When the Grief Therapist Becomes the Grieving Therapist

When the person who helps others through grief suddenly faces devastating loss themselves, what happens? Steve Moore, a licensed clinical professional counselor with 22 years of experience, joins us to share his powerful journey through grief after losing his wife MaryAnn in August 2024.

Steve brings a uniquely qualified perspective to grief counseling. He found himself navigating anticipatory grief when his wife developed a rare genetic condition, leading him to step away from his practice temporarily to become her full-time caregiver.

"The first rule of thumb for me as a counselor is take care of me first," Steve explains. This seemingly counterintuitive approach mirrors the airplane oxygen mask analogy - secure your own before helping others. Through seeking counseling himself and attending grief groups, Steve demonstrates how mental health professionals must practice the self-care they preach.

What makes this conversation particularly illuminating is Steve's willingness to discuss vulnerability in the therapeutic relationship. Rather than diminishing his effectiveness, he believes that appropriately sharing his grief journey with clients creates deeper empathetic connections and therapeutic bonds. His metaphor comparing finding the right therapist to trying on clothes ("you'll know when you feel like you've made a connection") offers practical wisdom for anyone seeking support.

Steve closes with a beautiful anonymous poem that captures the transformation of grief: "You never truly move on. You move with it." This episode reminds us that grief professionals aren't immune to loss - their human experiences often deepen their capacity to guide others through similar journeys.

Contact:
www.asiliveandgrieve.com
info@asiliveandgrieve.com
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To Reach Steve:
Email:  serenity_counseling_services@outlook.com

Credits: 
Music by Kevin MacLeod 

Copyright 2020, by As I Live and Grieve

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.

Transcript

Speaker 1 0:01

Welcome to as I Live and 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 0:26

Hi everyone, welcome back again to another episode of as I Live and Grieve. My sidekick today, kelly, is here. She's becoming more and more frequent as a guest. Hi, kelly, how are you? I'm good. How are you Good, good, good, nice to see you again. Of course, as you know, I live in New York, she lives in Texas, so this is our way of seeing each other more frequently. With us today is a great guest. He and I met the recent grief cruise I was on. We quickly became conversational pals I guess you'd call it for many reasons. So I'm delighted to introduce you today to Steve Moore. Hi, steve, thanks for joining us. Hi, kathy, thanks for joining us. Hi, kathy, thanks for having me. Absolutely, it's our pleasure and I know this is going to be a great conversation about kind of a unique aspect and perspective of grief. To get us started, steve, would you just give a little bit of your background for our list?

Meet Steve Moore: Counselor and Griever

Speaker 3 1:20

Sure, my name is Steve Moore. I am a licensed clinical professional counselor in the states of Maryland, new Jersey, texas, nebraska, washington and Connecticut. My former employer required me to have licenses of multiple states, so that kind of carried over to my current employer. I have been a practicing licensed professional counselor for 22 years and I've lived in three states. Courtesy of my wife, I started my counseling party in Nebraska and then we moved to Houston, texas, where we lived for 13 years, and now I reside in Maryland, outside of Fort Meade. I am a nationally board-certified counselor and I'm also what's called a master addictions counselor. I have 34 years of sobriety myself, so a lot of the caseload that I work with is depression, anxiety and substance abuse related clients. I also deal with clients that have grief and loss related issues.

Speaker 2 2:22

Okay, that's quite a background, and I also want to say that you were also a veteran. You served in the US Air Force.

Speaker 3 2:29

Yes.

Speaker 2 2:29

Okay, how many years did?

Speaker 3 2:30

you serve. I was stationed off at Air Force Base from 1985 to 89. I worked the President's plane, the lookalike plane. It was called the National Emergency Airborne Command Post. It's a let's just say it's a full bells and whistles kind of plane that can do anything the president authorizes.

Speaker 2 2:49

That's interesting. I didn't know that little aspect of your background. It's a fun assignment.

Speaker 3 2:54

I actually have a picture on my wall somewhere around here of Marine One setting down next to the E4, the National Emergency Airborne Command Post, and you had then PresidentPresident Ronald Reagan on board and he was on his way to Reykjavik, iceland, to meet with Mikhail Gorbachev for the Reykjavik Iceland summit.

Speaker 2 3:11

Oh, that's very important. Well, thank you for your service. You're welcome and listeners know that I have a very special place in my heart for veterans, because my husband, tom, served in the Army, acts like he was a career veteran. He probably would have stayed in the Army until the day he died if they had allowed him to do so and if they ever took some of those abandoned buildings on bases and turned them into apartments for veterans, I'm sure that's where we would have been living. Anytime we went on vacation, he went to every fort, every military installation. It was always on our to-do list.

Speaker 2 3:49

So and I've been involved with the veterans. In fact, I still do their monthly newsletter for our local chapter of the Vietnam Vets. So veterans are very, very special to me, so I thank you for that. Thank you for this. Now you have an extensive background in clinical therapy Is that correct, charisse? Okay, and you have worked with people who are grieving. Yet what you didn't say in your summary, your little bio, was that here you are, a counselor who treats people who are grieving, and yet here you are now grieving yourself, grieving the loss of your wife, mary Ann. Quite recently, just last August, did I recall?

Speaker 2 4:29

August 1st, yeah. So my initial question, of course, to you has to be how do you handle helping others that are struggling with their own mental thoughts, their mental health, their emotions? How do you help them when you yourself are hurting so badly?

Speaker 3 4:47

Well, Kathy, the first thing that I did and the first rule of thumb for me as a counselor is take care of me first, and I realize that sounds selfish to some people, but the counselor has to take care of himself first before trying to reach out and take care of other people. Well, as part of the grieving process when my wife passed away in August, I suffered from suffered probably is the wrong word I experienced what's called anticipatory grief. My wife had a very obscure genetic condition that she passed away from that less than one half of one percent of the United States population has, according to the Mayo Clinic. She had a genetic anomaly that we didn't know about and basically I took a fully functioning, phd educated nursing professor to work on. I think it was October 3rd of 2023. And on October 2nd, excuse me and on October 3rd she asked me if I could take her to work. No problem, I usually did that anyway, but when I went to pick her up that night, she came out of the nursing offices doing what I call the little old lady Alzheimer's shuffle and she just like down, she couldn't find, seemed to find her way to the car and it was like someone had clicked off a neurological light switch in my white sprain because I couldn't get any kind of like educated conversation out of her. All I could get was yeah, aha, and I don't know his response. So the reason why I categorized my grief as anticipatory was I had worked in mental health and with dementia and Alzheimer's patients over the years. I know what faulty neurobiology looks like and when you experience it firsthand, like I said, it was quite a shock. It was quite an angering. I was anticipating what I knew. The ultimate outcome of this was going to be death. So I started my grieving process back on October, the 3rd 2023. My wife didn't pass away until August 1st of 2024.

Speaker 3 7:00

How I took care of myself was I remained off work. I basically resigned my position with my former employer and took care of my wife full time while she was alive, until a counselor at the hospice center and began meeting with the counselor. I also attended groups called Grief Share I believe their website is griefshareorg. They have a listing of both online and in-person meetings nationwide and I had the benefit of reaching out and working as a grieving person with people, fellow grievers, and it was a mixture of grief. It was people that had lost spouses, people that had lost animals that were dear to them, part of the family, people that had lost sons, daughters.

Speaker 3 8:00

But I had to take care of myself first before making the decision to come back to work. So that's basically how I chose to do it, and I think it's a healthy way to do it, because if I hadn't done that, I would find myself in a position basically taking my issues and putting them in the client's plate. Well, I don't want to do that because, you know, it's not the client's job to counsel me, it's my job to counsel the client, right? So that's what I mean. Listen, I had to take care of myself first.

Speaker 2 8:36

Well, kudos to you for realizing that. And, as you know, every time you fly in an airplane, part of the safety orientation is that, should those oxygen masks fall out of the roof, you are to take yours and administer oxygen to yourself first, because if you don't, you won't be able to help others. So just you know, that simple analogy supports what you were saying. So kudos to you for realizing that and for doing it.

Speaker 2 9:06

Now, having said that and I have so many questions that popped up while you were talking, and I know we were together for just on this grief cruise for about a week and we saw each other, I think, every day in the dining room, with nothing else. So you know, I see you saw you as a gentleman who seemingly had it all under control. Yet at the same time, I know there were times during workshops or ceremony opening or closing ceremonies, when the emotions got you, they got you, and I think I remember at one point reaching out and touching your shoulder because I wanted you to know that. I recognize that. Do you still have those moments if you are with a client?

Speaker 3 9:52

I haven't yet, but I anticipate that that could come up and if and when it does. Part of being an effective counselor is allowing yourself to be vulnerable, not to be honest with the client. I don't have any problems letting the client know like I am grieving the loss of my spouse and also my you know 14-year male kitty cat companion. You know.

Speaker 2 10:18

I know, I know, that was even more recent.

Speaker 3 10:21

Yeah, that was a couple weeks ago, right. But I don't have a problem letting my client know like I'm experiencing this and I can empathize completely with what you're telling me and I think that that helps build some cohesiveness, some credibility. I also think the fact that I've got salt and pepper for hair, you know, and I've got a little cookie on me helps a lot, because I tend to counsel an older population, like a little 50 years old plus. That's kind of how it worked out. So when vulnerability moments hit, I just allow it to be, because one of the things that I teach my clients about the grieving process is two things. Number one there's no time limit.

Speaker 3 11:08

People think, mistakenly, that there has to be this time limit and you know that that is out there, that thought pattern's out there, because people will say well, aren't you over that by now? So there's no time limit. And then the other thing I let the client know is feelings just are. They don't ever have to be justified, and I practice what I preach. So if I have a vulnerable moment during a counseling session, knock on wood, I'm not going to say it hasn't happened yet, but it could. I would let the client know look, look, I'm kind of having really hit a raw emotional nerve for me and here's why and I'm not saying this to make you feel guilty, I'm saying this like I can empathetically, on a very, very deep level, make that connection with you. I know how that feels I.

Speaker 2 12:00

My opinion is that, were you to disclose that, so to speak, to a client who was also grieving, that could actually increase the intensity of a bond between therapist and client, because they know that you're walking a similar path, so to speak, absolutely. Now one of the other things that popped up as you were talking about your background and your experience you mentioned 34 years of sobriety. Again, kudos on that. It reinforces my impression of your stability, sincerity, integrity and everything. So really, kudos on that. I know that is not an easy thing to do. I have found and this is strictly my opinion.

Speaker 2 12:50

So, listeners, I want you to hear that this is strictly my opinion. It is not fact or science-based at all. It's because I work in an addictions program. It's where I first started to do transcription. I worked there in a secretarial and administrative capacity eventually, but it was my opinion that there are many, many, many people that are alcoholics and or addicts that eventually become therapists. That's my opinion. I have also noticed that, in the field of grief, many, many, many of the people I encounter and that now are in my network, that have been guests, that are authors, everything they have experienced and or are experiencing grief and that has kind of channeled them into a specialty of grief therapy. It's you again, strictly my opinion. I'm just going to ask you, steve, do you agree? And this is your opinion?

Speaker 3 13:48

I certainly have run into younger counselors who have, I think, gone into the counseling field with all of the right intentions. But the problem is, in my humble opinion, the timing was wrong, because you have to work on your own egg basket first before you can effectively help someone else manage theirs, Because personalization is a real concept. As a therapist, If I personalize every cruel, nasty comment that a client has made to me over the years, lord only knows where my self-esteem would be. I learn to deflect that and remind myself it's not about me, it's about them and what they're feeling at the moment. I use a technique that's very common in the field, called motivational interviewing. Motivational interviewing is like a Socratic form of interviewing that an attorney would use. I ask a question of the client so that I will not get an yes or a no answer. I'll say something, like you know that sounded really, really difficult for you to deal with. Tell me more about that as an example.

Speaker 2 14:55

Okay, and does that then bring forth from them more emotion?

Vulnerability in Therapy

Speaker 3 14:59

Sometimes, sometimes, sometimes, it could have the exact opposite effect. They'll basically say the famous three words I don't know, and that's okay. That's got to be sort of frustrating. Well, I just might swing around and ask that question a different way. Right, right, wow.

Speaker 3 15:20

But getting back to your question, I believe that I have to keep my own house of courage in order for me to be an effective counselor. I also think that people become counselors because they grow up in horribly dysfunctional family systems, if you will, and they have this need to try and figure things out, and they're using their role as a therapist to do it. I'm not accusing anybody out there, I'm not. No, no, no. I'm just saying that I have, in my 22 years, I have run across a few people that I feel have done this, and I've not confronted them on this because that's not my place on this, because that's not my place. But I also think that by not working on your own house of cards, emotionally speaking, I have a saying in the counseling world and as a matter of fact, it's probably going to be the title of the book that I plan on writing, called you Can't Really Go Home Until You've Gone Home, and what I mean by that is we all carry around in life this little travel on rolling suitcase, emotional baggage. Picture yourself rolling through the airport with your emotional baggage with you. And people come together and they form partnerships, relationships, marriages and they too bring emotional baggage. And when those two collide a lot of times, that's usually when the family and marriage counselor sees them.

Speaker 3 16:47

But my point here is if I haven't worked on my own familial issues from growing up and the trauma that it created, I'm not going to be as effective a counselor as I would be if I had done all that homework ahead of time. If I hadn't done the personal work necessary, there's no way I'd be sitting here talking to you with 34 years of sobriety because death of my wife would have sent me drinking. Oh, of course I mean 34 years ago I would have been up to my elbows and eyeballs in whatever liquor I could get. And I've done enough homework to recognize these are my triggers and this is what I need to do to take care of this before it becomes right. And mentally I say to myself all the time hi, I'm Steve, I'm an alcoholic and prescription drug addict. How are you Sometimes, when I look in the mirror, to remind myself like look, this is who you are, this is where I come from.

Speaker 2 17:46

So, right, right, and now, having bled my opinion out there to everybody to know, I also want to add on to that and say also that therapists, psychiatrists, doctors, whatever profession if you have had experiences such as that, I believe it makes you a more empathetic and compassionate person to work with others that are traveling a similar road. I really do. If you have remodeled your house and fixed it up and you're ready to open the door to guests and visitors, then you are ready also to help others. So I actually applaud the people that had and are going through things like that, that have chosen to become therapists, doctors, psychiatrists, psychologists, whatever there are so many titles for them. But I applaud them for doing that because I feel that they will be more successful in their profession by having that experience and being better able to understand how hard it is for their clients to even just come to you initially and ask for help, to admit that you need help. That in itself is huge.

Speaker 3 19:02

Yes, and it's interesting. I think people don't understand that even therapists need to talk to a therapist. I bounce ideas off of my coworkers and off of other therapists all the time. No one person has all the answers. Right, right, and getting back to what you were saying earlier, I definitely believe that my life experience has made me a more empathetic, more compassionate, a better counselor all the way around. Right, because if you haven't walked a mile in your client's moccasins, so to speak, and how can you possibly empathize with or even cognitively think about what they're going through? Right, because you can't experience it yet yourself.

Speaker 3 19:48

See, because I've gone through the grieving process several times now in my life. I know what it looks like, I know what it feels like and I know what triggers it produces. So, how my grieving, tied into my substance abuse or alcoholism was it's too easy to pick up a bottle and numb my feelings and emotions I learned in the recovery process. No, thank you God for giving me the ability to feel. I want this, even though I don't like it. I want to feel this because I know that there's something you want me to learn from this. Right, that's what I try to convey to you.

Speaker 2 20:29

Yeah, yeah, that's a great perspective actually. Actually, kelly, do you have any thoughts? You've been quiet, as always, but I don't want to forget the fact that you're sitting there. I am here. My thought was is it possible for someone who doesn't take care of themselves first a therapist, for example when they go to try to help other people, do you feel they could become resentful if someone's there for a problem that's not as bad as theirs?

Finding the Right Therapist

Speaker 3 20:58

Yes, I do, because anger works like a mirror. Okay, anger is a mirrored reflection of those things that I see in other people, that I also see in myself. If that makes sense, picture me the Snow White in the Seven Dwarf Mirror on the wall and she's looking at herself in the mirror and basically the things that she doesn't like about Snow White is actually the things that she hates about herself. Well, if I allow myself to carry that anger over into the counseling profession and it will ultimately wind up there, we're not going to have success. We're not going to have a very meaningful interaction. The other thing that happens, quite frankly, is the counselor expects the client to fix them, and that's a situation you don't want to find yourself in, ain't I?

Speaker 2 21:52

Yeah, good points, good points. Anytime I've spoken with a clinician, I've always mentioned the fact that, should someone realize or accept a suggestion from someone who loves them, that they need to seek some professional help, it's important to not just pick up the phone, call one person and commit that. There's a relationship that develops so that initially it's nice to find someone who will speak with you, even just for a few moments, so that you can feel is there a level of comfort? Do you think you could talk very candidly to this person? Do you think that you would look forward eventually to going and being able to share with them your deepest, darkest thoughts? So do you have any suggestions for our listeners, steve, on how or what they might ask, any way for them to find, maybe, a good potential therapist?

Speaker 3 22:52

Well, let me start this part of our conversation with a metaphor I always explain to. I'm also an AAA sponsor and I always explain to my counselees and the people that I sponsor that finding a good home meeting I'm putting that in quotation marks, air quotes is kind of like shopping for clothes at the local store. Okay, so you've got brand A, you've got brand B, you've got brand C, and the label says on all three brands, 4xlt, four extra large. Okay, you try on brand a and brand a doesn't quite sit, you know, like in the shoulder arms, like a 4xlt that you're used to wearing, so you put it back on the rack. Brand b same thing. It's too long, you know, but the label says 4xlt. And then you go to see and you're like, oh man, this is the shirt of my dreams, man I, yeah, this is, this is the one.

Speaker 3 23:51

Well, the same concept applies with counseling and you know, uh, finding, you know, support group meetings. It's kind of like trying to find a pair of shoes that fit. Yeah, you'll know. Okay, when you feel like you've made a connection, kinds of questions that I would suggest asking. If it's grief related, how long have you been breathing? What are you grieving about? How did you handle it?

Speaker 2 24:18

Because it's okay to ask the therapist those kinds of questions, sure sure, I think we don't realize that or recognize that when we're faced with that situation.

Speaker 3 24:29

You know, it's like I always ask any new doctor well, where did you go to school? Where'd you get your training? What's your special? Why can't people learn to ask therapists that same type of line of questions? Okay, what?

Speaker 2 24:40

are you grieving? It's part of advocacy which I promote, and I have another soapbox under my desk that talks about advocacy, because I truly believe in it and do it. And you'll forgive me, but your clothes metaphor sounds quite similar to Goldilocks.

Speaker 3 24:59

Goldilocks, I had not thought of that. But you're absolutely correct, I had not thought of that.

Speaker 2 25:04

Yep, yep, that's exactly what I was thinking as you were telling that for Goldilocks, and I love it and I'll probably use it again. Actually, yeah, because it's perfect, perfect, I mean, you think about the last time you went, you know, clothes shopping.

Speaker 3 25:17

Did brand A, brand B and brand C fit the same? No, of course not. That's why they're fitting rooms.

Speaker 2 25:23

Yeah, yeah, perfect. You know I went to that when I was looking for a massage therapist, because I didn't want a spa massage, I wanted a medical massage. And you know there are, in fact, and I eventually found one a certified medical massage therapist, and it made a huge difference in how I was feeling at the time. So, but it's the same thing, and it is. I truly believe it's part of advocacy You're the one that needs the help. Find the best person for the job, right, that's, you know, find the best person for the job. And in the area of therapy, of any kind, you are only going to help yourself if you are going to be honest, if you are going to be very, very candid and if you are going to be willing to spew forth your deepest, darkest secrets and emotions. That's what will bring you success. You can't go there and hide behind the I don't knows. It's not going to work. It's not going to work Right?

Steve's Closing Thoughts on Grief

Speaker 2 26:26

So, sadly, our time is winding down, as always, you know, and I knew that on the cruise, you know we could talk about anything all day. It's just that. So I appreciate everything you said and my head's spinning with a whole other podcast episode actually. So don't be surprised if you get asked back. Well, and hopefully this one's not been too painful for you. No, I feel good. Good, this is the time of the podcast where I actually turn the microphone over to our guests so that the guests can interact with the listeners one-on-one, without me interrupting with my questions, opinions and or comments. So the floor is yours, steve, all right.

Speaker 3 27:04

Well, if anyone wants to get a hold of me for services, I actually work in Maryland for Carroll Counseling and Associates and you can reach me through the appointment line at area code 301-829-2242. I am licensed in the states of Connecticut, new Jersey, maryland, texas, nebraska and the state of Washington, so I am licensed in six states. So if you are in those states, I can provide telehealth services for you. My counseling practice is actually under the umbrella of UnitedHealthcare Optum Behavioral Health. We were just purchased by them, so that's how you get a hold of me. I'd be more than happy to help anybody that I can, because that's why I became a counselor. After all, I am very passionate about counseling and helping people and lending a listening ear to folks.

Speaker 3 28:00

I would like to share something that is grief, specific to grief, but I share this with the clients that I work with because it just rings so true with every word and unfortunately it's by an anonymous author. Nobody knows who wrote this, but it's just called Grief and Grieving. It says Grief is not just an emotion, it's an unraveling a space where something once lived but is now gone. It carves through you, leaving a hollow ache where love once resided. In the beginning it feels unbearable, like a wound that will never close. But over time the raw edges begin to mend, the pain softens, but the imprint remains, a quiet reminder of what once was. The truth is, you never truly move on. You move with it. The love you had doesn't disappear. It transforms. It lingers in the echoes of laughter, in the warmth of old memories, in the silent moments where you still reach for what is no longer there and what's okay.

Speaker 3 29:03

Grief is not a burden to be hidden. It's not a weakness to be ashamed of. It is the deepest proof that love existed, that something beautiful once touched your life. So let yourself feel it, let yourself mourn, let yourself remember. There is no timeline, no right way to grieve. Some days will be heavy and some will feel lighter. Some moments will bring unexpected waves of sadness, while others will fill you with gratitude for the love you were lucky enough to experience in your life. Honor your grief, for it is sacred. It is a testament to the depth of your heart and in time, through the pain, you will find healing, not because you have forgotten, but because you have learned how to carry both love and loss together simultaneously in the same heart.

Speaker 2 29:50

That's beautiful. I have read that before. It's one of my favorites. I'm an avid quote collector. If you will, I love that one. Yeah, I did not hear that until recently, Otherwise it probably would have been plastered on my bathroom mirror when I was first doing without my husband, which is also a different phrase that I've heard. There's passing, there's dying, there's lost. Well, they're not lost, but anyway, doing without certainly.

Speaker 3 30:18

The reason I love that poem. I Never Left you because it's basically just that poem. It's like look, physically I've left this earth, but so many other ways I'm still around you.

Speaker 2 30:27

Absolutely, Absolutely, and I see it all the time too and feel it. And to the listeners, we record these episodes before they actually launch. And just letting my listeners know that tomorrow is actually the death-aversary, if you will, of my husband Tom. You probably couldn't tell If I've been a little sadder or a little more down today. That's why he's just been so much on my mind recently. And I know for you, Steve, Marianne's death is still recent, I think anytime it's within the first year. It's recent because there are times it will feel like it happened just yesterday and other times it will seem like eons have passed. That's all part of the grieving process. So, listeners, we must say farewell.

Speaker 2 31:18

Until next week, another guest episode. I love you all and I tell you time and time again you have done so much for me personally to help me heal and to support me on the journey, even though I don't know many most of you. I have no idea who you are, where you are in the world, but just knowing that you're listening does so much for me and I really, really appreciate it. So farewell, until next week. Remember to take care of yourselves, as we all ask you to do. Self-care is critical and on that note, I guess we'll say thank you.

Speaker 3 31:52

Steve, you're very welcome. Thank you, appreciate it.

Speaker 1 31:57

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 as I live and grievecom, 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 and grieve together.