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The Connection Between Death & Intimacy - Ep. #58
84 Plays1 year ago
As much as we are fighting the inevitable, it’s no secret that we all eventually pass. Today we will be talking about processing the grief of saying goodbye… more specifically, my process of saying goodbye to an amazing man… Grandy, my ex-wife’s grandfather.
We’ll also dive into the unusual dynamics I have with my ex’s family and the amazing support of my wife.
In this episode you'll learn:
- What is the connection between death and intimacy?
- Key takeaways I gleaned from the man that modeled love, unlike anyone I’ve met.
- Why it’s important to forgive and heal from past pain that divorce can create.
- Why you shouldn’t use time or money to measure the things that matter in life.
Links
Host Name: Josh Cearbaugh
https://www.instagram.com/jcearbaugh/
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Transcript
Death and Intimacy: Unlikely Connections
00:00:01
Speaker
Today we're talking about death and intimacy. Two things that may not seem like they go together, but
00:00:11
Speaker
If you come along for the ride, hopefully I can unpack it in a way that they do connect because I actually think that they connect far more than you may realize. I had the honor of flying down and saying goodbye to my ex-wife's grandpa. And there was a lot of takeaways. I'm still processing a lot. I'm still grieving a lot. I'm still riding those waves of grief.
00:00:41
Speaker
But there was some really big takeaways that I have from that experience both from Saying goodbye to him as well as the dynamic of the relationship that I have with my ex-wife and her family as well as the support of my own wife, so Let's go ahead and dive into both grief death as well as intimacy and connection
Masculinity and Vulnerability: Breaking Stereotypes
00:01:06
Speaker
Men, we are not simple, chest-thumping, rock-smashing, fire-starting barbarians. We have depth. We intensely feel. We are scared, yet brave. We love to have fun. We're imperfect and make mistakes. We're compassionate and loving. We are multifaceted. Let's explore the reality of masculinity together.
00:01:34
Speaker
Fair warning, today's episode there's a chance you're gonna hear me cry. Actually a really good chance. Well...
00:01:41
Speaker
truth be told I suppose I had a friend of mine who was upset with me because he said you pretty cry which translates to my eyes just leak I don't normally ugly cry I have in my lifetime but it's not my my default the reason why I'm saying all of that obviously with the intro
00:02:05
Speaker
talking about a dear man in my life that this last week I had to go say goodbye to and just wanted to unpack some of that, unpack some of the waves of grief as well as just life post divorce and what really matters within that.
The Farewell Journey: Embracing the End
00:02:27
Speaker
And so me saying goodbye was to my ex-wife's grandfather. We called him Grandi. And he's still currently alive, but he has ended his dialysis, which is the thing that's been keeping him alive. He came to a conclusion that, in his words, he was not wanting to be alive but miserable and wanted to go home to see Jesus.
00:02:52
Speaker
so in a matter of a few weeks he's going to pass and so I flew down it was a impromptu last-minute trip I booked a flight Thursday night Friday morning flew out and Spent about 18 hours traveling all said and done to be able to spend an hour with him
00:03:16
Speaker
And some may say, well, that's not good use of your time or that's not the most productive use of your time. And I would argue that that was the most productive thing that I could have possibly done because getting that hour was more important to me than any money, any time, any business, any coaching, anything to be able to go and say goodbye to a man who had a deep impact in my life.
00:03:46
Speaker
He was the man that married my ex-wife and I. He did our premarital counseling. He, in his words, wanted to be a confidant to me. And I said to him, thank you for always accepting me, loving me, and trusting me.
Relationships and Support: Past and Present
00:04:04
Speaker
And his reply was,
00:04:05
Speaker
Joshua I was just wanted to be a confidant to you and and that carried a lot of weight and depth within our relationship and then even through the divorce but before I get too far into that I just wanted to highlight kind of life post divorce and one just how fortunate I am because I have an amazing ex-wife and
00:04:29
Speaker
and an incredible wife I've remarried and I feel like our Dynamics that we have are unusual to say the least it still kind of blows my mind at times to sit back and think about the Relational setup that I have right now Where for an example on my birthday in March? my ex-wife came over with my kids and I had my my wife and and my
00:04:58
Speaker
new kids, my new adopted kids, step kids, bonus kids, whatever you want to call them. And then my kids and my wife and my ex-wife all there celebrating my birthday. And I, there've been several of those moments where I just can't really register fully or appreciate fully what my life has become. Where I have an ex-wife who loves me, supports me. I would say that we're friends. We support one another within
00:05:26
Speaker
business and we do co-parenting and we genuinely get along. I genuinely love her, like her, enjoy being around her. And then I have my wife who blows up my boxes and paradigms on a regular basis. And when it comes to my relationship with my ex, there's a thousand ways that could go. She could be worried about me falling back in love with her or wanting her back or
00:05:54
Speaker
just a variety of things that she could be feeling, but she genuinely wants me to be happy and obviously wants our kids to
Parenting and Personal Growth Post-Divorce
00:06:04
Speaker
be happy. And so that translates to, you know, she was the one that encouraged me, you know, Josh, if this is important for you to say goodbye to grandi,
00:06:13
Speaker
book the flight don't worry about the money don't worry about it just just go just go and it really took that encouragement from her to take action and then to make that trip happen and i think it's important
00:06:29
Speaker
Maybe you don't have kids with your ex or maybe you don't have a great relationship, but at least for me, what I've learned, we first and foremost, we put the kids as the priority. What I've learned since being divorced is when my ex and I are in a good place relationally, that translates to a better environment for our kids when they're with their mom or when they're with me.
00:06:58
Speaker
That came on the backside of a lot of personal work both with my ex as well as with myself a lot of forgiveness a lot of accepting the changes of life and embracing a new norm and what that looks like and and walking that out now that doesn't mean that I don't have moments where I wish we could have made it work right and I regret the fact that it ended up with it being a divorce and
00:07:25
Speaker
I share that with my wife, and she has those feelings for her ex at times. And I think that's perfectly normal to, especially if you have kids, to look back and say, you know, what if we could have just figured something out?
Healing and Reflection: Plant Medicine and Grief
00:07:41
Speaker
You know, I personally believe that
00:07:43
Speaker
had I found plant medicine with my ex, there was a really good chance that that could have saved our marriage. Now, there's a thousand ways to look at that and there's a ton of unknowns and that's not what happened, but it has led to so much intimacy with my current wife that I can't help but question and wonder what my marriage could have looked like if we could have started working with plant medicine.
00:08:09
Speaker
Now that said, me getting a divorce is what ultimately led me to turning to psychedelics and to plant medicine to heal my mind because my world fell apart. So philosophically, you could ask the question whether or not I would have ever found plant medicine if my marriage didn't fall apart.
00:08:26
Speaker
but not going down too far down that rabbit hole of what ifs but i'm just saying that it's perfectly normal to have those moments a friend of mine who had a divorce and was coaching me through my divorce and helping me navigate the grief of that death you know the marriage a divorce is a death and
00:08:47
Speaker
processing waves of grief just like at death is an important thing to do and I've got an episode on writing the waves of grief and if you want to look that up I would encourage you to as far as how to keep your heart open and connected and present because none of us want to feel bad none of us want to feel sad but it's important to let yourself move that emotion through you so that doesn't get bottled up and we turn to all kinds of checkout mechanisms etc.
00:09:15
Speaker
But when it comes to that death of the divorce, it is perfectly normal to look back on that and ask those what if questions or to grieve the fact that it didn't work out. And I've just been fortunate enough to.
00:09:31
Speaker
have a wife who's not afraid of that. I mean, our, our connection is solid. Our commitment is solid. And I think that's a big factor, right? What we do within our marriage so that we can be fully vulnerable, fully honest with what we're feeling, the good, the bad, the ugly. And it doesn't create any kind of jealousy or tension or concern between us because it's perfectly normal to have those emotions.
Honesty and Vulnerability in Relationships
00:09:56
Speaker
If you try to suppress those emotions, that's when you aren't fully present with your partner and that's when it's really easy to want to check out or escape or turn to coping mechanisms. But it's important to take the risk of opening your heart and being honest and vulnerable with your partner. All that said,
00:10:22
Speaker
the time, the last couple of weeks, it has stirred some of that up in me related to Grandy passing because he, like I said, he was the person that married Danielle and I, and we had a really deep, intimate connection
00:10:45
Speaker
And I found myself at a place where going to Florida and saying goodbye to him, you know, here I was around my ex father-in-law and my ex wife and my ex, I guess it would be ex grandpa, ex grandi. I don't know how exactly you would put that.
00:11:03
Speaker
But we just we had these beautiful moments of connection Around the things that really matter which is intimacy love depth of connection and Being able to say goodbye to him while it was beautiful.
Life Fulfillment and Legacy: Lessons from Grandi
00:11:18
Speaker
It also was extremely painful because you could say the goodbyes you could reflect on those moments that you had with that person and
00:11:31
Speaker
I will never forget it. I'll never forget for the rest of my life what it was like to be able to sit in the room across from Grandi and reflect on the relationship that we had and to be honest with the grief around him passing. Now he said it's a little bit of a double-edged sword because he obviously is going to miss this life and miss the love that the family that he had shared with him
00:12:00
Speaker
But he was also very honest with the fact that he was looking forward to going to heaven and to meeting Jesus and to doing a dance in heaven. That's what I told him to do. But to be able to look forward to that and really live your life
00:12:18
Speaker
And this is one of my takeaways was to live my life in a way where when I'm at the, my ending days and reflecting on my life, that it's not with regret or sadness, but it's with a sense of peace and living my life to the fullest, whatever that looks like.
00:12:34
Speaker
For you, for me, it's being present with my kids. It's establishing things on my ranch and managing my property and building businesses and being connected to my community, to my spouse, to my kids.
00:12:50
Speaker
so that i can arrive at the end of my life and look back will i have regrets absolutely do i already have regrets of course i do but to be able to look back on my life and to honestly feel full and feel complete i think it's an important thing to pause and to look at the things that you're doing now and are they in line with
00:13:13
Speaker
that that desire that Motivation where to be at the end of your life to see it being full and complete. I mean grandi He's 92 now and he checked off his bucket list Skydiving, but he happened to do that two years ago when he was 90 years old and
00:13:37
Speaker
So there's no such thing as too late to start to pursue those things, those life experiences that give you a full life, a sense of fullness and completion in your life. Now, does it mean that you have to jump out of a perfectly good plane to do that? No, but maybe it does. It just depends on what matters to you, what will make you feel full at the end of your life. And one thing that I like to do with clients is actually have them write their obituary.
00:14:06
Speaker
that might sound kind of morbid but it's to sit down because your obituary is you know like what did this man accomplish not in the sense of he made this much money but what did he accomplish in his life who was he as a man was he compassionate connected strong determined what what what was that for him and you make you make yourself sit down and write that out and
00:14:33
Speaker
practically tangibly, and then ask yourself the really hard question is, am I living my life in a way that this would be true at the end of my life? And I don't know about you, but for me, a lot of times that's very challenging.
00:14:49
Speaker
It challenges me and provokes me to live my life differently, not in the sense of perfectionism or performing, but to step up to the man that I want people to see at the end of my life. And taking time to do that, you know, and then being able to take time to
00:15:14
Speaker
look at the ways that maybe you're not aligning with that and then put together an action plan on how you're going to do things differently. Danielle asked Grandy a question, which was, what advice would you give your younger self?
00:15:32
Speaker
Just any advice at all if you could give your younger self one point or tip of advice. What would that be? He paused and thought about it and his answer really challenged me But it was that you know a lot of times you hear people say well to believe in yourself more to be more confident at a younger age or take more risks those kinds of things but his answer was
00:15:59
Speaker
You know, I think the advice that I would give would be to be more disciplined around my passions, to be more disciplined around my passions. Doesn't mean more discipline in your time management for your job, et cetera, but what are the things that you're passionate about and how disciplined are you at taking action and pursuing those and leaning into those?
00:16:27
Speaker
And that challenged me. It made me really assess how well am I following through with what I'm saying with my wife, with myself, with my kids, that my passions are. How well aligned am I saying that that's my passion, but my actions, my discipline is not following through with leaning into that in really practical, tangible ways. And so I would encourage you to ask yourself that same question.
00:16:56
Speaker
How disciplined are you in the areas of the things that you say that you're passionate about?
00:17:04
Speaker
because discipline, it can feel challenging in the beginning, but ultimately, discipline creates freedom, whether that's financial freedom, or time freedom, or emotional freedom, because the more that you can lean into discipline temporarily, the more it will unlock practical things like habits that then automate things, and they don't feel as hard as they do up front. They will help you be more connected to yourself and to others,
00:17:33
Speaker
Now you can take any concept right and become militant about it and unhealthy about it. I'm not saying that
00:17:40
Speaker
But just honestly ask yourself, how disciplined am I being around the things that I'm saying are my passions? And you may find that you have an opportunity to lean into discipline in those areas, not in an all or nothing way, but in a healthy, well-balanced way. And you don't know what that is going to unlock and open up for you.
00:18:04
Speaker
But if you're lackadaisical about your, your passions, then you can't be that surprised if those passions are more so a pet hobby than a passion. You know, for me with grandi.
00:18:18
Speaker
I had several moments where I was sitting in the room with him and I couldn't help but just well up with tears because obviously the grief and the sadness around saying goodbye to him was there. But also just the immense honor that I had to be able to be in a relationship in a way with my ex-family.
00:18:41
Speaker
ex's family where they were okay with me coming. They encouraged me to come.
Reunions and Human Connection: A Final Goodbye
00:18:48
Speaker
They weren't making it awkward when I was there and they were really loving and embracing in that way. And sitting there realizing that, you know, this is a unique thing for me to be able to
00:19:02
Speaker
Step into the family that that was my family that is no longer my family. I mean, you could say that it is to a degree and it's changed but my ex's family and to have the opportunity to say goodbye to a man who To a man who touched me in a very deep and profound way and
00:19:26
Speaker
the ability to do that, you know, he, he kept saying, I'm just blown away that you came, Josh, I'm just blown away that you came. And for me, it was like, this is a no brainer. Of course I would come. Of course I would drop anything that I needed. Like nothing else matters than those intimate moments that we get to share with our human to human connection. And it really hits home when somebody's at the end of their life.
00:19:59
Speaker
My ex father-in-law used to always say weddings and funerals are two things you don't miss because those are very important moments in someone's life. If you care about them, then you make it a priority to be able to be there.
00:20:15
Speaker
And for me, saying goodbye to Grandy puts things in perspective. Even with this podcast or even with my businesses, it's not that I'm saying what's the point and going down this dark path, but it's more so challenging me to really assess those things that I perceive to be important.
00:20:38
Speaker
but really looking at honestly looking at how is my connection with my ex with my wife with my kids with my friends and how am I following through with my my desire my passion my heart's desire is to be connected deeply intimately and you know i mean even with my grant my grandpa it kind of threw me off a little bit because my grandpa
00:21:07
Speaker
I loved my grandpa on my mom's side. He had a farm in Illinois. He was very generous with his time and his money, but he was kind of old school and his bandwidth for connection was mostly around the weather or the crops or
00:21:23
Speaker
just things that didn't have a lot of emotional depth to it. And given his generation and his life, that was what he, that was the ways he showed love. And I didn't feel bad about that, but it threw me off the way that the pain and the grief associated with Grandy feels deeper than, or feels more painful than my own grandfather passing.
00:21:53
Speaker
and I think that was because of the way that grandy chose to live his life and the way that he chose to lean into relationship and with me from the beginning and we had several one-on-one conversations and you know here I was a man that was just showing up and
00:22:11
Speaker
pursuing his granddaughter and then ultimately marrying her. But he chose from the beginning to love me, to embrace me, to respect me, to trust me, to share his wisdom with me. And even though I only got to know him for a short period of time, given the scope of his life,
00:22:32
Speaker
I had a very deep connection with him and it really challenged me and hopefully it challenges you to look at and assess the relationships you have in your life that maybe it's a no-brainer, right? I love my kids, be intentional with my kids, but what about the relationships that don't fit into the norms or the expectations of what society says should be deep, intimate connections?
00:22:57
Speaker
How are you leaning into those friends? How are you leaning into and being intentional with your ex with people that maybe it doesn't make sense from the onset, but in the scope of life, what kind of man do you want to be known for?
00:23:15
Speaker
Who do you want to be known as at the end of your life? For grandi, he was known as a spiritual man who is deeply connected to the people in his life, who was intentional with the way that he loved, who was kind, compassionate, slow to anger.
00:23:33
Speaker
Wise he chose to lean into those things rather than being caught up in the hustle and bustle of life now granted I met him later on in his life so you could argue that maybe in his latter years that he leaned into those things more but
00:23:50
Speaker
I would propose you don't have to wait until those latter years. In the midst of everything you have going on you can choose to lean into those things that really truly matter when it comes to human connection, when it comes to intimacy, when it comes to love.
00:24:06
Speaker
What kind of life are you living? Are you chasing the right things? Are you being intentional with the right things? Are you being disciplined with the right things, whether it be around your passions or your connections? Because when it all comes down to the end, nobody talks about, oh man, I feel so accomplished. I'm about to pass.
00:24:29
Speaker
I feel so accomplished because I built this business or I achieved this goal or I got this pay raise. Nobody talks about those things. They talk about the impact that they had in people's lives.
00:24:42
Speaker
they have the landscape of the connections of the people that they made, or that the people that show up shows the level of connections that they had with people. And for Grandy, he was very intentional, very loving, very kind, and that showed in the way that I, his ex, let's see here, ex-grandson, I don't know if that's the right phrase to use, but would drop everything and come say goodbye to him.
00:25:11
Speaker
So I encourage you and challenge you to live life in a way that when you're at the end of your life, maybe your ex or someone that may not fit the norm of who would show up to say goodbye would actually go out of their way to show up and say goodbye because of the way that you chose to live and to love and to lean into connections.