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Guidance for Integrating Loss And Grief
711 Plays4 years ago
Steve House and Sky Yardeni, therapeutic director of the Climbing Grief Fund, explore the process of living with grief, integrating the new reality of life that comes after the loss of a friend, partner, or loved one. In conclusions they summarize their discussions around loss, trauma, and grief within the mountain community. Thank you for being a part of this important conversation.
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Transcript
Introduction to Uphill Athlete Podcast
00:00:01
Speaker
Welcome to the Uphill Athlete Podcast. These programs are just one of several free services we provide to disseminate information about training for mountain sports.
00:00:10
Speaker
If you like what you hear and want more, please check out our website, uphillathlete.com, where you'll find many articles and our extensive video library on all aspects of training for and accomplishing a variety of mountain goals. You'll also find our forum where you can ask questions of our experts and the community at large. Our email is coach at uphillathlete.com and we'd love to hear from you.
00:00:36
Speaker
We've been very pleased and of course gratified that our podcasts are being received so enthusiastically. We've had requests to enable a way for listeners to have a conversation about episodes. We certainly welcome this idea and want to encourage those of you who do want to do that to do so on our forum so that the whole uphill athlete community can join in and benefit from this exchange. To do so,
00:01:03
Speaker
please start a new thread on the forum using the title of the podcast under the most appropriate category. Thanks for being part of this community.
Exploring Grief in the Mountain Community
00:01:14
Speaker
Welcome back to the Uphill Athlete podcast everyone. My name is Steve House and I'm your host once again. Here with Sky Jardani, welcome Sky. Hi Steve, good to be here, good to see you.
00:01:29
Speaker
So this is a little bit of a special evening for me because we're going to wrap up our discussion around loss and trauma and grief within our community, within the mountain community. And our task today that I set for us last time at the end there was to speak about
00:01:57
Speaker
healing is what I think I said, but actually healing is the wrong word. It's not entirely bad, but I think it's more about living with grief and integrating your life with this new reality of not having someone or multiple people that you loved or cared about in your life anymore.
00:02:28
Speaker
And also the process of, you know, and I think this was important for her because this is such a part of our community. It's important to understand that this does happen again and again in some ways. It is a cumulative process of piling on more of this. And we need to talk about how to live with it because it's not going to go away.
00:02:53
Speaker
You know, this is, we started these conversations back a few, now a month ago, talking about why we're having this conversation, why you and I are sitting here talking about this. And as I just already alluded to, it is about our community undergoing regular loss of valued and respected and loved members and people.
00:03:23
Speaker
And, um, that is just part of the landscape of what we do as mountain athletes. Um, so that's why we're talking about
Personal Experiences and Relationship with Grief
00:03:35
Speaker
it. So that's why, that's why this is an important conversation to us. And so, you know, what does this mean to you and me personally, Sky? Like what, what, what stake do we have at this? How would you think about that? Well, to me,
00:03:53
Speaker
I'll say that I've had a lot of exposure to loss and death and all over my life. I don't know if more than average or less, but it doesn't matter. It's just, it's important to notice that exposure over the years in the mountains, not in the mountains. And three and a half years ago when I lost my best friend and family partner,
00:04:24
Speaker
in a climbing accident, it hit me like nothing else hit me. And it had an impact on me that will forever change my life. And then really looking myself in the mirror and knowing and believing that as hard and as shitty as
00:04:54
Speaker
these three and a half years have been without him and the pain that I've experienced and yeah, just missing him and being sad. Also knowing that the conversation and the process around grief, loss and trauma is rooted in resilience. And I really do believe that
00:05:25
Speaker
the cracks are how the light gets in. And so for me to have a relationship with this grief, with this loss, with this pain, you know, you and I, I think during the first recording talked about what it means to have a relationship with an emotion, to be in dialogue with an emotion. It's exactly that. And how that, this dialogue that I've been
00:05:54
Speaker
with greed, loss, pain over the years has really enriched my life. You know, I would never invite it. I would never hope for it or ask for it. And it's here. It's not something that I'm controlling. And so knowing that I have
00:06:20
Speaker
more access to different parts of life because grief and loss is an inherent part of life as humans, as people of the mountains. Um, you know, you said like, it's a landscape of our life. Absolutely. And, and knowing that I'm neither running from it or hiding it, I'm just in it and it's messy and it's dirty and it's hard and it's real.
00:06:50
Speaker
And I really do believe that the more I talk about it and engage in it, the more we as a community talk about it and engage in it and with it, the more we can orient towards more health, more wholeness, and integrating all these different fragmented parts of our lives into
00:07:19
Speaker
this one thing called life. So that's why it's really important to me to be having these conversations. Yeah, and I want to call out that I think one of the reasons that it's important is because while it is part of life, most of us in this community are exposed to a much earlier age than we would have otherwise been. Like this is, some of this stuff is stuff that happens to most people when they're in their 50s, 60s and 70s, they start going to funerals, not in their 20s. But
00:07:49
Speaker
Let's circle back to the kind of grieving process. And one of the most important lessons I've learned from you is to remember that the grieving process is nonlinear, that it happens in its own way, that it happens on its own pace and its own order. And that sort of counter to the belief I had
00:08:15
Speaker
when I first started encountering this. And so that was something that made it difficult for me was to get, have, be so surprised by it. How does that look like for other, for other people?
Understanding the Grieving Process
00:08:28
Speaker
So I think, or I believe that one of the other things, um, with grief and loss is the lack of control. Um, that a,
00:08:44
Speaker
for the most part, whatever happened is outside of the scope of control. And then after whatever happened, whatever incident tragedy happened, the impact of the loss or the trauma is also outside of the control. And it's important to understand what is within the scope of control and what is outside of the scope of control. And a lot of times,
00:09:13
Speaker
a lot of folks want to wrap up, wrap up in a nice little tidy bow, you know, of like, okay, I'll take a week, I'll take two weeks and I'll do whatever I need to do and then put it behind me and move forward. And it doesn't really look like, it doesn't work like that. It's very unpredictable. And like I said before, it's dirty and it's messy and it's supposed to be that way.
00:09:44
Speaker
And in that, there's not a lot of control. And so the nonlinear part of what you were asking is it is so unique and individual. And by it, I mean the grieving process. You know, you and I use the analogy of a fingerprint. It really is unique to every person. Every person has different needs, a different pace, different support systems and resources and
00:10:14
Speaker
experience with loss and grief, different levels of resilience, you know, people's turn, turns look very different. And so all that are contributing factors of how the grouping process looks like. And, you know, you and I also talked about the stages of grief and how that can also be seen as linear. But it's important to remind ourselves that
00:10:44
Speaker
whatever frameworks that we're using, they're not prescriptive. It's not trying to put folks in boxes, it's trying to describe what folks might be experiencing, and to put it in some kind of context, try to understand, not control, but understand what I'm going through, understand that there's regression, two steps forward, one step back, one step forward, two steps back, and it just looks very unique to different people.
00:11:13
Speaker
And so it's just so important to highlight the fact that it's not linear and it's just very different for different people. So we're not in control. It's really uncomfortable, but how can one be intentional about going through this and proactive about going through this in a healthy way without being in control? Where's the balance? It seems at odds.
00:11:43
Speaker
these two concepts. Brief is right. Like denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance, finding meaning, right? Those are the classic six stages. And I was taught those and I don't remember them, but I would go look them up. And I always assumed that it was a linear thing. And one of the things you taught me is it's not, which is great to know.
00:12:10
Speaker
But how do you be intentional about these things not knowing what's happening next? I think the intentionality and, you know, we talk about understanding what is within the scope of my control, of how I can respond to a situation, what power I have, what resources are available to me.
00:12:41
Speaker
You know, what agency I can take, how I can be proactive about things. And so that's a control over the intentionality that folks can really exercise in their grieving process, not whatever is going to happen to them, whatever emotion is going to come knocking on the door. That is outside the scope of the control. What is within is, what do I do when they come walking in my door?
00:13:10
Speaker
how I utilize the different resources, sorry, the support systems that I have. The rituals, brief rituals are something that can be really important for folks to mark and to symbolize, to allow for transition and moving forward, to allow slowing down in meaning or reflection. And there's just so many different practices that folks can really engage in to do that.
00:13:40
Speaker
So, so I'm hearing that the way you can be proactive is to let go of the reign, so to speak, let go of the reigns around Greece, which is completely counterintuitive, but I just want to make sure that that's, it seems really hard to, you know, you have to accept your lack of control. Is that right?
Mountains as Tragedy and Comfort
00:14:07
Speaker
Yes. Yes.
00:14:08
Speaker
accept a lack of control, and then see how I choose to move forward. And so you are talking about rituals, practices. We talked about the Tarn analogy a couple of episodes ago. We talked about a support network, sort of self-care, for lack of a better term, self-soothing.
00:14:33
Speaker
positive practices. Let's talk about that. What is that? And I think for me, this is complicated. We touched on this in an earlier discussion because often what is most soothing for me personally is just simply being in the mountains again. But it's difficult to be in the mountains again when that's, if not exactly, at least the general scene of the tragedy I've recently experienced.
00:14:58
Speaker
Talk to me about that a little bit. That seems also like there's a lot of conundrums wrapped up here. So, um, and there's a much more to say, uh, around, you know, rituals and, and self care and things like that. What's your question? Um, you know, folks want to feel good. Folks want to, um, you know, do whatever.
00:15:29
Speaker
they can to be able to feel okay. And as climbers, that's something that we're wired to, that's one of the reasons that we go out to feel good, to have fun, to feel freedom. You and I talked about why we do the things we do several episodes ago. And so that can have a strong connection of like, yeah, that's one of the things that I do, to feel good.
00:15:59
Speaker
And when someone is going through or after an adverse, an experience of adversity of a hardship, that's their go-to or it can be their go-to. And why you and I specifically are having the conversation in the context of climbing is that it can be twofold. The mountains can be the source of the adversity.
00:16:28
Speaker
you know, the tragedy, the loss, the trauma, the event itself can happen while climbing or in the mountains. And it can also be the place that supports us the most. And that can be complicated because like you said, we're going back to the scene of the tragedy. So that can bring up a lot of things as well. And it's important to separate and understand
00:16:56
Speaker
the context in which the event happened, both the relationship to the person who was lost or injured, and also the circumstances that led up or that contributed to the event itself and try to unpack the trauma around it. And then you and I talked about uncoupling the grief in the trauma and
00:17:24
Speaker
Another step to that is when we go back to the mountains to get our support, to get our nourishment, that soothing that you were talking about, how can we do that in a way that hopefully will not trigger us and just add another layer of confusion, of pain, because we go back to that same pain that the mountains caused us in the first place.
00:17:50
Speaker
And so that can be tricky and it's just important to acknowledge. I think it's super important to talk to our climbing partners about these things before we go to the mountains, understand that there is potential for these things to happen. And if and when they do happen, they need to be aware and to show up in support because that can create a whole other snowball effect that we don't want to happen.
00:18:24
Speaker
You have to feel safe to heal, correct? It's important to feel some sort of safety, yes. I'm not under threat. No, you're not under threat. So you can't process or you don't process a trauma well
00:18:46
Speaker
when you feel you're under threat. So you're finding a place of safety. I mean, feeling good is maybe the opposite of being under threat. So that makes sense. What other ways does that manifest? Or where does that even come from? I guess it makes sense, but also I wonder what the root of that is. What exactly? Is there what the root of this human need for
00:19:17
Speaker
for safety and comfort. Is it really related to our development as children? As a father, of course, I immediately think of my young children. Is it tied to that? Is it the mother holding the child analogy and the secure attachment, insecure attachment that psychotherapist talk and write about? Is this the root of what we're
00:19:46
Speaker
I think it's actually more connected to the nervous system. And when a person is under threat, their nervous system is activated. There's an activation of the nervous system. They're overwhelmed. And so they're easily pulled into a flight fight or freeze response.
00:20:15
Speaker
that's what happens when humans and animals are under threat. And so that's when not a lot of healing can really happen if there is activation of the nervous system. And so in an environment of safety, of calm, of nourishment, that's an environment that is more conducive to
00:20:46
Speaker
to unpacking different things to start processing. And then from that place of safety, from that place of palm of emotional regulation, I can go back and maybe take a risk, step out of that comfort zone and go back into the world and see what are the immediate threats, whether or not
00:21:10
Speaker
How do I engage and navigate these other situations that are difficult and then come back to that cocoon? You know, regroup, collect myself, create that safety and then go back. And it's like a touch and go, high trading situation. And it's really important also in the mountains to understand when I'm hitting my edge, when I need to come back to that base of safety.
00:21:39
Speaker
and collect myself and come back to that protection. And then once I'm, I feel resourced enough, I can then again go back. And it's those moments when folks kind of kind of push beyond their edge. And that's where damage can happen. That's where even more scarring and more trauma can occur because
00:22:08
Speaker
when there's not enough resourcing, not enough grounding, not enough awareness of what is going on inside.
Community's Role in Healing from Grief
00:22:20
Speaker
That's when we're more vulnerable for shit to hit the fan for our decision making processes to not be very good and sharp. And also we're more prone to
00:22:38
Speaker
to more trauma. People navigate that very differently from individual to individual, don't they? Absolutely, absolutely, yeah. And I really do believe that through conversations, both in community, in partnerships, in the mountains, and also in professional settings, can be really important, can be really, really helpful.
00:23:09
Speaker
Do you have any words of guidance around that idea of, you know, were they identifying the edge for somebody who might be strong? Let's see, how do I say this? Someone who might be unfamiliar with what that may look like or feel like so they can recognize. I'll start with a story.
00:23:39
Speaker
Okay. I'll start with a story. Yeah. I'll start with a story and then go from there. So a few years back, I was climbing with a good friend of mine in Rocky Mountain National Park. And my buddy of mine, I don't know, it was like five, six, seven pitches in, he was following. So he was under me and he did notice and he dropped a huge boulder. And this was on spearhead. And so this was in like that cirk. And so it,
00:24:07
Speaker
It was very dramatic. It went tumbling down. It destroyed everything in its path. There was a lot of debris, both rock and then ice. And you can hear it echoing from all the different walls. And I was kind of shaken up. But I only really realized it two pitches after. I realized that I was stuck in that, like that,
00:24:37
Speaker
caused some kind of trauma response for myself because my best friend died in a rock ball. Or maybe that was one of the reasons. And it only really registered maybe an hour later, like two pitches after that. He came to me, we debriefed it, he told me what happened. I was like, okay, it should happen. So grateful that I was above him and he wasn't hurt and we can move on. And then,
00:25:06
Speaker
At an anchor, two pitches up, I came to him and I said, hey, I'm still there. I'm still like two pitches back in that whole rock fall situation. And can we just slow down and talk about it? Because what I realized that I was just completely in my head. I wasn't in Rocky Mountain National Park. I wasn't in the mountains. I was scared. I was over gripping my head.
00:25:33
Speaker
just in a completely different space. I was dissociating and my breathing was off. I was over gripping like all the signs and the indicators of like, okay, something's wrong. And what do I do now? And so that's when we switched from being there for the rock climb to just be there for each other. We actually sat down like 15, 20 minutes and we just talked. You know, like we put the climb aside and said, hey, maybe
00:26:03
Speaker
And yeah, you know, we're not fine and I am sticking. We don't want to get to the summit after one, all that stuff. And he recognized that, you know, something needs to happen and it's not rock climbing right now. And so we just sat, we talked a bit, it kind of transferred from debriefing the accident to actually processing and sharing what was going on inside me, what was going on inside him.
00:26:33
Speaker
creating a moment of connection. And that slowly brought me back to the moment, to that place, that time, being there with him on the face and that connection and then that hug was exactly what I needed to come back to understand, okay, that happened, we're here, it's both like,
00:27:02
Speaker
And I'm still afraid, let's move forward. And so that's something that was really helpful. Like the sequence of events of whatever event or trigger happened. And then it registered to me. I saw all the flags and recognized all the indicators of my own trauma responses. I shared it with him.
00:27:32
Speaker
I know myself well enough to understand what I need in those moments of distress, ask for it, do it. And then hopefully I'm back in a place of safety, of protection, of emotional regulation, that I can go back out and take a risk and engage in whatever, you know, quote unquote, threats or hardships that are out in the world.
00:28:02
Speaker
Well, I think that's a beautiful story for illustrating and a good answer to my question. I'm sure that will help people to remember your story better than any sort of textbook style answer because that, or at least I certainly will. That's great. So there's this thing that people like to say, you know, time deals all booms and
00:28:30
Speaker
You can brush things under the carpet, but this is not what I'm hearing you recommend.
Resources for Grieving Climbers
00:28:38
Speaker
I'm hearing a proactive letting go of the reins, a proactive reminder to ourselves as we're going through this that we are not in control, that grief is kind of its own monster and it's going to rear its own ugly head when it
00:28:59
Speaker
decides to in whatever order of emotions and experiences that is, and that's going to happen. So this seems to me like the perfect place where a person might, and I know I've certainly benefited from having a guide.
00:29:15
Speaker
and specifically a psychotherapist. So I want to, we talked about this before, but I want to mention again that there is the, you are the therapy director for the climbing grief fund and people can find the climbing grief fund where and what is there when they get there. So first, before we go into details, the,
00:29:45
Speaker
analogy or the imagery that I use around grief is like this. Grief would be whatever weight, ball, object that is in me. And that's inside a container. And that container is whatever size.
00:30:13
Speaker
And that container is my tarn, is my resilience, is my ability to, you know, to withhold or to hold whatever grief, whatever pain I'm experiencing. And what happens in time is both hopefully that weight or that ball drinks,
00:30:42
Speaker
And also what I can do is expand my capacity, expand the boundaries of my container. And being proactive and exercising agency is again, not being in control, but understanding where I have choice. And those are two really different things. There's always choice. It doesn't mean that I'm in control though. And so choosing to,
00:31:12
Speaker
engage in whatever practices I can to expand my container is exactly what I'm talking about. One resource or support system can be the climbing grief fund. Another is a therapist. And there's just endless levels or examples of resources and support systems that folks have.
00:31:42
Speaker
But that's ultimately what we're talking about, is encouraging folks to be in the driver's seat, to do whatever they can do, again, within their scope of control, to expand that container. And so one of them, like we said, is the Climate Grief Fund of the American Alpine Club.
00:32:08
Speaker
And one of the privileges of my life is to be really involved in that program. And we mentioned last time of, you know, some of the different projects and offerings that we have under the climbing grade fund to support individuals and our community, both pragmatically of like grants and workshops and
00:32:38
Speaker
and a directory of different therapists and mental health providers or professionals, and also a chance to have these conversations on many different levels in the Climate Grief Fund. And so there we have a monthly webinar that I do with different leaders and professionals in our community to unpack different
00:33:05
Speaker
issues and topics around grief and trauma in climbing. There's a story archive project, which is an ongoing interviewing project where we interview folks for them to share their stories and experiences around grief and loss. And we put them out and they're free on the website. And that allows A, for folks to bring some meaning
00:33:33
Speaker
into their own story because as soon as my story is witnessed, it matters. It matters more. And so the more we can allow that platform and that exchange between folks in the community who share their stories and folks in the community who listen and resonate with these stories,
00:34:04
Speaker
That just creates a more resilience on a community level, more resonance, more of a feeling that we're not alone. One of the main things in grief is I'm the only one who is experiencing this and the sense of loneliness, the sense of isolation, and the more folks who are having these conversations, both like in
00:34:33
Speaker
behind closed doors and just like in a private setting and also out loud and sharing their stories in whatever format feels good to them. The more we as a community can just engage with it differently and orient towards healing together. Which really comes back to the
00:35:01
Speaker
the purpose of talking about this as we started off. I don't want to wrap up yet because I've got a couple of things. I didn't mean that almost sounded like a segue to end, but it's not. I wanted to go back and bring us back into some of the uniqueness around this process.
00:35:27
Speaker
One of the things that I've written about this, even in my books and in my journal extensively, this idea about how important it is, how a person passes, how a person dies. How significant is that? How is it different? Do you have any, you have seen a lot of
00:35:58
Speaker
these different situations from war to suicide to pure accidental, you know, death was completely sort of inexplicable. How do you think about that? What framework do you have to share? Putting you on the spot here.
00:36:23
Speaker
Yeah, and good, that's what we're doing here. So you're asking about why it's important, like the reason, not the reason, how the person died, why is that important? So it's important on two levels. One, the pretty narrow context of the accident itself,
00:36:52
Speaker
You know, you and I, we talked several times now about uncoupling between the grief and the trauma. I understand what my relationship with this person is and what that, the loss or the rupture in that relationship has caused and how it's impacted me. And the nature of the accident or the mechanism, you know, like how in the medical world, like the, what is it called, mechanism of injury.
00:37:22
Speaker
What is a mechanism? What happened? What are the contributing factors? What are just the different elements that led up to the actual accident itself and what actually happened? And so that is the trauma piece and the event itself. And to understand how those two, again, both the loss
00:37:51
Speaker
in the relationship and the event, how they're impacting me, to try to separate them and acknowledge each of them separately and to tend to them separately, and to understand how each of them are impacting me. What are the impacts of both that loss and that event is impacting me. And then kind of widen that perspective of understanding and reminding myself, oh, I've actually maybe been here before.
00:38:22
Speaker
not necessarily in the same loss or the same traumatic event, but I've been in a place of adversity, of trauma, and this is happening within a context. And it's an accumulative process of all the different events that I've been a part of in my whole life and how this fits in into that wider context. And you and I talked about
00:38:50
Speaker
the Laura McLeodry's framework around stress injury and the stress injury continuum, where it's saying that each event does not happen in a vacuum. It happens in a context where it's a compounding or a cumulative process that is compounding. And that also adds another layer of how it is impacting me, both on the resilient side and the tools that I've
00:39:19
Speaker
collected in my past because I've had all these exposures and all the scars and the trauma that I've collected as well because I have had exposure to all these things. So again, the answer is two folds, one more narrow and concentrating on the event at hand and unpacking that and then also expanding the perspective and seeing it within a
00:39:47
Speaker
Which also all of those thoughts go a long ways towards explaining why the process is so unique between individuals.
Grief as a Reflection of Love and Vulnerability
00:39:55
Speaker
We all have our own scars and our own experiences. I think that's why it feels so isolating when you're experiencing it, why you feel like you couldn't be so alone because nobody could have had this series of
00:40:16
Speaker
injury or whatever we want to call it, the same way I could have. And while that's true, it's also, it's also not, right? Like, I mean, there's, there's many ways to, there's many ways to hurt and you know, we all get there in different ways and it's part of the human experience. And I think one of the things
00:40:41
Speaker
that I have difficulty talking to people who do not go into the mountains about is, you know, when I get that, I've done a lot of public speaking and a lot of public speaking to groups that are not climbers. And so with those groups in particular, they're often just like, why would you, they just don't get it. Why would you do that? Why that just looks hard and miserable and so on and so forth. But, you know, we do feel more
00:41:10
Speaker
All the emotions are more intense when you live your life in this way and spend it in the mountains. I mean, not in the broadest possible sense. And this is part of the territory. The highs are high, the lows are low, and I think
00:41:34
Speaker
One of the things that we want to emphasize here is that, you know, you've gone through this, I've gone through this, countless others have gone through this and are going through it. It's not over. We're carrying our loss every day. And hopefully some people will be listening to us some time in the future and this will help them realize that they're not alone. While their circumstances are unique,
00:42:04
Speaker
their experience in and of itself, their grief, their sadness, their loneliness, their sense of being sort of abandoned by the world or the universe. I mean, those feelings are not unique. That's something that I think we've all felt. And it can be a pretty unpleasant experience. Absolutely. Yeah. Like you said,
00:42:33
Speaker
in the mountains, the higher high, and the lows are lows. And it's a package deal. I don't believe that like true adventure is just one way. And, and also like the whole the fullness and richness of life is not only like one shade of color, it's all all of the different colors. And to be able to both
00:43:00
Speaker
accept that it's a package deal and engage in all these different colors. Like I wanted to circle back to two things that you said is one, like the support systems and how do I utilize it? You know, you said about having a guide, having a therapist, community, friendships, family, you know, different relationships and how
00:43:31
Speaker
how this can be really helpful to process all these things and to incorporate and integrate all the different colors into this whole rainbow of life. And also another point that you said is that it's not time, it's not only time that heals. And it's the same for a reason that time heals and it's also the work that we put in
00:44:01
Speaker
And it's a combination of both. And you can't have one without the other. It's not only the work because that's us trying to control the situation. If we're only trying to find the shortcuts and bring in that hack, hold those reminders of like, okay, yeah, I'm just going to do all the things in the list. And I'm just going to go full speed ahead and try to do this thing. And so, no.
00:44:29
Speaker
Like, yes, that is an option. And I can pretty guarantee that that can lead to, I don't know, trying to just find shortcuts. And then taking a seat back and just hoping that time will take its course. Also, it's not the only way. Even our bodies, I break a bone. It's not just like I can sit back and hope that everything's going to be okay.
00:44:59
Speaker
there needs to be intervention and time that heals. And the combination of both is what allows for these wounds both in our bodies and also in our hearts and our souls to start really mending. And the work is that agency, is that choice that we keep coming back to, is the different practices that we can engage in, the different
00:45:25
Speaker
agency that we can exercise, how we can be proactive and lean in, and also recognize the time aspect, that there are no shortcuts. This is not linear. And we have to be patient and understand that there will be setbacks and can't put a deadline for healing. And so I just wanted to like shed or uplift those two notions.
00:45:55
Speaker
Yeah. And for me, I've got to say my personal experience is there, there's no, I, I never feel less in some ways. Like I, you know, the people that meant a lot to me that I lost, I still feel their loss. I still think about them. I mean, I mean, it was some cases many decades behind me, but in time, but, uh, you know, it's still present with me every day. And I sort of.
00:46:24
Speaker
Take that as a reflection of something that you said really beautifully the other day when we were prepping for this call, you said that grief is another expression of love. And I really liked that, that really resonated with me and explained why some of these people that I don't have in my life anymore, I think about so often, all right, all right, remember and feel so often, even though they're
00:46:54
Speaker
you know, decades gone, the pain you're experiencing when you lose someone that is a reflection of that lover is happening because you love them so much. And they're sort of inversely proportional. And it's easy to lose sight of that.
00:47:22
Speaker
it's easy to get like caught up or even stuck in the pain and the suffering and the anger and the depression and the stuckness and all those different patterns and being overwhelmed or my nervous system being activated in this way or another. And I really truly believe that if folks can remind themselves that
00:47:53
Speaker
Like, being vulnerable, you know, is not only, you know, in the Brene Brown sense of like, the power of vulnerability or vulnerability coming from a place of strength. And, you know, you and I talked about in the context of being in combat and war and how, like, the shield or the armor
00:48:22
Speaker
Like that they can, or the callus that can be important to protect from penetration in some contexts is important and other contexts, it may be less important. And so removing that shield, that armor opens us up to being hurt is to be vulnerable. And so being vulnerable is not only to, you know,
00:48:51
Speaker
share our soul and all our deepest secrets and loving someone and having an intimate relationship with whomever, family, friends, romantic partnership with whomever, with a climbing partner in the community, that exposes us to being hurt. You know, you and I, even before this recording, we were talking about when folks break our trust,
00:49:19
Speaker
and how that can hurt me when someone broke my trust. And why did that hurt me? Because I was vulnerable enough to trust that person in the first place. And so when we have lost our loved ones and we're hurting, again, it can be easy to get caught up and stuck in the pain and then the suffering of that loss. And we can remind ourselves that
00:49:48
Speaker
We are experiencing this pain and the suffering because we love them in the first place, because we opened up and allowed ourselves to be vulnerable enough that their loss hurt me enough to feel the way that I am. It is bringing in that highest high and that lowest low. It is bringing in that richness of life that this is
00:50:17
Speaker
two sides of the same coin that we're talking about. Yeah, the other side of darkness is light, right? Yeah. And they come together. They complete each other. Say that again a little louder, please. And they complete each other. They complete each other. Yeah, I like that. Yeah. Yeah.
Conclusion: Embracing Grief
00:50:47
Speaker
Well, for those of you that have stuck with us through all, however many, what is this? Did we do three or four? Three conversations. I hope this, as I'm sure our intention was that this will help people because this is an aspect of our lives as climbers and skiers and
00:51:17
Speaker
mountaineers and so forth that he's not going away. And now is the time to build a support network, build the resilience, fill up the tarn, take care of yourself, all of those things we've talked about to be as ready as you can. But it does happen because unfortunately it doesn't just go away. It doesn't just stop happening as much as we'd like it to.
00:51:50
Speaker
Do you have any last words you want to leave anyone with, leave us with, Scott? Yes. Just wanted to end where we started, that this is a human experience. This is a part of life. And we're in this together. We cannot do this alone. And that's where community comes in. And so grateful to you for being in community with me, Steve, and like continuing
00:52:18
Speaker
this conversation as a community, on a community level, as we orient towards evolving and developing and challenging ourselves to do better, to be better, to take the risk, not only in the mountains, but also in our conversation. Thanks for joining us today. For more information about what we do, please go to our website uphillathlete.com. I just really wanted to thank you for this opportunity.
00:52:48
Speaker
Thank you, Skye, for your openness and cooperation and really the inspiration for bringing this conversation out of me. I couldn't have done it without you by any means, so thank you for that. Thank you everyone for listening and we will see you again here sometime in the future. Thank you.