Episode 10: Grief

JD and Mordecai discuss the perplexing depths of grief, how we are affected by loss, and how accepting that loss as reality is a major step in resolving grief.

Books/Writers Referenced:

• David Hawkins
• "Untethered Soul" by Michael Singer (Podcast)
• Gangaji
• Byron Katie
• "Midnight Gospel" (Netflix)

Timestamps:
02:23-10:34  Feeling Grief

15:50- 26:36  Fear of Loss

27:48-32:49  Selfish Attachment

33:25-36:33  Letting Go of Attachment 

37:50-39:39  Resolving the Feeling

43:16-49:51  Reality of Grief

Transcript

Mordecai Rosenberg: 0:00

All right, JD back at it again.

JD Stettin: 0:04

Always nice, always nice to start your day with grief.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 0:08

Yeah. So, as you alluded to, right, this week, we're going to start with what chapter is this chapter five, and the letting go book, which talks about grief. So one thing that was interesting to me was that I, well, in the chapter, he talks about some of the other things that grief can bring up, and how men in particular, might feel shame about feeling grief. They don't want to just feel that emotion. They may feel fear, you know, about crying or expressing grief. It was interesting that when I was thinking about this discussion, I felt resistance a bit to talking about it. Yeah. And I just started to think like, why are we always talking about these negative emotions? Maybe we should be like, skipping around in the book, maybe we should skip to like, courage.

JD Stettin: 1:12

Joy

Mordecai Rosenberg: 1:15

Love, peace, like, why is it like, such a drag talking about all these negative emotions. And I started to think like, well, maybe we should just like skip to another book, you know, and go to do something else. But it was the first time that I felt that way, even though we've dealt with, you know, we talked about shame and guilt, and apathy and blame and all these other negative things. But grief was one where I felt like, I don't even like. I definitely felt that I feel like resistance even going to the topic.

JD Stettin: 1:58

That's, interesting that this is the first one of the the deep dark emotions that you felt some internal resistance. I'm curious to how that may be changed or moved or shifted, as you continued prepping the chapter for today? Or if you still maybe feel resistance?

Mordecai Rosenberg: 2:23

Well, I feel a little nervous going into the conversation. Right. And I'm not sure why that is. One of the questions that in terms of how how Hawkins describes grief. He says in grief, we feel that things are too difficult. We'll never make it we are unloving and unlovable. We have thoughts such as all the years I've wasted. There's a feeling of sadness and loss, loneliness, the feeling of if only regret, feelings of abandonment, pain, helplessness and hopelessness, nostalgia, melancholy, depression, longing, irretrievable loss, heartbroken this anguish, disappointment, pessimism. Right. So that's like, I mean, that's pretty heavy. But I was thinking about with grief, first of all, it's clearly something that, I don't know, but to me, it feels like something that we do suppress. It's like, grieving for, it could be the loss of a relationship or your childhood that recognizing that your parents may not be the parents that you wanted them to be? I'm not saying that my parents were not, but just know. So are we supposed to deal with grief? Is it something where you want to, like, uncover it and actively probe to feel like oh, yeah, like, let me grieve for like, are there things that are unresolved in my childhood, or things that are aggrieved about my own children? about any other parts of my life? Maybe about, you know, lost, you know, great grandparents or relatives? Is it something where you're, that you want to probe? Or is it just something that comes up from time to time, right? You just feel like, God forbid, you lose a loved one and you feel grief, right? You you lose a job you may feel grief. You've done so much work with in in therapy and with relationships and you've done a fair amount of grieving I'm sure. Yeah. With you in the past like about relationships. What's your take on kind of like the probe proactive versus reactive?

JD Stettin: 5:01

Approach who? It's a good question, I think, and I, um, maybe halfway through Michael Singer's Untethered Soul on your and another friend's recommendation coincided and I was like, Alright, I have to pick this up. And I think it feels like for those of you listening a really nice companion book to this book in a way not that they were, I think written in any sort of concert. But that book feels very much like a deep dive into the first couple of chapters of this book about what it means to actually let go and live letting go in daily life. And something that I feel like I was hearing from that book, which maybe made me reread this chapter differently, I think it is and see if I could pull up the page, okay, maybe not. But he talks about how, and this is Hawkins in this chapter, talks about how grief went when it comes up to try to be with it. I thought it was kind of interesting that he gave it a very particular time limit, he's like, no more than 10 to 20 minutes, which feels arbitrary to me as a reader, but he does talk about how it'll come up again, and every time it comes up give it that however long it is 10-20 minutes. I think there's a part of me that wants to kind of go on the hunt, and look for okay, what's unresolved? What's unsolved, where are the problem areas? Let's go in there and do work on them. When I think about that, and even especially saying it out loud, that feels like a very more of a forced, maybe fixing yourself kind of approach that I'm also comfortable and familiar with. And so the other idea, maybe would you call reactive or maybe we can call it responsive is when it comes up, or when other emotions come up to hang out. Be with them and see where it is, rather than looking and probing for it in some way and trying to get better at noticing when it's there. And I think for me, you know, in my journey, noticing how quickly my system has gotten good at just suppressing any difficult negative emotions to the point where until more recently, it was hard for me to even pick out quite what it was. And the more I'm practicing, trying to catch the emotions as they arise before whatever part of my system tries to shut them down. The more opportunities I'm noticing there are for grief in just day to day that I previously didn't realize I was having was about to have the my system was shutting down. So long winded way of saying that I think, the more attentive I've been to my emotional experiences, the more I'm noticing opportunities regularly for things like grief, and I feel less like I need to smoke them out and go after them. Because they're there. They're just have to let them be.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 8:43

Maybe that is what we often do with regards to grief is that we just don't pay attention to it. Right. So when something comes up about you know, I don't know, like both of us have come from divorced families. Right. I just don't really think about that a lot. It's like when I talked about some of the experiences that I had, they were like, some of them were kind of like, you know, very, that made an imprint and we're there's definitely trauma there but even at the time I think my survival mechanism was just not to look at it and just not to feel that grief. I think to your point is very interesting that maybe it's not that you have to go seek out and say like, okay, like now I'm gonna really focus on like, what is all the parts of my childhood that I wish were different? I'm just going to because not everything is going to bring up grief but it could. I was having a conversation with my daughter last night and she was struggling with something and it brought up for me something in like in my childhood that I remember having like a similar feeling which I hadn't thought about in a very long time. And to let yourself as these things come up not to just kind of move on, but to actually stay with that feeling, then maybe more opportunities, then we would think where we would normally just kind of jump to the next task, you know, we're going our phones or whatever.

JD Stettin: 10:37

Another thing I do always try to immediately solve and immediately fix. I had this experience yesterday and you won't be surprised that another example of something that happened with my cat, but I'm giving him his injection. This life saving medicine, it's 83 days, of course of this injection, and the timing is really particular. And it's a tricky injection, because the fluid I'm injecting him with is is quite painful and burns the skin. And it's also a full plunger, he needs a big dose. So not only do I have to stick him with the needle, but then I have to make sure he holds still long enough for me to you know, press the plunger and get all the fluid in and that that takes a good, I don't have time it because I have my hands full but a couple of seconds. It's not an instantaneous thing. So I found a way of this like complex system of giving him the sedative two hours earlier. So it's maximally in his bloodstream. And then I don't feed him yet, so that by the time I the sedative is kicked in, and sort of the two hours, I feed him his first meal of the day, and he's ravenously hungry, so he's sedated and eating his meal. And then I like have my opportunity to like sneak up behind him pull up a piece of skin and try and get this done. And I was doing that yesterday and for the first time in three weeks, I really did screw it up where he's very skinny because he hadn't been eating for a while. And so it's easy to do this but as I tent up the skin, I actually inadvertently poked the needle through to the other side. So I ended up squirting the fluid instead of into him through him and onto the other side. So now not only do I have to redo it, but I have to very quickly clean this up because it burns his skin in his fur and the longer it sits there the more it'll burn and I don't want him to suffer and it'll also make it that much harder to do the injection. This already feels like a weighty thing for me because his life is in my hands in this way and that that feels heavy for me personally, but to then have screwed it up in this way and possibly be burning him and hurting him with this fluid and have to redo all this so noticing that right away. I could feel this wave of like really difficult feelings and almost as quickly my system went into just like practical like Okay, gotta get the dish soap clean him up and get load the next syringe and granted this is like time sensitive and I didn't want his skin to burn but I was thinking about that Michael Singer podcast episode you had sent me where he talks about your work or our work as humans is in the moment when whatever it is that arises is to first be with that before you do whatever it is that you're going to do. And I did stop for a few seconds not much longer because I really didn't want it to burn his skin but I did stop in that moment. Just to give myself like I don't know maybe it was three seconds, maybe was seven seconds of just feeling this wave of really difficult emotions. The way hat you read the first paragraph of this chapter, just that kind of rush of sadness loneliness if only regret abandonment, pain, helplessness, hopelessness, nostalgia and melancholy. Those weren't necessarily the exact cluster of feelings but I could feel that wave of like, I don't know 10 different emotion words or difficult feelings in those few seconds of you know, I'm gonna fail him. I'm hurting him. This is overwhelming. When will this end? How can I do this right this is so hard this poor cat needs so much as all these things coming up. And then I shut that down so I could go about the business of actually cleaning him up and getting him injected. But after I did that, I just sat down on the couch and just let this like heady brew have deep difficult dark feelings resurface and try not to like pick them apart with my channel litical brain, which is another one of my inclinations, and just to feel all of that, like shittiness wash over me. Just noticing even from that experience like how, for much of my life, I would have never even gone there, I would have just shut it down, moved on to like, fix the situation and then gone about my day. Yeah. And so anyway, I think the more we reread this book together, and the more I'm reading Michael Singer, and the more I'm listening to Gangaji, and Byron Katie, and all these other people, I'm just like, okay, these things are actually here, I don't need to look very far for grief or apathy or depression or anger or any of these other things, I just need to actually let them surface, let them write.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 15:50

Right, just respond to it as it comes up. So he also talks about that, first of all, it comes from, like, the psychological basis of grief and mourning as attachment. Right. So we feel, you know, we feel kind of incomplete within our selves. And so we seek objects, people, relationships, places concepts to fulfill in our needs. So that could be a really, I mean, it can be a relationship with a loved one, right? Or that you feel that if you were to lose that person, you're you would not be complete anymore, which, to me is understandable. You know, I think that's that, you know, I can definitely, that doesn't feel wrong, necessarily. But then he says that what ends up happening is, lots of times before we actually have that experience of mourning and grief we have an early array of that fear of loss. Yeah, that's, we're worried about, you know, that if your dog is sick it's like you're grieving before you're grieving. You know, I realized that I definitely have that feeling a lot. Like, I feel like I'm actually it's probably, well, one of my primary experiences that I have going through life, is this idea of like, already worried about? Grief? Yeah, like, what will I feel when if a grandparent parent passes or like at some point if you lose your parents, like, you don't want to outlive your your parents. Right? And like, how will I how will that be? Like, how am I going to handle that? Like, what about other you know, there's just things that happen in life that are tough, right? I think as parents it's crazy. Life is very chaotic, when your kids are at home, and they're exhausting, when they're younger, and then they're mentally challenging when they're older. But then they're out of the house, and then there's a mourning for like that last time. You know, there's a nostalgia for the time when your kids were at home. And so, I feel like, sometimes, like, as I'm going through, as I'm spending time with my kids, I'm already mourning, the fact that they're not going to be with me at some point in the future. I feel that that's a, I don't exactly know what to do with that because I do think it holds you back from if I'm in the very moment, I'm thinking about already being upset that the moment will be gone, that something else will be changing. It prevents you from truly being in the moment. So what's your I don't know if you've had any kind of similar experiences, but what are your thoughts about that?

JD Stettin: 19:15

It's interesting, he kind of 76-77 right, he gives his prescription on how to handle loss, how we do handle it, and why that doesn't work in his mind and then how how we ought to and he recommends to handle the fear of loss, we have to look at what purpose the external person or object serves in our life, what emotional need is being fulfilled, what emotions would arise were we to lose the object or the person loss can be anticipated and we can handle the various fears associated with the sense of loss by disassembling the emotional complexes that they represent, and letting go of the individual component feelings. There's a part of me that when I read something like that it almost feels like that you can mitigate it in that way like, this feels a little. Well, I don't know that his suggestions are avoidant, but the idea of like, Oh, you just need to do this and then you can handle the grief or the fear of loss. And it's like, I think the answer is that you're just going to grieve, right? Just gonna grieve. And part of what he's suggesting is trying to look honestly at your relationships and attachments and why you feel attached to the people, places, objects, circumstances you do and that feels like a useful exercise and I do appreciate him calling out on the bottom of 78 a part of handling denial of the inevitability of loss is seeing through attempts at manipulation. And this I thought, may have even sent you a screenshot of this. Like he took this somewhere pretty wild to me that felt telling. In fantasy, the mind tries to develop tactics so as to avoid the loss. This may take the form of becoming good or in quotes are more hardworking, more honest and persevering, more loyal, religious persons. This may take the form of trying to manipulate God by promises and bargains in relationships that may take the form of over compensatory behavior. So I think that feels like a really, for me great place to start. Like, where am I overcompensating? Because I'm afraid of losing. Whether it's my relationship with my physical body? Am I overcompensating by like taking all the supplements and super healthy diet and exercise and all the you know, biohacking, right? That's so big in our world these days. Again, nothing necessarily wrong with any of these actions, but what's behind them. And I'm kind of like, in a way thinking about what happened with me in the cat yesterday, rather than running to the solution. First being with the underlying grief and the sense of loss first sitting down and being like, Oh, shit, my body's gonna fall apart, no matter what I do, no matter how many supplements and clinics I go to, my body will fall apart, and I will die. I might even get really sick and be in a lot of pain and suffering at some point. And really hang out there. And then after hanging out for you know, his 10 or 20 minutes or whatever it is, go take supplements go to the gym, of course, but, but really being with the grief and the fear of these things. It's not that there's a way around it something that I think a paraphrase of something I think I heard Gangaji say in a video is watching recently as if your life is about avoiding suffering is about excuse me, if your life is about avoiding pain, your life is about suffering. Hmm, yeah. This may take the form of becoming gooder, all the machinations and all the achieving and accomplishing and especially as like, older siblings, you know, achievers responsible ones. I feel like for me and maybe for you that that's such an easy go to, and we're so good at doing and doing good and doing better and meditating more and taking notes and really, like achievement takes the form. Or it Yeah, is is a form of just not being with this grief and this loss. I mean, it is real. To your point these relationships, your kids, your wife, your parents, your brothers, like you're gonna miss them. I'm gonna miss mine. I know that and I don't know that because I haven't spent enough time really hanging out with Wow, that's gonna be devastatingly painful. Yeah. It's not comfortable, it feels scary to go there.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 24:35

I like your point, though, about hanging out with what that feeling is that's coming up. You know, one of the things that I've realized from that the mood meter is that you have to take stock of like, sometimes what you think you're feeling on the surface is not actually what you're, you know, there's maybe more to it than then than meets the eye. I started by saying that like that the feeling that I was having was a pre grief. Right? But when I think about it, it's actually fear of that grief. Right? So I can think about. So what I can do is if I actually am willing to let myself feel that grief, so to speak, I can realize that well actually, is it really grief? Or is it really fear of grief? Is it really fear of like that I'm not going to be able to handle you know, that emotion. Right, and then I can just sit with that fear. And fear is also just a thing, right, which will pass through, you know, and so if I let myself sit with the grief that allows myself to open myself open and open up to the, to the fear, and maybe, maybe that brings up anger, right, maybe that brings up anger that this person, you know, that I am dependent on a particular person. I can't think of a good example there. But but, you know, let's say a parent may encourage, like, you know, you may have a codependent relationship with someone that's developed, right. It's like, oh, wow, like, I've never thought about the relationship that way. So, but just kind of letting yourself experience it. Maybe that really is, you know, to just let it happen. Let it flow through. And then that once it flows through, you can be more present.

JD Stettin: 26:38

And to your point, I think the honesty about the relationship and looking at the particular relationship and going, what am I getting out of this? Is this person gives me a sense of meaning, or what worth or joy, and really look at some of the selfishness of Oh, like, I really don't want to lose this person. Because I feel like I get a lot of joy or inspiration or love or support from this, this friend or family member, and when they're gone, that's gonna that's gonna suck for me. Yeah. And, you know, there's some altruism there, too. You really love this person, and you want them to have their life and live their life and be strong and healthy. And there's a sadness kind of for them that you know, when they die, they won't have that or get that. But also really looking at the the selfishness of the attachment. In that way of like, I get a lot out of this relationship. I get a lot out of this job having this money, I'm really attached to the freedom I get from this lifestyle. And it's really scary to think that it could end.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 27:48

And sometimes it'll be a selfish attachment. But sometimes I think, you know, like, if you thought about the fear of losing a loved one, like what you realize is like, Well, what do you mind getting out of it? Well, I actually just really love them. And it hurts when you have to sit when you lose someone who you love. Right? And so then I could just feel that love and realize like, wow, I never even like thought about how, like I never thought about loving my grandparents, right? Just they're just always are there, you know, or a parent or child, right? But just realize, like, gosh, like, underneath all of this is like just like a deep sense of love. And now that kind of opens up now. To be with that other person, like maybe that that allows you to do with them without any kind of like an agenda or desire to like, do something with anything, do something with that time other than just be with them, you know, and understand them more to make them feel love to feel their love so it could be that there are treasures that are buried, you know, in some of these uncomfortable emotions.

JD Stettin: 29:17

Yeah. And I think to that point, he talks about towards the end of the chapter, in 85, that part of us to which we refer as our greater self loves, rather than seeks love. Consequently, there comes the awareness that we are at all times surrounded by love, which is unlimited. Love is automatically attracted to the person who is loving and that makes me think of a story rom das tells about I forget which one of his gurus who's you know, when the last days of his life and the students are wailing and moaning don't leave us guru don't leave us guru and he goes, where can I go? Right and and there is a sense in which I think maybe my love for someone is really not dependent on them being in my life in any way alive, that same city, an ongoing relationship, and and to your point by diving into the grief and feeling it out and feeling what do I gain and lose? Why is this so untouchable? Why am I so scared or angry or whatever is covering up the grief or the pre grief for this? Recognizing that in a way also, no matter what happens and how things end, the love doesn't have to end.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 30:44

Right. And it doesn't.

JD Stettin: 30:46

And it doesn't

Mordecai Rosenberg: 30:49

Right. So if that's what you think what you're grieving is the loss of that feeling of love that actually doesn't go anywhere. That's still you know, you have that. Yeah, pretty powerful.

JD Stettin: 31:06

Yeah, that can't be taken away from us. And that does feel powerful and in moving. I forget if I've shared this or recommended this before, but the last episode of Midnight Gospel. It's a brilliant, beautiful animated one season show on on Netflix. That last episode is the is basically this guy doing a podcast. And then these really talented animators make the podcast into this like kooky, trippy, visual cartoon with characters and wild adventures. But in the last episode, it's very much about the guy, the host who's doing the podcast, the interviews, his mother and his mother has some advanced stage of cancer. And this is kind of the conversation they have and the way it ends about like, but the love doesn't go anywhere. I find it very, very moving. I've watched it probably a dozen times in the last couple of years. But wow, yeah, the love doesn't go anywhere. And that's where digging into or nuts maybe too active or letting the grief wash over us and seeing what am I grieving? My grieving the fact that I will be lonely that I will feel less love that I will have less joy that I will not get to see this person smile. Feeling into that and be like, yeah, that's me. I am. I feel like my myself will be somehow diminished. Right by this.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 32:49

I guess part of that then is like the realization that you're more than just your physical presence, right? It's not because what does that mean that the love doesn't go anywhere? Like where like point where, like, where is that one? Point to it. You can't point to it, but you know that you but you know, it exists, right? You can feel it. And it feels like you're a part of it. Right? But not necessarily that it's like just a fragment of a view. Yeah, that's interesting.

JD Stettin: 33:25

Yeah, something, something else I think you brought up in in your notes. The other night that I wanted to touch on was where he talks about shame, fear, pride, anger, courage, like the progression on the bottom of 74 of the complex of these emotions. I'm just going to read it out. It relates to again, the men in particular, but I think there's something really interesting there."Experientially, there was the surprising and almost immediate relief from a pounding headache as soon as the grief about a past situation was allowed to come up. As the grief surface, there was a sentence men don't cry. After letting go of the masculine pride about crying, then up came a fear that the crime would never stop once it was allowed to start. As soon as that fear was gone. Then there was anger, anger in a society that forces men to suppress their feelings, anger at the notion men are not supposed to have them, letting go of anger, the level of courage was reached, and then the needed crying could be allowed. Just thinking about that, I just think it's an interesting concept that even sometimes get to express the emotion you are kind of passing through all these different other emotional phases like in order to experience the grief. In this example he gives you had to go through fear, to anger to pride to courage, and that that feels the I don't know, I guess I don't have a direction. I just you brought that up in the notes last night. And that was like, yeah, that is kind of interesting and relates to what you were just talking about now with, like, cluster of emotions and the, the mood meter. And you know, it's come up for us before noticing how interconnected so many of these seem to be.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 35:21

Yeah, well, one thing is that I feel like in some ways, it's the opposite in some ways, like the opposite of meditation. You know, with meditation, it's like, whenever you find, you might have a mantra, right, where you're focusing on your breath. And when you ever notice that you're, you notice that your thoughts are going elsewhere, you take it back, you put your attention back on your breath, or back to the mantra. And so you might feel like, Alright, I'm gonna sit here with this grief, right? And then all of a sudden, I start to feel fear, and be like, Oh, wait, wait, I'm not not going to fear I'm staying with this grief. Not, you know, it's like, then the anger comes up. But I think with feelings, you have to just kind of let them take their course. Right, and don't try to limit what you're feeling. Just, if it brings up anger, that's fine. You know, that's, maybe where you're where it goes next. And maybe it'll come back around for you. But just to kind of let that really flow, as opposed to trying to stay focused on a particular feeling, you know, for some period of time.

JD Stettin: 36:33

Yeah, that feels like a helpful reminder. And I think he brings up a related example, in the chapter of sometimes people are so overcome by grief, and then can't go there, they end up in anger. Like the spouse being angry at their dead spouse for leaving them or, you know, in that way, leaving being dying in this in this example, and how we might look at that. From the outside, that seems like a little backwards here. Why would you be angry at that person, but to your point is, if that's where you are, again, though, where I don't know where that is, but I wouldn't start from here. It's like, you always have to start from here. And if here's anger, great, if here is pride, great if here is courage, awesome. If here is grief, if here's depression, like okay, well, that's where we are, today and in this moment, or where I'm catching myself. Just be there and try and ride, whatever emotional wave it is. And yeah, it might take you up or down, so to speak, this emotional scale or tapestry, whatever, we decided we're calling it, but that's kind of all we should do. It's just all we can do.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 37:53

Another kind of interesting point that I wanted to discuss about grief is, yeah, this idea of something needing to happen in order to resolve it, right? Like, there's, you know, you would say that when you feel grief, that probably a lot of people would say like you need to, like actually cry, in order to let that flow through you. Right, and then you can be okay. There's all kinds of resistance that might come up for men in particular about, you know, about crying, but when I look at the other emotions, I'd say, if it was, you know, the shame. It's not like if you say, alright, we feel shame, you've got it, you need to do something, you need to have this physical expression in order for it to resolve, right? Or anger, like, yes, if I, if I punch the wall maybe that will help but that's not at all ideal. You don't want to actually express you want to be able to kind of just let the anger flow through. You know, pride, courage, acceptance, like, all these things, they don't doesn't feel like they need to have expression. But grief seems to be a little unique in that regard, where grief almost requires, like, what's the treatment for grief? I think what you would say is that the treatment for grief is mourning like that's, you need to allow yourself to mourn the loss. So anything come up for you with that idea of of grief being just kind of singular in requiring a almost like a physical response in order for it to be resolved.

JD Stettin: 39:40

That's a really interesting observation. I hadn't put that together until I Hearing you say that just now. So I guess two things that come up is one of which is a concept I learned or heard from my therapist about completing A stress cycle, that part of feeling feelings is often actually, there is some sort of active or physical part of it that, again, not no one saying should but that it seems to be beneficial if you can lean into. So for instance, with anger, if you really feel yourself seething, in addition to being with that, acting it out, you know, punching a pillow, wailing on a punching bag, going into your basement or garage and just screaming or yelling, to get that flowing through your system, and not as a way of repression or suppression, or like getting it out, but a way of really embodying fully embodying the stress and his way of actually being present with that feeling. And I admit, I have tried various versions of that with anger and it to say that it works it does feel like it helps be with the emotion and also let it pass through. If I'm feeling really angry about something just popping into my garage and attacking my punching bag for even just 30 seconds getting in some really good hard fast strikes and breathing it's, there's a lightness that's part of that I'm not always but often enough. So I don't know and again, I guess we'll see as we reread the chapters on anger, I don't remember what Hawkins if he brings that into his world or not, but I do think there are other there might be other physical expressions of emotions that that are useful in being with them and or you know, letting go of them however, we want to phrase it and at the same time to your question of because I think Dawkins does single this out as having some action again, the crying in a way it seems like grief is almost there. There seem to be some like Trent major transition points on the on his energy scale, and depression and apathy. It really sit at the like, you're just not doing anything. And so maybe, because you're stepping up into this next sense of at least at least with grief, you can let yourself cry in a way that depression and apathy and I'm not phrasing this particularly well, but it does feel like there's some sort of energy threshold, at least in his, excuse me cosmology, where now we're into grief, okay, we can, like, takes some action, even if it's just crying, we're apathy, and depression is really just giving up on one's experience in life in a way, and this is moving into some sort of more active more, I can do something about this phase.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 43:18

I am wondering also, if grief, in some ways, is it's accepting that reality is different from how you want it to match in what you imagined it to be, you know, or fantasize about a thing. I'm thinking about, there's a verse in Genesis, right before the story of Noah and the ark, where God says, you know, and, like God regretted, make creating man, right? Because they were just up to no good all day. Right? There's, it's like, whoa, like, I had this idea of this paradise I was gonna create, and now look, this isn't how I imagined it to be. Right? I know what it means for God to feel that way. But it's like, grief is in some ways, it's where the where reality meets your imagined reality and you have to accept that. As a kid you imagine that your parents are gonna be around forever, right? That's just life is with my parents. And then when you don't have your parents one day, right, it's like, well, this is like this world is not the one that I had imagined it right. So I wonder if there's something about like, the acceptance, the like, it's like reality like smacking you across the face, you know, like it's, you know that the confrontation with reality that requires or that engenders some deeper physical expression in other emotions.

JD Stettin: 45:28

That really resonates and I think somewhere in the chapter he talks about that does like grief does kind of confront our attachments head on in that way because precisely for that we so much of grief arises from realizing that there is no you know, stasis it's everything is just moving and changing the body. You thought you had the life you thought,you had the partner, you thought you had the long relationship, you thought like it's all it's all going to, to end.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 46:05

It's the loss of a dream. You know, it's like the loss of your of your left sometimes maybe it's like your childhood dream. Yeah, that you that was either explicit or implicit. But you imagine your family life a certain way. Like you don't imagine yourself to get divorced, you know, and put your kids through that. Right? It's the loss of in some ways it's it's the acceptance of the loss of a dream.

JD Stettin: 46:43

That sounds interesting and it makes me think of a conversation we had I think before we started doing the podcast about the concept of in a Judeo Christian sense or Abrahamic, I suppose but of the the tree of knowledge and getting kicked out of the the Garden of Eden like in a way is this is this that sort of confronting that that reality? Yeah, and you know, take the Garden of Eden maybe the metaphor that it is a place of just hyper abundance there's no aging, there's no death, there's no sickness, it really is like a stasis of perfect. And then this shift this biting of the apple, this loss of that innocence and flow. And I don't recall, if either in chapter and verse or in commentary, there's talk about like, Adam and Eve grieving the loss of Eden but that's interesting. Yeah, it just occurred to me it's like hearing you say that about think as children. Also, I think many of us are privileged not to grow up in like extreme poverty and war and death all around us are shielded from death. Death is spoken of, in a metaphor, you know, your dog goes upstate to live on a farm or crosses the Rainbow Bridge, or your grandparents are like, in heaven watching you, you know, whatever version of fiction, we're taught as kids and to your point, some of of growing up is confronting, like, holy shit, my my sense of reality, like this is all going to end and change and no amount of prayer or good works, or health, or even healthy relationships could possibly ever stop the tide of time and change.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 48:48

And I think to finish on a lighter note, getting back to Michael Singer, which is that the goal is still is peace, and joy, right? And the path to that comes through all of this stuff, you know, so it's not your dream of, it's not the dream that you had as a child. But yet the dream you didn't even think to have a is accessible through allowing yourself to feel this stuff as it comes up. And that's the work right, that's like our real work here is to just let that stuff flow through to kind of come back. I guess, maintain our own stasis to realize our own stasis underneath. Yeah, even as things are rippling on the surface.

JD Stettin: 49:51

Yeah, that is a really nice way to end and reminder. I will just also requote Gangaji if your life is about avoiding pain, it's about suffering and really like seeing the truth of that. And all these, like you said, the dream that we've been living in, we've been so attached to waking waking up to find that it's actually even more beautiful and more abundant. But in order to experience that we do have to release our grasp on on the dream we've been harboring. So yeah.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 50:33

All right. On that note,

JD Stettin: 50:35

Back to reality.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 50:41

Back to conference call.

JD Stettin: 50:43

Back to a different dream.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 50:47

Alright, JD, always, always enjoyable.

JD Stettin: 50:50

So, until next time with you. Until next time, stay perplexed.

Mordecai Rosenberg: 50:55

Stay perplexed.