If Grief is a Game, Can Anyone Win?

Danny Mack is a graduate of The University of North Texas and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is currently the Director of Spiritual and Social Services for Christian Care Hospice. Danny Mack, a.k.a. The Happy-o-logist, is a philosopher, theologian, motivational speaker, life coach, spiritual healer and expert on rock ‘n roll.

In today's show, Danny and Michael talk about his book "If Grief is a Game, These Are the Rules" and how that book applies to real life. Tune in to hear Danny's own experiences with grief and loss. You'll also discover why he's known as the Happy-o-logist.

Transcript

spk_0:   0:00
If I could snap my fingers right now, I would change the word from grief and love.

spk_2:   0:13
Welcome friends to heart to Heart with Michael Program for the brief community. Our purpose is to empower

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members of the community with resource Is support and advocacy

spk_2:   0:24
information. This season, we're taking a longer view of grief. Can we find healing? Can we find peace? Today's show is if grief is a game. Kim. Anyone with here with us today to discuss this topic is our guest, Danny Mac. Danny Mac is a graduate of the University of North Texas and Southwestern Baptist Theological Seminary. He is currently director of the Spiritual and Social services for Christian Care Hospice. Danny Mac, also known as the Happy Ologists, is a philosopher, theologian, motivational speaker, life coach, spiritual healer, an expert on rock n roll, the story of his overcoming polio and tragedies. A child gives him a unique ability to help people heal for a broken heart or motivate them to

spk_3:   1:04
live their best lives. He has an entertainment style of speaking that combines the power of education with entertainment, his presentations air full of compelling insights and humor. Dan the author, if grief is a game. These are the rules. Thank you, Danny, For coming on to a program.

spk_0:   1:19
Oh, so glad to be with you today, Michael. Talk about this important topic.

spk_3:   1:23
Let's start with you telling us about yourself specifically how polio helped you to become the person you are today,

spk_0:   1:28
Michael. My journey began in 1952 when polio was an epidemic in Dallas. A lot of folks might not know the polio vaccine didn't come out till 1956. So not to 52 has two years old. My parents took me to the doctor because they knew something was wrong. And then I was discovered. I had polio and I was quarantine of the other Children. Polio ward. And my brother was seven at the time, and he didn't have any symptoms of having polio. But they took him to the doctor for precautionary measures. As it turned out, he too had polio. He walked into the poor Little War ward that afternoon, and by that evening he was in an iron lung. Three months later, my brother died from pneumonia. My parents were obviously devastated. My mother didn't handle grief very well. They began to try to find hell. And at the time, the dominant theory about grief was to try not to think about it, try to live as if they didn't exist, don't have any pictures of them, don't talk about it. And so that's what my parents did. And, of course, that didn't work very well. My mother got worse. They ultimately gave her electric shock treatments an insulin shock. Treatments, too shock her mind Chaka Brain to be able to not remember. And so their whole goal was to not remember my brother. And so my brother's death was like the elephant in the room nobody talked about. And so that set me on a journey that propelled me into adulthood with a huge wound in my heart regarding grief and having emotions that I really didn't understand.

spk_3:   3:18
Let me just say from the outset that I am profoundly sorry to hear this andan some sense. I'm angered because I would say that maybe, maybe to the credit of the psychologists at the time, maybe that was the state of the art of psychology of the time. What we know today is so different than what people did, you know, even in just in the fifties, which seems so much like yesterday. I'm very, very sorry that you had to go through that.

spk_0:   3:45
Well, thank you, Michael. My understanding about grief be evolved because as I became an adult and would have these feelings and emotions I didn't understand. And then my mother died when I was 38 from emphysema, and my father died when I was 40 from a sudden heart attack, and I was the only person left in my family. And so I had a huge grief reaction and part of the therapy I had to go through as I had to go back and revisit my brother's death that had never processed into my life. So I had several years of very intense grief, and that propelled me into my journey to helping people who are grieving.

spk_3:   4:34
Did you find that your brother's death and coming to terms with that was the key to making everything else fall into place?

spk_0:   4:40
Yes, absolutely. I It's like there was darkness that I couldn't grab a hold of in a suddenly the light came on is that I thought something was wrong with me because I'd be very emotional in times that seemed inappropriate to me, but I didn't realize I was. What I was experiencing for decades was grief. I just never would have called it grief.

spk_3:   5:07
I have to ask you this, because against everything that you've just told us everything that you've spoken about, all this grief and terrible lesson how you have to go way back to come to terms with it on your website. You call yourself the happy Ologists. So how does that fit in?

spk_0:   5:23
Well, as I began to, uh, go through the process of grieving and then learning about grief, and now I'm a hospice chaplain. I've helped thousands of people get through the grieving process. I have found out that what grieving people want more than anything else is to be happy again. And they feel like happiness will never be there. They feel like this is the way I'm gonna be the rest of my life. And so what I began to do along with my study of grief, I began to study about happiness and how people can can have in their life that could have grief and that can have happiness. It's like a railroad track that's going, and on one rail of the track in your day, you can experience sadness on the other rail of your railroad track of life. You can have happiness. People can experience sadness and happiness all in one day, sometimes in one hour. And so I part of what I do is helping people get through the grieving process that I help them rebuild their life so they can find happiness and allow grief to be a part of their human experience.

spk_3:   6:43
One of the things that I hear from people is that from the moment of grief until some point later on, they feel like they can't get happy, that they don't want to get happy, that they feel guilty if they accidentally get happy. So how do you do this? You bring them together, the two concepts that you can at the same time experience both joy and grief, and that somehow from now on, they're going to have to live together. How do you do that?

spk_0:   7:06
One of the things that I do is I do grief support groups and in the grief support group. Having everyone shared their experience and talk about their experience, it begins to normalize the grieving process. And then I slowly began to point out to people They're already experiencing grief and happiness at the same time, like you can go to a funeral and you can have tears. But sometimes at a funeral you have laughter, so there's tears and laughter happening in the same space, and so I point that out and look just like you, said Michael. You often feel bad because they're figuring bad. And then if they're happy, they felt bad cause they're happy.

spk_3:   7:48
It's a vicious cycle. You want to feel good, everybody. That's, I think, the human experience. You want to feel good, but then something inside of you tells you, do not feel good. It's inappropriate. But it is not inappropriate to feel good at the right time. Do you work with the idea that memories of the people you're grieving can make you happy?

spk_0:   8:07
Absolutely. And what happens is I think it's We go through the grieving process. Sometimes those memories will bring tears to us. And so here's one of the ways I try to reframe that You know, Michael, if I could snap my fingers right now, I would change the word from grief

spk_3:   8:28
and love like that

spk_0:   8:30
instead of saying what we're having is a grief reaction. What we're having is a love reaction. True when you when a part of love there's the light side of love which is, you know, the romantic side or the good side. The happy side, but also part of life is a sad side. It's like in the sixth grade, when you're in love with that girl doesn't know you exist. It's painful. Eso eso love has has two sides to it. And so when we hear that song that triggers the memory, we began toe have tears. I encourage people to say to themselves, I'm loving them today.

spk_3:   9:10
Residents in this

spk_0:   9:11
grieving I'm loving them today and when they tell, talk about it to say, You know, I was driving in my car today in a song came on, and I just began to love my wife once again.

spk_3:   9:22
Well, that's nice. Which brings me to my next question. You're you're a self proclaimed expert in rock n roll. So how does the music help with your work? What I

spk_0:   9:31
found for people and I really encouraged them to listen to music because it interacts with different part of our brain. So one of the

spk_1:   9:40
things that encourage people to do is when they get up in the morning, play music that makes them feel good or mixing feel peaceful to start the day out like that, I do that myself forever by the Baby Blue Sound collective. I think what I love so much about this CD is that some of the songs were inspired by the patients.

spk_2:   10:10
Many listeners will understand many of the different songs and what they've been inspired. Our new album will be available on iTunes. Amazon dot com. Spotify.

spk_1:   10:20
I love the fact that the proceeds from this CD are actually going to help those with Joe Hart effects.

spk_2:   10:27
Join Music

spk_1:   10:28
Home Tonight Forever

spk_5:   10:33
Hi, my name is Jamie Al Croft and I just published my new book, The Tin Man Diaries. It's an amazing story of my sudden change of heart as I went through a heart, a liver transplant. I can think of no better way to read The Tin Man diaries than to cuddle up in your favorite hearts. Unite the Globe sweatshirt and your favorite hot beverage. Of course, in your hearts Unite Blow mug, both of which are available. The hug, podcast, network, online store or visit Hearts. Unite the globe dot

spk_1:   11:05
You are listening to heart to heart with Michael. If you or someone you know would like to be a guest on Michael's program, please email him at Michael at Heart to heart with michael dot com. Now back to our program.

spk_2:   11:20
Danny. First of all,

spk_3:   11:22
how did you come up with the concept for the book? If grief is a game, these are the rules.

spk_4:   11:26
Well, one

spk_3:   11:26
of the

spk_4:   11:27
things I noticed Michael's that in the Western culture specifically in America, that there's no rules regarding grief. There's a there's a lot of support around a funeral, but after that, people just don't know how to grieve. We don't really have any set traditions, and so people are left floundering, not knowing what to do. And I've also noticed that whenever Children are playing, but they're just playing, they'll just make up rules, further games that they play. So I decided that I would take the concepts of grief and make them rules so that we could learn how to see grief in a way that makes sense that we can process it. So I came up with the idea. Grief is a game, then. These are the rules and what it's done. It's helped people to be able to process. How do you go about doing this grievance thing?

spk_3:   12:25
I used to be a teacher, and I used to tell my kids, I'm not gonna teach you anything you don't already know. But sometimes you don't know You know it. And what I love about this book is that is so many of these Ah ha moments where yeah, I knew that. But now I feel better because I see it down in front of me. And the things that I intuited are right. And that's a very validating thing that you've done there.

spk_4:   12:46
Well, thank you, Michael. Uh, you know what I do? Presentations. I talk about rules. Rule number two is the one that really I get a response from the audience. It's almost like it's like a shock. You cannot cure them. Say, Oh, my gosh. And rule number two is that you will lose everyone you love. Either they're going to leave you, or you're going. Are you're going to leave them and so people. No, that you know, everyone you love is going to die. She just don't really. It doesn't really hit you, just like you said. It's obvious people know it, but once you stayed it, you say it out loud. Okay, I will lose everyone that I love.

spk_3:   13:33
That one hit me like a ton of bricks because, as true as it is, and it is very, very true. We've talked about this before that no matter how you think, you can prepare yourself for somebody else's dying. When it happens, it's never at the right time, and you're always caught off guard who are never prepared, no matter how much you know,

spk_4:   13:52
What that means is that if you're gonna lose everyone you love, they're either leaving. You're you're leaving them, then grief. It's just a normal part of the human experience. It's the part of the human experience that none of us can avoid. And so if we can begin to see that there's nothing wrong with you, you're not crazy for grieving. There's nothing. You're not doing something that's wrong. You're just having a normal human reaction because everyone will experience grief at sometime in their life.

spk_3:   14:31
That's really true. I was giving a lecture a few days ago, actually, and, um, I was in the audience and there was a widespread of age group. They're from very young, too much, much older than I am, and I looked around and metalized just stop this Well, there's nobody in this room has never really been there and the conversation picked up and you could see people connecting into the conversation because it's such a universal idea. I think the fear of it is also universal. The experience of it is is part of being who we are.

spk_4:   15:00
You know, if you think about it, everywhere you go, grief, it's in the room. If you were to go to synagogue or church, every time you walk into that group of people, there's grief in the room. If you're having a family gathering, there's grief in the room. If friends are going out and hanging out together, I bet if we talked to everybody, there's grief in the room. There's always grief in the room. We just live in a world that wants to deny,

spk_3:   15:34
you know, one of things we're doing is we're breaking rule number 10 since we are actually telling listeners a path rules. But the other nine rules are, as I said, very, very universal. And since our theme this season is finding peace after loss, how does knowing these rules help people who are bereaved come to a sense of peace?

spk_4:   15:52
I think one of the things that it does helps to make sense of the human experience that we have when we're grieving and helps them to come to a place where they could be comfortable with their tears. And once you become comfortable with it, when you begin toe, have peace. Uh, Michael, you may or may not know that the tears you have when you're grieving have a different chemical makeup than tears you have when you injure yourself.

spk_3:   16:22
I've heard that, actually, and I've seen I've seen pictures of how they're actually different,

spk_4:   16:26
right? And so it's and and the sharing that was folks help them to see that when you're breathing and you're having tears, your body is releasing toxins and you're releasing the stress that you have that causes you to come to a place of peace. And so instead of resisting your emotions, which calls the stress. What? What encourage people to do is to feel their emotion, feel angry, feel sad, feel frustrated feel. Uh, just any feeling that you might have and what happens is those feelings past. When those feelings pass away, it's kind of move right through you. You come to a place of peace again, and then your life gets settled until the next time. A wave of grief comes since let yourself feel it, the wave moves through that peace comes again.

spk_3:   17:23
How would you use these rules when you're counseling people who breathe?

spk_4:   17:26
I have people read the book and because each rule is just one page and I purposefully made it, we're was short, easy to read because people who are grieving have a difficult time reading. And so I start out by just asking them, You know, what do you what is your interpretation of rule number one or Rule Number two? And they tell me that how it affected them and what they thought about it and the insights they got from it, and then I help them to process it. And so it has been an amazing tool because it's so short and it's so brief and profound. It actually took me about 20 years to write. Really Fort Book. I wrote articles for different publishing's, and I would redo the rules every time I did it. And I just did it over and over and over again until I got it where it was so concise that almost each sentence as meaning. Teoh.

spk_3:   18:31
You know, I would encourage people. I don't normally encourage people to deface books, but I would encourage people. Every rule is on its own page, and there's lots of room there. I think when you read these rules, if you're moved by something or someone, if it reminds you of something or someone, or if it gives you unclean of I need to say this to somebody or I need to keep this with a write it down on that page, it seems almost designed for that. It's almost like a mini diary of your grief.

spk_4:   18:57
That's a good way Teoh to talk about it. My car. I think I'll use that. Thank you.

spk_3:   19:04
You're welcome to it.

spk_2:   19:07
Whatever stays here does not remain here. Please take it out with

spk_5:   19:12
I was five hours old when I had my first surgery.

spk_1:   19:15
The only advice I couldn't really give someone like that is to be there for your family.

spk_5:   19:20
This is life and you have to live it or you sit in a corner and cry.

spk_1:   19:25
I am in a Gorski and the host of heart to Heart with Anna. Join us on Tuesdays at noon Eastern time. On speaker are blocked. Talk radio. We'll cover topics of importance for the congenital heart defect community. Remember, my friends, you are not alone.

spk_2:   19:42
If you've enjoyed listening to this program, please visit our website hearts. Unite the globe dot org's and make a contribution. This program is a presentation of hearts, Unite the globe and is part of the hug podcast Network. Hard Tonight The globe is a non profit organization devoted to providing resource is to the congenital heart defect community to educate and power and enrich the lives of our community members. If you would like access to free resource is pertaining to the CHT community, please visit our website at congenital heart defects dot com for information about CHD hospitals that treat CHD survivors summer camps for CHD families and much, much more.

spk_1:   20:23
You are listening to heart to heart with Michael. If you have a question or comment that you would like addressed on our program, please send an email to Michael even at Michael at heart to heart with michael dot com Now back toe heart to heart With Michael

spk_3:   20:40
Can I take this book and use it to go comfort a grieving friend?

spk_4:   20:44
Absolutely. I think if you took this book and gave it to a grieving friend, they would find it easy to read it. Be so simple and you know how you give people book and you think, Well, they're probably not going to read this book. But what This book is so brief everyone, that is, that has it given to them? Would they usually read it? I have have one person who's just taken a about 25 of my books. When he runs into a grieving person, he just gives it to him.

spk_3:   21:20
That's excellent. You know, we were talking before about American culture doesn't have grief rules. I come from a culture from Judaism that has very, very defined grief rules, and we're not gonna go into that here because we've done a program to about it already. But I see nothing that would contradict Jewish mourning and this book, and I would I would give this book to everyone I know a book like this would have concisely put it all in place for May, and that's for my own personal experience. I wish I had had this. That and I would be happy to give out copies of this to anybody grieving. Thanks for letting us have it. I think it's a great idea. But now let's talk more about your website and your availability is the speaker and the things that you can do with it.

spk_4:   22:00
My website is Danny mac dot org's and on the Web site has a list of the, um, presentations that I do and I do a lot of different kinds of presentations. I talk about grief, talk about happiness. I do some presentations on leadership, and I have ah managed to incorporate all of those concepts in all of my presentations that I do. And so I think of people went to the website they would find. So some articles that I've written they find out more about me and they would see the presentations that I do and how to get in touch with me.

spk_3:   22:42
Where do you appear in front of whom do you speak? I

spk_4:   22:45
speak it conferences and seminars. And I'm the been the keynote speaker for many conferences. And so I go. And sometimes I just tell my story about grief and, uh, and my presentational happiness, which is probably the most ask for one's called The Art of Happiness. I tell my story, uh, about the grieving process and how I came to a place of understanding that I could be happy again. And then I began to tell people how to be happy. And you know what Michael has as well as our culture. Doesn't know how degree the Western culture doesn't know how to be happy either. And I found it amazing that I can talk to people who struggle to find happiness even though they have varied effluent lives, they struggle, and often times they don't realize that by feeling their feelings like we talk about in grief, it can lead to a place of happiness. Is well,

spk_3:   23:58
why do you think it is that they don't know neither how degree ignore how to be happy? Because that would seem to me two sides of the same coin. So what is it between the two that connects the two that we don't have? I

spk_4:   24:09
think one thing is, I just don't think we have any understanding. If you think about it. Michael, I know you'll. You'll probably agree with me on this. What if we started teaching people an elementary school about grief? What if we start teaching about happiness on elementary school level? Then, like in middle school, we're learning about grief and happiness at that lip and then high school and in college. And so just like we learned history on the level of elementary middle school school, what if we started teaching people about grief like that so that they would have concepts and their their markers? You could only do what you know. So so those two things, grief and happiness are all going to be a part of the human experience. But we learned so much about things that we don't use, and I'm not a math oriented person. I've never used algebra, but I wish I had a course on happiness or force on grief that would have helped me. Maura's an adult.

spk_3:   25:15
I'll agree with you on that. But I wouldn't want it at the expense of mathematics because maybe you and I are not math wizards, but because people did learn mathematics, people go to the moon. So I I I would seriously like to have both and I think you're right. I think schools somewhere became places where they taught us things. And they're good things that we need to know these things. But where they don't teach us is how to live. They don't teach us how to be a cohesive society. How to accept our differences, how to learn from each other. There's so much that we have to offer each other. And since every culture grieves or doesnt grieve in its own way, learning about that, I think, is very positive. I think you're absolutely right on that.

spk_4:   25:57
Yeah. And because really, you can only do what you know. And so, like, uh, say like all the information you have you have in your brain when you have these experiences that happen to you, your brain tries to to find a way to process that you have no information about grief and you experience the loss of a child loss of spouse, any significant person, then your brain tries to find a way to process that if there's no information there, you on Lee, do what your parents did or what your culture does. You don't know how degree.

spk_3:   26:37
Well, I'm not sure about that because some cultures are very specific and very well developed and defined in there in their understanding of grief. And I come back to my original question. What is it with some cultures that they don't? Because I don't believe that there's was ever a culture that didn't we maybe have lost it in the West, and that is unfair for for the future. I think that we can still learn from other cultures who do grieve well. I can only speak from my own personal experience. Yes, as when I grieve to my daughter. When I greet my father, I did what my family did. I did what they told me to do, but I have found that the process that they gave me was a very good process that leads to ultimately returning back into your life and finding a way to find happiness.

spk_4:   27:18
I think the east during cultures are better at it than the West because the West is built on the Enlightenment in reason and science, the idea of Western cultures up in our head and in our mind rather than in our feelings. Eso when, like when I watch funerals that took place in the Middle East, there's extreme emotion being expressed and and there's in its public were in in the West. It's private. We don't want to talk about it. We, you know, wanna have this funeral in three days. We want to get it over with, get done with it and move on.

spk_3:   28:00
Lastly, if grief is a game, can anyone win or do we just beat it to a draw? I think we

spk_4:   28:07
can win, uh, the game by understanding that what we're having is a love reaction, and what we're doing for the rest of our lives is loving the person that we've lost. We look for ways to try to process grief into our life, and we look at it like we wanted to just go away. We don't want we just don't want to deal with it and by coming to a place of acceptance that this feeling that I have is going to be a part of my life forever. Then we can come to a place where we interact with it in a positive way. Michael When I speak to groups, I asked him. I said if I could snap my fingers and take away your grief But at the same time, when I snap my fingers, I'd also have to take away the love you have for the person you've lost. Would you want me to do that? And they always say no.

spk_3:   29:13
Well, Danny Mac, if grief is a game, these are the rules. Thank you so much for joining us and heart to heart with Michael.

spk_4:   29:19
Thank you, Michael. I've enjoyed it.

spk_3:   29:21
And that includes this episode of

spk_2:   29:23
heart to Heart with Michael. I want to thank Danny Mac for sharing his rules and so much more with us. Please join us at the beginning of the month for a brand new podcast. I'll talk with you soon, and until then, please remember, moving forward is not moving away. Thank you.

spk_1:   29:41
Thank you again for joining us. We hope you have gained strength from listening to our program. Heart to heart with Michael could be heard every Thursday at noon Eastern time. We'll talk again next time when we'll share more stories