Ever wondered why we're so tough on ourselves when dealing with grief? Grief is a journey nobody chooses, yet most of us will have to navigate at some point. Join us in this frank and enlightening discussion with our guest Gary Roe, a grief specialist, author, and speaker. He gets real about his own experiences, particularly the loss of his father, which became the catalyst for his life's work. Gary shines a light on the reasons we put ourselves under immense pressure during these sorrowful periods, including our need for control, guilt, and maintaining appearances.
Switching gears, we explore the road to healing and the importance of self-kindness. Gary gives us practical methods to practice gentleness towards ourselves, affirmations, and reminders to help us pause from our self-criticism. We explore the role of faith and spirituality in the healing process and the power of giving ourselves grace amidst the storm of grief. The discussion concludes by focusing on the capacity to find blessings and express gratitude even in times of profound loss. Join us for a comforting and illuminating conversation with Gary Roe and gain a fresh perspective on navigating grief with kindness and patience. Tune in, and let's walk this path together.
Ever wondered why we're so tough on ourselves when dealing with grief? Grief is a journey nobody chooses, yet most of us will have to navigate at some point. Join us in this frank and enlightening discussion with our guest Gary Roe, a grief specialist, author, and speaker. He gets real about his own experiences, particularly the loss of his father, which became the catalyst for his life's work. Gary shines a light on the reasons we put ourselves under immense pressure during these sorrowful periods, including our need for control, guilt, and maintaining appearances.
Switching gears, we explore the road to healing and the importance of self-kindness. Gary gives us practical methods to practice gentleness towards ourselves, affirmations, and reminders to help us pause from our self-criticism. We explore the role of faith and spirituality in the healing process and the power of giving ourselves grace amidst the storm of grief. The discussion concludes by focusing on the capacity to find blessings and express gratitude even in times of profound loss. Join us for a comforting and illuminating conversation with Gary Roe and gain a fresh perspective on navigating grief with kindness and patience. Tune in, and let's walk this path together.
The views expressed by guests are their own and their appearance on the program does not imply an endorsement of them or any entity they represent.
Speaker 1:
Welcome to, as I Live in Grieve, a podcast that tells the truth about how hard this is. We're glad you joined us today. We know how hard it is to lose someone you love and how well-intentioned friends and family try so hard to comfort us. We created this podcast to provide you with comfort, knowledge and support. We are grief advocates, not professionals, not licensed therapists. We are you.
Speaker 2:
Hi everyone, welcome back again to yet another episode of as I Live in Grieve. I'm really really happy that as many of you tune in for episode after episode and you know I joke at the beginning about having a great guest Well, today I think I'm going to introduce who I feel is one of our greatest guests ever Coming back again. I know I'm going to inflate your ego, but you deserve it With me today and for you today is Gary Rowe back again. Hi, gary, Thanks so much for coming back.
Speaker 3:
Kathy, thank you so much. Remind me that anytime I need encouragement, I just need to get in touch with you.
Speaker 2:
Not a problem, I will inflate your ego anytime because I adore you.
Speaker 3:
It's a pleasure to be here, thank you.
Speaker 2:
Well, thank you. Some of our listeners may not have heard some of the other episodes you were on, so could you just take a quick minute and update them and let them know who is Gary Rowe.
Speaker 3:
Oh my goodness. Well, here goes your whole podcast today. No, I'm just kidding. We'll make it as brief as possible. Basically, if we're wanting to know my tidal or whatever, I call myself an author, speaker and grief specialist.
Speaker 3:
So my life has been full of grief, going from sexual abuse early in life, multiple deaths in my family, my mother attempting suicide, my father dying in front of me when I was 15, and losing a best friend at the age of 12, being functionally orphaned at the age of 15, and picked up by another family for the rest of high school, etc.
Speaker 3:
Anyway, my childhood was riddled with loss and because of that I began thinking very early I mean by 16 or 17, that oh my goodness, I have to learn how to handle this stuff and I have to learn how to heal from this stuff when it happens.
Speaker 3:
And I really want to be able to use this stuff somehow, these losses, this pain somehow, for good, if not for myself or someone else, or what's the whole point.
Speaker 3:
So in adulthood that launched me into college and eventually wound up at seminary, served as a missionary in Japan for a number of years two plus decades as a pastor in Texas and in Washington state, and then spent a little over 10 years as a hospice chaplain and grief counselor and I still work frequently in the hospice arena with grief education and things like that bereavement support. I currently do some grief coaching as well, but on a very limited basis because I feel like I'm best used in speaking, educating and writing and, of course, listeners probably picked up if you don't know me, you probably picked up in there that I'm a follower of Jesus Christ and he is my life and so he is the reason why I'm alive and breathing and the reason why I am here. So that's me in a nutshell, and for the last two years I've just been kind of on my own writing, speaking and doing some grief coaching and moving back to my hometown that I grew up in, I'm one of those boomerang people and enjoying it immensely.
Speaker 2:
That's great. Well, it is truly a delight to have you here and listeners. Just FYI, Gary describes himself as a writer. I don't think he used the term author, but he is in fact, an author. He is a prolific writer and author, and all you have to do is go to my best friend, Amazon, and just put his name, Gary Rowe, in there and you will see. And one of the neat things is he has books for different types of grief, different types of trauma or anguish that we may be enduring, so they can be very, very helpful. I highly recommend them.
Speaker 2:
So, for today, when I mentioned different aspects or different facets of grief, one of the things that I ran across recently was a newsletter from Gary, and it had the subject why are we so hard on ourselves when we grieve? And that really resonated with me because, even though the losses in my life are not what I would call recent anymore, there have been four major losses, but the newest one is past five years now. So why are there times that I'm still hard on myself and why are all of us hard on ourselves? So that's our topic for today. Gary, Do you have a starting point?
Speaker 3:
Yes, it's interesting, isn't it, that at the very time in life when we should be the most kind to ourselves, or when we should give ourselves a break, that we tend to tighten the screws even tighter.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, we do.
Speaker 3:
And I know it took me a while to figure this out I honestly thought that, wow, I'm really hard on myself when I grieve, but I'm normally hard on myself. But then I discovered that even if a person is not normally hard on themselves, they tend to be hard on themselves when they're grieving, and I think there's a number of reasons for that. If we're normally hard on ourselves, then it would make perfect sense that we'd be hard on ourselves when we're grieving. Sure, we're, just maybe we have a little perfectionism rolled in there. We like things to be a certain way. We try to make things that way.
Speaker 3:
Another reason is, I think, that we feel so out of control and so we try to exercise some control over ourselves, over our emotions, over circumstances, even over other people and how they respond to us. We don't realize that's what we're doing when we are kind of gauging our responses and say I'm going to be well controlled when I go to the grocery store, I am not going to let any of my emotion out, and we don't realize what we're really trying to do is control our environment so that we can get in the grocery store and get what we need and get out of the grocery store without any major mishaps.
Speaker 3:
So there is this desire to control that feeds into this too. Some of us are maybe what we would call not just responsible, but a little overly responsible, and if you mean.
Speaker 3:
Well, like we're normally want to be trust. I think most of us want to be recognized as trustworthy, dependable individuals. But a lot of us go beyond that and we say I really want to do this well, I want to do this in an excellent way, I want to be responsible with my grief. But we can take that too far and we can become overly responsible and we can fulfill all of our other obligations in life, while inside we feel like we are dying inside just because we don't have the space or we haven't given ourselves the space or the freedom to really grieve. And then there's the whole guilt thing which I know nobody but me struggles with. That I know.
Speaker 3:
But, just in case there's somebody else out there in your audience that guilt and shame If we've been introduced to shame in life, chances are in grief. We feel that because we all wonder what could I have done differently? What did I not do I wish I'd done? What did I do that I wish I hadn't done? What did I say that I wish I hadn't? What did I not say that I wish I had? And so on, and so on, and so forth.
Speaker 3:
And so there's another way that we are hard on ourselves and it just really piles up. And I think here I am just rambling here, but no, you're not OK. Most of us want to really struggle and want to keep up appearances while we're grieving, because exactly.
Speaker 3:
Yes, and so that means that we really kind of have to become another person. When we're around other people, we have to wear a little bit thicker mask than we normally wear, because we all wear a list, unless we're really around somebody we're really comfortable with, where we're all adjusting somehow, oh my goodness. And then there's and I've heard this a lot, especially from parents who have lost children, who still have children in the house, or anyway that I have to be strong. I have to be strong, yes, I need to be strong for X, y or Z. And it's here we are with broken hearts shattered all over the place, and we think we need to be strong, and we have this weird idea of what strong is. Apparently strong is being able to cruise through something and nobody knows anything is wrong, which.
Speaker 2:
No emotions, no appearance of weakness at all. Nope, it's impossible. Yet we demanded of ourselves.
Speaker 3:
Yes, we do. And then maybe the biggest reason why we're hard on ourselves is our past. For those of us who have, we all have a past, and in our past, in our past, there are losses, there are wounds, there is pain back there, and a current loss always, in some shape, form or fashion, resurrects past pain and brings it back into the present. And so that gosh, that leads to us being particularly hard on ourselves because we think, wow, I thought I would deal better with this, I thought I would be further along, whatever further along me, or I thought I wouldn't be so emotional, or whatever the case might be. So we've got this hard, hard, hard situation, and then we're hard on ourselves on top of that.
Speaker 2:
Gary is there. This is going to my toddler question of the moment. Excellent. Is there a way we can tell we're being hard on ourselves, or do we just blissfully go on doing it to ourselves and not even realize it?
Speaker 3:
You know, I think at first this is just a guess. But great question, by the way. If that's a toddler question, that's one smart toddler.
Speaker 2:
I was pretty smart as a kid, all right.
Speaker 3:
I think most of us that are normally hard on ourselves we just do it naturally and then we realize at some point we come where somebody tells us what we're doing to ourselves and we kind of get an inkling of it. Others of us come to the realization. I think we probably all just plow through it somewhat until somebody else brings it to our attention or we read it in a book or we see a video and then suddenly we realize, oh, that's me, I do that.
Speaker 2:
So is there a question and I just had a brief moment of vision of taking a post-it note, writing something on it and sticking it on the bathroom mirror that one would see every morning when they go to brush their teeth or wash their face that would kind of let you know for the day. This is the question you need to ask yourself, or this is the statement you need to declare, so that you're going to try to get through the day without being so hard on yourself. Any thoughts on what you might tell yourself.
Speaker 3:
Several things pop to mind, because different things will resonate with different people. One thing you could write is just the word words kind to me, just sticking it. That's what I'm going to be today is I'm going to be kind to myself. In the midst of what I'm responsible for and what I know I have to do, that I can be kind to myself. Another thing that popped to mind I don't know what we would really write on the post-it note. It might just be something like the thing that's coming to mind is, of course, the minute I say this, people are going to go in grief. Oh, my goodness, I don't know what that is. Anymore is my only job every day is to just be who God created me to be. That's it. I can't control anything.
Speaker 2:
That could certainly be a priority for the day. That certainly could. We maybe have trouble doing it, but it could be something like make God a priority today.
Speaker 3:
Yes, yes, yes. And to know another thing we could write is just be patient with myself today. Be, patient with yourself.
Speaker 2:
Yeah, I think of the phrase patience is the virtue.
Speaker 3:
Yeah, so those are some things that popped to mind. And then good thoughts. Well, good thought on the post-it note on the mirror. I think that's a very good idea.
Speaker 2:
Well, and the reason it came up is that you know, I remember well and I know everyone listening to this will, and you will also that brain fog we talk about when our mind is so full of everything, all of the kudavs, vudavs, shudavs, all of the details, all of the things that you have to do right away, the things that are coming up, like even changing the furnace filter and I don't know how to do it. Or the sink is leaking. What am I going to do? Or I'm not ready to go back to it. Our minds are full of so much that you'd never remember to just tell yourself every morning well, this would work. Every time you went into the bathroom you're standing there washing your hands, you know, every time you would see this reminder to yourself. What other ways might there be to remind yourself or to cue yourself to not be so hard on yourself?
Speaker 3:
One of the things that, or some, I'm a big fan of, whatever we want to call them affirmations or encouragements, that, and sometimes we need to write those down and post them places, and one of the things that we could do is we could write several of them, different ones, and post different ones in different places.
Speaker 2:
Um, yeah, one on the fridge, one on the coffee maker yes, one on the door yes, yeah.
Speaker 3:
One one on the door, one on the um, one on the dashboard of the car that you know you would just see not while you're driving, of course, but Right, exactly One on the TV remote.
Speaker 2:
There you go.
Speaker 3:
There you go. Things like specific affirmations, that kind of counteract some of the things we've been talking about.
Speaker 2:
Yeah.
Speaker 3:
Here's an example Um, I'm not perfect, and that's okay. Or I don't have to be perfect today. Uh, things like um I'm not in control and that's okay, I can, I can relax with that. Um, things like I can be kind to myself today. I can have a meltdown today and it's okay. I mean we may, we have to, we have to.
Speaker 2:
But only one, only one.
Speaker 3:
We have to come to the point, of course, that having a meltdown is really okay, but I know. Yes, in other words, uh, or things like today will not go the way I expect, and that's okay.
Speaker 2:
Because it, because it won't, we'll always. That's a good one. That's a good one. Right there On that one, yeah.
Speaker 3:
Um. So it's those kinds of affirmations that I think can be hugely helpful. Um.
Speaker 2:
I agree, I'm, you know, my the gears are turning in my mind. I'm coming up with this amazing idea that I'm not going to verbalize the moment oh, don't do that. Well, it's on the same line. It's on the same line, you know, like take a break from perfectionism today, okay, or take a break, just take a break sometimes. But different things like that.
Speaker 2:
Um, this whole concept and the other thing that came to mind was I have an alarm app on my phone to just kind of remind me that at three o'clock today, or three, 15 or whatever time, I have to do this. Maybe it's a bill to pay, maybe it's a meeting that I don't want to forget, might be on my calendar, but I don't have reminders set on my calendar because I have so many things on there. Um, but you could even set the app on your phone and, instead of saying pay the electric bill, you could say take a break or don't be so perfect, or don't try so hard. Yes, I mean, something says something. There's all kinds of apps, so that's probably any number of them you could use.
Speaker 3:
Yes, and, by the way, I really like, don't try so hard.
Speaker 2:
Don't try so hard.
Speaker 3:
I like that one.
Speaker 2:
I actually do have that. I actually do have that one. Don't try so hard. Wow, and there's. You know. We've got to stop, though. We've got to break the cycle of being so hard on ourselves.
Speaker 3:
Yes, we do Somehow, some way and um, if it's, if it's okay that I go there, there's there are always Okay If you go there.
Speaker 3:
There are three Bible verses. They're all in a row, so they're all together. Okay, that really helped me break the cycle of being hard on myself when I and it's a cycle I catch myself in it all the time. Okay, Um, for listeners who are followers of Jesus and maybe even if you're just a little bit familiar with the Bible, you've probably heard these before, perhaps. Um, they're in. They're in Matthew, chapter 11. It's verses 28 to 30. It's Jesus speaking and Jesus says this. He says come to me all you who are weary and burdened. That's the way it starts Simple invitation Just come to me. There's no perform for me. There's no uh, get it a little more perfect. There's no to do list. There's no spiritual gymnastics, it's just a simple no expectations Nope.
Speaker 3:
Just come to me, all you who are weary and burdened. And then there's a promise. The next thing he says is I will give you rest, I will give you rest, just come to me, I will give you rest. Then the next thing he says is take my yoke on you and learn from me, for I am gentle and humble of heart. Now, this is in the first century and the yoke he's talking about is an oxen yoke. Um, and you know, we and what he was speaking of was a farmer's yoke which was a double oxen yoke. You fit two oxen together in that yoke. But the interesting thing of farming still when, where they use oxen, uh, which is very rare, but they still use it in, you know, underdeveloped countries, etc.
Speaker 3:
Yes, there's always a young ox, and there's an older ox in this yoke, and the older, the older ox has been at it for a while, he knows exactly what he's doing, he knows exactly what his master wants, he knows exactly how to plow the field, uh, and he does impeccable work. Oxen do impeccable work. But the young ox just gets strapped into this ox, into this, into this yoke, and he doesn't. He's never been here before and so, kind of like grief, this is uncharted territory for him. And, being a young ox, what does he do? He just starts going. Well, he just starts pulling to the right, pulling to the left, trying to push ahead, trying to pull back. But the thing is, you've got this older, more experienced and stronger actually ox who just stays put. And this, this younger ox, is just fighting it, fighting it, fighting it, fighting it. And finally the younger ox gets the idea that, oh, this guy next to me knows what he's doing. And so the older ox just starts walking and starts plowing the field, and the young ox pulls against it and goes to the left or tries, but it always fails and he always wears himself out in the process. Finally the younger ox gets it. Oh, I just need to go with this guy next to me. I just need to relax with this yoke and I need to let this ox. I need to learn from this guy that's next to me.
Speaker 3:
So what Jesus is really inviting us to is remarkable. He says, basically, we've all got a yoke. I invite you to put your yoke down, put your burden down and join me over here in what I am doing and walk with me. Join me in my yoke. I do all the heavy lifting, I'm the one that's leading, I'm the one that's taking care of this. I am gentle and humble of heart. And then the last phrase of these verses is and you will find rest for your soul, a deep, deep, deep rest.
Speaker 3:
So when I think about being hard on myself, I realize okay, gary, you're in your own yoke and you're trying to fight this out on your own usually, and you need to put that yoke down and you just need to join Jesus in his yoke. He knows exactly what you should be doing, exactly where you should be going, etc. But that's not the most important part. The most important part is just being with Jesus and walking alongside of him and letting that be my focus and his promise to me. If I do that is that he will give rest, deep rest, for my soul, even in the midst of grief and pain and suffering and frustration. Those things might not change, but I can release myself from having to pull this yoke on my own and figure this out, and to me that is a massive difference, night and day.
Speaker 2:
I'm going to say one word. The word is wow. I have heard those verses I can't count how many times in my life. I have never had them I'm not going to say explained, I've never had them clarified to me in the way you just did, and you probably can't see it I know listeners can't see it, but there are tears in my eyes because I have to wonder had I heard that decades ago, how much easier parts of my life might have been. So thank you, Thank you for that, and I mean that from the depths of my soul. That's going to stay with me now forever, because it just took on a whole new meaning to me, a whole new meaning. So thank you.
Speaker 1:
You're welcome.
Speaker 2:
And I've got to figure that there's at least one other person out there listening that probably feels the same way, that sometimes you hear these verses and it's not a matter of what denomination you grew up, what church you went to, who your minister was, that's not it at all. It's just, eventually you are put in the path of someone who can bring light to certain words that have only been words for you for most of your life, and I also believe that that happens at just the right moment. So I really needed those words today. I really did.
Speaker 3:
That is the way he works.
Speaker 2:
At any rate it is, it is entirely, and sometimes, if we All right, another one for the Post-it notes Don't resist when Jesus is trying to lead you, when he offers a sign and there's signs all around the place. Be open to signs, because there may be a much easier path for you.
Speaker 3:
He is always making that invitation in some shape, form or fact. Just to repeat it, the invitation is simple Just come to me.
Speaker 2:
Right.
Speaker 3:
And you asked earlier is there any telltale sign that we're being hard on ourselves? I think one good question for now that whoever's listening to this has now heard this is to ask yourself oh my goodness, have I locked myself in my own yoke and am I pulling that again?
Speaker 3:
Great, that's a great question For many of us, if we're tired, exhausted, frustrated, confused, feeling guilty, feeling angry, anxious, etc. To some degree, that answer is always going to be yes, and so we can then say okay, what would it look like for me to just lay down my yoke here and to respond to Jesus's invitation to walk with him in this, because he knows what he's doing. I don't know what I'm doing, no, no.
Speaker 2:
That's why, sometimes, I've done things two and three times because I clearly don't know what I'm doing, but absolutely, absolutely right. Well, you know what time it is? Gosh, the time goes so fast when we talk, but there are such valuable moments, so it's come time to wind down our podcast. I'm going to give you a few moments to speak directly to our listeners. Let them know about some of your books, let them know whatever you would like them to know. Your turn.
Speaker 3:
Well, everybody, I just want to thank you for listening today. If you should ever want to connect with me, just come to my website. It's garyrowcom, g-a-r-y-r-o-ecom. I have a number of free resources. Click on the resource tab. You can just download them directly. To your advice, advice, listen to me. Your device and all the books are on my website as well. At least you can see them there and kind of get a feel for them. I do have a fairly new book out called Soul Cry, which is it's a book of three months worth of devotional prayers. So if this is connected with you today, chances are Soul Cry would connect with you. So go to Amazon, use the look inside feature that they have and it'll allow you to read three, four, five little devotions and chapters to see if it resonates with you. So I'm here to help. So, anyway that I can do that, I would sure like to do that. So thank you.
Speaker 2:
Thank you, and I'm going to do something for this podcast episode that I have never done before, and I wonder if you would close us with a brief prayer.
Speaker 3:
I would be glad to Father in heaven. We are grateful today that we are here and that we are here together in the sense of we are listening. Help us, god, that when we are struggling and we are struggling help us to hear your invitation to lay down our yoke and to just kind of cross over to you, jesus, and to walk with you. We trust, although we don't know what it looks like, that you will fulfill your promise to give us rest, rest for our soul, because that's what we need. So here we are. Help, help Lord, thank you. Thank you for all these listeners. I pray that you would bless them today with a special sense of your presence in their life. Thank you in Jesus' name, amen.
Speaker 2:
Amen, catch us next week. Everyone, be strong, don't resist, be kind, be patient, as we all continue to live in grief.
Speaker 1:
Thank you so much for listening with us today. Do you have a topic that you'd like us to cover or do you have a question from one of our episodes? Please email us at info at asylevengriefcom and let us know. We hope you will find a moment to leave a review, send an email and share with others. Join us next time as we continue to live in grief together.