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How to Grieve Without Shutting Down
86 Plays4 days ago
Grief doesn’t just affect your heart. It impacts your mind, your body, your energy, your relationships, your faith, and your sense of direction. In this deeply personal episode of The Men’s Collective Podcast, Travis Goodman shares about the sudden loss of his close friend and co-founder Pierre Azzam, and what has been helping him navigate grief in real time.
This episode explores how grief is not something to fix or solve, but something to move through. Travis shares three practical things that have been helping him carry loss with more honesty and steadiness: walking more, connecting intentionally with friends and family, and creating space to feel without trying to force closure. He also shares several grief books that have helped over the years, including When Bad Things Happen to Good People, On Death and Dying, A Grief Observed, It’s OK That You’re Not OK, and The Grieving Brain.
If you are grieving the death of a loved one, the loss of a relationship, a job, a community, or a season of life, this episode offers a grounded, compassionate conversation about grief, loss, emotional healing, nervous system awareness, and what it means to carry sorrow without carrying it alone.
In this episode:
• How grief affects the body, mind, and nervous system
• Why walking and movement can help with grief
• How connection and co-regulation support healing
• Why creating space to feel matters
• Books on grief, loss, death, and emotional resilience
This is for anyone navigating grief, mourning, sorrow, sudden loss, emotional pain, or major life transitions.
If you want deeper coaching or therapy, visit travisgoodmanlmft.com.
For more men’s mental health tools and community, check out The Men’s Collective Podcast.
[Life in Silico] by Scott Buckley – released under CC-BY 4.0. www.scottbuckley.com.au
🎧 Listen on Spotify, Apple Podcasts, and YouTube
🌐 Learn more at menscollective.co or travisgoodmanlmft.com
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Transcript
Introduction and Reflections on Grief
00:00:00
Speaker
Grief doesn't just hit your heart. It hits your mind, your body, your energy, your sense of direction, your relationships, your faith. And I'm relearning that over again as I navigate a recent loss.
00:00:14
Speaker
And I wanted to share with you a few things that I have been finding helpful in this journey, in this season, because grief is something that isn't to be fixed. It's something that you don't solve, but it's something you learn to navigate.
00:00:34
Speaker
Grief, said the horse, is lost love moving through you. It has its own timing. Just allow it to do what it needs to do. Try not to fight it and be very kind to yourself.
Meet Travis Goodman, Licensed Therapist
00:00:49
Speaker
Charlie McKenzie Well, everyone. Welcome back to this week's episode of the podcast. I'm your host. My name is Travis Goodman. I'm a licensed therapist and a mind-body coach.
00:00:59
Speaker
And this episode is a bit personal for me. This episode is one that I've been actually kind of struggling with and procrastinating a bit on recording. i finally had it in me to sit down and hit the the button to record, so to speak. And i wanted to make this because...
00:01:16
Speaker
I know for a lot of men, they can carry grief quietly. Not just men, women too. Women can also carry grief quietly. But what I found working with men and kind of being a focus of mine is that it's more common than not. And so I wanted to share a bit about what I've been navigating and open up a bit about a recent loss that I've experienced.
00:01:38
Speaker
Again, wanted to share some things I've been doing, some very practical things that I've found to help me and what I've been intentional with, as well as some other resources around grief that you might find helpful and useful. So first I want to share a bit about the loss.
Personal Loss and Men's Quiet Grief
00:01:54
Speaker
um So a really close friend of mine, in fact the co-founder of the Men's Collective, which is a not only a podcast, this, it's also a men's group coaching program, my good friend Pierre Azam,
00:02:10
Speaker
passed away suddenly beginning of this year from a really rare brain disease.
00:02:18
Speaker
It's still a bit surreal, if I'm honest. It's still um
00:02:26
Speaker
kind of hitting in different waves due to
00:02:32
Speaker
how quickly it progressed and kind of how out of the blue it came. It wasn't something that he got sick and it was a long arduous journey of decline. It was all of a sudden and quick, fast, rapid and not even expected with how quickly it it progressed. And so with that, I think there's still a sense of shock
00:03:01
Speaker
and again, this kind of, like I said before, the surrealness to it all. And I know for some of you, maybe even a lot of you, you've had something similar, maybe a different experience.
00:03:16
Speaker
As a quick caveat, I think loss, as we think of it, of course, is the classic loss that we've, maybe a lot of us who experienced, is that of death, losing someone, losing a friend, losing a family member,
00:03:31
Speaker
And that is what we tend to think of as loss
Cultural Approaches to Grief
00:03:34
Speaker
and grief. But we could also experience loss in many other ways, maybe loss of a job or loss of ah of a home or loss of community.
00:03:45
Speaker
And so I want to say that whatever loss you've experienced or experiencing, it it is valid and and it's understandably probably also quite difficult.
00:03:57
Speaker
And also you've had an experience where it's been kind of a mind-body relationship, ah sense of purpose, faith, sense of direction kind of loss.
00:04:13
Speaker
And loss, I would say, also hits everyone somewhat uniquely. While there's, I think, a shared experience around grief, around loss, there's also unique uniqueness to it all. And I know different cultures have different ways in which they process grief, different rituals, different things they do individually and as a community.
00:04:35
Speaker
I think some cultures have better understanding of grief and loss and better community connections than others. And I want to say i don't think there's a right and or wrong way to navigate grief and loss.
Practical Steps to Navigate Grief
00:04:50
Speaker
um And so with my friend Pierre, it's one that I've still kind of in the beginning phases and still navigating and and figuring out along the way.
00:05:04
Speaker
And so i wanted to share... A few things that I'm currently doing, three things actually, just to be quite practical. And this, by the way, is not a complete list. It's not everything that you should be doing or shouldn't be doing. This is just something that I've been doing, if I'm honest, recently that has been helping me. And there's many other things you can be doing. And again, I'm going to share some resources here in a minute um that you might find helpful in your journey.
00:05:31
Speaker
But the three things that I've been doing are, and the and really the first is, quite simply, is walking more. I've just kind of getting up and getting out of the house, getting out of the office, moving around, taking small walks, longer walks, being more intentional as I walk, getting outside and just noticing the smells, the sights, the sounds, putting my phone away, just walking.
00:06:02
Speaker
and breathing. It's been something that has helped the heaviness of it all not be so heavy. um It's also helped when it's just been a really kind of blah day to to get my body mobilized, to to walk through and um to move physically what's what I've been carrying and to connect it with something I often talk about, polyvagal theory in the nervous system. It's very practical in a sense that grief is this kind of It can have this kind of dorsal heavy energy to it.
00:06:36
Speaker
It's deep sadness and sorrow that can be quite big and and hollow. And so movement has really helped physically allow the emotions that weight to move and not be so kind of stagnant and stuck.
00:06:51
Speaker
And so I've been really intentional with doing that more consistently, taking these moments, and really trying to do it daily. So I encourage you to try it out.
00:07:04
Speaker
Try walking, try moving the body. It's not a fix. It's not going to solve everything. It hasn't fixed or solved this. Again, grief is not something that you fix or solve, but it's something that you move through. And and the practicality of walking has been helpful.
Connecting with Others for Support
00:07:18
Speaker
The second thing I've been doing is intentional connection with friends and family. And this is edit anything from doing things that don't really matter, like laughing and and, well, sorry, they do matter, but I mean, nothing, not really being serious, but just having fun and talking about a show that I'm watching or that they're watching um to listen to music and bands were,
00:07:46
Speaker
kind of on to in the moment, maybe cooking, meeting for coffee, with my kids, maybe dancing a bit more, listening to more fun kind of poppy music, wrestling, um getting in their world, having more hugs.
00:08:03
Speaker
And with my with my wife, with my with my partner, just enjoying her company. and So it's every anything from these... I'm not going to call it distracting or distraction moments, but just focusing on life with them, enjoying their company, enjoying their presence, doing that all the way to really serious things where I'm actually just really sharing where I'm at in the moment.
00:08:29
Speaker
and being witnessed by them. And that has been also very life-giving just to be raw, able to be raw, not having to be filtered and sitting with these emotions in the presence of other people.
00:08:40
Speaker
I think both are needed and and the continuum is anywhere in between. Again, I don't think we, I must always talk about the loss and always be in the grief. don't really think that's actually quite possible to always be fully in it.
00:08:52
Speaker
In fact, I think we need breaks. I think we need to experience and enjoy the company and in moments in life. And so this this second one is, I guess it tied to the polyvagal theory again, practically is this notion on co-regulation.
00:09:10
Speaker
I'm co-regulating um from joy and laughter and fun to really serious, really deep connection with others. And so that's a very practical step that I've been doing.
Creating Personal Space for Emotions
00:09:23
Speaker
And the third thing I've been doing has been creating my own intentional practice and space to just be in the thoughts and the in the emotions, what I'm experiencing, without trying to fix, resolve, move on i not trying to solve it, anything like that, but just being with it.
00:09:49
Speaker
How I've described it to... people, for lack of a better analogy, kind of bird watching. What I mean by that is just sitting and allowing the birds, meaning the feelings, the thoughts, the body sensations, the memories, etc., to just appear and to come. Whatever shows up, shows up.
00:10:12
Speaker
And I'm not going to try to capture the bird. I'm not going to try and shoot away. I'm just going to witness it. And so that's been quite important for me too, just to have this space. And sometimes I've journaled, I've written stuff down. Other times I've just identified and and just observed what was going on.
00:10:32
Speaker
Sometimes I've, you know, I talked audibly to myself about it, kind of out loud. ah i think whatever might work for you,
00:10:46
Speaker
i would try. So for me, This third one has also been quite important because it's just giving me that permission, if you will, to to just be without trying to solve.
00:11:03
Speaker
So these three things for me, this walking and connecting with friends and family and creating space have been three three things that I've been really intentional with.
00:11:18
Speaker
for the past month and a half. Now I know this is a journey that will continue. I know that has its ups, its downs, its it's heavy days, it's its days where it's not so present.
00:11:34
Speaker
Something else that i've i think that I've noticed in the past month and a half or so has been this kind of energy background drain or energy background energy sucks so to speak in the but in the background it's not fully here all the time but it's it's back here and and if you if you know what that feels like you know let me know um i'm sure some of you felt that some maybe haven't that's okay but that's just something the best way to describe it it's like this this almost like a background application that's running and just kind of draining your battery more quickly
00:12:06
Speaker
And so I just wanted to name that because that's something that I was thinking through too, what else I've noticed about this whole process as of late. And knowing that this is a journey, knowing that, again, I'm not trying to solve, fix, or resolve, but trying to witness, trying to be with, and allowing that to heal.
00:12:19
Speaker
And moving to a place of acceptance, moving to a place of acknowledging the new reality without this friend, without this person physically here anymore. So I wanted to share just, again, my personal journey as of late, and and i and
Recommended Reading on Grief
00:12:36
Speaker
that might change. I'm sure it will over the next few weeks, months, year or two. um I also wanted to share a few book resources. I'm a big fan of reading and or listening to audiobooks, whatever works for you. and So back in grad school, back in 2010, one of my graduate professors was really big on like existential books and books on suffering and meaning and purpose and on grief. And she recommended me this book.
00:13:02
Speaker
back then called When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold Kushner. Now that's probably one of my favorite books on grief. It's given me a lot of language and I've really resonated with it. And I won't spoil the book, um but essentially it's ah it's a true story. It's a journey about a Jewish rabbi who loses his son to a really rare disease. And I've reread it since 2010 a few times. And in fact, some of the books on this list I'm goingnna give you, I've read multiple times.
00:13:28
Speaker
But this is one of my favorites, personally, that I kind of recommend to most people to read. So When Bad Things Happen to Good People by Harold Kushner. Now, again, there's to list below. There's going to be a list in the description you click on to all these books.
00:13:43
Speaker
Another classic work is On Death and Dying. I think it's got its 50th year anniversary edition out. it's It's one of the classic works on grief, on loss. Another one of my favorites is by C.S. Lewis called Grief Observed.
00:13:58
Speaker
and that one's a little more short and it's sharp and it's it's real especially if you want something honest about pain faith anger and confusion another good book that I like is it's okay that you're not okay and that's by Megan Divine this one's a little more practical it's a little more like practical and validating it's good if you want kind of different perspective on just having to move on too fast from grief. So, what like what she does is she gives different language around that and how to navigate it.
00:14:34
Speaker
And then the final book I would say that is a little more kind of neuroscience-based, if you like a science, neuroscience, I guess lens, so to speak, on grief. This one's called The Grieving Brain by Mary Frances O'Connor.
00:14:50
Speaker
And this is looking at how grief affects the mind and the body the way it does from a neuroscience lens. So all these books, and there's many more out there. This is, again, not exhaustive list, but these are some that I have found to be useful for me, and and I hope you will too.
00:15:06
Speaker
These five books I would start with to expand your view on grief, on on death, on loss, on dying, on on change.
00:15:18
Speaker
And they all have their own unique lens. And I think I recommend reading from multiple authors because you just get different different perspectives that maybe you didn't think about. and you might be they might capture your experience in a few words that you may not have been able to come up with, but then you and like, oh my God, that's totally me. And that, I think, sometimes can be so just relieving to have something articulated that maybe you struggle to actually articulate.
Encouragement and Final Thoughts on Grief
00:15:45
Speaker
And so if you're in a season of grief, of loss right now, whether it's a physical loss of a friend or a family member, a loved one, or if it's a loss of a job or a community, I want to say this as clearly as I can, that you don't need to do it perfectly.
00:16:03
Speaker
There is no perfect. There is no one way to do this thing of navigating loss, of navigating grief. You don't need to rush it. You don't need to solve it.
00:16:16
Speaker
You also don't need to carry it alone. Sometimes the next best thing is not some huge change. Sometimes it's as simple as taking a walk, texting a friend, meeting up with a loved one for coffee, cooking a dinner, dancing to a song.
00:16:36
Speaker
Sometimes it's creating space. It's allowing yourself to be where you are in that moment. And so today i bless you with peace, with courage, with strength to navigate this journey, this season of loss.
00:16:56
Speaker
Blessings.