house, you know, your dad's songs.
00:29:19
Speaker
they co-wrote a bunch of music together but it hurt I think she was always more on the lyric side and he did the music to it and she would edit you know give her opinions but um she didn't listen to a lot of music like when she was in the car driving unless I turned the radio on it was silence and we would talk but there was no noise um she wouldn't you know she listened to some talk radio but a lot of it was more talking and
00:29:42
Speaker
trying to just sort things out. So there were a lot of, by the time she died, there were a number of young women from LA that she was kind of mentoring. And so they were kind of coming up to see her and she was giving some last information, some last guidance, that kind of stuff. So there was a lot of that going on.
00:30:03
Speaker
So was she kind of like you in terms of that aspect? I mean, you are an LMFT. Was she into counseling or was she a life coach, intuitive coach? What was her... So she described herself as a shaman. I don't really know what that means in all honesty. I was not really open to whatever she was doing in a weird way.
00:30:33
Speaker
the young women in LA that worked with her regularly coming back from visiting her, having their minds blown. She did go to get a master's degree as a shaman. Apparently, it was available somewhere. And I don't know if she ever finished or not. I think she did. I don't know. She got close. I don't think she did. I think she got close, and then something stopped it. But she was much more intuitive and kind of emotional, spiritual healing, but not
00:31:03
Speaker
Um, not in the therapy sense or, or in, in, in a clinical psychology kind of mindset, much more in the books and in the books kind of sense, but yeah, so, so, um, yeah. So yeah. So healing, which is interesting, right? Being that she was herself so frail and, um, and going through her own things, yet she was still able to still keep giving to others. Um, yeah. Well, I think.
00:31:33
Speaker
I think to me that was one of the big lessons that I took from her and her kind of whole passing was this idea that it doesn't matter how hard things are like I really do believe that the hardest parts of her life were when she was a child.
00:31:49
Speaker
And so as terrible as that was, I don't know the full details of that. I'm not sure I want to, but the idea of like just understanding I've worked with plenty of kids who've been in those types of situations and as difficult and as awful as those experiences are. The silver lining to that is that nothing scares you. Right. Once you've been through the worst, like.
00:32:12
Speaker
If you really put your mind to it and you decide to grow and change and go through all whatever transformation needs to happen, nothing's going to scare you after that. Like you've been through the hardest thing you'll ever do. So building a business, that's easy. You know, like this kind of thing is so, so in that sense, it's, um, it becomes there, there's a strength that comes from going through these really difficult challenges.
00:32:39
Speaker
And I don't believe personally, I don't believe anyone is really challenged beyond their capacity. So to me that says that anyone who's going through a difficult situation or something, not that they deserve it necessarily, but that they are capable of working through it in some way. And that allows for a really positive outlook on whatever someone's dealing with.
00:33:02
Speaker
Now, how was
Resilience and Grief Integration
00:33:04
Speaker
that then for you? Was her death the first major grief experience in terms of death that you had lived? No. What other death experiences have you experienced? I had a couple of friends pass away in high school, and then my best friend from high school passed away when I was 20 in college.
00:33:26
Speaker
Um, and so the, you know, the friends were close, but not like super close. So it was upsetting and like, Oh my God, but not like. Yeah. Like there were people I knew. Yeah. There were people I knew I'd hung out with them. I spent time with them and it was, and I knew people who were really close with them that were sad. And it was like, all right, cool. This is sad. Whatever way. Yeah. I can deal with it. Um, and then my best friend passed away. He overdosed, uh, at 19 and that one was really hard.
00:33:55
Speaker
but my mom kind of, I want to say she pushed me through it, but her, her philosophy, and I agree with it a hundred percent and have used it for my life and have recommended to all my patients and clients and stuff is the idea that she wouldn't let me stop my life. So I reached out to some teachers. I think I took, I went home from college the day after I found out. Um, and,
00:34:25
Speaker
was home for a day or two, went back up to school for a couple of days, went back to class and then went home again for the funeral and then went back to class. Like she would not let me come home and stay home for a week or two weeks or whatever. Um, she was not going to allow that. And I'm kind of grateful for that because I'm definitely the person that getting started is the hardest part. Once I'm going, I can power through pretty much anything. So like,
00:34:54
Speaker
I had been doing school, I was in school and was really rolling with that and to have that stopped. I have a friend of mine from high school, her father passed away when she was in college and she went home and was like, I'm going to take a semester off and never went back. That kind of thing. And so I think my mom was really scared of that and pushed me through it. And so that has been my.
00:35:15
Speaker
kind of mantra is that when these awful things happen, you can't stop. Like, yes, you need to stop and grieve. You need to have your moments. I mean, I think I took a week off work because we organized from, well, maybe it was a week and a half. I'm not sure. But she, like, she passed. And, you know, we're in the Baha'i faith. And in the Baha'i faith, you're supposed to, when someone passes, they need to be buried.
00:35:42
Speaker
you know, as quickly as possible. There's no embalming, there's no wake. You got to get it done and taken care of as quickly as you can. And so from the time she passed to the time she was buried was like 36 hours. And then we did a memorial, I think, a week later. Arnaud, yeah, I don't, yeah, it must have been a week later because we had people fly out.
00:36:07
Speaker
So we did, so there was a memorial about a week later, but outside of that, like after my mom was buried, I went back to work. Like I was like, I'm not going to sit and I'm going to be depressed. I'm going to be sad. I'm going to cry a lot, but I'm not going to let my life stop because it doesn't.
00:36:24
Speaker
If you want it to or not. The earth still spins, right? We're still spinning. I was in grad school. She passed away three days before the spring semester started for grad school.
00:36:40
Speaker
Like I contacted some friends and was like, Hey, can you, you know, you're in this class with me. Can you tell the teacher what happened? I'll be there when, you know, in the next couple of days. And everyone was really understanding all the teachers like take as much time as you need, but I couldn't let myself do that. And really it actually was, uh, the, the life timing, you know, it was perfect. And I don't necessarily, I don't believe in coincidences like this. I think the universe set it up in that way or God set it up in that way. That one of the classes that I was taking was my group therapy class.
00:37:08
Speaker
And the way that class was structured was the first hour and a half of the class was lecture. And then we'd take a five or 10 minute break. And the second half of that class was a group. Like we would do a process group. So you'd actually get to share your emotions. Yeah. Yeah. Well, and so the very first day that I was back was the first day she was doing the group process. And so we kind of sat there for about five minutes. Everybody's staring at each other because no one wanted to go first.
00:37:38
Speaker
The teacher turned to me and was like, do you want to share? And I was like, I mean, yes, I can share, but it's going to go, we're going down a hole right now. Like this is not a, oh, I'm sad that this happened. Like this is, you know, and it ended up being really great because one, I got group therapy every week for a semester, but two, like starting off with that allowed, like the next week a woman in the class talked about how she was scared that her husband was cheating on her.
00:38:05
Speaker
And the next week it was like, it just kept it opened up. It opened up the door for others. Everybody was like, okay, okay, we can go deep. Sure. And they, you know, because I was like, all right, I'm going to do this. And I'm, I'm a, I'm an open book. Like there's never a person who you have to be really unemotionally intelligent to not know that I'm upset about something.
00:38:27
Speaker
Like, I'm not capable of hiding it. You wear your emotions on your sleeve as they say. Now, were you able to express, like, were you, you were talking about crying and things like that before, like, like, I don't cry, you know, I'm learning how to cry even in movies. How, were you able to cry as part of your grief? Was that? Yeah. I mean, I think in the group, it was so fresh, it wasn't, I wasn't able to stop it because it, like, the first group was literally a week or so after she had passed. Like, so it wasn't,
00:38:57
Speaker
Like I couldn't stop it if I wanted to. But most of the crime did happen like at home and toward the middle of the night, like typically when I was alone and not really around people. Some of now at the time I was living with some friends of mine and the wife was
00:39:23
Speaker
very close, I was one of the women who had been going to see my mom. And so there was some sharing of the grief there. But it's still different, you know, losing a mentor versus losing a parent is a bit of a difference in intensity, I think. But it was nice in the sense that the people that were
00:39:46
Speaker
that you could talk about her and they knew, and they could talk about her memories and things like that about her. Yeah. And there was a lot of understanding. It wasn't, you know, there weren't, I had a number of people around me who were open to the conversation and were not like, Oh, okay, dude, whatever. I mean, like you're going back to the, the, the male, you know, masculinity thing, like,
00:40:11
Speaker
There's nothing more terrifying for men than another man like crying, crying, not tearing up and being like, I'm just like, man, it's hard, but like really crying. Men have no idea how to handle that. I don't feel. You're not yet. We don't have to.
00:40:27
Speaker
We don't ever have to. Like that never is a thing. And so the only time you have to deal with someone really blubbering at you is when your wife is upset. And even then guys are like, Oh, she's crying. What do I do? Uh, let me get a tissue and chocolate. Does that help? I don't know. Like it's this, I mean, I'm being a bit stereotypical myself right now, but this, I feel like this is what we're being set up for. And it's, and it's important to be able to support our friends.
00:40:55
Speaker
male and female when we're really upset and crying and having these awful moments. And it's interesting because like, I just kind of realized this myself, but I'm a therapist. Like my job is to let people come and cry to me. But when I have a friend who's dealing with trauma or dealing with a big loss, I'm the guy who comes in and makes them laugh.
00:41:17
Speaker
Hmm. So humor is your humor. For me, for me, it is. Yeah. And, you know, the closer the loss is to me, the more inappropriate the humor gets. Yeah. That's really crossed the line lines right now. That's something so important. It's so important that you're sharing that because it's so true. Yeah. We all kind of deal with grief differently. I'm humor as well. So I get it. But it's like.
00:41:45
Speaker
It's one of those things that's interesting. It's just interesting because I'm like, all right. So like my job is to tolerate people crying and being upset. And yet when it's a friend or a family member, I really want to make him laugh. And I have to really, really try hard not to do that with my children. Like that, that has been a real challenge for me is when he's really upset and crying.
00:42:08
Speaker
about something, whether a toy broke or, you know, he got in a fight with a friend or, you know, somebody got in trouble about something and he's really crying hard. Like after, like, you know, I'm constantly stopping myself from saying, don't, don't cry. There's nothing, nothing to cry about. What do you say to your Lego? Dude, we'll put the Lego back together. It fell on the floor and broke. Like, come on. And I like, I have to catch myself in those moments and be like, no, cry, be upset. It is okay to be upset. You are allowed to be sad that you put a lot of effort into this and it fell and broke.
00:42:37
Speaker
And now you're sad. Yes, we can fix it. But that's not the issue right now. You're sad about the effort. Yes. Yes. You know, and so trying to recognize that and curtail that because, like, you know, as adults, one of my friends lost her daughter a couple of months ago, and it was a grown adult daughter, but still, you know, she was like 25 or 26. And
00:43:04
Speaker
I called and I wasn't sure if she was going to answer the phone and I was like, whether she does great, if she doesn't leave a voicemail, it's fine. She answered and she said, you're one of the few people I answered because I know you're going to make me laugh. I was like, cool. I know what we're doing. Let's do it. You know, we had a great conversation. We talked
Support Networks and Emotional Needs
00:43:18
Speaker
for like 30 minutes and she laughed a lot and I was like, all right, great. I got a lot of things to, you know, sit, you know, complain about in a really silly over the top way. So let's go. Like,
00:43:28
Speaker
That's what she needed. At that moment, that's what she needed. I think that that's the key, is knowing what does the person need in that moment for their grief. And again, going back to the emotional intelligence, as you were saying, and actually asking, what would make you feel better right now in a little bit? Or what would you like for me to do? Because sometimes it's just being there. That's enough. Sometimes it's making laughs. Sometimes it's just not talking at all, whatever it is.
00:43:58
Speaker
Sometimes it's doing things for them, or it's just the different ways that we can be. But the aspect where you were talking about the feeling uncomfortable with tears and the not knowing what to do, I remember even just when you were talking even in relationships, my husband, whenever I'd have really tough moments and I'd just be crying, and sometimes I wouldn't even know why I was crying. I just felt like crying, right?
00:44:24
Speaker
trying to make it better. What did I do? What can I do? And I'm like, no, listen, I just want to cry. Just let me be right now how I am. I don't want you to try to fix it. I don't need any fixing. I just need to have this emotional release at this moment. That's all.
00:44:42
Speaker
Of course, after 17 years of marriage now, we got that. Sure. So that is important, too, of the person that is going through the grief of being open enough to share what it is they need if they just want to cry, if they want. Yeah. I think one of the things I've taught the men that I work with that are struggling with emotional intelligence and understanding their spouse or their girlfriend or whatever is our partner, really, is this idea of asking
00:45:13
Speaker
If you can't tell ask, you know, like, and I've done, I did that with my wife early on where there were times I'm like, cause I'm a, you know, one of the differences between men and women is that men naturally on top of all the stereotypical stuff and the, the, the emotional, the cultural information is being pushed into us. We are more Mr. Fix It mentality. Here's a problem. Fix it. Move on. Here's a problem. Fix it. Move on. And that's not always what people want.
00:45:40
Speaker
So if you're not, so I always have said to them, like, if you're not sure what the person, what your wife wants or what your partner wants ask, you can always say like, Hey, I can see that you're upset or you're frustrated. Do you want me to try and help you fix this or would you prefer I just sit here and listen? I can do both. And then as you go through that and they go, I need you to just listen, like, you know, and some of it's obvious when my wife comes home and complains about her work, I can't fix that.
00:46:09
Speaker
That's an obvious, easy solution. I can just listen, and I can be supportive, and I can be helpful, and I can challenge her in ways that will help her identify how she needs to fix it, whatever that means for her. Because there are times when I just need you to take this over and do it. OK. I can do that.
00:46:32
Speaker
You know, that even, that's even helped me even in my communication with friends. Sometimes when they're sharing something with me, I say, okay, do you want me to listen or do you want, do you want to just kind of vent or do you need any feedback? Do you want my opinion or, you know, I actually, I've had to learn to ask, do you want my opinion? Cause I am one of those that just start saying in general, my opinion.
00:46:53
Speaker
So I've had to kind of learn that, that not necessarily is everybody wanting my opinion or wanting me to fix it. They just really just sometimes want to bet. So I've had to learn to ask that question even in conversations with friends. So that's really helpful. The flip side of that though is to learn who to talk to because I know for me, there are certain people that if I am not in the mood for feedback, I cannot call them to talk about the issue because they're going to give it to me.
00:47:24
Speaker
And it's valuable and like it's good. It's not a knock on them in any way. They're just going to call me out in ways that I need to be called out. But if I'm not ready for that, I'm not calling them. I'm not calling that dude. When I'm ready for it, I'm like, all right, here we go. I know. I don't know what I'm going to say. I'm ready for it. Here we go. You know, and then we call the talk and he's like, well, are you ready now? And like he, we trying to joke about it. He's like, you ready now? Okay, cool. Let's do this.
00:47:53
Speaker
You know, but it's, so it's, it's both sides, right? I need to know what they're looking for, but I also need to know what I'm looking for because we, nobody has, you know, we don't have three or four people that are everything to us, or at least we shouldn't. In my opinion, it takes a village to raise a kid. It takes a village to be a living, functioning, reasonable adult. Um, and so knowing I have friends that I talk about.
00:48:22
Speaker
Video games with I have friends that I talk about martial arts with I have friends that I talk about, you know family stuff with I have friends that I talk about the big issues of the world with and like Knowing what do I need? What is gonna feed me right now? Do I need I just need a break I've been too stressed. I need to talk about stupid video games and make stupid make stupid jokes. I'm calling JP
00:48:44
Speaker
If I need to, if I'm like, no, I'm struggling with big world issues and we need to figure this, like, I need to figure some stuff out. I'm going to call my dude who's going to give me the feedback. Like, you know, like, and knowing this stuff I like. I've been using this analogy a lot lately, but I really like it.
00:49:01
Speaker
is that, you know, there's research lately that has been coming out that is showing that boys specifically, I don't know about girls, but the researchers focusing on boys as young as 14 are starting to sever their friendships with other boys. And you can see a distinct change in how they talk about their best friends, how they talk about wanting to see their best friends, how they talk about wanting to spend time with them from 11 and 12 and 14 and on.
00:49:27
Speaker
and basically what happens is men as they go from teenagehood into manhood start paring away their friends and they cut down until they're just it's just a spouse is like the only friend maybe two or three male friends but they're like that's about it and it's not enough of a social structure and so the analogy I really love is Lord of the Rings you know the first book is The Fellowship of the Ring and at the end of the first book
00:49:55
Speaker
They basically decide this one character is not going to make it to go throw the ring in the fire and destroy the thing. Yeah. Like he can't do it alone. So he gets nine dudes to go with him and they're all good at something. This dude's a good fighter. This dude's really smart. There's, you know, like, you know, and they struggle. They don't all, they're not all successful. Right.
00:50:21
Speaker
So at least one of them dies and they kind of, they all, they kind of splinter and then they come back together and then they splinter again and they're all doing different things, but they support each other throughout that whole process. Right. And that is a much better metaphor for me of what needs to happen and how people need to be supporting themselves, not just men, like people need this. I, the only reason I focusing on men with it is because I think culturally,
00:50:49
Speaker
women are allowed to be supportive and be supported by their peers far more than men are so true yeah so so this kind of building this up in this group together that's like all right
00:51:06
Speaker
I need help. Who can I call in? All right. Well, this is what we got to do. I have a buddy in New York whose basement just flooded out. And he's calling in the troops. And luckily for him, people are showing up. And he's like, all right, this dude's bringing me a couple of pumps. This guy's good at waterproofing. So he's going to go and waterproof the basement and help him figure out what he needs to buy. And they're releasing this guy does that. So this village is coming together to support him. Because it happened, I think, Christmas Eve.
00:51:35
Speaker
His basement, they came downstairs to get presents and the basement had two feet of water. So what do you do? You call, you just put out the feelers and be like, hey, can anybody help me and see who shows up? It's not going to be everybody, but developing that community to allow for that is so crucial.
00:51:54
Speaker
You know, something else too is the aspect of being able to know how to ask for help and when to ask, because that's the thing a lot of times too, going back again to the archetype, as you were saying before, the, am I saying that, right? It's like, you know, I know how to, I don't need a map. I'm going to go just, I know how to get there. I don't need help. Right. And that goes also in any, you know, in several personalities, you know, that I even remember my mom even telling me that I don't even,
00:52:23
Speaker
She never would help me. I had this conversation before she passed away. She would never help me, but she's like, you never asked me, Kendra. You've always been so independent. You never asked. So I was like, oh my gosh, I never asked. I always just thought that being the oldest of four, I would just always be the one that would just do and do it on my own because there were other ones that needed the help and my help.
00:52:49
Speaker
So that's important there too. Yeah. Because if not, like this friend of yours, if he was just swallowing his, you know, like if he was like prideful about asking for help, he'd have his basement flooded and not reaching out for the trips. And he'd end up paying five or $6,000 out to some emergency plumber to call them out on Christmas to come pump his basement. And he still stopped trying to, then he's got to figure out how to do all this stuff to fix it and make sure it doesn't happen again.
00:53:16
Speaker
But instead, like, but he was able to reach out and be like, hey, I mean, he kind of did it in like, you know, in a quote unquote, manly way, he posted on Facebook and let people offer. That's awesome. So it's still a way of asking for it, right? Like, it's still a way of saying I need help here. Obviously, it'd be better if you were able to directly go, you know what, I know john's got a pump, I know, Bill's got a pump, I'm going to give them a call. I know,
00:53:45
Speaker
Billy, he waterproofs houses so he knows what to do. Maybe he'll go bring some materials over. We can start making sure this doesn't happen again.
00:53:53
Speaker
Like he wasn't able to be that direct about it, but he still was able to put it out there into the universe and be like, oh, I need help. Right. No, that's so good. Now let's go back and just be before, because we've jumped everywhere and it's amazing because it's all interconnected again. Then with the asking for help and the grief component again, back to your mom, went back then to school. And then you were, that was one of your tools then was your own group classes where you were going to school.
00:54:22
Speaker
helped you in your in your grief journey. What other tools that you use, Dave? So what I did was very quickly I found a so shortly after my mom passed, I moved into my own apartment out of the house. I was kind of staying in a backhouse kind of area and I moved into this apartment that was
00:54:48
Speaker
In the, in between where I worked and where I went to school, it was like five minutes north was work, five minutes south was school. And once I got in there, it was kind of alone. I realized that I was going down and I needed to kind of stop myself from going too deep. And, um, so I ended up finding a therapist that was, you know, in the office complex that the office building I was in. Um, so.
00:55:17
Speaker
I ended up going to started seeing a therapist within a couple of weeks, um, of her passing shortly off, you know, and that was very helpful just in terms of just getting it out, like processing and being able to, you know, therapy has always been a sacred safe space for me. And I'm like, all right, cool. I know this person's not supposed to judge me. And even if they are judging me, they can't let me know. So that's fine. I don't know about it. I don't care. Um,
00:55:46
Speaker
And so it's kind of that was a very.
00:55:51
Speaker
beneficial space. How was it with your relationship then too? Cause you had just started then dating, you had just met Paz. And so then also how was it then starting a new relationship as you're in the middle, like how she got to know you was when you were in one of your most vulnerable moments in life. So how was that dynamic as well? And it was long distance for a while, right? Yeah. Yeah. It was long distance up until we got married. So
00:56:20
Speaker
We were long distance for about a year and a half. Um, and so, which I think was actually very beneficial. Um, it's, I, I have a trouble with small talk on a day to day basis. Like when she comes home from work, I'm like, I don't care who you had lunch with. I don't care about the joke. They said, none of that matters to me.
00:56:43
Speaker
Um, but if you want to talk about how you're struggling with your boss or with a coworker is not doing what they're supposed to be doing that this person is not doing their job and is making your job harder like
00:56:53
Speaker
that's real world stuff like we can talk about that if you want to talk about the state of the world we could talk about that like i need deep meaningful conversations i can't do fufu and then i went over here and then i did this and then i don't need a schedule you document we do but that's what we do that's what we do i don't i'm like right i'm like i went the year that at the abc at two o'clock i went and
00:57:18
Speaker
but that's and the thing is to me i'm like that's fluff that's to stop us from talking about the real issues yeah deeper stuff yeah so and so that's on it like when i'm in front of someone i can't tolerate it so on the phone it's even worse so it forced us to have very real meaningful conversations so we talked about stuff with my mom um her mom has had cancer as well um it was a different experience
00:57:44
Speaker
And so she was very interesting because she was struggling on some level to get my experience because we never, you know, there were no rushes to the hospital outside of the last time. So like I called Roz as I was driving up to the hospital. And one of the first questions she asked was like, Oh, well, is this like the other times? And like, what other times? And she was like, Oh, well, like with my mom, we've
00:58:09
Speaker
We went to the hospital like four or five times with her before, you know, and her mom's still going strong. And so I was like, Oh, uh, no, we never, that's never happened before. There's never been a, uh, a before time. This is the only time she's gone to the hospital. Um, which to me was a blessing. Like I'm not a fan of being in and out of hospitals and all of that stuff. Like now let's, let's get it done and be out of here. I don't, um,
00:58:37
Speaker
So it was a very interesting experience in that sense. And just, it just, I think made, it deepened the conversations because there was more meaningful conversation about my mom, about death, about this kind of stuff, which is, you know, one of the big tenants too that I have always held is death is not scary to me.
00:59:06
Speaker
I'm not concerned. I'm not afraid of death. I'm not afraid for other people. You know, as I mentioned, I'm a Baha'i, so we believe in that the soul continues after this world, that it's a better place, and that there are really, like many worlds, it's a constant journey. And you die from the womb to be born into this world. You have to die in this world to be born into the next. And kind of the quote that sticks in my head from the Baha'i writings is, death is hard for the living.
00:59:36
Speaker
And so that to me really mitigated a lot of the grief because my philosophy was less about my mom's gone. I've lost my mother and more of it's shifted. My relationship with my mother is shifted. It's not the same, but it's not gone. She's still here.
01:00:01
Speaker
you know she's still around she's still able to communicate with us in ways it's not nearly as clear sometimes it's very confusing well she was a shaman she might find very clear ways of doing that well you know a couple i think we were we were on broth and i started getting serious i don't again i have no idea when this was it was sometime before we were married um
01:00:23
Speaker
She had a dream that she was in this house and she's walking through this house and she walks into this room and there's my mother just sitting on a chair watching her for a while. And I was like, Oh yeah. So it was, that's a clear message. Okay. But like, but so that idea of like, this person is dead and gone doesn't apply to me. I don't believe that.
01:00:53
Speaker
I think, yes, the body is dead, but the spirit is still around. It's still intermingling with this world and how we interact with stuff. And so it comes and goes and you go, okay. So I think that in turn was something as well, faith and kind of a belief in kind of a life after death system, if you will.
01:01:22
Speaker
also made it a lot easier to work through some of that grief and process through that to be like, all right, it's just different now. That's really all it is. It's just different. And it's not about it's gone forever. And I'll never see her again. I'll never communicate with her again. Like, that's not a thing.
01:01:45
Speaker
It's even like I was just saying, because I mean, I'm getting chills because I can totally relate to what you're saying. I completely know. It doesn't make with grief. I'm like, I get it. I get it. I totally get that because that's how I feel about it as well with my mom. But it's kind of like even your relationship with Roz having been even long distance, you were on the phone. You weren't even in person yet.
01:02:07
Speaker
So it's even to that extent of relationships that you could still build. My husband, too, and I, we dated long distance before we got, we only lived in the same place for a month before we got married. So we never did that. Yeah. Oh, you didn't even do that. Okay. For us, like a month, but we only dated eight months. So, and it was all like this. So the same kind of situation that we had to also dive deep, have these deep conversations. So now
01:02:32
Speaker
In relation then, even that comparing it to the relationship that's now different with our moms, with our loved ones that have passed on, it's that it's just a different communication system right now. They're not just physically here. And yes, we can't just pick up the phone, but there's other ways in which we can connect.
01:02:54
Speaker
I want to hear if you can share this part and then we'll wrap it up. How do you talk about her to, well, Chase, I guess, because Connor's too little. How do you keep her memory alive in your home? At times it can be a little sticky because my dad has remarried and he remarried before
01:03:20
Speaker
uh chase was born so he doesn't have a concept of having seen him my hips yeah right it was my dad was never alone before before chase was or after chase was born and he wasn't with my mom so we you know we definitely talk about grandma kathy all the time um we do bring her up a lot we talk about her a lot um and my you know my brother is
01:03:43
Speaker
really good about doing that with his kids. And so we talk, you know, whenever we see them or talk to them, it comes up and we talk about that and we kind of keep, keep her alive in that sense. We have pictures and things like that. Um, and, and we haven't quite gotten the question yet about like, how, how does your, you know, grandma, Kathy, Gamboo and Gemma all fit together in this puzzle. He hasn't quite gotten there yet. Um, but.
01:04:12
Speaker
I'm pretty direct and forward person. And I was like, and when that comes, we'll talk about it. And we'll say, well, this is what happened. And it's interesting because it's led into conversations about death in general. He's had some experience like our dog. We put our dog down three years ago. He was three, so he didn't quite get it, but he does get it now. And so we use that kind of correlation for him.
01:04:40
Speaker
When he asks about like, where is grandma Kathy? And they're like, well, she's in the next world, right? She's with Costas. Remember when he had to go away and he went to the next door cause he got sick and he was like, Oh yeah. Okay. Like, so it's kind of a,
01:04:53
Speaker
That kind of helps a little bit. And now you have this other dog now. Yeah, so it just brings that concept together. Yeah, I think you're right in terms of just answering as they ask, right? Yeah. As they start asking, then you start answering. We don't necessarily have to put it all there on the table, all at once, necessarily. It's just as they start asking more questions about life after death and so forth.
01:05:22
Speaker
We do. But yeah, the grief component, like my kids did get to experience my mom. My dad is also remarried now for the last year. But even that component was also something we also had to deal with the grief of even that aspect, a new change. And it didn't take away from the fact that we were so happy for my dad, but we still had to deal with our own personal grief. And so that dynamic happens as well.
01:05:51
Speaker
Now, what are you most grateful for, for the experiences that you've had, not only of your mom's passing, but then also of your friend when you were in college and then the other ones? In terms of the things that have happened that have been hard, what are you most grateful for in your own growth and your own awakening as a person or whatever? What things have come from that?
01:06:22
Speaker
I think that like my friends and stuff in high school and college, it was really the benefit was kind of being prepared for when my mom passed. And when my mom passed, it was kind of like it really in a way was the floodgates opening of being like, you got to stop.
01:06:43
Speaker
Bottling all this stuff up. You got to start to work on letting it out a little more effectively and you know, that's kind of a lifelong journey really but it was a Kind of the opening of the door and you know once the doors opened you can't really close it again. So Once you've cried about something in public
01:07:03
Speaker
It's kind of silly to stop crying about it. You know, like you're in a classroom with a bunch of people, you've caught a net, you know, some of them, but not all of them. And you're like really sobbing because your mom passed away four or five days ago. Like after that, it's like, all right, I can cry about anything in this class. And it really doesn't matter anymore.
01:07:27
Speaker
So it allowed you to just openly express yourself. So that's one of the things that it taught you. Was that also a big part for you then in this aspect of the emotional component, emotional vocabulary that you kind of focus in your practice? Was that because you were studying at that moment or was that something that just always interested you in your
01:07:52
Speaker
in your therapy kind of work well i think the the emotional intelligence really became interesting to me in working in the residential facilities because i was seeing people
01:08:04
Speaker
kids and family because the kids would come stay with us but we would do family therapy with them twice a week so we would push these parents to come into the facility and I would see these grown-ups that had no emotional intelligence either and I was like how have you gotten to 45 years old and you don't know how to say you're lonely or you're hurt how does that work and I was first was just surprised by it but now I'm like oh no there's a lot of people that can't do that and it's
01:08:30
Speaker
It's not about them being idiots or stupid. It's that our culture is stupid. It's the culture that's being dumb here. And this machismo thing of just power through, just be strong. And you just push through. And I think that's my personal opinion is that's why we see such high rates of substance abuse and addiction right now are one of the reasons.
01:08:52
Speaker
Because they don't know how to deal with it. Yeah, numbing it because they don't know how to deal with it. Yeah. No, that is just so valuable. So thank you. I just wanted to just know how it was that maybe if that influenced at all your choice in your focus. Yeah, not so much on my mom. I think it was more that what it is now is looking back and realizing that when I was 10, 11, 12, and my mom was forcing me to sit on the couch,
01:09:20
Speaker
with my brother because we just had a fight about something and she's like, you know, but what are you feeling? I'm like, I'm angry. She's like, yeah, I know, but what are you feeling? And I'm like, I don't want to talk about it. And like realizing now, like, oh, what she was trying to do was teach me emotional vocabulary and emotional intelligence in the moment. She was trying to help me understand what it was I was going through instead of just letting me rage for 20 minutes and then blow it off and be, and then cool down and be like, oh, well, good thing that's over. Like she wasn't going to ignore it. She faced it head on.
01:09:51
Speaker
and kind of powered through a lot of the anger and frustration to get to the soft underbelly below that. And that has become, the lesson that I've gotten from my mom with that is like, oh, okay, so when my six-year-old is throwing a tantrum, I have to just power through that and just wait for that to finish to where he's really upset and crying. We get past the anger to the sadness, and then we can start to talk about the sadness. Like, okay.
01:10:19
Speaker
We're talking about, you know, how we're talking about the soul even just continuing, just even the aspect of the things that continue even within us, like just how you're explaining now that those lessons that you learned from your mom are now carrying on even through you, right?
01:10:36
Speaker
So she is with you, even in those moments of parenting and so forth too, because not only what she taught you when she was alive, but just you still carry her memory even just that way. So just so beautiful. So thank you. Any last minute, any last moment, things you'd like to say to the audience or that I did not ask that you'd like to share? I don't know.
01:11:05
Speaker
I don't want to be like, I forgot to tell her this story. I think that sometimes I forgot to ask this. I mean, no, it's, you know, it's just interesting. I think that, you know, growing, I'm naturally not afraid, not afraid of, you know, death and spooks and ghosts and things like that. So to me, there've been a couple of instances, not when my mom necessarily,
01:11:33
Speaker
But prior to that, where I had, you know, would see something that I was like, all right, that can't be, or something would happen with that. There's no other explanation for this. And it is, you know, like I was like 17 and was working at a grocery store and I saw this guy out of the corner of my eye, an older gentleman just standing there and I was working. And so I turned to talk to him and there's nobody there. And I think my, you know, the, the way my mom raised me,
01:12:03
Speaker
and talking to me, my dad raised me to talk to me about this stuff. Like that stuff was not scary. So this, and that you start talking, if you take away the fear of ghosts and the supernatural, then you take away a lot of the fear of death. So that when somebody passes, you go, all right, okay. I mean, it sucks for me.
01:12:31
Speaker
but she gets to do all this amazing stuff now. So that was that kind of stuff that was like, I think that was really helpful is some of those experiences that I had early, you know, younger when I was like 15, 16, 17 of like, Oh, okay. This dude is not there. You know, you look and you know, you get to the point where I'm like, I'm looking out of the corner. I can see this guy clearly standing there. I know there's a person there. Then you turn and look and he's gone. You go, what is that supposed to be? I don't know. But to me, it was a very soothing presence because of our,
01:13:00
Speaker
the family view of it. I just didn't have fear around it. So I think that this idea of like accustoming children to the concept of death, to the concept of the soul moving on and things like that makes it really easier. I mean, pets teach us a lot of things. Responsibility,
Perspectives on Life and Death
01:13:24
Speaker
unconditional love.
01:13:26
Speaker
Animals love unconditionally. Humans do not always love unconditionally. And the final lesson that any individual pet can teach you is how to handle death.
01:13:37
Speaker
You know, like, that's just... Parents miss that boat sometimes too. I've had this conversation before. Sometimes, you know, when, you know, Chase was only three then when his dog died. You did not tell him that the dog went to a farm to live with the dog. No, he came with us. He went with us to the vet. He didn't really know what was going on. I don't think he really grasped what was happening, but he knew that, you know, Mommy and Daddy and Gebu were all really upset instead of crying.
01:14:07
Speaker
And he knew that we walked in carrying Costas and we walked out without Costas. Like he figured that out. And now he did, you know, a day or two later asked, when are we going back to get Costas? He didn't quite get it. But we'd also, you know, he'd had that experience where we drop him off and come back a few hours later to pick him up. Like he'd had that before. So like there was some of that where he was a little confused, but it was, he was there and I wasn't going to hide it from him.
01:14:38
Speaker
You know, like this is not something that I'm not a believer in lying to kids about anything. Like he's not, you know, he didn't go to some farm somewhere and he's not still living there. Like, no, he's dead. We can talk about it.
01:14:53
Speaker
I think that the biggest lessons in this conversation I've had with you and the things that have come up the most have been the aspect of really just being open to these conversations, like naming the emotions with the emotional vocabulary, being open with having conversations about life and death, using those opportunities that we have in order to teach our kids and also teach ourselves how to handle those conversations.
01:15:20
Speaker
patients and so forth. We get to kind of practice and it's not always going to turn out the way we want. We may not say the right thing as we're trying to explain to our kids the concept of life after death or whatever it is that each family believes as they're educating their children about what happens when somebody dies. You follow whatever beliefs bring you comfort or whatever you've
01:15:43
Speaker
brought, you know, brought up to believe you and I happen to have the same beliefs of life after death. So therefore it is, I don't know, it does bring some, you know, comfort, of course, having those beliefs for sure. When we're faced with it, again, it doesn't make it necessarily that it's a walk in the park type of thing, but it does make it
01:16:04
Speaker
And as you said, a lot of times we've gone through already hard things in our life that we don't even realize that we've already overcome, that we're even, I'm not saying harder, but have been hard. And therefore, like your mom would say, you keep going and you keep living. You keep living like she made you basically keep living your life after your friend died. And that's something you did then when she died. You just carried on her tradition as how she guided you.
01:16:32
Speaker
Yeah, because the reality is I don't want my kids to fall apart when I go. But the running joke is that I keep telling my wife that one day I'm going to write a will. And when I do, in that will, I want them to hire a comedian to come tell at my memorial to just tell jokes about death. Like, this is not supposed to be sad. My mom's, this is what I did forget to mention.
01:17:00
Speaker
One of the things that we did when my mom passed, we did a memorial for her, but it was not like a, we were very clear. We did not want it to be, everybody's going to come and cry. This is going to be, there's going to be crying. That's just what it is. And there were a few people that were invited to speak and you know, those who said some stuff, it was great. But then we also played games, like huge team games.
01:17:26
Speaker
so everybody who was there got divided into four teams and then we did like a giant group charades and we did this and that because there was one of the things my mom was so good at was figuring out and creating games that got people playing and talking to each other when they didn't like icebreaker games right but people don't know each other she was really good at taking a big group mixing it up and getting everybody talking to everybody so that you didn't have
01:17:53
Speaker
The same three or four people that know each other sitting over in a corner and these people over here and everybody kind of separated. She brought everybody together. And so that's what we kind of wanted to do. And I love that idea so much. We did it at my wedding. We got 200 people to play these games. And only three or four of them stayed at the tables and didn't join her. Oh my gosh. That must have been the most awkward. It was incredible. No, to being the three that didn't play. Oh, exactly. At that point, it's like, well, now you're the weird one.
01:18:24
Speaker
You're the weird one. Good. Be weird. But like, it was really great because we didn't know how that was going to go. It was like, you know, if people sit down and they don't join, that's fine. But we've, I think the groups are big enough that we won't, it won't matter if 50 people stay seated, but then everybody got up. It was so cool. And that kind of mentality for all things, not just, this is a wedding, it's a celebration, but like, no, this is a memorial. It's also a celebration. It shouldn't be sad. I am a, I'm very against the idea of being sad.
01:18:54
Speaker
at a memorial or about people who have died. Don't be sad for them. That's not reasonable. They're fine. Whether you believe in life after death or not. If you don't believe in life after death, they've disappeared. They're not existent. They don't feel anything. If you do believe in life after death, they're in a better place. It doesn't matter. We have no reason to be sad for them. We can be sad for ourselves, but at the memorial, let's remember how wonderful they were. When my friend passed in high school or in college,
01:19:22
Speaker
I went to his house I was it was a weird situation for me actually in a way because I was the only friend of his that he really brought into his house and his family. So I knew his aunts and uncles I knew his cousins.
01:19:37
Speaker
his grandparents into all of these people in his family, whereas most of our friends did not. Now, granted, he died of an overdose, so that tells you what kind of activities he was involved in. So a lot of the people that he was hanging out with were not the most upstanding citizens. So the ones he was socialized with, or not bring to family dinner. You were the only one that... The only one. My only normal friend. Let me bring him to the family dinner.
01:20:05
Speaker
But so it was weird because after we did the memorial and the funeral for him and the burial, everybody went back to his house, his parents' house, and the family was all inside and the friends were outside. And I found myself really going back and forth, spending 10, 15 minutes inside, 10, 15 minutes outside, 10, 15 minutes inside. And eventually I ended up spending more time outside because the house was just so depressed.
01:20:35
Speaker
Everybody was so sad. Not granted. He's 19. He was 19. Like it's really tragic. But again, I don't feel bad for him now. Like at this point it's done. There's nothing we can't do anything for him and change that situation. And I do believe he's in a better place anyway. So what am I going to be upset about for him? Let's move on. Um, and so in his situation, it was, the family was really caught up on the tragedy and the depression of it.
01:21:04
Speaker
but the friends were outside making jokes and laughing about it and telling me, and not just like making jokes, but also telling really funny stories like, Oh dude, remember when we did this? And can you believe we didn't get caught for that? And, and that was, to me, I was like, these kids kind of understand the celebration of life right now. So I'm going to go celebrate over here and spend a little bit more time with them kind of thing. And I think that that it's, it's just so, it was such a juxtaposition of like the,
01:21:34
Speaker
the way kind of many people in the world view it of like, well, we got to sit and be really sad and depressed and whale. And I mean, you can do that. No judgment. If people want to do that, and that's what they need. Great. Do it. If that helps you process. Wonderful. I'm not saying you can't or shouldn't do those things. We have to go through the grief and the sadness. It is part of the process. You can't move through it if you don't ever go through it.
01:22:00
Speaker
Mm hmm. If you can't come out the other side into the place where you where the happy memories take over more than the sad memories, right? Like, the joy of having been a part of this person's life, in my opinion, needs to take over the sadness of losing them, or else it's miserable constantly. But so we have to go through that. I'm not saying don't go through that. To me,
01:22:23
Speaker
A memorial needs to be hilarious and telling stories of the person's life, whether they're funny or not, just like interesting aspects, things like, oh, I didn't know they did that kind of thing. I didn't know they did that. That's so cool. You know, like just telling cool, fun elements and celebrating the life. Like we're all going to go grieving our own way anyway. Like the grief process is going to take a long time. This is not something that we go to a memorial and cry about it. We're done. But it's not.
01:22:53
Speaker
That is so true. Yeah. It doesn't mean that just because the funeral was a certain way or something like that, that's just how it's going to carry on forever for the rest of your life. It does change. It does change because doesn't your grief look very different now than it did, you know, nine years ago? I mean, yeah, I guess I wouldn't even call it green. What would you call it at this point? At this point, it's just like, it's just a way of life now, right? Like I'm not sad that she's gone.
01:23:24
Speaker
I'm not sad that she's passed. I'm disappointed that she didn't get to come to my wedding. I'm disappointed that she didn't get to hold her grandchildren. Like that's disappointing, but it's not devastating. I'm not sad about it. I don't cry about it. I go, you know what? She's just holding them in a different way. She hugs them in a different way. It's, she knows who they are. She's aware of them. Like, you know, this is what it is. Like this is not a thing of she's never going to experience this.
01:23:54
Speaker
She's experiencing it. It's just different. Just different. So to me, like the way, and this is my personal definition. I don't know what the, I'm not a grief therapist, so I don't know the clinical definition of how this works. I don't focus on it really too much, but like for me, the grief was the sadness and the pain and the crying and the real, the pain of it, of the loss. But I don't, I don't feel that pain of loss anymore. Now it's just an adjustment and going like, all right, well, yes.
01:24:24
Speaker
I'm over the pain, I've moved past the pain of the loss and now it's just wonderful memories, joyful memories, some not so great memories. She was my mom, she wasn't perfect. I've spent a lot of money with my therapist working through some stuff with her.
01:24:40
Speaker
And my dad, what we do right now is so important too, because sometimes that's another thing that happens in grief is that we are focusing on all the good things about it. And we forget that it was, we, it was a regular dynamic and you know, relationship that there were some things that weren't working that well either. You know, one of the things, one of the things I said at the, her memorial, her 10 year memorial we did, uh, last year.
01:25:07
Speaker
I have no idea. My wife was pregnant. He said 2019. Yeah, so 2019. Yeah. So it was last year, almost two years ago. But one of the things that I had said, I was doing a lot of work with my therapist around my mom at that time. And, and one of the things I shared with the community that came was this idea of like, right now I'm doing a lot of personal work around my mom. So I'm very angry at her for a lot of things. And that's okay. She was not perfect.
01:25:35
Speaker
Um, but I'm also very grateful because the things I'm angry at her about don't even come close to the things she was angry at her parents about. Right. So like, I'm grateful at the work that she did so that now I can do my work, but it's not even close.
01:25:54
Speaker
to how much work you had to do. Yeah, because her work, the work she had to do ended up being that also as she was working through the things of her own childhood, she was also having you guys be in therapy as well so that you guys could be able to work through the things that she was working through hers. It was like this ladder, right? Yeah. So yeah, so then right now, you may not have to do the same now with Chase and Carter, like they may not have those things as you've been able to do.
01:26:21
Speaker
Get to know of other things other things. I'm a you cannot it's not possible to not screw up your kids And actually I kind of think it's necessary because without pain there's no way
01:26:35
Speaker
Well, yeah, there you go. Yeah. And that's a very good quote, too, in the Baha'i writings regarding the worshipane aspect, the aspect of going through something to be able to go through it. Ben, you're right. And we don't know. Even if we smother them with love and never stole them, we still would mess them up, right? Well, sure, because they don't learn how to
01:27:01
Speaker
They don't learn, if all you ever do is smother them with love and everything is wonderful, they don't learn how to stand on their two feet when that's gone. Right. So it's like, either way, we're going to mess it up. So you're right. So it's like, we just do our best. Don't worry about it. It's
Coping with Grief and Daily Life
01:27:15
Speaker
funny because I've had conversations with family and friends and other people who have young kids and I'm like, God, I'm a terrible father. I'm a terrible mother. I'm terrible at this. I'm like, no. Does your kid have food? Do you hit them? Are they going to school? Okay. You're good enough.
01:27:31
Speaker
Now, try to do better. Just do a little bit better than you can do. Like, as long as you're trying, like when you recognize that you have a weakness in something, you got to work on it. I'm not saying this as a pre-pass, like, do what you want, they got to grow anyway. No, it's like, but it takes the pressure off for me. Like, I know where my problem areas are and the things I need to work on. I'm doing the best I can in that. But I'm also not going to sit here and beat myself up because something happened. I'm like, man, I yelled at my kid again when I really shouldn't have.
01:28:00
Speaker
Like, okay, we're in the middle of a pandemic. I've been stuck with these two kids for the last nine months. My wife gets to leave. She gets to get out of the house. You know, I start falling into that mentality. But like, you know, you go, okay, we're all being traumatized by this pandemic. So let's just cut ourselves some slack here a little bit. He's going to throw tantrums because he's six and doesn't get to play with other kids.
01:28:22
Speaker
I'm gonna throw tantrums because he's six and he doesn't get to get out of the house and go to other kids' houses and play with them. And you're 40 and you don't get to go out and play with other people. I don't get to go play with other people. I only play with them on video games now. My whole life plan got thrown upside down.
01:28:40
Speaker
Like I was supposed to be home with the baby working on my business. Instead, I'm home with a dog, a baby, and a six-year-old, a teaching assistant, a daycare assistant, and a dog trainer. And my business got pushed to the side. Like, you know, all of this, there's grief around that. Like having that would say, I would say is my more, my more, my current grief is like, I'm really frustrated that I've not been able to put the time into the business that I want because both my wife and I would like our roles to change. She wants to be home with the kids. I want to be working.
01:29:10
Speaker
But neither one of us are in a place right now because of the way the world is to really take steps that are necessary to make that flip.
01:29:22
Speaker
Yeah, but as you were saying, even just before, because going through any experience helps you then go through another one, right? The death of your friends in high school, and then your friend when you were 19, and then helped you with your mom's death, then also all those things with grief help you even manage some of the experiences and emotions that are going on through this grief right now that everybody's experiencing.
01:29:47
Speaker
you know, with your life not turning out exactly what you had planned because that's kind of what we've had to gotten, you know, get used to that. There was a lot of curve balls a lot of times and we just kind of have to go with it. And so yeah, it's resilient, it makes us flexible with life, you know, and then we learn to dust off and keep going. You know, it's funny, like, I really don't like a lot of the male tropes, but
01:30:17
Speaker
The one that I've been, when we're at home and it's me and the boys, I try to play like slower music to kind of, in some attempt to keeping the energy down. It doesn't really work, but I like to tell myself it does. And so we listen to a lot of like Frank Sinatra, Dean Martin and stuff. And we do have talks about like, ooh, this song is really sexist, or this song is really racist and we can't listen to that song anymore. Let's turn that one off.
01:30:42
Speaker
The Frank Sinatra radio station on Alexa, on Amazon Music is full of stuff where you're like, oh, that doesn't fly anymore. But one of the songs that's come on that kind of bothered me initially, but I've kind of recognized the beauty of it is Frank Sinatra's That's Life. Because it's like, it's all just about resiliency. You know, it's like, you're on top in April, on your back in May,
01:31:11
Speaker
Back on top in June, just pick yourself up, dust yourself off and start all over again. Like you don't have to start all over again, but like figuring out how to pivot and shift and how do you, how do you just make it like keep doing it? Just keep going. You know, the other one is Dory from Finding Nemo. Just keep swimming.
01:31:29
Speaker
Just keep swimming, just keep swimming. Super obnoxious. When someone's telling you that, it's really obnoxious. I've definitely, with the 14, 15 year olds in the rehab facilities, when they were complaining about stuff, I'd look at them and just keep swimming. They didn't work well.
01:31:45
Speaker
No, and that didn't work in their grief component in that moment either. It won't work for somebody. In that moment that somebody's just gone through something, you can't just tell them, oh, stand up, dust off, and keep going. No, no, no. But there's an element of saying don't stop.
01:32:01
Speaker
Right. Yes. You can't think just like, and the way you talk about it, like my mom didn't look at me and give me some cliche trope about like, just keep going. No, she was very direct and very clear and very intent about it. And was acknowledging she was like, I know this is the hardest thing you've ever had to deal with what my friend does. She was like, I know this is really difficult. I know it's so hard. I know that all you want to do is lay in bed and watch TV and not do anything. We can't allow that to happen.
01:32:30
Speaker
you have to go back to school like and so these kinds of things of like you have to keep moving forward you have to keep going on even if it's just a couple of steps like you know for me going back to school i could be i'm pretty sure i didn't learn anything in those first couple of weeks at school after my friend passed i don't remember any i don't remember what classes i was in like it was because it's such a blur and you're like you know
01:32:55
Speaker
But you're just going through the motions. Yeah. You're just going through the motions, but it's the idea of fake it till you make it right. You've got, if you have to go through the motions till you're back in the groove to some degree, you can't, you know, I was listening. I don't remember who it was. I picked a couple of episodes of your podcast last night to listen to. Um, and one of the women was, she was talking to her husband had died and she had two small kids. I don't remember what it was. Um, but she said something like life doesn't stop just because
01:33:25
Speaker
You know, my husband passed and I'm devastated. Like I still gotta get out of bed and feed the kids. I still gotta figure out, you know, we still gotta go to the grocery store. We still gotta make sure we got toilet paper. I gotta do laundry. Like these are things that have to keep happening. And even if that's what you're pushing and trying to do. And I think my mom's point was not about power through and just pretend it didn't happen. It was more about don't let this impact your life any more than it has to.
01:33:55
Speaker
It's already going to take up all your free time. You're already going to be sad and depressed with these friend groups, right? Like that's given and it's appropriate and it's reasonable. You're going to lose some sleep over it. You're going to stop. You're going to lose, maybe not eat as much for a little while because of it. We're going to accept all of that and just keep and say, that's okay. But don't give things up because of it. Like don't give up school. Don't give up a job. Don't give up on a relationship.
01:34:25
Speaker
you know, like, whatever, don't give up on a volunteer service, or hobbies, or things like utilize these things to help you, right? Tap into those, you know, work and class became a nice distraction, because I was like, I got to try and focus on this long enough to remember for the test what I need to know. You know, that kind of thing, it becomes something to hold on to,
01:34:53
Speaker
For me, it was going back to school, going back up to college, and going to work and stuff was a semblance of normalcy to hold onto.
01:35:02
Speaker
I think that that is so valid. And what I, for example, I'm a little bit, well, I kept going, but I'm more the type that I do, if I need to just completely decompress and just feel, I actually do kind of disconnect for a little bit. And for me, it actually ends up helping me be able to then focus on the other things.
01:35:25
Speaker
I don't know if it has to do with the personality types too, like the doers, the people that are the doers and that's kind of how they navigate their grief is still the doing. For me, I feel like I need to sit with it, but it's a very fine line, as you're saying before, because if somebody is a doer, for example, and it's the type that work is what keeps them kind of alive and they do let go of job, then you already are living,
01:35:53
Speaker
grieving now two things, the person that died and then the job that you've just let go because your life now has changed twice as much. It's just one more thing that you're taking away. So that I think the importance of keep going and keep doing is because if you start shifting and changing so many other things in your life, then there's other secondary grief process that you'll have to go through. And I think that what you said that was so important is the idea of
01:36:22
Speaker
And you, I mean, I don't know if you said it directly, but intentionally taking time to sit in it is so important. It's not about an open-ended, like my friend who dropped out of college because her father passed away. It wasn't a thing of like, well, I'll just come home and I'm going to work around the house to help get the house cleaned out, get to take care of his stuff and figure these things out and do and move towards the working through the process. And then going back to school, there was no real ending.
01:36:50
Speaker
There was no end time. So it's, I'm all about taking time and allowing for it. If there's, if it's a set period of time, now, maybe it needs to be extended a little bit, maybe it can be shortened a little bit. Everybody's grieving process and timing is different. So I'm not here to say one size fits all, but what I do think is important is that if a person feels the need and can benefit from
01:37:13
Speaker
taking time. Wonderful. Just make sure that it's a contained timeframe in space and that it's like, I'm going to take a week off of work. Or I'm going to take a week off. I'm going to not go to school for a week. I don't know any college professor that's going to be like, no, get your ass back in class. No, take your time. Take a week. Fine. No problem. You can make up the assignments whenever you need to. No rush, right? Like nobody's going to fault anyone for taking a week off of work or anything like that. Unless you got a real,
01:37:41
Speaker
real difficult boss. But like, the idea is like, for me, it's about if you're going to take that time, you have to be specific about it and intentional and that this week is for this. And I'm going to let myself lay in the bed, go literally from bed to the couch and the couch to the bed, I'm just going to eat ice cream for a week. And then it's back to daily life, right? Or whatever.
01:38:06
Speaker
I remember my, you know, what I learned about that aspect of having an end was I had a big breakup before I met my husband and my friend that I was living with. She was like, I give you three days. You're only, you're allowed three days. You can cry for him for three days. He does not deserve a day more from you. You three days, that's it. You cry, you weep, then you move on. Like she gave me that ultimate of three days.
01:38:30
Speaker
So, so it just depends on, it really worked for me. Three days of moral following and then I moved on. Yeah. You know, and I've done that. Like I had, uh, I'd gotten fired from my first real job after college. Um, they hired me for a job I was not good for and I was not capable of, and I didn't have the skills for. And after three weeks, they let me go. I think the guy did it on purpose just to get rid of me. Um, cause I didn't turn there for a year. So he kind of had to offer me a job.
01:39:00
Speaker
but he didn't really want me. So whatever. Anyway, um, I got fired. I came home. I called my girlfriend at the time and she drove up. She was about an hour and a half away. She drove up and hung out for the day. And, um, the next morning she went home and the next day, the next morning I woke up and my mom got, I was kind of moping around the house a little bit. And my mom was like, okay,
01:39:26
Speaker
You had yesterday you call, you did a good thing. You called a friend and got some support and did that. Great. Um, now that job, you know, similar conversations, your, your roommate had with you. Like she's like, wasn't a good job for you anyway. So now you need to start the process of finding a job. Yeah. Okay. Well, that's a little fast, but okay. You know, but it's, yeah, it's this idea of like, do what needs to be done recognizing that
01:39:55
Speaker
Whether you're grieving a death, a loss of a relationship, because there's a breakup or somebody moves or, you know, something breaks, you know, whatever it is, or a project that falls through, or someone's writing a book and then someone else comes, publishes a book that's the exact same thing, you know, like you need to grieve the loss of that energy and that effort and that time. It's going to take a while. You can do that while you're doing other things, right?
01:40:24
Speaker
Like, so take some time at the beginning to sit in it and be sad and move through that stuff. Great. Wonderful. But don't let that take over life. Yes. And what that looks like is different for me. It means I can't really stop at all. If I stop, I'm done. Like I need to just keep moving. As long as I'm moving forward, I will be able to process and deal with whatever I need to deal with in the free time. If I stop.
01:40:51
Speaker
getting started for me, whatever it is, is super hard. It takes so much more energy for me to get something started. And so once it's going, I can't I can't stop or I'm gonna like, really fall down. So like, even in the pandemic, my, I'm still seeing clients, it's only a few, I think I'm down to two right now.
01:41:12
Speaker
But I'm like, I can't just close and give up on clients right now because I'll never open the practice again if I do. And I'll just be real miserable. I have to keep, I'm like, I have a consulting person that I go see. Oh, it's a kind of program thing that I do for my business. I still go to the meetings every two weeks. I'm still active on the Facebook group as much as I can be. I listen to the students podcast. I'm in no way, shape or form in a place where I can build, really put time and energy into my business.
01:41:42
Speaker
By the time the boys go to bed, the last, the only thing I can do is fall on the couch, right? And just exhausted. So the idea of doing other work is just not realistic right now for me and my life, but like other doors open and other things have come up that I'm like, all right, I got it. As long as I just keep moving, just keep it moving. Even if it's just seeing these two clients every other week, you know, and sorting things out and figuring it out. That's, that's good enough for now. As long as it's still doing something,
01:42:11
Speaker
then it's not completely stopped and I'm not just giving up on it because I think for me and my brain stopping equates giving up.
01:42:18
Speaker
Yeah. And that's important to know exactly what you're saying is knowing who you are, your personality around any area of your life to know how it is that you navigate all these different situations. And what you're saying that it takes actually more energy to start again, like a car, it is very true. It's like, I'm thinking of it like a car, right? You turn off the car, you know, a lot more energy actually sometimes goes in than if you would have just left it on, even running, even if you're waiting for somebody at the store, you probably use less gas or energy.
01:42:48
Speaker
Yeah. So then turning it off and coming back on. So that's an actual physical example of the aspect of using energy. And that goes into ourselves as well when we just completely just stop doing something to then try to take off. 100%. Yeah. 100%. And now that's me.
01:43:07
Speaker
That's my personality and that's who I am. And so for me, when my mom says, don't let it take you out, I'm like, I can't skip anything. I think when my friend passed away, I missed two days of school total. The day I went home after, the day after he passed away and the day his memorial funeral, his funeral, that was it. When my mom passed away, I missed, it was grad school. So each class was only once a week, but I missed that whole first week of class.
01:43:33
Speaker
So I missed like one of each class. But then you went back to pre-therapy. Yeah, I know. But I had like, so it was three, I missed one class from each of the three classes, courses I was taking. Like I wouldn't let myself do more than that because I was like, I can't. If I stay in this for too long, I'm just going to be miserable and it's going to go down and I'm not going to go back to school. I'm going to just say, you know what, screw it. And then I've got all these student loans for nothing.
01:44:02
Speaker
No, thank you. It's been really, really good to hear this other perspective because I am one of, again, like I said, I am one of those that sit with things. I'm like, you need time? Go ahead, take it. But you're right in terms of making it, having it have a timeline a little bit, even though grief doesn't have a timeline, like you said, for everybody's not the same.
01:44:21
Speaker
knowing that you have to kind of, for the heavy part of the grief, I feel like grief continues, it just changes. Like you said, sometimes it looks like disappointment, sometimes it looks like this, oh man, I'm so pumped she wasn't here for my wedding. So maybe
Identity and Grief Management
01:44:35
Speaker
those emotions of the missing, them in some shape or form kind of come up, but not in the sadness, but more the missing component of them. So yeah, so I've learned so much from your perspective, so thank you.
01:44:50
Speaker
My pleasure. I think it's funny because I always struggle a little bit with the grief never ends mentality. Now this is coming from, and again, this is from my perspective as a therapist who worked in substance use. I have dealt with far too many clients that use that as an excuse to continue using or to let their lives fall apart.
01:45:15
Speaker
Um, whether it's for themselves or it's the family members trying to, you know, enable their, their, their loved one to continue using where they go. Well, you know, he, his father did hit on that one time, two years ago. I'm like, yeah, we can be over that. We can have moved past that by now. He doesn't get to continue using drugs because of that. I'm sorry. Not using it as a scapegoat. It becomes a scapegoat. And I agree with it.
01:45:40
Speaker
It is true. Grief does not end. There is no timeline for it. There's no set prescription for it, how it works. It's different in everyone. But I think what I should, but that becomes a mantra for people to allow themselves to sink deeper and deeper and deeper. I'm sure that my friend who dropped out of college was not like, sweet, I'm dropping out of college. This is wonderful. No, she like had every intention to go back.
01:46:06
Speaker
but then was just wallowing in the sadness for so long. It was no longer processing, it became just wallowing in self-flagellation and become self-punishment. So we have to be careful as we go through our grief work to make sure that we're using, we're doing it productively. As long as a person is doing their grief work productively, I don't care how long it takes. If they're actively working on it and trying to push through it,
01:46:36
Speaker
But if they're laying at home and they're just getting depressed and worse and it's not, and it's not moving at all, then I start to question, and this is my therapist brain plus substance, you know, all of that stuff is kind of kicking in here. All right. You're, now you're just laying in this.
01:46:57
Speaker
Now you're choosing to just, this is self-pity and wallowing and not productive anymore. So I think it's just important to keep that in mind that it will take as long as it needs to take, but we can choose to make it longer than it needs to be.
01:47:11
Speaker
Well, because also it's stuff starts coming up in terms of not only can you use it as a scapegoat, my gosh, we could go on for it. I'm like looking at them. I'm like, oh my gosh, we could do part one, part two. Talk about this for days. I know. The part about of it being also that we get comfortable, how do it? It becomes part of our identity and then our self pity for ourselves, but then also others, the attention we may get from others.
01:47:38
Speaker
that know that we've gone through something that's hard also becomes something we're gaining. So we might have lost something, but then if we are also enjoying the attention that may come from the fact that now we have this label of something. And again, this doesn't happen in every case, but I do want to say that I think I used the victim card for a long time with my sister passed away.
01:48:05
Speaker
and a lot of the excuses in my life of why I wasn't moving forward. And there weren't excuses per se, but there were reasons of it. But then it's like, okay, now you know the why, now do something about it. Now you know why you don't plan, know how to plan a five-year plan, you know, because of X, Y, Z of people dying young around your life, you know what I mean? Whatever it is, now do something about it. So that is another reason that sometimes people just kind of like to live in their grief rather than like,
01:48:34
Speaker
with it, kind of traveling in life with it. I compare it to having a bag or a purse or backpack on you, but when you were living in it, it's like being stuck inside a sleeping bag and intending to walk through life inside that sleeping bag. You can't, you can't. That's not how you can carry it. You have to carry it with you and it becomes lighter as you go through life. Or you become stronger, one or the other. Probably both.
01:49:03
Speaker
And you know both. This has been so awesome. Thank you so much. I laughed. I laughed. I had a lot of aha moments has been great. Thank you so much, Dave. And thank you to Ross and the kiddos too for allowing daddy to have this video game time me time to be a podcast recording time. So very grateful again for your time, Dave. My pleasure. This was a lot of fun.
01:49:31
Speaker
Thank you. And if you want, can, do you have any, um, page or can I put anything in the notes for people that are in the area or for when you have your, I don't know if your website's still in development. It's up. I need to redo it, but it's up and it gets kind of the point across, but it's grammar, family therapy.com. Um, and I'm in, you know, I'm licensed in California, so I can work with anybody in the state of California. Perfect. Perfect.
Closing and Listener Engagement
01:49:55
Speaker
Thank you. Thank you. And I'll make sure that to get actual spelling, that's what I can put that on my end the show. Sure. Yeah.
01:50:02
Speaker
Thank you again. My pleasure. Bye. Bye.
01:50:11
Speaker
Thank you again so much for choosing to listen today. I hope that you can take away a few nuggets from today's episode that can bring you comfort in your times of grief. If so, it would mean so much to me if you would rate and comment on this episode. And if you feel inspired in some way to share it with someone who may need to hear this, please do so.
01:50:40
Speaker
Also, if you or someone you know has a story of grief and gratitude that should be shared so that others can be inspired as well, please reach out to me. And thanks once again for tuning into Grief Gratitude and the Gray in Between podcast. Have a beautiful day.