Navigating Through Teen Grief: Confronting Loss, Emotions, and Spirituality During the Holidays

Ever grappled with the heavy weight of grief, especially during the festive season? We did too, and that's why we decided to have an open, thought-provoking conversation about loss and the complex emotions it stirs up in teens. We cover everything from recognizing behavioral changes that might signal grief, to the struggle teens have in articulating their feelings, and how to help them understand that it's perfectly normal to feel joy and sadness simultaneously. By the end of our discussion, we hope you'll have the tools to navigate the holiday season while dealing with grief.

We also take a deep breath and confront the harsh reality of supporting teens through traumatic loss, specifically suicide. We shed light on the necessity of having broader conversations, being vigilant, and understanding survivor's guilt. We share valuable advice on how to foster self-awareness and self-reflection in teens in the wake of such devastating loss. And trust us, it's not about dismissing their feelings, but about offering them the support they need, and providing a safe space for open dialogue.

In the final segment of our heart-rending conversation, we find comfort in traditions and spirituality. We share our personal traditions that have kept our loved ones' memories alive during the holidays, and explore how spirituality can provide solace during these trying times. Our special guest, a grief counselor, Angela Dobrzynski, LPC, joins in and provides her insights and advice on navigating through grief. She also introduces her book, which aims to normalize grief and provide support to those who are on this journey. This episode is all about understanding grief, navigating through it, and finding ways to honor our loved ones who are no longer with us. Whether you are a parent, a teen, or anyone dealing with grief, we hope this conversation will be a beacon of light in your darkest moments.

Bio:
Angela Dobrzynski, LPC specializes in grief and non-death losses, and also works with clients through significant life transitions and other concerns. She is a Licensed Professional Counselor (LPC) in the state of Pennsylvania, and is an approved teletherapy provider in the state of Florida. Additionally, she is a Certified Grief Counseling Specialist and holds a certificate in Holistic Health Coaching from the Institute for Integrative Nutrition. Her's Master’s degree is in Counseling Psychology from Rosemont College and Bachelor’s degree is in Psychology from Stockton University.

For more information on Angela's book, "Unmoored" - https://angeladora.org/book/

Transcript

Speaker 1: 0:00

Hi Angela, it is so good to see you on the other side now.

Speaker 2: 0:08

I always love talking with you. I've been looking forward to today.

Speaker 1: 0:12

Me too, and I'm you know this is such an important topic that we are going to talk about today. Grief, and especially with the holidays coming up and loss, is such a big kind of part of how we, how we are around the holidays. I kind of wanted to start the conversation and I know these are such hard conversations for everyone but if we could start by talking about how do we in general kind of talk about grief?

Speaker 2: 0:55

With teen specifically. I think quite frankly now this is a bit of my bias as a grief counselor and you know I'm also married to a grief counselor right.

Speaker 2: 1:07

That's how my husband and I met working as bereavement counselors in a hospice and and both of us have suffered our own losses, but also both of our teen boys, when we met, had suffered their own losses in their families and then, of course, in their school communities as well. So what what we have found is that very open, ongoing, regular references to the people we are missing, references to the complex feelings that are coming up, noting behavioral changes and questioning whether is that grief at play? You slept all through Christmas. Are you sad because you're missing your me mom? You know.

Speaker 2: 1:54

So, finding these opportunities to recognize grief in all its various forms, to recognize the impact of loss and to not minimize that right. You mentioned the holidays and, just as you know, a quick aside, we know that's such a hard time, I mean for many people in general, but specifically if you're also grieving the loss of a loved one and it can change how the holiday feels we're missing someone more acutely. We're missing traditions and so on, and I think parents in particular can help teens to continue to enjoy holiday experiences, create new traditions, be mindful and present with their families and enjoy what's enjoyable, while also acknowledging that someone's missing. Something's missing and it's also hard.

Speaker 1: 2:45

So I think, like those ongoing conversations and recognizing that we can be both grieving and joyful at the same time, or sad and hopeful at the same time, just that sort of continued discourse with our teens- yeah, wow, and thank you for explaining that so well, because that's almost how kind of loss of a loved one kind of feels right the complex emotions, the up and down, like I feel happy because it's the holidays but I feel sad somehow because I'm I'm not sure why. I should be all the shoulds right, I should be feeling a specific way. I should be feeling happy because it's a joyous time. Can you talk a little bit more to those complex emotions, especially when it comes to teens, because they are not even at times able to identify that they have right, like so many complicated emotions and then a lot of times they shut down.

Speaker 2: 3:51

Yes.

Speaker 1: 3:52

Right.

Speaker 2: 3:53

Yes, so it's funny because as a therapist, I always joke that. You know, my son has been taught feeling words since he was in utero, but does he?

Speaker 1: 4:02

use those feeling words.

Speaker 2: 4:04

No, for my one son in particular, I really have to tune into any behavioral changes in him. It varies kid to kid. But I will say first of all that appetite, sleep and just mood, talkativeness versus being quiet, you know changes in behavior, changes in personality, but but appetite, sleeping, two of the big ones that we can tune into. Sometimes, if they are not saying I feel sad or I feel conflicted, sadness isn't the only feature of grief, right? I mean, there certainly can be sadness, there can also be relief, depending on who passed and how they passed. There can be guilt, there can be anger, there can be frustration, there can be hopefulness. One thing that I think is not really unique to teens, but that teens may have a more difficult time recognizing and articulating than some adults, is that you know, we just mentioned briefly how. You know, I should be happy because it's the holidays, for instance, but I'm sad because I miss my pop-up or whomever. But the converse is true. Like, here I am at the holidays, I'm having a good time, but I should be sad because my sibling died. How can I be having a good time when my sibling died? And so there's conflict there too, right? So anyway. So I think, of course, normalizing that and just continuing to reinforce to our kids that, yes, it can be both. You can, for instance, enjoy this holiday moment and be very sad that your brother is gone, or be very confused that your life has changed, or wish he were here, but still get excited when your grandmother brings out your presence. It can be both. But yeah, but in terms of, like, recognizing and identifying grief in teens, my approach and I'll say with specifically with my two teen boys who've had their own significant losses is watching for behavioral changes, like how much they're talking or not, sleeping, eating an appetite and sometimes just mood.

Speaker 2: 6:21

I've also found for me with our one teen who is not particularly talkative and expressive, that sometimes I have to propose to him explicitly what I think he might be experiencing. And you have to be careful. We don't want to put words in anyone's mouths, but two years ago he had a really rough time at Christmas, and this was a year I might be doing the math wrong a year or two after some of our beloved family members died, the primary one for him being my mom, his grandmother, who was really a second parent to him for most of his life. And he did, he slept all through Christmas, literally, wouldn't even come down to eat, and he was asleep, not faking it asleep, and but he wouldn't, you know, say what was going on. He didn't say anything was wrong.

Speaker 2: 7:15

And few days later, when I talked with him, I said you know, this Christmas was really hard because we have some new people in our lives and we have some new blessings and I love them and I'm happy they're here with us and for us.

Speaker 2: 7:31

I'm really missing me, mom, this Christmas, and I wondered if you were to when you were sleeping all through Christmas and he sort of looked at me and his countenance changed. He did not say yes, that's exactly what was going on. But do you know, in the next moment he just started chit chatting, not related to that, but he just started talking. He had been very quiet. So I think, sometimes giving kids the opportunity to help them identify what they might be feeling or what you think might be going on and it might not be true, but to propose, I think maybe you're sad about this, do you think you're feeling a little guilty about this, or you know, it's OK to feel this way and that way it can help. They might not acknowledge to you that, that's you know, on point. But it gives them some sort of language to put to these complex emotions.

Speaker 1: 8:22

Yeah, yeah, and you mentioned you know sort of and, if it's OK for me to ask, you know that your mom passed away and she was kind of a second mom to your, you know one of your to your teen. Yeah, in that kind of situation where your grief you're feeling the grief as a child and then he's feeling the grief as your child, how do you kind of work around or work with those emotions, because there is so much of grief and then you have the holidays which you most likely have spent with your loved ones, how do you work with sort of those emotions that sometimes may be overwhelming, sometimes may clash, right?

Speaker 2: 9:25

Yeah, this is a great question. I think generally when our teens experience a loss, it almost always is a shared loss, right, like it's almost always someone we've lost as well, even if it's the teens friend, likely it's someone we have come to know and welcome into our home and things like that. More often and more commonly, it's a teens family member, which is our family member too. So when multiple people are grieving the same loss and as a parent you're wanting to be aware of and supportive of your child's needs, but you are bereft yourself, it's extremely challenging. It can be very hard for any two or more grieving people to really be there for each other, in part because we're bereft and sort of up to our eyeballs in grief and maybe don't have the emotional capacity to take on someone else's pain and sort of help and soothe them, and in part because we all grieve so differently and so sometimes it even causes conflicts in families, like how can you be acting normally when your grandmother just died or how come you're crying through Christmas dinner? It's a happy day. We don't always understand each other's grief response, so that can be really tricky. I know in my case, just using my mom's death as an example, I was a single parent at the time and it was just my son and I in the household and I do think in many ways that simplified it because we could both sort of have our respective experiences and be there for each other. There were sort of less variables at play and, like I said, he's been learning feeling words since he was in utero. So I was just open with him about what I was experiencing, not crying to him, not leaning on him for support. But if I burst into tears and say, oh, I just miss me mom, I can't believe she's gone, and he would say yeah, and then he'd go about his business because he doesn't want too much mommy motion. And then if I was concerned about him, I'd say how are you doing today? What are you thinking of? What's going on? Want to make me mom's cookies today? Again, he was never particularly articulate with his feelings, but if I sense something was off, maybe I'd offer some consolation activity that might engage him. Or let's get me mom's ornament and put that up here today I want to hang it here. So in our case it was a little simpler.

Speaker 2: 11:59

In larger families or even in more complex or difficult losses, it becomes really hard. So I have the privilege but misfortune of working with several families who've lost a teen to suicide. The needs of everyone in that family are so acute and the grief of everyone in that family is so intense that even the most bonded, functional, loving families can't be everything to everyone after a traumatic loss like that. When those losses occur, I think it's important to keep this sense of a family unity, but recognizing that each part of that family probably needs their own individual support, either through a grief counselor outside of the family, children or teen grief support groups are a great resource, particularly for folks who've lost a sibling. Well, really, any loss, they exist for any loss. There's a lot of great resources for those, for teenagers Turning outside the family, to people who are perhaps less impacted by this death. So even extended family is reeling when a teenager takes their life.

Speaker 2: 13:23

There's really no one that's just available to be extra emotional support, because everyone's emotional but perhaps further outside the family, more like certain friends who maybe weren't quite as close but can still be a support. I think it's really important that every member of that family get their own respective support, because it's just impossible for everyone to be there for each other together. Did you ever see the movie Stand by Me?

Speaker 1: 13:49

I kind of remember.

Speaker 2: 13:52

Will Wheaton and its four kids go on a trek to find a dead body, and the main character is named Gordie and his brother. His older teenage brother had died in a car accident the year before and there are scenes, particularly in the beginning of the movie, where it shows Gordie going about the house and his brother's no longer there Mom's blank staring, hanging the laundry, dad's zoning out looking somewhere else. All three of them are grieving and hurt, but not one of them can be present for the other. Because of that, I love some of the imagery in that, seeing how isolated it makes people, and that's just sort of a perfect example of how, in that movie for instance, each of those people needed something that they really couldn't get from their family members at the time because everyone was in so much pain. So I think accessing external resources is really important.

Speaker 1: 14:47

Yeah, and I think to your point, it's really hard in that sort of moment in time to be available for each other because we are grieving from a place of confusion. Perhaps At times our fight flight freeze response kind of kicks in and a lot of times I feel like we shut down because we don't want to be saying things that perhaps might not come across as empathetic or understanding, because we ourselves are still figuring it out.

Speaker 2: 15:31

Absolutely, and I think everyone, when they suffer not everyone, but I think many people and just sort of rightly so as part of their initial grief response when they suffer a loss initially are sort of like well, I lost a child, you only lost your brother, or I am the mom, you're only the dad. People rarely say that explicitly but sometimes they do say that and often they feel it Like this loss is worse for me than for anyone else. Clearly it can't be compared that way and clearly everyone is suffering in their own way. But it comes really hard when you're in that much pain to extend the grace and compassion to others and say they're really suffering to sadly. With that level of intensity and grief we can't really put aside our own suffering to easily support another person. It's a really tall task for any person.

Speaker 1: 16:27

Yeah, rightfully so, and so in many ways, I think, as parents although we are, I don't know whether we think that we are able to provide support for our children in general when we have lost a loved one or, for example, our teen has lost a friend whom we've known, Perhaps by suicide. How do we talk to our teen about this traumatic loss? And you mentioned a little bit in terms of, yes, we notice the behavioral changes, we kind of tap into their mood. But to talk about a traumatic death, whether it's by suicide, car accidents, I mean, these things are so common, unfortunately right now how do we start that conversation?

Speaker 2: 17:34

First, I think, by knowing our kids and what each respective kid needs from us. I just keep holding my two boys in my head and just how different they are. They're in the same grade, we're a blended family, they're only 10 months apart, but their personalities are very different and they need very different approaches when it comes to things like this. I think first knowing your own child is important and their personality, their receptivity, their responsiveness, their level of talkativeness, their level of engagement. Some kids absolutely cringe and shrink under really direct conversations. So you and I are therapists and we talk a lot about direct communication. But for some kids that's really painful and maybe not indicated this very direct approach If they're more shy or reserved or private perhaps. So I think you have to start by knowing that Sometimes a conversation about or around what has happened, that doesn't necessarily try to engage the kid, who may be having a really hard time identifying or expressing any bit of their complicated emotions around that.

Speaker 2: 18:56

But, for instance, say, talking to another parent in the community or talking to your spouse in front of your kids, can be an entry point. So talking and my husband and I have learned to do that quite a bit with our kids when there's certain direct conversations we know they won't be receptive to, but we know they're listening to what we're saying. So we might say something like oh my gosh, I am so hurting for this family because that child took his life. Nobody seems to know what happened. It boggles my mind. I'm shocked by it. It terrifies me that something like that can happen so quickly and seemingly without any warning and we'll have conversations like that Again. It's almost like I mentioned before, almost proposing what our kids might be thinking or feeling or need help articulating. But we'll have those conversations in front of the kids, of course. They're welcome into it right and.

Speaker 2: 19:54

I'm not saying we're exposed to kids but we're not saying to them how do you feel about the death of your classmate? Some kids that's great Many teens, it's not, so we'll have conversations like that around them. If you have teens that are more open to direct conversation and you know it can be an opportunity to say something very clear Like this is terrifying to me, and I'm thinking about when I was your age and how awful that would have felt at school with friends. What is it like for you right now? What are people saying at school? How are your friends coping? And sort of start with some of these parallel experiences or parallels not really what I want to say Just sort of get a read from them on how their world is different right now and from there maybe hone in a little more on what they're experiencing, what they're wondering, what they're thinking, and so I think you can get a lot by starting somewhat broadly and honing in based on the teens' comfort level in hearing or expressing these direct things.

Speaker 2: 21:12

I also think for what it's worth, this is just a little side note, and when any kid loses a friend, particularly through suicide, I think those teens need a lot more vigilance from parents for several months. So our teens might have a longer leash, so to speak, and more freedom in their life. And I don't propose that we like rain, that leash in per se, but I do think more supervision, more vigilance, more observing their behaviors, more monitoring some of their interactions, including digital communication, because we know that suicide loss can be confusing and traumatizing to teens and we also know that teens are extremely impulsive, anyway. So I just think I just want to put that out there as sort of another part of that parental role in supporting kids through traumatic loss like a suicide loss. I think they do need more vigilance and TLC from us for a while, even if they don't say they need that.

Speaker 1: 22:30

And thank you for saying that. I think those are such important insights into working through as parents with our teens. I'm also wondering especially with a traumatic loss, there is a lot of guilt and anger that comes with that. And for teenagers who are now impulsive right Developmentally, how does that kind of how can we as parents tap a little bit into that as well? I've had teens who didn't have direct contact with, say, it's not their best friend, but someone in school they heard of them who, for example, overdosed and died, and a lot of that conversation has been around. I knew they were doing drugs or I knew something was going on. Should I have said something? Should I have done something? And it's not a direct friend perhaps? Or even if it is Like there is so much of that survivor's guilt, right, but also just sort of that anger and frustration around, why didn't I do more? And so in that, in those cases, how do we approach? I know it's a tough question, but I'm wondering if there is anything we can do as parents.

Speaker 2: 24:11

I love that question and I think first I would caution parents from initially saying no, no, it's not your fault, you have no blame, because, well, that's ultimately probably true. But that's our first reaction, right?

Speaker 1: 24:28

Like no, no, no, I want to protect you. It's not your fault. Come here, let me give you a hug. You're cool, I'm cool, so I get it.

Speaker 2: 24:35

It is. Excuse me, maybe, yes, like it's not your fault, let's talk about this more but to not entirely dismiss it outright, because to me this is a team showing a very mature self-reflection and self-awareness and recognizing or wondering if and where they have any accountability or responsibility for a friend that was in need, or something like that. So we don't know all the details yet, they come to us and they say something like that. I think it's important to not dismiss it entirely. Maybe you say it's not your fault, let's talk about this, but I think it can be really helpful to explore with them Well, what did you know? What did you do or not do? What do you think you would have done differently? What do you know? Other people did Not always, but often in these cases, rajuda, when we have those sort of conversations, it becomes pretty clear through the course that, whether it's this particular like our child or other people, very often other people have tried to intervene, to bring it to someone's attention, to support the victim of this death, and this occurred anyway.

Speaker 2: 25:54

So very often we can help them. See, look, here's our scope. We can express concern, we can bring it to an adult. If you did some of these things you did everything you should do. If you didn't do some of those things, there were about a dozen other people who also didn't do those things, and so it is not your fault.

Speaker 2: 26:15

And let's think about, if you see a troubled friend or acquaintance again, what you might do differently. If you're not sure, you can come to me and say I've heard that John's been doing this stuff and I'm worried about it. I can help you decide. Do we go to John's parent? Do we talk to John? Do we talk to the principal? But I think to not entirely dismiss it of course we're not gonna say, yes, you should have done something different, right, but to not entirely dismiss it and to allow them to use their growing young adult brains to recognize if there are points of safe and reasonable intervention that they might have done differently, but also then to recognize that ultimately we each have our own defined scope in anyone else's life. We each have our own defined scope, and I love that, by the way, there.

Speaker 2: 27:09

Yeah, I mean I say I'm gonna do another 80s movie reference, but in Dirty Dancing, yeah, baby and Johnny are dancing in the studio and she's sort of mimicking all of the instructions he's given her over the preceding weeks and she says spaghetti arms, this is my dance space. And she sort of draws a little line around her and she says this is your dance space, that's cha-cha. So she separates. You know, you're supposed to be interacting here, I'm supposed to be interacting here, and I think life is a lot like that and it's helpful to teach our kids Like this is your dance space.

Speaker 2: 27:41

You can tell a parent, you can tell an administrator, you can't you can't be responsible, ultimately, for anyone else's actions though. So helping define to them what our role is as friend, family, helper, and where that limit is to, because the last thing we need is our kids to feel hyper responsible for everyone else's downward spiral when they can't intervene. You and I know that as therapists, even right, where our role is truly to help people who may be in a downward spiral, but we can go to their house and take the pipe out of their hand, that's, out of our dance space. So I think that could be a helpful Absolutely lost that reference, by the way.

Speaker 1: 28:26

Sorry to interrupt, but I have to say that that's such and I'm gonna use that. I love it. Yeah, I mean, that's so powerful right To even sort of it's empowering, Like, yeah, let's be in our dance space, but we can still do these different things to help.

Speaker 2: 28:51

That's right, and when we're in our own dance space, we're still dancing. I mean, this is not about disconnecting from other people or saying that's their problem, not mine, but it's saying okay, here's the scope of my influence over your life. I think that's a really helpful thing for teens to learn, especially as they approach older teenage years and late adolescents, early like young adulthood, when some of their good friends will be making some really scary decisions and doing some very scary things, if they're not already right. But I think it's important for them to know okay, they're binge drinking at college every weekend. I don't like it, I'm scared, but I've expressed that concern and there's not much else I can do but be supportive and be nearby. So I think it's helpful to sort of let them work through that a bit. If they come to you with feelings of guilt or responsibility, rather than just saying it's not your fault, let's explore what our responsibilities are to friends or loved ones or people in need and see what you might do differently and what you would do in the future.

Speaker 1: 29:56

Wow, thank you for that, because that is really helpful and I'm kind of sort of shifting gears a little bit here in terms of the holidays, which one.

Speaker 1: 30:13

What are some of the I don't know, maybe appropriate quote unquote ways of honoring our loved ones during the holidays? Right, because, yes, we miss them, yes, we want to celebrate them in so many different ways, but the sadness, guilt, frustration, anger, I mean all of that emotional roller coaster is still very much present. So what are some of the ways in which we can honor them, keep some of the traditions intact without feeling a complete loss or overwhelm?

Speaker 2: 30:58

Yeah. So a couple of things. One, especially in the first season or two after a significant loss, but whatever, but especially that first season or two, I really encourage people and families to do what works for them right now, like, what are we going to do this year? It might not be setting a whole new tradition going forward, it might be completely different in a year or two, but right now, with the rawness of this grief and the acute awareness of this loss or absence, what's going to work for us this year? So, rather than thinking, oh, what are we going to do now for Christmases forever?

Speaker 1: 31:36

I keep using Christmas because that's my big one and that a lot of our tradition is tied to, and I mean perhaps we can talk a little bit about Thanksgiving as well, since it's coming up. But yeah, I totally get that.

Speaker 2: 31:49

So what's going to work this year? But I think incorporating traditions either created by, left by or inspired by the people we're missing is helpful. I think continuing to talk about them before, during and around all holiday functions with extended family, so on. Do not pretend they didn't exist. Do not be scared of making someone cry because you mentioned Uncle John's fruitcake. It's okay if someone cries when we joke about Uncle John's fruitcake because we're all here together, we all miss Uncle John, we don't miss his fruitcake and we're going to laugh about that while we cry about how we miss him or whatever, and that like that's all okay. So some things, let's you know, and every holiday is different, but sometimes at a holiday dinner people may even literally set a place or keep a chair for a missing loved one. They might intentionally light a candle for a missing loved one.

Speaker 2: 32:54

In my family we have a Thanksgiving tradition. For years my uncle hosted and everything's changed since the pandemic. So again, these traditions keep changing. But then the past two years we hosted and we resumed this particular tradition, which was prior to eating, we all had a toast. My uncle would pour a little toast, everyone would get a little cup, you know, and we would say a toast to the loved ones who were no longer with us, that we were missing. That's beautiful, whether they were people who had been present at Thanksgiving dinners in the past or not. So every year that list grows, sadly. But then the converse is, most years the company grows too right, like there are people there who weren't there in prior years. New babies are born, new spouses are welcomed, stepchildren come into the picture or whomever. So the family continues to shift and evolve, even with these new people present at these traditions. Everyone knows that Uncle Jim loved Brandy and we're toasting to the memory of Aunt Jean, carol, nan, uncle Larry, nancy, jeannie, you know all these people that we miss and love, and everyone just sort of calls out the name of whoever's really on their heart that day and whoever they're missing and thinking of brings those people present. In my experience it also allows us it like opens the door to be able to talk about them or include them in parts of the meal and conversation going forward.

Speaker 2: 34:17

So there's one example. Another example is that at Thanksgiving, when my family members hosted, they would put baskets, small baskets, of printed photos out around the living room and dining room, so as we're having little appetizers or talking or watching football. Everyone would be flipping through these photos and sometimes it's like, oh, here's Angela when she was two in a diaper, haha, cute. Sometimes, you know, it's here's my mom at her last Thanksgiving. Sometimes it's who's? This black and white picture of someone I've never seen before, and then we all pass it around. I think that's Aunt Edna. No, no, no, that's the other aunt you know. And it brings to mind people again who aren't there any longer and helps create, I think, a sense of family history, you know. So that's another great tradition that my family did.

Speaker 2: 35:12

And then in our household, like I said, we're a blended family and my adoptive son, my husband's biological son, lost his biological mom when he was nine. My biological son lost my mom when he was 11. Sorry, I'm just thinking so many, so many losses. I have to do the math, but just thinking of their primary ones. So each year when we bring out holiday decorations, especially around Christmas time, we have one ornament that has my mom's handwriting on it says love me, mom. It was, you know, from a card that she had given to my son. We have ornaments that my adoptive son's mom made with my husband when they were married. So you know it says their names on it and he's very protective of these ornaments and he wants to put his mom ornaments on the tree In our house year round, but highlighted in a different way at the holidays. We have a little crystal plaque with his mom's name on it that hangs near our display of family photos.

Speaker 2: 36:25

I never met her.

Speaker 2: 36:26

My son never met her. My husband and she were divorced when she passed. But this is my son's mom and so we keep this tribute to her up year round. I try to. So it's hard getting family recipes from someone who's passed away when other family members have passed away too, but I try to recreate things for him that I know his mom did or liked. I recreate recipes from the whole family, so every year I make the cookies that my grandmother made and the cookies that my mom made and the cookies that my grandfather on the other side of the family made, and we look forward to those.

Speaker 2: 37:10

So things like that I mean it can be relatively simple like that, but I would just say incorporating these people into your present experiences so that they feel less absent. It also makes us cry, I would say the past two years putting up holiday decorations. We all had our own sort of little mood swings because there's people not here, and I think that's part of life. I won't pretend it's not painful, but we also don't wallow in just the pain. It's like the pain and the joy, it's the sadness and the gratitude, it's all of it at once, and so maybe sometimes we stop decorating for a bit and I hug my son and we're like all right, snack break, and we break the moment for a little bit so everyone can get a breather. But those are just some examples of things that can work in terms of maintaining really the presence of our loved ones in some of these traditions.

Speaker 1: 38:10

And those are really helpful ways in which we can keep up with traditions, perhaps start new traditions during this time. I think also what you're saying is that we really have to, on some level, accept the contradictions in our emotions at that time. Right, Absolutely. Which is normal and natural to come up constantly. I'm wondering if there is, or how does spirituality play into grief right? Are there ways in which we can perhaps use our spiritual beliefs when we are grieving Absolutely?

Speaker 2: 38:59

Absolutely, and so this is one of the often missing links or, I would say, underutilized resources that I identify when I'm working with individual grief counseling grief clients. When people have some sense of spiritual connection or some faith system, grief can be processed in an entirely different way, and so very often I work with people who aren't maybe actively spiritually connected or don't actively identify with a certain faith or faith community, but have had that in their life and are interested in reconnecting and interested in resuming a practice or revisiting their faith. Faith and spirituality as a resource is, in my opinion, in my experience as a clinician, one of the best hopes for a healthy grieving process. So what I've also found that what's interesting, rizuda, is that many of my clients, when I start to inquire about faith and spirituality or when we start to talk about their experience of God or their belief in the afterlife, or they say I've never been able to talk about this with a therapist before. Anytime I mention God or prayer or my therapist would say like we sort of we don't do that here, or would shut it down. I think that's a problem. I think that's like just akin to negating an entire portion of a person's holistic health. Right. I'm not going to talk about someone's emotional health without referencing even their physical health, like, oh well, you're sleeping all the time and you're depressed, Maybe get your vitamin D levels checked right, like it has to all be part of it.

Speaker 2: 41:13

So I think leaving out the spiritual component is really dangerous and I think that for families that are listening, for parents that are listening, certainly for clinicians that are listening, I think that is something to revisit with the people you're caring about, with yourself, for your own grief experience. And I'm not even going to give examples, because every faith system, every person's spiritual beliefs are different and I think there's just benefit to any of it, whatever the context, right. But when I have a client who has well, who, quite frankly, there is no spiritual beliefs or their belief is that there is no spirit and there is no God, it is very, very, very hard to help them Because when we are focusing just on what is in this present life, in our physical form, nothing makes sense. Yeah, I mean, there's no consolation. So I think that is sort of an untapped resource for many people and if any version of spirituality or faith connection or religious belief has been part of your experience, I really encourage people to tap back into that. Sometimes it's as simple as just resuming some prayer and it can just be a dialogue type prayer. It doesn't have to be a formal prayer. Sometimes it is going to services, sometimes it's reading religious texts and introducing or reintroducing teens to those concepts. It can be a huge gift.

Speaker 2: 42:52

I also think outside of certain very strong religious communities, that faith, spirituality, religion in the larger culture has been de-emphasized as a resource. So I think our teens are less likely to access that, like if you're not already in quite a religious community. I think our teens are less likely to access that without our direct guidance and support and help. So I think that can be a great role of the parent working with you know, trying to support a grieving teen. Maybe we get. Remember we used to do bedtime prayers when you were little. Let's do that again. Yeah, let's pray for John in heaven. Or let's pray for peace and clarity. Or let's pray for strength that you can get through tomorrow when you feel like your world is crumbling. Or let's pray in gratitude that our family is intact, whatever it might be. So, yeah, I think that's an underutilized resource for sure.

Speaker 1: 43:49

And I totally agree with you and a couple of things that you kind of mentioned in terms of holistic approach. I mean you're absolutely right. I talked to my clients about, yes, mental health, physical health, you know, but also kind of in, you know, emotional health, but also include spiritual health. I mean that is a package Absolutely, and I think that's a holistic approach to who we are, because a lot of times I also think, like with spiritual health comes community, right.

Speaker 1: 44:23

So going to church, going to temple, going to a mosque, places of worship are more growing up in India, like going to temple with my grandmother it was more of a community rather than, you know, like praying as a teen, right. So I would take my grandmother to the temple because I had to accompany her five in the morning, for some reason she would do her prayers, but at the same time I would be somewhere sweeping the temple, because the priest told me, hey, you know, you're 15, you can, you can sweep the temple floor or, you know, work on food prep for people who are coming in, and so it was more sort of an engagement within the community, and I think what you're also, if I understand correctly, is that engagement with your spiritual self, with your religious. You know, places of worship could be a tool to get a lot of support when it comes to grief right.

Speaker 2: 45:29

Support meaning.

Speaker 1: 45:31

Meaning yes, absolutely.

Speaker 2: 45:33

Additional vigilance, right? So let's say, even your teen is I'm Catholic, so I'll just use that as an example. Let's say your teen goes with you to Catholic Mass and they're not super there willingly.

Speaker 1: 45:47

Maybe they're not really engaged in the service, but and I think they're ages to challenge everything, which I completely and absolutely support.

Speaker 2: 45:55

Do it, challenge it and you know, hopefully we'll see you back in 10 years, but maybe they're not really there for the spiritual experience. That they're being there every week means they are known and seen in a larger community. This means when my son, perhaps, is doing something at a school function, that is questionable. And another parent who we know from church because how else would we know them? Because we don't have these opportunities in the school day so much as parents, right, when they're teenagers they're sort of in their own sphere at school. Their parent, who we know from church, says I'm a little worried because I saw your kid doing this right.

Speaker 2: 46:35

That's even outside from the spiritual benefits of that community. It increases the size of their village, it increases our parenting supports, it has other eyes on these kids and other potential mentors or supports or role models for them. Yeah, so you're right. So, like the community itself is such a benefit, even if a teenager is not particularly interested in or tapped into any spiritual life at this point. So I mean it's a great example. I mean there's like benefit upon benefit upon benefit.

Speaker 1: 47:07

Absolutely agree, and I know we are running out of time, but I just quickly wanted you to talk about your book on grief, which we will put in the show notes as a link. If people want to, you know, get it, buy it, read it.

Speaker 2: 47:24

Great yeah. So I wrote a book a couple of years ago called Unmored a Guide for Grieving People.

Speaker 1: 47:32

And it is a small book Absolutely worth the read. I have read it. I have recommended it to a lot of my clients too.

Speaker 2: 47:43

It is. Thank you for that and I'm glad it is very. It's pretty brief, it's only 60, some pages. This is intentional because when we are struggling with grief our cognitive capacity is diminished as it is with any intense emotion, and so it's hard to read when we're grieving. But this is about 60 pages, written in small segments with some journal prompts in it I would say thinking about. I wrote it at the request of some grief counseling clients over the years who kept saying you need to write this down. I'm writing this down. You're going to write a book one day. You need to, you know. So I did. It's very small, it's self published.

Speaker 2: 48:23

Folks find it helpful, I think primarily because it normalizes so many of these aspects of grief that we don't recognize as grief and normalizes the complexity of emotions and feeling states after a loss that are not always just sadness. I didn't write it for teens. I think most teens could, you know it's certainly written at a level that teens could read, but I certainly think, as a parent of teens and as a parent wanting to support teens through grief, reading it and noting some of these complex emotions and could help you, help your child, identify what they're going through and what they might need, and can also give you a little more compassion for their experience or your own if you are also grieving. So yeah, so if you check it out, I hope you like it. It's something that people pass along pretty easily when a friend has a loss, or people will bring it to a funeral, things like that.

Speaker 1: 49:30

And I like to think it's helpful for folks. I can completely vouch for that. It is very helpful. It has been for me and my clients. I have so many more questions and I want you to come back. Yes, you and I. Yes, yes, absolutely. You have to be on the show again, but thank you so much for your wisdom and beautiful tips and insights on how to handle grief during the holidays and other times.

Speaker 2: 50:03

Thank you. Thank you, rajuda, it was nice to be here. Thank you, thank you.