Transcript
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.
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.
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.
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.
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...
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.
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. 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,
Speaker: passed away suddenly beginning of this year from a really rare brain disease.
Speaker: It's still a bit surreal, if I'm honest. It's still um
Speaker: kind of hitting in different waves due to
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
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.
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,
Speaker: And that is what we tend to think of as loss 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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,
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.
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.
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.
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
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.
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 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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Speaker: These five books I would start with to expand your view on grief, on on death, on loss, on dying, on on change.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Speaker: Blessings.
