Living With Loss: The Psychology of Grief, Trauma, and Emotional Healing

Grief does not end. It changes us. 

In this honest and deeply personal conversation, grief expert and licensed therapist Edy Nathan joins Abdullah Boulad to explore what it truly means to live with loss instead of trying to move beyond it. 

They discuss how grief lives in the body, how trauma reshapes identity, and how the protective patterns we build to survive can follow us long after the loss itself. From trauma stored in the nervous system to the myth of closure, this episode offers a compassionate and grounded perspective on grief therapy and emotional healing. 

Edy reflects on losing her partner at twenty-seven and how that experience shaped her life’s work in trauma recovery, psychodrama, and creative arts therapy. Rather than promoting the idea of getting over grief, she introduces integration as a more honest and sustainable path forward. 

Grief is not something we erase. 
It is something we learn to carry. 

In this episode, you will hear about: 

• How to process grief after loss 
• Trauma stored in the body and emotional armor 
• The impact of bullying, abuse, and early attachment wounds 
• Continuing bonds and staying connected to loved ones 
• Forgiveness, apology, and emotional repair 
• Identity changes after death, trauma, or sexuality shifts 
• Cultural attitudes toward grief and healing 
• Psychodrama and expressive therapy as trauma healing tools 
• Why receiving support can feel harder than asking for it 
• Integration versus closure in grief recovery 

If you are navigating grief, trauma, identity shifts, or searching for thoughtful mental health conversations, this episode offers insight that is both professional and deeply human. 

About Edy Nathan: A licensed therapist, grief specialist, author, and speaker known for her work in trauma integration and creative arts therapies. She combines psychodrama, experiential methods, and continuing bonds theory to help individuals process loss and reconnect with emotional safety. 

00:00:00 – Meet Edy Nathan, Grief Expert & Pioneer in the Creative Arts Therapies
00:01:46 – Theater, Perspective & Reframing Pain
00:03:05 – Loss at 27 & Awakening to Grief
00:05:19 – Trauma in the Body & Protective Weight
00:06:27 – Bullying, Abuse & the Meaning of Love
00:08:27 – Secrets, Safety & Clinical Work
00:09:03 – Love, Grief & Learning to Receive
00:12:06 – Mementos, Memory & Ongoing Bonds
00:15:54 – Forgiveness, Repair & Apologies
00:17:48 – Agoraphobia & The Search for Support
00:20:01 – Discovering Psychodrama & Play
00:25:01 – Creativity as Ancestral Healing
00:27:05 – Mask Work & Emotional Expression
00:29:32 – Clients, Grief & Amnesia of Love
00:31:31 – Inner Liberation & Negotiation Work
00:35:43 – Grief of Identity, Sexuality & Self
00:39:55 – Cultural Shifts in Grief Language
00:43:21 – Blueprints, Coping & Emotional Armor
00:47:54 – Integration Over Closure
00:52:59 – Myths, Movement & Interrupting Trauma
01:00:22 – Honoring Inner Magic & Final Words

Follow Abdullah Boulad:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/abdullahboulad/ 
https://www.instagram.com/abdullahboulad/ 
 
Follow Edy Nathan:
https://www.linkedin.com/in/edy-nathan/

You can order Abdullah’s book, ‘Living A Life In Balance’, here: https://www.amazon.com/stores/Abdullah-Boulad/author/B0BC9S5TCF?ref=ap_rdr&shoppingPortalEnabled=true 
 
Follow The Balance RehabClinic:
https://www.linkedin.com/company/thebalancerehabclinic/  
https://www.instagram.com/thebalancerehabclinic/ 
 
#LivingALifeInBalance #podcast #grief #griefsupport #mentalhealthpodcast #wellness #wellnessjourney #health #healing #wellbeing #traum

Transcript

Edy Nathan 00:00:00  What I had experienced in my early childhood could not be ignored.

Abdullad Boulad 00:00:05  How did you grow up?

Edy Nathan 00:00:06  By myself. They tried to love. But I don't know that either parent knew how to. When I was 27, my partner died. All of my past traumas just started to march right in. I was angry. That anger propelled me to start to really look at grief. Each part of the pain became a lesson. The abusers, if they knew to do what they did. Something had been done to them. Yes, grief can be one of your greatest teachers. Within you there is magic. Honor it. It belongs to you.

Abdullad Boulad 00:00:50  Welcome to the Living a Life and Balance podcast. My name is Abdullah Bullard. I'm the founder and CEO of the Balanced Rehab Clinic. My guest today is Eddie Nathan, therapist for grief, trauma and sexuality. In this episode, Eddie shares how early experiences with trauma and the devastating loss of her partner at 27 became the catalyst for her life's work. We dive into the different types of grief and why it's never something we simply get over, but something we learn to live alongside and dance with.

Abdullad Boulad 00:01:28  We discuss her pioneering work in theatre and drama therapy, and why the creative arts therapies are an incredibly powerful way to release grief and trauma. I hope you will enjoy it.

Edy Nathan 00:01:45  Yes.

Abdullad Boulad 00:01:46  What motivated you to do what you do today?

Edy Nathan 00:01:49  It's a very crowded room, and I bring with me my ancestors and my family and my family's stories and my lineage. And. It's. It can't be ignored. And what what I had experienced in my early childhood could not be ignored. and it it matters less what I went through and more about how. Each part of the pain became a lesson and an awakening. And okay. So I know that there's going to be more. And I wonder what else there is. And I started with theater, and I loved theater because I could mask, because I could go into characters and I could I could not be me. I didn't have to be Eddie. And when I got into the theater world and I went to school for theater When I I'm in New York and I'm auditioning and I'm doing Off-Broadway, and I hated it because it was so gamey.

Edy Nathan 00:03:05  And that was the realization you're going to have to change your whole perspective. And so that was part of the beginning of this, of this work and of taking on. The shadows and the shadow work. And then when I was 27, my partner died and we did theater together. And when he died, I had nowhere to go. And people kept saying, you're young, you'll find someone. And it was like all of my past traumas just started to march right in. And I was angry. And that anger propelled me to start to really look at grief. What is grief? How do I want to write about it? How do I want to define it? And I wasn't thinking I was going to be talking about other parts of grief, like the traumatic imprint or sexuality and, and and that was, you know, kind of the, the path that I ended up taking. But it started with loss.

Abdullad Boulad 00:04:23  Loss at the age of 27.

Edy Nathan 00:04:25  Yeah. Loss at the age of 27.

Edy Nathan 00:04:28  That was that was the awakening loss to the past losses. There's there's an awakening moment. Right. And that awakening moment, I often say, I talk about this magnet that I have in my refrigerator, and it's a pirate's chest, and there's a little button on that chest, and you press the button and there's a knock, knock, knock. And then and then a minute later it says, let me out of here and whatever I had experienced and swallowed and put away. All of a sudden I began to tumble out and it was let me out of here. Yes.

Abdullad Boulad 00:05:05  Do you think if if the death of your husband would not have happened at that age? Would the historical trauma would have come up at some point?

Edy Nathan 00:05:19  Probably. But it might have been. It was manifested physically for me when I was young. I gained a lot of weight. That was my protection, and probably that I would have stayed more, more bounded by by the protections of my body. Yes. And when he died, and I started to get the knock, knock, knock.

Edy Nathan 00:05:53  Then the weight fell off and my work began within myself. Yes. And around and around. Grief. Like I define grief as. What are you yearning for? What are you hungry for? Because there's something that's missing. And I needed to find the different aspects of myself that were missing.

Abdullad Boulad 00:06:18  So did anything else happen? During your childhood or young adulthood, which has shaped you?

Edy Nathan 00:06:27  So where do we begin? Oh.

Abdullad Boulad 00:06:29  I have time.

Edy Nathan 00:06:32  I say that, and, yes, I, I was terribly bullied. My father was a sociopath, narcissist, and. They had my brother do their dirty work. And what that might have looked like was I was teased at school, I was teased at home. So there were there was no respite. So pain was love. Like, I just if I could get to the pain, at least I was feeling something instead of nothing.

Abdullad Boulad 00:07:10  Yeah.

Edy Nathan 00:07:13  and then gaining weight and and, being a survivalist and at nine, realizing that, little girls could be cruel and they could also be abusers.

Edy Nathan 00:07:30  So my abusers were not men or boys, but girls. And so that frame kept me distant from the feminine. And safer with the masculine.

Abdullad Boulad 00:07:54  Wow.

Edy Nathan 00:07:55  Yeah. And so it's taken me. Took me quite a few years to get to a place where I could be friends with women and feel safe. But I had to. The safety must come from within me. You don't have the ability to to give me any sense of safety. It's got to come from me first.

Abdullad Boulad 00:08:22  But were there. Were there other people, helping in this moment, providing you to.

Edy Nathan 00:08:27  Say she never, I never told. Not until I was 30.

Abdullad Boulad 00:08:32  Wow.

Edy Nathan 00:08:33  I held that secret in until I was 30. Yeah. And now I. I want to talk about it because it is those secrets that we as clinicians work with.

Abdullad Boulad 00:08:47  Later in in your life you met your husband. Was it difficult for you to to connect with man because of, what happened to you at nine years?

Edy Nathan 00:09:03  The connection is a funny word because it could mean so many different things.

Edy Nathan 00:09:11  I think I wanted to be in power, and I found ways to have power with men. With my husband, with. You know, it was he. He was, he traveled a lot. He was in the theater. and. I was very boundary ridden. I would say.

Abdullad Boulad 00:09:43  Yeah.

Edy Nathan 00:09:44  You know, so we connected in that he actually he taught me about being lovable. And he taught me about collaboration. And he taught me about, my body and sexuality and, and how to have pleasure. And making the sky the limit like your body. Your body. He would say your body is your queendom and your kingdom. And you use it however you want.

Abdullad Boulad 00:10:23  And I like that.

Edy Nathan 00:10:26  Yeah.

Abdullad Boulad 00:10:29  So he helped you to accept yourself also.

Edy Nathan 00:10:32  Yeah. To accept, to integrate to, to love the different aspects of myself that I had, you know, that I couldn't be lyrical with that I, you know that I wanted to hide. I mean, for the longest time, I just wore long dresses, and I tried to just.

Edy Nathan 00:10:49  I didn't wear pants, and I didn't. I was. I wore heavy, heavy makeup, and, And he was like, you don't need to do that. You don't need to shroud yourself.

Abdullad Boulad 00:11:02  Was he your safe safety?

Edy Nathan 00:11:05  He was very much my safety. And he traveled like the first was kind of like it's a heart breaking. But he traveled. The first year we were we were in partnership. And the last year he was dying. So it was truly a, It was a whirlwind of meeting, loving and dying and loving him in the dying and. And collaborating and being in alliance with him in his death thing as the most intimate, intimate thing. It we. He sent me off with the intimacy of a loving death.

Abdullad Boulad 00:11:56  What did you lose when he. When he has gone?

Edy Nathan 00:12:06  I have so much of him in me. His his I, I still I still hear his laughter. And I miss it. I still feel his touch and I miss it. And I'm married and I love the man I'm married to.

Edy Nathan 00:12:28  And there was a second husband in between all of that. In a first love. You never have that first love again. So maybe it's the missing of the first love and knowing where we would have landed, because I kind of can't imagine that I can only I only know what I know. But he left me in very good shape in terms of my soul. Yeah. And that soul, it, it every, every every bit of work I do. He's with me. I still have his Timex watch and it's a winding watch and I travel with it. And when I want to feel him or hear him I wind the watch and we need. I think we all need to have pieces of past loves, people who we've lost. And maybe it's a timepiece or whatever it is, but it's a, it's it's emblematic of the. The psychological. The psyche. The the lover. The the the sovereignty. The cherished love.

Abdullad Boulad 00:13:53  In the meantime you had two other man. So what does this watch remind you to or, and in what state or emotional state.

Edy Nathan 00:14:02  It can be anything. Sometimes just when I'm going to speak on grief. Yes. My grief journey began with him. And so it's like thank you Paul, I'm gonna wind you. I'm gonna listen to the, the watch as your heartbeat, and I'm going to remember what you taught me in your death. Yes, yes. So it's and and certainly my my, my, my my current husband, I he he he knows the watch. He sees the watch. And it can't be a secret. It must. It's part of who I am. As I entered into my. My relationship. So it's it's it's. No. Me and kind of. No, Paul. No. The people I've lost, even though my relationship with my mother was complicated. My husband knows my mother never met her, but knows her. And I think being able to to bring her or or the people I've lost to the people I love, then they know my room. They understand who walks with me. They understand when I walk into a room.

Edy Nathan 00:15:25  It's not just me. It might be my mother or might be Paul, or it might be my abusers. Because the abusers, if they knew to do what they did. Something had been done to them.

Abdullad Boulad 00:15:41  Yes.

Edy Nathan 00:15:41  And so I. I must honor whatever happened to them and hold them and carry them. And I do. Very much so.

Abdullad Boulad 00:15:54  Did you ever forgive them?

Edy Nathan 00:15:57  So I actually had a conversation with one of them. Only one. And she came to me. I was 36 years old, and she apologized. And I have chills. And, sadly, she ended up overdosing. But. So she. What she carried. And her apology was so sincere. I wish it could have given her more life. Because to be able to say I'm sorry and to talk about it and to remember it 36 years, I mean. Yeah. It's like wow. So I, I, I of I, I said, I am sorry that you've held this for so long, you know, and we talked about it.

Abdullad Boulad 00:17:03  Well it's beautiful.

Edy Nathan 00:17:04  It was so talk about the, the fracture and the repair. I hold no guile because I can't even imagine what was going on in the secrets of each of their homes. You cannot even imagine. Yeah, I mean, I can't, but let's say I prefer not to. Yeah.

Abdullad Boulad 00:17:28  You mentioned before also that when your husband, 27, died, This had brought up all the trauma. So you have experience as a child. So what? What have you done with it? And did you get treatment at first or what? What happened then?

Edy Nathan 00:17:48  I tried to find treatment around the grief. Yes. It was hard to find. There were just too many people giving too many platitudes of, you know, you'll get over it. You're young. There wasn't didn't seem to be like, a process or anything that I could go to. As the other things began to come up. I yes, I went to groups. I went to therapy, therapy. I tried different therapies.

Edy Nathan 00:18:25  I also, became terribly phobic. And I would say that that Agoraphobia, where it was very hard for me to even leave my house. Go down a flight of stairs, which impacted so much of my life and also changed my life. But it really in a good way. I that that I had dealing with the anxiety and NLP, neuro linguistic programming, hypnosis, guided imagery. I was terrified to take medications, so I didn't until I did. And and it just took enough of the edge off until I could do it myself. And, and that's why as a clinician, I want to have so many different tools. They're not really tools. They're they're they're, Gifts. Yeah. available, because there's a lot that's walking into the room and, and and so again, not not one size fits all one and also as, as we move and dance and partner with the healing or with the obstacles or with whatever we're faced the, the, the agitations, the, the lover within us that our needs are different and they change through time.

Edy Nathan 00:20:01  Right. Psychodrama I, I fell in love with psychodrama and started to to do mask work. And I did it for myself first. And then as the more I did it, the I, the more I loved it. I became a drama therapist drama with a D and from there I just realized that the the beauty of puppetry and the beauty of the Nonverbal to elicit that which had no words. Because when the child is wounded, there aren't necessarily the words, but through the expression of the mask that can have words or drawings or the puppet that gets to have an expression. And maybe there can be a conversation, or sitting on the floor and playing jacks and being playful, or just sitting with all the different aspects of a person, as they're dealing with some different personality styles that they've used that have come to them for coping and entering, having them all come into the room and, and we're just going to sit on the floor and we're going to hang out and we're going to all have a conversation.

Edy Nathan 00:21:18  Yes. Yeah. So I would say that that my own work, the psychodrama, the drama therapy, the puppetry. Because Learning. Learning to be a clinician helps the clinician. And yet what I've also realized is I don't I don't want to be I don't want to use my work to help me heal with a client. And I think that that can be a danger.

Abdullad Boulad 00:21:49  Yes, you need to do your own work.

Edy Nathan 00:21:51  Absolutely.

Abdullad Boulad 00:21:52  First.

Edy Nathan 00:21:53  Absolutely.

Abdullad Boulad 00:21:54  And what helped you personally the most?

Edy Nathan 00:21:56  I'm a Gemini. I needed a whole bunch of different things. So it was truly the psychodrama and the and and the role play and being able to play, I would say not always having to walk around. I used to walk around with this very kind of theatrical voice and getting rid of that, getting rid of the persona, the personification of what I thought an actor was or what I thought a professional was, and and letting it all, like float away. Melt, melt. Stories. Myths, myths became so, so important.

Edy Nathan 00:22:41  And. Clay. Yeah.

Abdullad Boulad 00:22:44  Work with the hands.

Edy Nathan 00:22:45  Yes. So. So to kind of backtrack, if you don't mind for a moment. Okay. So when I, when, when I became agoraphobic, I really I couldn't walk outside like I was afraid of my shadow. I it was. And there was a pottery studio three blocks away. And I managed to get to this pottery studio, and I had the most amazing teacher. Now this is New York. No one gives you a key to their studio. But she gave me a key to the studio, and and I would say that probably in hindsight, that is really what helped me the most, because she said to me, you have this key. You go in here and anytime you want. And I never mentioned anything about what was going on because. But she must have mapped it in me and, and she said, but this is our deal. You cannot keep anything that you make for the next year. And all I want you to do is cut the piece in half, and I want you to look at the walls, and I want you to see what the walls look like.

Edy Nathan 00:23:53  And when your walls are sturdy and thin, then I want you to let me know. And it took about a year, and I cut every piece. And I looked at the wall walls, and it was really a reflection of my soul that now my my walls were sturdy. They didn't have to be so buoyant and thick, and they could have parts that were thin and parts that were thicker. And the whole metaphor of clay, that you take something that is like mud and dirt and it's a blob. And within minutes, when you when you gain the skill, you have something. And what in life can you actually create something that has a body and looks like a form in minutes? But Clay does that.

Abdullad Boulad 00:24:42  From a scientific perspective. Yeah, I can I can relate to the to the play and working with the hand and, and and using, the left right brain side. Yeah. what's, what's your understanding of the science behind creativity and creative work?

Edy Nathan 00:25:01  I think that the creative reminds us who we are.

Edy Nathan 00:25:04  It's primal. If you look ancestrally, you look at the caves. What did they do? They drew. They had they told whole stories with with bodies and images and languages that we didn't understand. And, and I think that is where we come from. If we look at the animal world, look at what they create. Look at the beauty of a nest. Look at look at how a how a bird will will go. And and they will find all the different, different characteristics of that nest. And that nest is binding and and holds and and, and and contains that not only the egg but the birthing and and and then the, the letting go. So creativity is, is is part of. Yes, the left brain, the right brain. But it's a, it's, it's part of the experience of life.

Abdullad Boulad 00:26:12  And somehow the innocent to create something innocent without judgment. Judge. Well, yeah.

Edy Nathan 00:26:19  No, no, it's pure.

Abdullad Boulad 00:26:21  It's pure and like childish. Pure.

Edy Nathan 00:26:24  Sure, there can be a giggle.

Edy Nathan 00:26:26  There can be a laugh. There can be. I can't believe I'm really cutting this piece of pottery in half once again. And it's like. And then it's like I'm not holding on to it either. So. So it is the experience of creating and letting go and creating and letting go. And perhaps within the madness of it, it is. You might need your madness, but how? How can you have it and also let it go and still have you? Because maybe we need some part of our madness. Yes.

Abdullad Boulad 00:27:00  It's also important when we do role plays and masking.

Edy Nathan 00:27:05  And oh yes, yes. So the masking. So when I'm, when I'm doing groups, when I have these, these beautiful like plaster masks and sometimes we'll, we'll actually make the mask on everyone's face, but it's a it's a big ask and the group has to feel internally safe enough to do this because it can be uncomfortable to have that on the face. And that becomes can be a whole warm up to a psychodrama.

Edy Nathan 00:27:36  And, just the experience of having because it can feel almost like nothing not that you're suffocating, but that something is tightening around you and you can feel the manifestation of that tightening, but you take it off and then you smooth it and and you write different things on it or draw on it, and it becomes part of your, the externalization of that which is held inside, you know, and when that happens, it's, it's magic and, and the emotions that are, that are right there, they, they all of a sudden they have a, they have a place and they're welcome. And you're welcoming them first as. As the person experiencing this. But there's not a, there's not not a judgment. There's a oh there's wonder. Like I didn't know that that grief would be on that side and that anger would be on that side. But that right here, there would be voice. I didn't know that. So why don't we bring them all into the room? And that can be one on one or in a group.

Abdullad Boulad 00:28:55  Yeah, I like I like the wonder that does not have good or bad. No, it is just or for what is. Yeah.

Edy Nathan 00:29:04  Yeah. And when you can get to or. You can get to agency and when you can get to your own agency, it's like it doesn't belong to anybody but me. And no one can take that away from me. It's not. It's not up for grabs. You can't take it away because I got it. It's mine. Yes. Yeah.

Abdullad Boulad 00:29:28  What type of clients do you work with today?

Edy Nathan 00:29:32  My referral base tends to be from clinicians who don't know what to do. And it's usually around someone who's come in with either complicated grief that's. Now there's a, there's there's a, a traumatic imprint that starts to come up. That's not just about the loss of the loved one kind of replicating my story. but I would say that overall and, and, and it's not a concept. It's an experience that the people I see have an amnesia of love.

Edy Nathan 00:30:14  They can't remember it. They don't hold it. And that is as a result of that traumatic imprint. It is as a result of their grief. It might be the loss of a loved one, but it might be because of a sexually traumatic, predatory event or developmental experience not being wanted or walking with the shame in utero that they can't. They don't know what it is, and it has affected their learning. It has affected their drive, it has affected their passion. And that's why I'm working with now, these folks who, they're not thriving the way they know they can. They can't. They can't feel their children. They don't. They they know they love them. And when they're gone or have left the room, their, their, their partners have left the room or their teachers or they don't, they don't remember it. And the minute it's gone. There's like. Like there's a desperation. There's a starvation, there's a hunger, there's a yearning, there's a grief.

Abdullad Boulad 00:31:25  Yes.

Edy Nathan 00:31:27  And they're helped captive by it.

Edy Nathan 00:31:31  And it's it's the it's the internal captive that I work with. And I help people find their language around liberation. And I actually use, I borrowed Chris Voss. Who his he he works in hostage negotiation strategies. But but the work of of of negotiating with the hostage I've taken because that captive, that prisoner within needs to be liberated. And so I begin with these the this liberation protocol, I'm calling it where we start with embodied curiosity and and listening. And just like the questions you're asking, we're asking our bodies. We're asking our souls, we're asking our psyches and our minds and and our spirituality. And instead of putting the conversation away or not looking, we're beginning to unmask and maybe creating a mask for whatever we're unmasking.

Abdullad Boulad 00:32:48  Yes. You have touched with the term grief now on multiple topics. How do you define grief? what's your understanding of it?

Edy Nathan 00:32:59  When I refer to grief, I see it as a hunger for. A part of the self that is not full, not filled up.

Edy Nathan 00:33:11  It's an emptiness. It's the inability to feel. Saturated. To feel. Embodied. It is a loss and a yearning for that which feels you can't get back. And that's how I describe it. It's. It's a yearning for that which you cannot retrieve. And you think, if I only do fill in the blanks, whatever, whatever that is if I only do this. But. You can't go back.

Abdullad Boulad 00:33:49  Yes.

Edy Nathan 00:33:50  So it is the grief of understanding. Like once I cut that piece of pottery in half, I couldn't mend it. But I could learn from it. So? So what do you learn from what you lost? And I'm using this kind of body language because what you lost can can be moved forward and say, how are you, my teacher? Because grief can be one of your greatest teachers in that it it it forces you to if you choose to. And I say it forces you because it just keeps knocking. And it when it's not listened to, it turns into anger, agitation.

Edy Nathan 00:34:36  I mean, there's many different phases of grief and, non-linear. They come in at any time and they're just. Startling. Painful. Unexplainable. Often with no words deprecating to an aliveness.

Abdullad Boulad 00:35:05  Yeah.

Edy Nathan 00:35:06  And the goal is to remember what aliveness might have felt for you if you ever felt it, and not making an assumption that you have, and and being able to then imagine and maybe starting with the puppet or a mask or psychodrama or music, or being on the floor and playing or playing with the ball and tapping into energy and life force because grief feels like an absence of life or the life force.

Abdullad Boulad 00:35:43  So grief is not just losing a loved one. No, it's also losing a losing something of ourself.

Edy Nathan 00:35:52  That's exactly.

Abdullad Boulad 00:35:53  Right. You have examples what this could be. For example.

Edy Nathan 00:35:56  So yeah. So so we all we have identities, right. Like you you have many different, you know I identities. But if we were to break up the identities there's personal identity That is how you. How you think, how you are, how who you are as an individual.

Edy Nathan 00:36:14  Then there's your social identity, who you are to the world. And then there's your sexual identity. And when there's been a traumatic imprint, there's grief. And if there's been a predatory or event or a developmental hit, then then this sexual grief occurs. But it's not sexual in that it's about sex. It's about the driver, the driver that drives us, that allows that personal identity to come up and be alive and say, this is what I like. This is this is what I love to smell or or wow, that book was just delicious. And this is why. And it's it's your passion. It's your it's your urges of the self and then the social and the sense of community and the the wanting to socialize or not. I mean, you could you know, you can certainly be an ambivalence and, you know, be an introvert and an extrovert and and be a little bit of both. But that's who you are socially. And that's great. And then and then your sexual identity, you know, being able to to know yourself and know not only your your desires or.

Edy Nathan 00:37:37  What you want, what you like from an intimate perspective, but also. That passion can be visceral and can be sensual and can be intimate without it involving anyone. And to be able to have that conversation with the self is in some part, part of part of the personal identity, and it also stands alone. And when there's a hit that's combined with that the grief and and and and and abuses and and. Experiences that that happen to to some folks in their first sexual experience where it's not good, it's not a good sexual experience. It's it's failed. And then we're living in a world of social media now. And so what's happening is that terrible sexual experience. Is it talked about and shared and there's humiliation and loathing and it's an integrated loathing. And so that's developmental because it's normal to to have that first sexual experience. But how it how it affects you and how you then live with it can affect you until you either. work with it or on it, but some people don't and can't.

Edy Nathan 00:39:09  They don't have the agency or the money or or the the the community support for it. And and also culturally, I mean different cultures will, you know, accept or not accept, getting help.

Abdullad Boulad 00:39:27  That's important. when you mentioned when, when your first husband died, you couldn't find proper help. Yeah. to process your your grief today is a different situation, I think. So come along. There are a lot of information available. Therapeutic options. how do you see the development happened in, in the last decades?

Edy Nathan 00:39:55  I think it took us a long time. We can we can certainly look at the history of grief, but but grief, if we just look at death? That death and death thing was part of the community. And so sociologically, it was it was in the home. You know, we were in the community when someone died. The children, the children all gathered, actually little girls had they had they if they had like little cribs for their dolls, oftentimes those cribs were coffins.

Edy Nathan 00:40:28  It was a way of helping them process. Yes. So that when, when we cleaned that up and we, we we we wanted to sterilize grief. I think that or death and and mourning and we took it out of the community and it was like, okay, so we have the wake and and we celebrate. We we celebrate a life or how whatever one's, culture, however, one one's culture celebrates the life of someone that that, it's kind of like a it's done and we don't think and again, like some cultures of women will wear black for the rest of their lives. Okay. But it doesn't mean that they're being attended to and it doesn't mean that they're being heard. But I think that that because of, of of the wars that have occurred, because of our social structures, because of our education and the way that we are getting educated, there's there's been a greater ability to get the information out there and to form a collective and to say, oh my gosh, okay, so you had that experience too.

Edy Nathan 00:41:45  And we've got death cafes and we've got, we've got we've got many different perspectives on, on, on what grief is and how to talk about it. And no one's right and no one's wrong. It's just it just getting it out there. And. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, frankly, when she did her studies on, on on how what what are the stages that people go through when they die? They, they that that opened up a conversation. Some people, you know, think that. Oh, well, that's what we go through when we grieve, but not it. I think that that part of what she, she lined out was a little more linear. Not that it can't be non-linear, but it was like, this is where you begin, and this is where you end with like a closure. And I'm not one for closure. I, you know, but because it meant to me that I wouldn't. Oh, so it's over. And I didn't want it to be over in that way for me, within my soul.

Edy Nathan 00:42:44  And I don't want, I don't want, I don't want to forget. I just want to remember peacefully. And that's what I want to do. I want to remember peacefully, over and over and over again. And so there's no there's less shame or there's less stigma really about I'm grieving and and and and there's been greater studies and research and papers and peer reviewed papers which gets it out. Yes. You know.

Abdullad Boulad 00:43:14  Is there today a sort of a blueprint for grieving, grieving treatment?

Edy Nathan 00:43:21  Yes and no. I don't mean to be so, non-committal in my response. Because everyone's blueprint, internal blueprint is so different. So there might be a container for the idea of what might be in the blueprint to exist. And then, however, one is experiencing their grief to be able to create an individual blueprint based on the grief that one has experience here, so I. I have these 11 phases and there could have probably been 20. Because it it is so non-linear and I am constantly changing the language.

Edy Nathan 00:44:21  Like my first phase, I, I call it emotional armor because I think that's that's where we all go. We go to that emotional armor phase. It's our protection and it's, it's it's numbness. But I used to say hysteria. I don't use that word anymore. I don't I, I it's like it's more like you're, you know, you're you're more dysphoric, you're more dislodged rather than hysterical. You know, I, I, I don't really talk about denial as much as resistance. You know and on the other side of resistance is resilience. So. So within emotional armor you've got, you know the, the, the marriage of these of these different experiences. So that blueprint might be that if, if you're numb great. And if you're feeling that sense of resistance to, to what has happened, what you've what what you've lost, the person that you've loved and lost, or the part of the self that you've lost, maybe never even known to love that. That the resistance in the work needs to be honored and given voice.

Edy Nathan 00:45:44  And I might call it resistance, but and that might be part of the blueprint. But what will you call it and what is your language around it? Because my language isn't going to be your language. Maybe my language can give you an entry point to who you are so that your personal identity, social identity, sexual identity is in your voice, not mine. I, I give the prompts and then you take you take it, and then you're those neural pathways and the right brain and the left brain and the creativity and the creative spirit of. Well, this is my word. Oh, super. So walk with that word, and if it stops working, then let's go find another word. And and and maybe it's not a word. Maybe it's music. Maybe your emotional armor is is. I have a client right now and and what they do when they're in their emotional armor phase. Because I see that phase is the place that you go back to. Time and time again, every time you reach another plateau in your growth and that the emotional armor is your respite.

Edy Nathan 00:47:03  Oh, you're in emotional armor. That's great. What happened before you got there?

Abdullad Boulad 00:47:08  Yes.

Edy Nathan 00:47:09  So it's very cyclical. It's very. And I see it as, as that dance. And so this, this this person I'm working with, when they leave work, they listen to heavy metal and that's their emotional armor. And so I want to know what you're listening to. So it's not words it's music. Or maybe it's art or maybe, you know, it's wrapping bands around so you can feel something because, you know, you're you're numb right now in this moment.

Abdullad Boulad 00:47:46  I understand it's very individual. also not to label words and.

Edy Nathan 00:47:53  Yeah.

Abdullad Boulad 00:47:54  Activities.

Edy Nathan 00:47:54  Yes. So that it is and and yet the blueprint is I've again taken out certain words like closure. I talk about integration because I see it as an integration of of that. What you've lost.

Abdullad Boulad 00:48:16  Yes. the question for me is now if we look at the severely abused, man or female. Yes. how do they usually overcome their, Their trauma? and and become sensual and find their sexuality again?

Edy Nathan 00:48:40  Well, they first need to want to.

Edy Nathan 00:48:44  I won't make the assumption that they want to. And that's the emotional armor. And they may want to live there because that is what feels the safest. And by the time though if they're coming in to therapy let's say okay then I don't want to know their story yet. But I do want to know. Where they want to land, what their hope is, what they dream, what they imagine. What would thriving look like for them? What would, embodied curiosity be and, to, to to join them in their, you know, empathy from a clinician as a clinician. I first want to feel you. And so if I as the clinician and feeling that that you're afraid I'm going to. I'm going to stop you. And that can actually create a vector for you. Stop me. You didn't want me to continue. No one's ever stopped me before. And that's where the embodied curiosity begins. And that's where. Oh, you did it differently. You didn't just sit here listening to my story.

Edy Nathan 00:50:20  You did it differently. Wow. You mean you don't want to hear my story? No. Why not? Because. Because you've told it so many times that you're probably not hearing it. And if you're not hearing it, then I'm not going to hear it. So can we not tell your story yet, please?

Abdullad Boulad 00:50:37  Yes. Yeah. We see this a lot. Yeah. They like to repeat and repeat themselves.

Edy Nathan 00:50:42  And so what did you just actually say because I, I didn't really hear it, and I want to. So let's, Let's get up and walk. And let me just walk with you. And, And if you want to put your hand on my back, it's okay. And if I have permission, I'd like to put my hand on your back, if that's okay. And if not, that's okay, too. And let's just walk and breathe. And we'll walk back and forth and maybe I'll have clay and I'll have them walk with clay and just feel it. Because what's curious about clay is that it, it can start wet but it dries when you play with it and it can have cracks and crevices.

Edy Nathan 00:51:32  And then I can use the clay and it becomes an embodiment or they have something, whether it's a ball, something if they want it or not. And so, you know, How do you get someone to there? To deal to, to understand the sexual grief of their natural response. Because sexual grief is a natural response to either a predatory event or a developmental hit like we've been talking about, and it holds you captive. And so what I see is I've got someone in in my office who's a prisoner.

Abdullad Boulad 00:52:16  Yes.

Edy Nathan 00:52:17  And so they don't know how to get the key, and they don't know how to fly with their heart. And so that's where the amnesia of love is. But if I interrupt them and say, no, stop. That's actually a loving gesture. They might not call it that. And it is because I'm noticing that they've been telling that story for a mighty long time.

Abdullad Boulad 00:52:52  Yeah. is there anything else close to your heart you would like to share or talk about today?

Edy Nathan 00:52:59  I would like to just talk about the importance of story.

Edy Nathan 00:53:05  If I may. Yes. And, I love stories, and I love children's books. And one of my favorite children's books to read to my clients and to groups is there's a monster at the end of this book. And, and Grover is like, oh my God, I can't get to the end of this book because there's there's going to be a monster at the end of this book. And it just keeps going on and on and on. And then at the end of the book, oh, no, we reached the end of this book and it's like, oh, it's just me. And that we might have those monsters that live within us. But when we see them and we are no longer blind to them, then they lose their power. And we get to that calibration. And so I love myth. I love the archetype. I love the idea that we must go into the inmost cave and grapple with our shadows, and that we can do so and come out and we're forever changed.

Edy Nathan 00:54:15  And we still have the grief or the loss. And but we we look the same. We walk the same, but we have a new lens. And the possibility and the hope that that lens can happen.

Abdullad Boulad 00:54:39  And the power of stories is seeing oneself in in others as well.

Edy Nathan 00:54:44  That's right. And so I love the story of The Wizard of Oz. It is one of my most favorite stories, because she grapples with the archetypes of the brain and the heart and and and and courage. And in order for her own maturation, she had to meet those three aspects of herself in order to understand the power of her own maturation and the power of the shoes, so that she could go back home, having gone to her inmost cave and be forever changed, and now going into her womanhood, and as a survivalist, naked and afraid and being alive.

Abdullad Boulad 00:55:33  And you make adults read these children's books.

Edy Nathan 00:55:37  I read them to them Sometimes on the floor, or if I'm on a zoom, I'll take it up there, the floor and I because I think it's a wonderful way in to something that is so primal and playful and lovey loving, and it helps us remember.

Abdullad Boulad 00:56:01  Did you what do you do in your private life to stay in balance?

Edy Nathan 00:56:07  I exercise a lot. I go for long walks. Mostly meditative. I can't sit in meditation. It's it's it creates a chaos within me. But my walking. Yeah, I walk, and I read, I write, I play, I'm very playful. and, and the play can just be like, my My husband and I dance in the kitchen. You know, and I love dancing and, moving my body is. Is it just. It's essential. It's just essential. and I love going to the theater. I used I for a long time. I couldn't because I left it, but I love going to the theater, and I love experiencing new things and people and, and being creative. My clay. I'm still working with clay and jewelry and drawings.

Abdullad Boulad 00:57:18  So you do this by yourself? For yourself?

Edy Nathan 00:57:22  Usually by myself. yeah, usually if I'm walking. Not necessarily by myself. Sometimes I'm with people.

Edy Nathan 00:57:31  but I warn them if they're going to walk with me, they'd better walk at my pace. So my.

Abdullad Boulad 00:57:37  Quick.

Edy Nathan 00:57:38  Walk. Yes, but, But I'm learning how to stroll. I'm learning. That's it's a it's a good lesson. And so I'm, there's there's new thing called Japanese walking where you stroll, and then you fast walk and then you stroll. And I'm learning to stroll and be okay with the strolling.

Abdullad Boulad 00:57:58  The walking reminded me of my wife and myself. So we go quite often also just to have the walk with the dogs together. And, she has a very, very, fast paced walk. Yeah. And when I walk, I just, I'm mindful. I walk slowly, and she's always so quick. Slow down. Right. I'm taller than her. I have bigger, legs, but. Yeah, but this is also where we need to calibrate in life. Whenever we are connected with others. we we have to calibrate, but we forget. Often when we get older, we get more in this tunnel.

Edy Nathan 00:58:39  The tunnel. Vision.

Abdullad Boulad 00:58:40  Vision.

Edy Nathan 00:58:41  Like. No. This is the way I walk. It's the only way I walk in. That's it. And I'm the same way with, like, I have had to adjust or I've chosen. It's a choice. I don't have to do anything but chosen to adjust like we are late eaters. I should have been born in Europe, you know, eight, 9:00 were sitting down probably because of just practice.

Abdullad Boulad 00:59:03  Early for Spain.

Edy Nathan 00:59:04  You know, it's like, you know, we have friends and they like to eat at 630. And I associate 630 eating to aging. And it's like, no, I don't.

Speaker 3 00:59:14  Want to eat at 630.

Edy Nathan 00:59:15  But it's like, okay, sure. You know, we'll just regulate ourselves and we just we'll skip a meal and we'll be hungry and it will be our lunch dinner. And that's fine, because we'd rather be social than stick to what we eat at nine, you know. So it's funny the adjustments and and the the courtesies and the kindnesses for the community.

Abdullad Boulad 00:59:41  Yeah, that. So we don't get stuck in our minds, in our routines, in our routines are nice and good. And we should embrace what, what we do.

Edy Nathan 00:59:52  But that's right.

Abdullad Boulad 00:59:53  It's also we live in connection.

Edy Nathan 00:59:55  That's right. We live in connection. And we need our rituals. The rituals are important. And and yet they can be stretched and reframed and rebounded and. Exactly. Yeah. Right.

Abdullad Boulad 01:00:08  I know if you could speak to everyone in the world until every individual person, one wisdom, something they should implement in their life, what would that be?

Edy Nathan 01:00:22  That within you there is magic, and you do have the ability to tap into it, to nourish it, And to show it to the world if you want, or to contain it if you want, but it belongs to you. So honor it and it can be part of your aliveness, however that looks for you.

Abdullad Boulad 01:00:53  Beautiful.

Edy Nathan 01:00:54  Thank you.

Abdullad Boulad 01:00:56  Thank you so much. Thank you for sharing all your wisdom or part of your wisdom, probably today with us.

Abdullad Boulad 01:01:04  I think what I, what I will take with me is, we are allowed to play. We are allowed to be creative. we are allowed to to be primal again and not just, function and, and play the dance of life.

Edy Nathan 01:01:22  Yes, yes.

Abdullad Boulad 01:01:23  Thank you so much for being here. Taking the time. I enjoyed it very much. Thank you. Eddie, thank you so much.

Edy Nathan 01:01:30  I did too.