Let's Chat... The Adventure of Grief (with Bianca Neumann)

#124. Let's Chat... about seeing grief as an adventure.

Welcome to another Let’s Chat episode, where instead of continuing our 101 Types of Loss list, I sit down with guests who have expertise and personal insight into different aspects of loss.

In this episode, I (Claire) have the pleasure of talking with Bianca Neumann, the Assistant Director of Bereavement at Sue Ryder – a charity dedicated to providing the right support, at the right time, for people who are end of life or grieving.

We explore the idea of grief as an adventure - what it is, what it isn’t, and how we can navigate its unfamiliar terrain. Bianca shares insights on how grief is often misrepresented, the power of support groups, and why learning to self-soothe in sorrow matters.

We also talk about the idea that while we can’t choose our losses, we can choose how we respond. And we reflect on one powerful question: What do you want from life?

Also, Bianca adds a tool to my metaphorical shed, which is bursting with resources to help us grow through grief.

For more about Bianca and Sue Ryder's work (including their Grief Kind Spaces), visit:

https://www.sueryder.org/authors/bianca-neumann/

https://www.sueryder.org/our-campaigns/grief-deserves-better/

https://www.sueryder.org/grief-support/

Chapters

• 0:00 Introduction to Grief as an Adventure
• 6:38 Grief as Life's Greatest Expedition
• 13:09 Landing on an Unfamiliar Planet
• 19:21 Personal Growth Through Loss
• 29:40 Self-Soothing in Grief
• 36:19 Breaking Through Paralysis
• 45:27 Finding Hope and Building Your Toolkit

Transcript

Claire Sandys: 0:00

Hello there and thank you for joining me for another episode of Let's Chat on The Silent Why. I'm Claire Sandys, and through this podcast, we're exploring how and where we can find hope through grief and loss. In these Let's Chat episodes, I chat to a guest who brings either personal experience or professional experience to a specific area of loss. Together, we're building what I like to call a toolshed a collection of insights, ideas and support tools to help us prepare for or navigate the inevitable losses that life is going to bring. In this episode, I'm chatting with Bianca Neumann, a healthcare professional and experienced psychologist with a background in palliative care, hospice work and the wider healthcare industry. She's also the Assistant Director of Bereavement at Sue Ryder, a charity dedicated to providing the right support at the right time for people who are grieving.

Claire Sandys: 0:49

Bianca lives in Norfolk, an area I was very familiar to growing up next to a small river, and for my international listeners, this is not a Norfolk accent that you're hearing. Bianca is originally from Germany. I'm really excited for you to hear this conversation because I found so much wisdom in what Bianca shared. It's full of practical tips on coping with grief, preparing for it and even, perhaps surprisingly, viewing it as a kind of life adventure. We explored what it really means and doesn't mean to see grief as an adventure how to navigate the unfamiliar terrain of loss, and how our stories can become lifelines for others. We also talked about Sue Ryder's grief kind spaces and the role that bereavement support groups can have, how grief can mask our true selves and the powerful idea that how we respond to grief is, to some extent, a choice. Bianca also shared thoughts on how grief is often misrepresented in the media and TV, how we can learn to self-soothe in sorrow, and why we tend to prepare for life's little pains, like headaches, but not the bigger ones, like grief.

Claire Sandys: 1:52

One of the key takeaways from our chat was a simple but profound question what do you want from life? We only get one life and grief is something that gets weaved into all of our stories. It becomes part of who we are, not something to endure for a short while like an illness. So the question becomes what do we want to do with that? There's a lot packed into this episode and I really hope it blesses you in some way, just as it's blessed me. And of course, I'll be asking Bianca what tools she wants to add to my metaphorical tool shed that I'm building. It's full of equipment to help us face and get through loss and grief. So grab a cup of tea, a coffee, maybe a Pimms the sun is finally out in England this week and relax with me and Bianca as we chat the adventure of grief.

Bianca Neumann: 2:38

Hi, my name is Bianca. I'm a psychologist. I work for Sue Ryder as the assistant director of bereavement and one of the things I like to do in the mornings, if the river isn't frozen, is to have Coco Pops on my paddleboard to get into the day properly with my mind and heart.

Claire Sandys: 2:58

I heard Coco Pops and I was like brilliant, but then you followed it up with a paddleboard. I've never heard that before. How did you think of that idea?

Bianca Neumann: 3:06

Well, I just chuck everything into a little container and have it. It's just really nice and relaxing to have breakfast with a view Amazing, brilliant. And what is your view? So the view is generally just seeing some, you know, nice sunrises, especially when you're really early, just real silence, and then just seeing the odd animal every now and then. It's quite a small little river in West Norfolk. It's only about a five minute walk with my paddleboard from here and you generally go down one direction against the wind and then you can just relax coming back because the wind brings you back. It's just really serene before you start a really busy day. I like it.

Claire Sandys: 3:41

That sounds idyllic. So you're a psychologist for Sue Ryder, so tell us a little bit about what that entails. What do you do in a job like that?

Bianca Neumann: 3:47

Yeah, so the psychology element is part of who I am and what I bring to the role as an assistant director of bereavement. One of the things that I think my job entails is to bring cutting edge knowledge that we have around death, dying, bereavement, into the UK, into the population, into the organization and, with that, interventions, services, things that should help people alongside of their grief. You know, that kind of toolkit provision that comes from a background that has been evidence-based, that we know tends to work, so that we don't offer people cowboyish interventions and we as an organisation provide palliative and bereavement support for people. So it's quite important in those kind of big life moments that we get it right. So we want to ensure that what we offer people doesn't just come from the heart but also with scientific evidence behind it. It's quite a specific area to get into, then. So what ensure that what we offer people doesn't just come from the heart but also, you know, with scientific evidence behind it?

Claire Sandys: 4:47

It's quite a specific area to get into then. So what drew you into that kind of area in particular?

Bianca Neumann: 4:52

Oh, that's a big question. I think for me it's one of the biggest adventures in life and one of the scariest adventures in life. Personally, you know, I had a lot of losses in my life and I always wondered what are the big questions following that? I think those sorts of experiences can really change you and redirect you into different areas. You know, when I came to the country, I did all sorts of jobs, first 20 odd years ago, and then life kind of tends to direct you into different paths, right, and you choose at different junctions where you're going to go.

Bianca Neumann: 5:27

And so my junction was seeing a lot of suffering with patients that I worked with when I worked in the NHS and neuroservices, working with people who had strokes, working with people with mental health issues. And then that made me think, hey, there has to be a better answer to this. We can do better as people. There has to be solutions for people so we can be more human again for when it matters. And I didn't want to have people see such and experience such suffering at the end of life.

Bianca Neumann: 5:59

And then my mum died. That was in Germany, and that really turned my world upside down and I really felt like and what can I learn from that and bring to the UK so that no one, in a sense, has to feel as overwhelmed as I had felt, you know, and then? So, yeah, I guess that's what shaped my direction, wanting to make a difference for people. And I've got a. I've got a kid as well, and I wanted to make sure that when I die, my child is going to be okay. So it's that kind of system change that I want to achieve, and so I work really hard on making sure that what we do in Sue Ryder is helping people in the right way.

Claire Sandys: 6:43

Do you feel like having gone through that loss that helps your work? Then Are you better at what you do because you've experienced it personally. Do you think?

Bianca Neumann: 6:49

I think it brings with it that kind of sense of curiosity. So being open to what is that all about? Because we don't have all the answers when it comes to death, dying, bereavement, right, and often you have to have a sense of grief or a sense of loss to really understand more about yourself and what life is all about. And so being open to being proven wrong, seeing difference, learning from other people, contact with lots of different people from different cultures all over the world, and just hearing the beauty, the warmth and just the variation how people see and tackle and live with loss, it's been actually really fulfilling and and warming and you just start to see the world very, very differently, which I think is a gift I've already said so many things I want to focus in on.

Claire Sandys: 7:47

You've mentioned the word adventure, which is one of the things we said we were going to discuss already. There were so many areas we could have talked about, but that was one that you were quite keen to explore and I love that idea. But also you've been talking about preparing other people, helping other people to learn from what you've been through, to help them in their grief, and that's kind of what I wanted these podcast episodes specifically to be about to help people to know that actually it does look terrifying from the outside sometimes when people are going through grief, but there are things you can do to equip yourself and have tools and mental approaches to it that can help you to a degree once you face it yourself. So it's very exciting everything that you're saying. The adventure thing. Tell me a bit more about that. Why and how do you see grief as an adventure? What does that mean and what does it not mean, maybe as well?

Bianca Neumann: 8:30

Yeah, I think what it doesn't mean is that grief doesn't come with everything that encompasses loss. So by no means it means taking away those very painful experiences that people have. And what I mean by adventure is when we think about the definition of adventure and I've written one down. I will read it out so adventure is stepping into the unknown. It's something challenging, thrilling and intimidating. Adventure is about deliberately placing yourself in challenging situations that foster personal growth, and it also requires significant effort, curiosity and determination.

Bianca Neumann: 9:08

And I think these are all qualities and characteristics you bring into grief, and I always think of it as an astronaut landing on a faraway planet and they first put their feet on it and they kind of know from training, from hearsay, from knowing what it takes to be an astronaut, what it might be like when you land there. But then, of course, you only know what you already know and once you put your feet on this new planet, the ground might actually feel very, very different to what you learned in the books and in your training, and the sight and the experience inside will probably feel very different to what, in theory, you have learned about it. And I think with grief because we don't learn about it at school. We don't get, you know, handbooks on how to do it. We don't know until we're in it what that actually means. And so our life map gets turned upside down, often gets totally erased, and then people almost stop at the edge of their map of how they once knew their life to be and look at a vast emptiness and they don't know. There's no roads, there's no signposts, often there's no people that guide them through it.

Bianca Neumann: 10:23

So, for example, we've done some research recently and that showed that 88% of people experience a real sense of loneliness in that grief, and that feeling alone means that when they look at this empty map they don't know where to turn and what the next best step would be, just like an astronaut on a faraway planet.

Bianca Neumann: 10:42

So then it comes to the sense of adventure. Right, people at first are very paralyzed by their sense of loss and by this sheer emptiness in front of them. And then, through time and trying and having that determination of I'm a survivor, life means living. Living means anything from having to go to the shop to buy milk, to get yourself out of bed, to go to work, make sure the kids are ready and go make sure that the car has got an MOT all the way to all those interpersonal relationships, and as people start to go back into that empty space, they leave footprints, but they also start to make decisions alongside on their path. Do I turn left? Do I turn right? What is out there for me? And I think there's a real sense of adventure underlying that.

Claire Sandys: 11:32

I was just thinking. When you say footprints, is that the sort of thing other people can follow, then do you think, do you think you can watch somebody doing that journey and it can help you when you get there?

Bianca Neumann: 11:40

The beauty in being human is that human nature means that we are people full of stories. If we go back in time, you know, sitting around a fire, when we were cave people, we would communicate with hands and feet and pictures. We would leave pictures behind to tell stories of who we are and then, as we started to, you know, become verbal. We would tell each other stories about the ancestors, about how to do things, how to look out for that saber-toothed tiger, where to get the best berries from, and so we're people made of stories, having learned from those who have been before. And so I think what helps people a lot is that peer support when they're grieving, because they can really start to see themselves in.

Bianca Neumann: 12:25

Someone else kind of understands what I'm going through and what we often see in, for example, our grief kind spaces, which are peer to peer support sessions all across the country that people can learn from others in the same boat. So people often come into these kind of grief camp spaces or bereavement cafes or any kind of grief group and say you know, I don't know what's out there for me, I just can't see a way forward without the person in my life. And then they speak to someone within the group, for example, who says you know, I know what it was like being where you are now and I didn't know a way. But actually life then just kind of happened and it's got so much to give and let me tell you how I got to where I am now, which is that thing of learning from our elder, from those who have survived it, and how they survive it and how they embrace life again, how they engage in life as an adventure, is what brings us growth and hope and a bit of a guide on how to do this.

Claire Sandys: 13:36

Definitely I identify with so much of what you're saying. I remember when I lost my grandpa and he was ill for a little while beforehand it was quite a shock still, it was like a heart attack and I had the phone call to say he'd gone and I honestly the day before would have told you that when I heard that phone call I was expecting it. I couldn't imagine it being a big deal. But when you actually hear the words that someone's gone, like you said, it's just like landing on that planet. It's a completely different experience and feeling than you thought it was going to be, even though it was almost expected and it was in the natural order of things. And it's still something that just really hits you in a way. And I haven't lost any parents or anything, so you know, not got to that stage, but I can imagine the shock and, like you said, that environment you're suddenly thrown into that is so different from what you expect. But also I remember speaking to people for many years, even before the podcast and then now, especially with people I've spoken to on here, hearing of stories of how they've got through things, how they've lost a partner, in horrific circumstances sometimes, but how they're sat there chatting to me even as little as a year later and they're getting through it. And I have really clung to stuff like that and thought, okay, well, if they're doing it, it's possible.

Claire Sandys: 14:42

And I really think that even if it happened now, my world got turned upside down. There would be something in the back of my mind saying we've seen others go through this. It might be bad now, but you will get there, just keep going, keep going, keep going. And that, for me, is really helpful, because I think some people just look at grief and they don't want to be in that situation, so they just shut down the whole thought of it, and I think that's dangerous, because then I think it's even more unfamiliar when you land in it. But I can understand why people do. I guess the adventure of grief would be a hard sell for a lot of people. Would you find that some people would not want to experience that, even if it is an adventure, because they're just too scared to think about that subject?

Bianca Neumann: 15:17

Well, grief is something that happens to all of us and I think if we think of grief as a natural reaction of loss to any kind, all of us will have had a natural reaction to loss of any kind, whether you know that's breaking up with our first love, you know our first car giving up the ghost, moving house, starting a new job. You know losing maybe something really important in the drain somewhere because you were a bit clumsy. But all of these times in our life where we experience loss, they teach us about loss of a person too. So, whilst people are saying I don't want to see it as an adventure, when you're in it at the beginning, as I can say from experience, it does not feel like an adventure, right, because you're just making it up as you go along. You're just in this kind of big pool of emotions inside and out and the world as you know it is no longer the same and it can feel like a very strange place, like you've been put on some planet where they talk a very different language and no one understands what you're talking about. But you know what patients have taught me when I was a practitioner working in a hospice.

Bianca Neumann: 16:28

Still, there was a person, for example, who I still remember very well, whose grief meant that she no longer could actually get into a car and drive anywhere because her route would always be going past the place where her child died and through talking about it and remembering who she once was and she loved driving a car and she loved going to see friends and she loved to go to daily walks, she loved doing lots of things. But when we grieve we often forget the strength, the resilience, the person we are deep inside, because it's so covered up by all this grief stuff that starting to get in touch with aspects of who we are means that we can have real personal growth in the face of loss. And this particular person throughout talking, talking about it and reminding her who she is and was meant that one day she came to me and said, look, I've driven here today, amazing. And we both cried. Or you know another patient who was always in the military and everything was always very rigid, and then grief happened.

Bianca Neumann: 17:43

Of course, there's no rules in grief, there's no uniformity in grief. You just have to go bananas with whatever you have inside and this person could not see any beauty, any real life that is left to live, but by thinking about this is your new map, what do you want to put in your map? As daunting as it was, he actually turned out to, over time, grow his hair, learn how to fly an airplane, go on a motorbike, did parachute jumping and learned dancing Wow, something very, very different to who he thought he was. So life turned out to be an adventure for both of these people because they really started to engage with who am I? Who do I want to be, now that my life has changed and there is actually opportunity to grow my own map.

Bianca Neumann: 18:38

And you know, in life we don't really often get a time where everything is put on standby and we look around ourselves and think do I want this, how do I want my life to be and look like, what do I want from life? This one life I have, and grief often forces us into a position like that it's interesting because what you're saying involves it is a choice, isn't it?

Claire Sandys: 19:01

people have to get to a point of making a choice to do something to grow personally, or to make a change or to be brave. How do people come to that? Is that something you can do on your own, or do you think you need help from outside to understand that? Maybe it's even an option to make a choice?

Bianca Neumann: 19:18

I think it's probably a mixture. I think once you're in the really deep grief time, there is not much thinking that is being done because your brain is very busy feeling lots of things and staying alive and doing the minimum basics to keep alive. But over time, as your brain starts to calm down and your body starts to calm down, you start to think about things a bit more, and that's when personal choice also comes in. So again, that goes back to what kind of person am I? Am I a victim of life where things get to me and I always needed maybe this other person to help me out and help me out of these dark days? And do I also have that resilience inside of me that got me through some tough times before? Because, you know, we are all, ultimately, individuals on this planet with our own choices, our own behaviors, and so people come to a point where they actually say, often in these peer support groups or on our online community, for example, they will say by today I've woken up and I've made a choice. I have to live this life, and the person that has died wouldn't want me to just sit at home and be upset. They would want me to go on this cruise or start to learn how to play football or learn how to ride a motorbike. So people are making choices into their next adventure and what that map looks like.

Bianca Neumann: 20:56

But sometimes people might get into a situation of grief with pre-existing mental health issues. Maybe they've always been quite alone and never really had someone who says you're a good person, I know you are very resilient and you can make it through tough times. You know that reassurance that we all need growing up, or people are just absolutely overwhelmed by their kind of place that they're in, so suddenly things just don't seem the same at all anymore. You know, for example, in my personal journey when my mom died, I was looking in the mirror and I sometimes didn't know what sort of person am I that I couldn't help my mom to live. You know, and I've worked with dying people and there was nothing that could stop me. It was all very unrealistic, of course, because everyone dies.

Bianca Neumann: 21:48

But there comes this point in someone's grief journey where they have to think about the experience that they had around the death and how that impacted their sense of who they are. And sometimes that comes with some complications where people are very, very lost. And so this is where people might seek a therapy service like the one that we offer in Surida. We offer a free online grief therapy service, and then people have those six sessions with us and they start to ask these big life questions, maybe sometimes for the first time who am I? What's out there for me, how do I get there? And through someone listening and, in a way, guiding them and virtually holding their hand, but also emotionally engaging with their sense of loss, that can bring them to a point of growth and knowing more, what's next for them yeah, because grief is you know.

Claire Sandys: 22:49

You hear people talking and they'll say that you know, once you've been through grief, it's part of who you are for the rest of your life. However you deal with it, it's there, but you are a slightly new version of yourself. So it makes sense that people just lose that identity for a while and have to almost figure out what's the new identity. And I love the idea of reminding people in the right space and people you know well, in the right context and everything, of the strengths that they had as a person before and knowing that they will. You know, I mean you've got to be very careful with this because you don't just go up to someone who's grieving and say, oh, you're a strong person, you'll be fine.

Claire Sandys: 23:25

So I don't mean it like that, but like you were talking about just calling out those things and reminding them of all the good things, because they may have lost that identity of who they are and when they're trying to reshape it, they have choices, don't they? They could be the grieving widow forever that never gets out of it, never finds hope, never wants to change. I mean that is a choice you could make, but there are other choices you can make. So I love that you can help people in what you do and in therapy sessions and speaking to other people that are in the same boat that help you find that new identity that help you find that new identity.

Bianca Neumann: 23:58

And I think often what's missing in the population across the world is having those elders to go to, having that kind of tribal knowledge of things. So this is one of the reasons why in Surida we're trying to increase people's grief and death literacy. So knowing more about death, dying, bereavement, ideally before it happens to you, means that you have a couple of bits in your toolkit already and a little bit of an idea. It's a bit like you know when you see people with a small kid and the kid runs off and you just think, oh, this child is going to fall over and hurt themselves and then that happens right. And then you see the parents kind of going oh no, this is going to be terrible, there will be blood and there'll be lots of screaming.

Bianca Neumann: 24:40

But as they go to the child that is kind of looking at what am I meant to do? Should I cry or be okay about this? They look at the parent, they look at the people around them. Are they looking freaked out? Or do they look calm and explain what's happening and tend to it calmly? And then you learn from those people as you grow up. I can survive a fall. It doesn't take away the pain, but it's something that I can live with and that prepares you for the next fall. So when you fall again, you learn there will be blood, there will be scars, there will be extra pain and a bit of soreness maybe afterwards, but it's something you survive and grief is a bit like that, I think yeah, that reminds me of a.

Claire Sandys: 25:20

I was with a friend many years ago and her daughter did exactly that. She was at a distance, she ran and fell and the mother was with me and she just stayed with me and she was just watching her and she said don't cry, don't cry. She was just like seeing what happened. And, sure enough, the girl got up, looked around the mum hadn't rushed over and she just got up and carried on. And the mum turned to me and she was like I'm so proud of her, she was so proud she just got up and she got on with it. She wasn't damaged, it wasn't a bad one. But I just thought, yeah, that's so interesting. Now you said that of course, the parents' reaction is going to guide that.

Claire Sandys: 25:56

I did psychology for a while and, as they're pack animals, it frustrates me a lot when people have dogs and they freak out at certain situations. And again there's that look towards the pack and the owner. How do I respond to this? And when I had my dog, I was very kind of strong on making sure he didn't freak out at things when he was a puppy, like fireworks and stuff. So we would go out in the garden and watch the fireworks together when he was older, because there was a.

Claire Sandys: 26:15

I mean, obviously I had him from scratch so it's easier to deal with. But I taught him he would look to me and if he got a bit scared, you know, I kind of ignored it a bit like no, this is fine, it's a normal situation, it's OK, but that was a packed situation. They look to each other and we don't have that in communities anymore, like you said. Well, we have the elders, we have the leaders that show us how to get through these things or we can watch them and know, and I think that's a shame and, like you said, a lot of people feel very lonely, in grief, and I suspect that's why we've lost that community feel.

Bianca Neumann: 26:42

Yeah, and I think the way that death, dying, bereavement is depicted, for example, in the media is very extreme.

Bianca Neumann: 26:58

We see these big headlines often or throughout COVID, you know, on TV we saw some really traumatic experiences around death, dying, bereavement On TV.

Bianca Neumann: 27:02

You know, through Disney films we often learn very toned down versions of it and even often those grief experiences and end-of-life experiences are fairly neutralized. So, for example, still now a lot of people think that all grief is because someone's loved one has died, when actually often also the person that has died might have been an abuser, you know, a perpetrator, someone who might have been unavailable emotionally, or abusive, or not necessarily just a loved one. So grief might be expected to be looking like sadness and that real hard, deep kind of sorrow, when for some people grief might actually also be relief, a sense of freedom, maybe even happiness. You know, and I think that huge spectrum of what grief might look like, feel like, sound like, smell like, taste like, because in many cultures grief is shared by sharing food, you know that is often lost and I think what I've learned from working with people from other cultures and communities all over the world is just how isolated and clinical grief has become, particularly here in the West.

Claire Sandys: 28:27

Yeah, it's hard because, as you're talking, I'm thinking to myself of all the amazing things I've heard people say about grief and going through grief. All the amazing things I've heard people say about grief and going through grief, Beautiful stories and encounters, you know, with other people, with things in nature, how different they are. A new appreciation for life, doing new things. So many good things and yet at the same time, if we're all honest, even if it looks amazing, there's something in us that's going to be like I don't want to go through it, because to get to those good experiences, I have to go through the really awful bit. So I'm sort of thinking, instead of thinking, this is an adventure you choose to go on. It's like you said at the beginning everyone goes through grief. So this should be more of an encouragement that, as and when it happens to you, it doesn't have to be all bad. There can be things that you can have in it and it's a very difficult thing to say. You know that it's an adventure.

Claire Sandys: 29:17

I've got a podcast episode that we've put out that's talking to a girl about going through some really lovely experiences in life. So she's got married again and she's pregnant, but she'd been through infertility and a broken marriage, and she's talking about the loss that has come and the grief in the good moments. And it's a difficult episode to do and she was really nervous about talking about it because she said I don't want to sound ungrateful, but there's been a lot of grief attached with these new things. I never thought I'd be a mum. Now I'm pregnant. It's been very confusing and I've had some stuff to grieve and think about from the past and so it is so complicated. I don't know where I'm going with this. But yeah, it's like how do you sell it almost? How do you show people grief isn't all bad and that it is an adventure, without them just saying, yeah, but I don't want to go on that adventure.

Bianca Neumann: 30:03

Yes, that is a very big life question. You got there and I think it's. Sometimes, I guess, people medicalize grief. It's a bit like you have a cold, then you go through the motions of having cold, then it goes, then you're fine, you know, might be a bit tired, but then you're okay again.

Bianca Neumann: 30:22

But grief is something that is becoming part of who we are. It lives within us, in our skin, in our, in our words and our story right, and so it is weaved into our very being. And I think, if we think about life overall, from the moment we're alive to the moment we die, there are ups and downs that shape us. There is moments where we have days of nothingness and then we have busy days and we have great days and memorable days and really warm moments and very lonely moments, and with grief it just becomes part of that. And sometimes it attaches itself to good moments and we feel the good. And then sometimes it attaches itself to moments that might be more traditionally associated with, you know, the sorrow, the loss, the sadness that comes with it.

Bianca Neumann: 31:20

And I guess for me the hope is in understanding that life is one big adventure. We don't know what. We might have an experience in it. But whatever we might have an experience in it can have grief in it and we can survive it and we can enjoy those days and moments, seconds, you know, hours, days, months, with it being a bit of a feature, more or less, sometimes more, sometimes a little bit more subdued. But there is life worth living and a life that we must live, and it's a mixture of having choice, of how we choose to live what we have. Make the most of it, and maybe we will need some support in having that guidance yeah, I love that.

Claire Sandys: 32:11

Seeing life as a whole as adventure, and grief is just part of that for everybody. It's not a case of if and when this might come, it's like it's just part of it. It's part of your whole adventure. It's going to be there, so you're going to have ups and downs, and some of those will be grief and some will be other things, but tell us about some of the ups of grief then. What are some of the things that I've mentioned earlier?

Bianca Neumann: 32:29

you know just how they find by doing that, life has got a lot to give and I think often we know from when someone's died that people will start in small steps. It's actually called the dual process model. So you're kind of oscillating, moving between what I call the world of the living and the world of the dead, moving between what I call the world of the living and the world of the dead. So you're learning by doing things for the sake of doing them, like going to get groceries, going to work, washing yourself, washing your clothes. All of that people often say feels like meaningless, just doing it, no emotions attached, you're just going through the motions. But over time they find themselves laughing again or smiling, and then they feel bad for laughing and smiling because they move from the world of the of the dead to the world of the living, because living people must experience life. And over time that oscillation, that moving between those worlds, gets more fluid and less severe, less intense sometimes most of the time, and that's when people notice those kind of good moments, how grief can actually transpire into something meaningful. And this is, I think, where people start to, for example, make new friendships.

Bianca Neumann: 33:55

A lot of people find a sense of being alone in grief, as we found through our research, and when they start to reach out. For example, when I've met some people in one of those bereavement cafes and the bereavement group, people would come to that group. I remember one particular person breaking down on the stairs into the group and a couple of people from within the seated circle got up and said we know what that feels like. Come here, come talk to us, what's your name? And a few minutes later that person was no longer crying. They were talking and engaged. And a few weeks later they came and said oh, you know, we've been out every time after this, after we meet here with the group, we actually go and have lunch and we're probably all going to go on a cruise together because we all made friends.

Bianca Neumann: 34:47

And you see them find their heart again. You find them feeling useful again and like someone who isn't just defined by grief but by who they really are. We had people helping each other to finish knitting a baby jumper because they never knew how to learn knitting. So there were people in the group that said I help, you, have a go. And you know, people found their calling there. What's my point in life? By being with other people? And I think that goes back to that tribal thing of grieving in isolation is never a good idea no you.

Bianca Neumann: 35:24

You already feel alone enough in your heart when you grieve. You don't also have to feel alone being amongst so many people. And if you think about how big this grief club is, how many millions of people are grieving at any time in the world today, right now, or freshly grieving from today, there is someone out there who understands what you're going through. And this is the adventure definition, stuff about determination, making an effort, making a choice to go out there and be amongst others.

Claire Sandys: 35:59

It's so difficult, isn't it? Because it does revolve again around so much choice. You're in that worst place you can be.

Claire Sandys: 36:05

You've lost your identity, it's an alien world, and then you've got to get out and go and sit in a group of new people, which is terrifying for some people, at the best of times, let alone in grief grief, but the benefits of doing that if you can bring yourself to to get to that point are just huge, and I've only heard good stuff about people getting in amongst you know people going through similar things, because there's just nothing like being with someone who knows exactly what you're going through. I think that's very powerful and anything they say at that point has more power, because if they're saying you know there is hope you can through this, it means something from someone who's already been through it On the other end of the scale. I remember when we were first chatting about this and what we would talk about, you mentioned self-soothing and I'd never heard that mentioned before outside of babies. So tell us a little bit about what that means.

Bianca Neumann: 36:49

OK. So the idea of being soothed is that often we get a sense of calm and feeling soothed through others and that's kind of neurotransmitters and stuff that happens in our brain when we get a cuddle from someone or when we have a warm blanket over us, that kind of sense of feeling safe and okay. And when someone dies, often cortisol our kind of stress response to things is ruling our body. So we don't feel safe, we don't feel calm, we don't feel soothed. And if, for example, we have moments or longer periods of time where we don't have someone to give us a hug, to give us that sense of feeling calm and soothed, then self-soothing becomes very important. And that's something we have learned from babies. When babies kind of scream and cry and don't stop for a long time, most of the time don't see people holding the baby and telling them. Well, what's going on in your brain is lots of cortisol flying around that's making you upset and you're most likely to of tea and maybe you have some wind. This is what I'm seeing. Your intestine, you have. You have this thing called an intestine. So we don't go intellectual on them, but instead we find our own calm to deal with the baby, because we're mirroring that this is something that does not require screaming and that you can learn from that calm and that, in essence, also helps us to be calm. Now we learn that over time as children, adolescents and then into adulthood, and when situations overwhelm us, we can tune into that learned skill so we can think about things that soothe us, and I often talk about, you know, having a bit of a toolkit for yourself.

Bianca Neumann: 38:41

So in when life is sort of normal average, if there is such thing, let's say an average Monday, when you have a stressful day at work maybe some stress with with relatives, maybe some, I don't know if something's come through the post that is upsetting you what do you do to help you feel calm and soothed? So some people maybe, like me, go and do mountain climbing just to feel that kind of exhilarating thrill because that trumps the stress that you had from that builders just come through the door, right, yeah. Other people might go and do some yoga because that they find that inner calm. Some people might like a hot bath because feeling warm and covered and you know, they can just find that self-soothing in that.

Bianca Neumann: 39:30

We all have our own ways to do that and I think what we can do a bit like that grief literacy that I was talking about is to think about how do I prepare myself for those tough times in life? You know, make yourself a bit of a self-prescription of self-soothing tools. What helps you? Because then, when it comes to a time where you need self-soothing, where you need to have a strategy or something at hand that helps you feel calm, safe and content to a point that you are able to switch off a little bit from the stress, from the overwhelmedness, you can grab that list and you can follow your own prescription of doing that.

Claire Sandys: 40:13

That's a great idea. It reminds me of our second. I think it was the second ever episode we did, and the lady we were chatting to had developed with a friend this pack of cards 52 cards. Looked like a pack, really colourful, but in it was things you could do, and it might have been have a glass of water, take a bath, take three deep breaths, loads of stuff and you could use it as prompts to look through and think what do I feel like doing? What would help me in this moment when you can't think of all the options? Sometimes? Have a, you know, have a cup of tea, go for a walk lots of simple things, but sometimes you forget when you're in that moment, you forget they're there. So I love the idea of knowing what self soothes you. So you've got something to go to. Yeah, as this, like this, is what helps me, this is what puts me in a slightly better frame of mind, and so, yeah, that's really important.

Bianca Neumann: 40:55

I've never heard that talked about for adults before yeah, and I think it requires that preparation is that when we have a headache, you know, we're now kind of conditioned to go and grab, you know, paracetamol or ibuprofen or something, because we know that helps the headache, but we don't really do that for soothing. We know what we need to take when we need to be alert, you know, and we go and get one coffee after the other sort of thing, or when we feel cold we have a cup of tea. You know there's that kind of sense of we already have them in other areas of life, but we don't prepare for those big moments. And when the big moment happens we haven't got time to really think and prepare because we're in it and that requires enough yeah, yeah, so interesting.

Claire Sandys: 41:37

I'm thinking back over the things I do now and I think, oh yeah, they are self-soothing, and it would be a bath with a good book, like a romance book, something that takes me away from everything that's simply, simply written, I can enjoy, or just, like you said, a blanket and a hot water bottle, those sort of things.

Claire Sandys: 41:51

I look back and I think of them as things that I've just sort of got to a point and I'm just doing it. I haven't thought about it, as actually, that is specifically self-soothing and something I can choose to go and do when I need that. So that's a really interesting, just a tiny mind shift. But knowing the things you do already and then labelling them as your self-soothing things, I think that's a great practical tip for us to remember and go to. So these are all such good things to do and learn, and there's so many tips and tools here. What's the hardest bit about adopting them, though? If people are sat there and just like, oh, I don't know where to begin with, what do you tend to find are the blocks that stop people putting these things in place?

Bianca Neumann: 42:26

Okay, there are probably a couple of blocks. I think the first one is grief is exhausting and it requires an effort to do anything that you don't already do. Um, so it requires an effort like, um, you know a lot of people in January they say I'm going to start going to the gym and they sign up and they go a couple of times and then they just pay for a few months for not doing anything. Yeah, and and because it an effort, it's a change of doing things differently, and change requires energy, and most people don't have energy when they're grieving. So it feels really counterintuitive to invest into doing something when you already feel like you haven't got much left to give. But it is the best medicine at the same time. So going out there and doing things whilst not feeling like it's actually helping and it won't feel like it's helping or doing anything for a long time actually helps.

Bianca Neumann: 43:22

So people have to just tell themselves and we've got this saying in German and it translates into from nothing comes nothing, and often when I have days, or had days in my life, where I felt like I can't even face the day, or this is too much or this is too hard, for example, with doing uni work or when I had my own bereavements. It feels like that sentence really resonates from nothing comes nothing. So I have to do something to make a something happen. And so people need to do something to make a something happen, you know. And so people need to somehow be able to challenge the. What do I need to do to make myself be the best medicine for this with this? Yeah, and I think breaking through that kind of cycle of feeling almost paralyzed by the experience is really important, and I think one big part of that is also kind of societally. You know, we've really started to become a kind of service-seeking society where whatever goes on, there's someone who can solve that for us.

Bianca Neumann: 44:28

If your heel breaks on your shoe, you know to take it to a shoe person that fixes it. If your car breaks, there's a car person to do it. If your roof breaks, you know if things break, there is a fix for it. If we get sick, there's a doctor who should, or who we expect will, have a fix for it. Right, a medicine, something that stops it from hurting, feeling ill, being ill, from hurting, feeling ill, being ill, and with grief. I think we are so conditioned into approaching life in that way now that we're hoping that someone has got a cure for it. Someone can fix it for us, someone out there, and there are people who can help, soothe you and help you along your journey and guide you to an extent. But ultimately, this is your astronaut journey. This is your adventure, your path, your map, and it's you that has to figure out what to make of it. But also keep your eyes open and see what life has to give and what those different junctions might be, and don't let fear hold you back.

Claire Sandys: 45:34

And it's sort of prioritizing mental, spiritual, emotional health as well. I think when you're grieving and everything's gone out the window, you might still be taking tablets for something physical that's going on with you. You might not stop that and then suffer the consequences because you know you need to keep taking it. But we wouldn't necessarily think that we need to be taking steps towards helping mental and emotional and spiritual health at that point, which might be reaching out for help or going to a group. They're still not on equal footing.

Claire Sandys: 45:59

We put physical first so often and feel like, yeah, that's something I need to, I need to sort, and it is kind of physical, I guess, with grief. But, um, I feel like those are the sort of things we would get out of bed to do. Or I need to go and take my tablet, so I need to do this, meanwhile neglecting other things we could be doing that would be helping us in different ways yeah, I mean, for example, you know some people might be actually coping quite well overall, emotionally with their grief, but maybe financially it has the biggest impact.

Bianca Neumann: 46:27

You know the fallout from from a bereavement, and so again, you know there is different support organizations out there that can help with finances, for example.

Bianca Neumann: 46:38

Or you might have to talk to your employer when you just feel very griefy, to help make that part of your life better, because that then has an impact on your ability to grieve well.

Bianca Neumann: 46:52

So again, it might not all be about how you tackle the emotional fallout of grief, but all of those factors that almost interfere with it or that drive you into a different direction with your grief that feels like something you can't manage or feels overwhelming. And of course I would always say, if you worry about how you are grieving, if you feel like you're not getting out of bed, you're neglecting yourself, you can't find anything that soothes you, you can't go and buy that bread from the supermarket, you just can't face the world. Go and talk to your GP, because there's always solutions, signposts, and it's often really important to just say these things out loud, maybe for the first time, and that can help Again, mapping those first steps on that empty map. So never feel like you're failing at grief, because you're doing it and you're doing it well and you're doing it to the best of your abilities. And just see what it brings you as well.

Claire Sandys: 47:54

Perfect, perfect ending before I ask my last question. Yes, and I'm really glad that you reminded people about all the other aspects, because we do forget about the fact that it can be, you know, financial and housing situations and all kinds of stuff that are affected by grief that people struggle with, and it's not talked about as much as it can be more embarrassing to talk about that sometimes. So that's a really good reminder. So if I'm going into my metaphorical tool shed so you've got your toolkit I'm trying to build a shed with all these garden tools in it that can help us in various ways. If I went in to get a tool that represented grief being an adventure, what tool do you think that would be?

Bianca Neumann: 48:27

Oh, that's a good one. I mean, I have two pictures in my mind, am.

Claire Sandys: 48:31

I only allowed one. Well, you know, a lot of people have snuck two in, so I have to let you sneak two in if you want to, right? So I?

Bianca Neumann: 48:36

think one is more metaphorical anyway. So the first very metaphorical metaphor, I think, is that did you hear news when one of the astronauts lost their toolkit in space? So that happened a couple of months ago. There's a toolkit flying out there in space. If anyone sees a bright light, it might be it. So I think that goes with our being an astronaut and having that kind of grief, adventure metaphor. Anyway, somewhere there's a toolkit out there for you. You have to find it and build it Really there somewhere.

Claire Sandys: 49:09

Have a look, there's a free toolkit for somebody.

Bianca Neumann: 49:11

A free toolkit. It might have really very expensive tools, right, but the other one I'd say is a holy bucket with holes in it. Have you got that in your tool shed? No, no, I haven't got that one Right. It's really useful a bucket with holes in it, because when you think about grief going into a bucket, if there isn't holes in it, it keeps flowing in and starts to overflow, right, and you feel really overwhelmed, out of control, maybe not able to cope. But if you put holes in that bucket and it's nice and rusty and it's got lots of holes in it those holes represent your ability to self-soothe, to cope different things that let some of that steam, that that grief out. So think about your bucket and what those holes would be that help you when you feel overwhelmed by grief, when that big wave of grief comes for you. What do you need to do to make those holes take some of that pressure away?

Claire Sandys: 50:08

Oh, I love that you could almost use that as a thing to water other things with as well.

Bianca Neumann: 50:26

Can nurture other things with as well, will go into the ground and nurture you from going forward, but also it teaches you about okay, I've survived this moment of grief that felt so overwhelming I couldn't even breathe, but I did it. What helped? And knowing that you did it means that the next time it happens, you can remember that, knowing I can do this, I can cope and I can live with grief.

Claire Sandys: 50:52

A holy bucket. Holy? Holey, a holey bucket. I definitely don't have one of those, but I love the idea of adding it to my shed. I especially appreciated the way Bianca explained our need to release that pressure of grief, to let it flow through us instead of bottling it up and allowing it to overwhelm us, and the thought that when we do that, our grief can actually water and nurture others along the way. What a beautiful, hopeful image.

Claire Sandys: 51:19

If you'd like to find out more about Bianca or the work of Sue Ryder, just head over to the links in the show notes. And if you're feeling alone in your grief and need some support, sue Ryder offers a wide range of resources. You can Google 'Grief Deserves Better' or go straight to www. sueryder. org to explore what's available, and that includes their grief kind spaces, which are weekly in-person drop-in sessions held in local communities, as well as their free online bereavement support for anyone grieving or supporting someone else through grief, which includes children and young people. I've put links to all this in the show notes for easy access. A huge thank you to Bianca for this conversation. I really believe it will help people not only find support in their grief, but also feel a little less lost in that strange, unfamiliar territory and maybe even take steps forward with some new tools in hand, especially if you're the lucky one that finds that space toolkit. And if you'd like to know more about this podcast, how it began, or our personal journey through infertility and childlessness, you can visit www. the silentwhy. com.

Claire Sandys: 52:20

This podcast is ad free, thanks to the generous support of some wonderful people who help keep it running. If you'd like to chip in, you can head to www. buy me a coffee. com/thesilentwhy to buy me a fancy tea or two as a one-off treat, or even support the podcast monthly. And don't forget, there's another way to support the podcast now you can buy a Herman. These are small crocheted grief companions that I personally hand make and sell. They're a meaningful alternative to send someone, instead of flowers, something lasting, personal and comforting for someone going through loss. They also make a thoughtful gift for those times when words just don't feel like enough. To find out more about him, visit www. thehermancompany. com and, as always, all the links are in the show notes. Thank you for listening to The Silent Why podcast. If you've got a subject you'd like me to chat to an expert on. Please get in touch via social media or the website, or via the email, thesilentwhy@ gmail. com and let's chat.