The UnlearnT Podcast
The UnlearnT Podcast is designed to help you gain the courage to change your mind about things you never thought you would change your mind about. Our hope is that you will begin to move towards a life of freedom after hearing stories from individuals who have chosen to unlearn some things in their lives.
The UnlearnT Podcast
Talks With Middle Adults: Grieving IS Living
The episode dives deeply into the complexities of grief and loss, featuring insights from Joinne Chandler, author of "Life After Loss." Listeners are encouraged to embrace their emotions and understand that grieving is a personal and ongoing journey.
• Importance of asking for help during grief
• Unlearning the perception that grief has a timeline
• Navigating uncomfortable conversations about loss
• Exploring cultural reflections on grieving
• Honoring the journey of grief without rushing
• The significance of being a safe space for grief
• Understanding coping mechanisms in grief
• Biblical insights on navigating loss and healing
• Encouraging freedom in processing emotions
Joinne invites listeners to order her book "Life After Loss" found on Amazon or other platforms, emphasizing its utility in processing grief through a faith-based lens.
yo, yo yo. What's up everybody and welcome once again to the un-blurt podcast. I am your host, ruth abigail aka ra. What's up, friends, it's your girl, jaquita yo, and this is the podcast that is helping you gain the courage to change your mind so that you can experience more freedom. And we have a special guest in the building Me and Jaquita's very, very close Best friend, john, a Chandler in the building.
Speaker 2:Everybody, john, look is what I call it.
Speaker 1:We will basically be referring to her as nene from here on out, just so you know. Um, but uh, but yeah, we have known each other. We've all known each other for about 20 years. We were talking about that before we got on. We don't like saying it more than once, so that'll be it. Oh, yep, no more. That's it, um, but uh, this amazing woman has written a book, um, and it is called Life After Loss, and, as you know that, we are, in our series, talking about the kitchen table and the things that we've had to unlearn from our kitchen table, which means things that we had to unlearn from growing up, around our family, community or society, and so we actually are going to talk about something that is tough. Right, that's hard for a lot of people. We want to talk about what we've unlearned from our kitchen table around grief, loss and death. And so, ja'nae, welcome to the podcast, and we're so happy to see you.
Speaker 3:Thank you, thank you. I'm a huge fan of the Unlearned podcast, so it's such an honor.
Speaker 1:You don't have a choice.
Speaker 3:It's such an honor to be on here with my sister.
Speaker 1:Yeah, man, we really are family y'all. It's crazy. We're family for real. We really are like for real.
Speaker 2:Um, if y'all would remember I think I spoke on a previous podcast about the wonderful friend who let me sleep on her couch for you oh, that that's good to know, sir. That's so good. Oh, listen, you know I'm going to make her look real good. Okay, I owe her. I owe her a year of my life because, uh, she provided for me in the time of need, come on. So forever grateful to Jhene.
Speaker 3:It was a mutual beneficial arrangement. She prepared me for marriage. It was all good.
Speaker 2:I really did, I really did.
Speaker 1:Oh, that's amazing. I love it. Ja'nae, why don't you start off by telling us a little bit about who you are and what brought you to writing this book? Why'd you write the book?
Speaker 3:Yes, so I am Ja'Nae Chandler, author of Life After Loss 30 Days of Hope for Moms Grieving After Miscarriage, and I am a mom. I have three earthly kids, one heavenly child named Ohio. I'm married to Emanuel Chandler. He's amazing. I love him so much.
Speaker 3:And what prompted me to write the book was I was going through my own miscarriage journey, my own grief and healing journey, and there were not a lot of resources, there were not a ton that were biblically based and that really resonated with me, definitely not a lot for Black women.
Speaker 3:And so on my drive, I think I was taking Isaiah to school, to daycare, and I just heard God say life after loss, and he started showing me different women in the Bible who experienced grief. We don't hear like a ton about women in the Bible all the time. They kind of play supporting actors, if you will, to main characters many times in the Bible. And so God, just the Lord, began just showing me different women in the Bible who experienced grief and loss. There's Hannah, who is one that's really known for infertility, and Mary, the mother of Jesus, who lost her son, and Rahab, who experienced loss. She was shunned from society. And it goes on and on. And so I began to draw strength and healing from their stories, and I've captured those in Life After Loss, along with my personal reflections to scriptures and prayers. It's beautiful.
Speaker 1:That's awesome. Um, I so this is going to be more of a conversation. So, just in case you want to, we're not going to interview really Jhane like we're going to talk and like we're going to all kind of share some things we've had to unlearn, um, around grief, loss and death and so, um, yeah, so let's just. I mean, I would love to hear you know from you, janay, like why don't you kick us off by what is something you've had, what is something that you've unlearned as a result of going through that process? And, yeah, and how does how has it become more free? Because I think the idea of life is, when I think about that, it's freedom is wrapped into that. Like you can be free after a loss that deeply, and so, like, what's something you've had to unlearn in order to become more free?
Speaker 3:I think one of the things. I've had to unlearn is not asking for help. So anytime you go through grief and loss, I think there's a tendency I'll speak for myself to kind of implode or kind of retreat and naturally I'm an introvert anyway. So to kind of retreat and to go to myself and process my feelings and emotions by myself. And I really had to unlearn that. I had a good friend of ours. Her name is Erica called me every day for like two weeks and I was so annoyed initially by it.
Speaker 1:Cause I'm like asking me to express my feelings.
Speaker 3:That's hilarious. But she like purpose to. She purposed to call me like multiple times a day, at least once a day, and check in and be like how are you feeling today, what are you thinking about? And I didn't like that exercise and process, but it really did help me to begin healing. I learned that I'm more of a heal, someone that has delayed grief, like where grief doesn't hit you right away.
Speaker 1:And so.
Speaker 3:I again have the tendency to kind of bottle things up inside, and so having that person to like constantly check in and make me put emotions and feelings to what I was experiencing really was freedom for me. It helped me to kind of get things off my chest and to not carry that load by myself and grieve alone.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I think I'm a little like that. I don't like to express my feelings.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I don't like it. They're not my favorite thing to talk about.
Speaker 1:It's tough, like I don't. I think, you know, I kind of broke that barrier, at least in me and Ty's relationship not too long ago, where he saw me cry for the first time and we've been together for four years and so and he had never seen me like that but it's, I couldn't contain it anymore, like it was like what was happening on me, I could not and I just and I just released it and it was, but it was such a healing moment for us and he was like I appreciate this so much, like I feel like this was. You know, I never want you to feel like you can't break in front of me and I was like you don't want to, I don't want to break in front of nobody.
Speaker 2:Like no, for real. Like I shared a room with Ruth Abigail and, I think, for four years, well for three. And I don't know, I don't know that. I feel like I may have heard a sniffle once.
Speaker 1:You know like, yeah, I think she would intentionally wait for me to leave the room oh for sure, like there was no way, but like that was, but it was freeing, because then it was like I needed to be to get to the breaking point in order to believe that somebody could handle my breaking point.
Speaker 3:Because I think that was, that was part of the problem yeah, I think we oftentimes need a safe place to land our emotions, yeah, and our feelings and our grief too, like our grief has to have a safe place to land yeah, no that's really good, I think, for me.
Speaker 2:I always had. I felt like I had to unlearn the idea that grief was something that you just get over. You might feel it. You know, like they all say at the funeral, did you release?
Speaker 2:As if, like, I'm going to release one time and then I'm going to be excellent from here on out, because I released the grief and I think that, like, I had to unlearn the idea that grief is not something that you have to walk through and process through and that there won't always be that, that that sense of loss there.
Speaker 2:Like you don't, you don't feel the loss with something else. You, you know your life may get bigger around the loss, but it's still there. May get bigger around the loss, but it's still there. And so I think that I had to, I had to unlearn the idea that, like, all right, I'm going to feel this for a little bit and then we're going to be just fine, right, and learning, learning how to just really live with it and live in it. And I think, I think grieving, the process of grieving is grieving is really getting you to a place where you can be okay with the loss. Because I don't think that, and I think that I don't think we give people enough time to not be okay as well, absolutely yeah, and we oftentimes don't know what to do when they're not okay.
Speaker 3:Or to say, yeah, I remember I had a friend who lost her father and she's like a really good friend, she's like a sister to me, and I'll never forget the sound I heard when she told me it's just, it's so uncomfortable to be on the receiving end of that, like if you are the safe place where someone trusts you enough to share their grief or loss journey with you, it naturally we as humans want to kind of rush it along, fill the space with sounds or words or, you know, be like it's going to be okay. And I just went to a funeral A dear friend of mine. Her mom passed away suddenly and at the funeral her cousins kept saying it's going to be okay, it's going to be okay, it's going to be okay, you're going to be okay, she's like no, I'm not Stop saying that. And I think that we, like you were saying Jaquita want to rush grief, think that grief has a time limit because it doesn't Like.
Speaker 3:Mary, the mother of Jesus, watched her son be crucified and the first thing he did, jesus did when he was on the cross, was gave Mary a safe place to land her grief. She said son, behold your mother, mother, behold your son. And she entrusted John to like walk with her on her grief journey, and so we have to be okay, like you both are saying, not rushing people through their healing journey.
Speaker 1:You don't know when it's going to hit, you don't know when your response is going to. You know it's not a controllable thing and I like what you said, janaye it's cyclical, like it's seasonal, right? I have a team member who lost her mom to cancer and she, you know, there was a time not too long, like she was, like you know, it's my mom's birthday. We're gonna go to the gravesite. I may or may not be there for staff meeting, I don't know how I'm gonna be cool, no problem, right? I totally understand that that kind of.
Speaker 1:But understanding how to, how to manage your um movements with people in that moment, in those moments it is, can be challenging because you don't always know, you don't always know what to do, and I think that that is. I think it's really important to allow people the space, like you said, I think one of you said I can't remember who was but the space to, like you said, I think one of you said I can't remember who it was but the space to do this in the timing that they need to do it Right, like and, and not not rush it or or or, because ultimately we're uncomfortable with it. It's like you know, I don't know what to do with this, so I'm going to push my discomfort onto you.
Speaker 3:And I don't like how it feels.
Speaker 1:I don't like how it feels to me, and so it must not feel good to you. So let's both get out of this. It's like no, no, no, no, no, no. We have to allow other people to do what they do. When they do it, and be there. It's like that's really the most important thing is just to be there, yeah.
Speaker 3:Just sit there Like space and grace. Give people space and grace to process it how they need to and to not try to fix it. Yeah, not try to fix it, which is hard to do. When you said that it can come at any moment, that reminded me I wrote about this in the book, but it was a few months after I had a DNC procedure and the like health systems support group called me for, like, perinatal loss to tell me that they had support groups if I needed one.
Speaker 3:I was on my way to a dentist appointment and it's humorous how I write it but it wasn't humorous at the time but they caught me. I was like turning the corner into the dentist's office and they were like this is Tri-Health calling from our support group for infant loss. If you're interested, how are you doing? They asked me how I was doing. I was like I'm actually doing pretty well, so hung up the phone, go into the dentist. This is during COVID. So they are making me like rinse my mouth out with hydrogen peroxide, probably like 15 minutes later after the call, 20 minutes later, I'm sitting in the dentist chair and the lady asked me to like swish my mouth out with peroxide. So I don't give her COVID and I do that, and then the tears just start coming like uncontrollably. She's like I've never seen someone have this reaction.
Speaker 3:I was like she's like are you okay? I was like no, I'm not okay, I just lost my baby. And she's like I am so sorry. And so the thing about infant loss is like your hormones in your body still feels like you're pregnant and so everything about that appointment was horrible. Like because your gums are sensitive when you're pregnant, and so everything about that appointment was horrible. Like cause your gums are sensitive when you're pregnant, all that kind of stuff. But that one call, kind of in the moment I was okay, but like 20 minutes later I wasn't, and so grief happens that way too. Like you can totally not. Someone may have asked you something a while ago, and then it hits you like what they asked you later, and you're like I literally all I could do is let the tears fall. I literally couldn't stop them. And I think that's what we have to do to heal. We have to go through the process.
Speaker 1:Yeah, got to go through the process and I think, like you said, let me, let me. Let me, let me say this, let me ask this question Uh, what, how old were y'all when you first went to your first funeral? I'm curious.
Speaker 2:I think you know I think about this a lot because I actually have a pretty young family and so growing up there weren't a lot of funerals. It wasn't until I hit maybe my late teens that, like my great aunts and uncles started passing and it was just kind of like a. It was a very strange phenomenon by then because they were happening so infrequently that like it really kind of shook us. And I will tell you, the first funeral that I really remembered and had like a lot of feelings about was my great auntie. She was like big mama, everybody's big mama. Even she was my grandma, because my grandma is the second youngest of nine kids and my auntie was the oldest. She was my grandma's big mama even she was my grandma because my grandma is the second youngest of nine kids and my aunt reed was the oldest. She was my grandma's big mama almost. You know, like she was just everybody's person.
Speaker 2:And when she passed I think that was the first time that like a funeral like broke me like and I was like, oh my gosh, like'm never going to see her again. And I remember being deeply moved at that funeral just hearing the stories people were telling about her and stuff I didn't know she was doing and I also left that funeral with a charge, like I was, like I have to. Her life has to continue on through me in whatever ways, like parts of her in me. I have to make sure that I'm carrying her story forward. Um, but that's the. That's the first one that really set with me and I think I was in college when that happened. I think I was around 20. Yeah, okay.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think I was older too. Fortunately I haven't had a ton of people in my family to pass away and, like I've lost grandparents, that's probably the closest. I've lost three grandparents, that's the closest. That like has been super close to me and it's all been, I feel like in my adult years. So I don't, I don't recall going to attend a funerals when I was younger.
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's what I find. I asked that because you know I find that. So we grew up in a church that was, I mean you, everybody supported everything. I mean our church community was very tight.
Speaker 1:And your dad was a pastor, so I'm sure you yeah, well, yeah but even before that, right Like that, before he was a pastor, just he was a minister or whatever. But the church that I grew up in, from, like my childhood, before my teenage years, you know it was a pretty medium-sized church, 600, 700 people members, whatever. But the pastor was a very strong leader and where he went the people followed. I say that to say I started going to funerals probably before I was 10. But from people that I didn't even really know that well, because somebody passed, everybody went, it wasn't just the family you went like and so and I we had some early deaths in my family. I had some cousins that had some physical disabilities that passed early on, and so those things happened.
Speaker 1:But I think one of the things I have had to unlearn is that, because of my experience, a lot of people are not as comfortable with death as I feel like I grew up with and it's like just because it's like, and also I grew up in a church and you know, on top of my parents that are highly, very theologically and doctrinally like sound. That's a core, that was a core thing of us growing up. Death, from the way that I interpreted as a child was um, you know, it wasn't that grief wasn't important, but that grief it was natural.
Speaker 1:Well, it was it, it, it was natural, but it was more so like but the word of God remains true. It was always that, it was always. The word of God is above the grief. The word of God is, is, is, is, trumps the grief, right Um death, we don't. We don't. We don't grieve as people who don't know what's true, right Like that, have no hope, right, thank you, cause you know my script.
Speaker 1:It was a little off, um, but that was the way I thought about death and it was just like okay, we're going to cry, kind of what you said. We're going to cry, we're going to release, we're going to move on Because we know the truth and this is just part of life, right? On one hand, I'm grateful for that. On the other hand, I realized that it stunted my, I think, emotional growth and health around loss. I think emotional growth and health around loss because I don't think I learned how to grieve properly, because we were very much a move forward kind of mentality, right, we're going to keep moving, and so much like it was so ingrained in our conversations early on, like my early teenage years, my father, when he would go, he would travel a lot when he would go he would send.
Speaker 1:I remember it was before I left home, so it was pre-18 that he sent me the insurance information in case he was. It was like, if something happens, this is what you got to do. This is before I graduated high school. He still send a text with all the information, right. He has sent me and I'm the oldest, so he does this for me the most. He sent me the the way he wanted his funeral, right, the people he wanted to speak, the songs he wanted, sung the way he wanted. The bit. I'm all of it. I have it. I could tell you what it is, but I've been hearing it for years, right, and so it's like it's just always been in front of me, right, and again, on some level. I'm grateful for that because it is an emotional preparation for what is inevitable, but on the other hand, I never want to be callous to it.
Speaker 1:You know what I'm saying. Like, I feel like I built up a little bit of a callousness. You know what I'm saying? Yeah, but also I realized that, hey, that's not normal.
Speaker 3:I wouldn't say that it is.
Speaker 1:I mean you're prepared, we can call you, Be like what are we supposed to do For real, like that's, I mean, but they did that, but I think it's, it is also um, I've also had to learn how to sit with people in a way that was uh honoring of what they needed to go through, even though it wasn't something that I fully understood, I love that, yeah, yeah, I mean that's the positive of it for sure yeah, yeah, yeah.
Speaker 2:I think that I don't know if this is cultural or if this is just like a lot of people's experience, but I think that when you, I think that we are taught culturally, like sometimes, as black women especially, we are taught to just push through it, like you got other things to worry about.
Speaker 2:You got other things that you know need your immediate attention and grief can sometimes feel like a luxury that we don't always have the time and the energy to really put into it's, I can sit here and grieve and I think if you look at at, there are examples of people that you may know who really got overtaken by their grief and it stopped them. And it not only stopped them, it also stops the people that they're attached to, right? And I think that a lot of times we try to like not be, though, we try to not get stuck in those moments, but you do have to give yourself time to process. I think that that's something that I learned by watching friends go through grief and grieving moments. I've had a few friends now that have lost parents, which was really, really, you know, it was shocking to me, even as a friend, but it immediately was like, okay, how are we going to surround this person or be there for, be there for that person, in a way, like I'm not going to be able to take the place of that person, but I, like John they said, learning to be a safe place can be an exploration, right, and I think one thing that I have kind of like, like titled myself as like my friend's grief partner, is that I'm going to be the person that they can have the honest conversation with. Like I'm going to ask the questions that, like, other people may not be asking because they're trying to tiptoe around things, you know, but I feel like I have learned to have really good one on one conversations with people.
Speaker 2:Now, the part that always gets me is that home visit. You know, like after someone has passed and everybody goes to the house, that that's always the part that's like all right, all right, I bought some chicken. That's always the part that's like all right, all right, I bought some chicken. You know I'm not. You know I'm going to sit there and I'm going to try to find the moment and get in the rhythm. But those moments change a lot. But I think if you learn how to have those like, your friendship with that person has not changed. You know, like you can still be the same friend that you've already learned to be to that person.
Speaker 2:But a lot of times after, after a loss, people switch up, you know, and they they either become like the hey, I got five scriptures for you right now. I got them locked and loaded. Okay, you know they, they took on that. They took off that old man and put on that new one. All right, they got on that white robe with a crown, you know. And so, like you know, they up there when the streets are growing, they wouldn't want to be here.
Speaker 1:What do you mean? What are we talking about right now?
Speaker 2:But I think that those things have their place right. Like I think hearing that in a church setting is amazing, Like it's uplifting the congregation and now I'm joining in the uplift that everyone's feeling. But when I'm in a room by myself, I'm going to be sitting there like what you mean, they ain't want to be here. Like what you, what, what you mean, why would they leave? And so I think a lot of times we don't always read the moment.
Speaker 1:Yeah.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I don't think we always undergrief very well. To your point, jaquita, I think there's a balance, right, and which is why I'm glad the Lord began showing me people in the Bible who I could look to. Because, to your point, jaquita, I think we're often taught the church doesn't do a great job about teaching us how to handle grief. I think a lot of times we're, you know, for we look not at the things which are seen, for the things which are seen are temporary, but the things which are unseen are eternal. Or, to your point, jaquita, now they're in heaven. Shouldn't you be happy, like I'm, like, yes, but I lost my mom, I lost my child, I lost my, and you don't just grieve like the physical loss, you grieve everything connected to it. You grieve If you're going through divorce, you grieve the life that you thought you were going to have with this person or who you married or what kids you were going to have.
Speaker 3:If you're grieving the loss of a child, like I thought about it today, yesterday, y'all, I have a confession.
Speaker 3:I just put away my Christmas trees yesterday and listen, but don't judge.
Speaker 3:And one of the things that I've done to grieve, journey our baby in heaven is I get her a Christmas ornament every year and so, like yesterday, I put it away and I like thought about you know the, how old she would be she would be older than Ivy is and like what kinds of things would she like? And in those moments I think, culturally too I don't know if I can say this or not I feel like we all, we kind of run from grief sometimes, like we don't honor it the way it should be honored. And so I think that, to your point, jaquita, like there's those moments if you need to heal, heal, like, take the moment and grieve. You're not going to be any less of a Christian because you grieve no, that's it, yeah. Or because you're disappointed in God, or you're upset with him and you're wondering why he took your mom, he took your child, he took your spouse, yeah, like we're human with human emotions, and he understands all of them, because he was human too.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think I think, taking the approach that you can't afford to grieve, you will find it more costly to hold it than it is to allow God to help you work through it.
Speaker 2:Right, and I think we, especially as black women just because there's three Black women on this call Sorry, I thought I didn't say something Four, Well, there's four, including Producer Joy, who wanted us to make sure she was recognized in this conversation but especially as Black women, I think that we don't always give ourselves those moments and I think that culturally, we're told that we can't afford it. But the suppressing what's coming to mind is Anita Phillips. Right, If you haven't read or listened to anything that Dr Anita Phillips has written or produced, please hop on that train. She is healing the nations. Hop on that train.
Speaker 2:I saw her at one of TD Jake's leadership conferences and she talked about how she teaches her clients to literally like tap or like pat out their grief because it's being stored in your body, Like all of that emotional distress and trauma and all of those things that you've gone through, that you haven't processed through. It gets stored in your body, Like there. Your body is holding on to what you want to allow God to work out with. Body is holding on to what you want to allow God to work out, work out of you, and so that's why in our communities, especially with some of our, with our men, with our women in other communities, you, we are seeing cardiovascular issues grow Like.
Speaker 3:I know we've heard high blood pressure, diabetes, all of these things that are suicide ideation.
Speaker 2:Like I work on a college campus y'all, I cannot tell you how much our babies are suffering from all communities and when I say all communities, I'm talking international, I'm talking local, I'm talking rich, I'm talking poor, I'm talking across all spectrums, Our young people. There is a struggle there, right, and it's building up on the inside of us because we are not properly teaching each other and we are not properly supporting each other through grief and not just grief. We're not properly supporting each other through emotions and not just grief. We're not properly supporting each other through emotions period.
Speaker 2:Because I think with grief, with grief also comes anger, yeah, right. And we don't know how to help people process anger besides telling them to shut it down, right, yeah. And so I think that we, as a community as and not when I say community I mean all of us I think that we have, think that we have to learn to support each other as we process through things.
Speaker 3:Yeah, go ahead. No, you can go ahead, no you go ahead. Okay, so there's two things that come to mind talking about allowing people to grieve. So I'm on this new show. It's called Matlock and the new Matlock.
Speaker 1:The new one with Kathy Bates.
Speaker 3:Kathy Bates is amazing in it, by the way, and she is actually trying to work for this law firm because she lost her daughter to drugs. Her daughter died due to drugs and her husband's like you really don't have to do this, you really don't have to do this. She's trying to do like an inside job, like get them from the inside out, because there's knowledge that she has that this company knew that these drugs were hurting people, but they didn't take them off the market. And so, long story short, she tells her husband. She says this is my last time to parent our daughter, let me do this.
Speaker 3:And so, even though it was really hard for her to go through the process she's going through, she wanted to parent her child still, who's no longer with her. And so that's what we have to do with grief. We have to hold it. I can still parent my daughter, who's in heaven here, and I do that by getting her an ornament every Christmas or by talking about her with Isabella and Isaiah, and we have to give people that outlet to do that Because, to your point, jaquita, if we don't, it goes somewhere, the energy goes somewhere, and a lot of people are walking around with unresolved grief and it's manifesting in other areas.
Speaker 1:And I like to your point, queda, about young people. You know, there is this perceived idea that I shouldn't have to struggle and that life, the life that I'm looking for, is without struggle, is without negative emotions, and so we don't do a good job, I think, of you know, in service to protecting and I think, in a more of a toxic way than anything else, the younger generation from things that maybe we have experienced, we got to allow. I do think it's important because some things are inevitable, right, loss is inevitable, that you don't know what, but at some point loss is going to hit you If you are not properly prepared for that. It does manifest itself in all these things. It does manifest itself in all these things physically, mentally, um, you know, and, and it looks, I mean the, the levels of addiction and dope, dope to dopamine that we have today. I mean it's just unbelievable, right, um.
Speaker 1:But a big part of that is like I don't want to feel the negative things.
Speaker 1:I don't know how to handle negative feelings because I've never needed to, nobody's ever.
Speaker 1:It's like there's been this layer of protection against that and we do a disservice to generations coming after us by trying to be overly protective of things that we think are going to hurt them, but then you can't prevent the things, some things you can't prevent, and so I think it's so important that we try to help younger people. Sit in hard stuff and don't try to help them, don't try to do anything, Stay back, let them feel it, and that's not cruel, that's love, because if I don't teach you how to do that, if I try to help you at every turn, you're not going to be able to handle things when nobody's there to help you, because there are going to be moments where nobody's there and you've got to figure out, because there are going to be moments where nobody's there and you've got to figure out, how do I manage this feeling that I didn't ask for and didn't expect without destroying my life? And we see a lot of young people running to things that are destroying them, even though it doesn't feel like destruction right now.
Speaker 3:It feels like protection, but it's destruction because we don't allow people to struggle, and it's coping too. I think we have to be careful when we're going through our grief about how we cope. So I have to take it back to the Bible. Come on, because there's two there's.
Speaker 2:Don't laugh at me Y'all thought I would say you ain't met, you ain't lying. Okay, I just want to be clear.
Speaker 1:We'd be putting up with some stuff that I'd be saying Jhene would not Go ahead.
Speaker 3:So, as we're talking about grieving and coping and how we manage and handle our grief, there's two the Lord showed me this this morning there's two women in the Bible that are diametrically opposed to how they handle grief. There's the woman at the well and there's the woman with the issue of blood.
Speaker 3:And so the woman at the well. Jesus came to her. She was grieving. She was grieving and didn't know she was grieving. She was grieving and didn't know she was grieving. Jesus came to her, went the other way just to get to her because she was grieving and did not realize she was experiencing loss. She came to the well every single day to get filled. Never got filled, was coping with bad relationships with men who didn't love her.
Speaker 3:She had no self-worth and it wasn't until Jesus ministered to her actual need that she was able to no longer grieve, because that's what she was grieving. She was grieving rejection. She was grieving being treated as an outsider. She was living with men who she wasn't married to and was coping through her sexual relationships to fill a void that she didn't know she had. But the woman with the issue of blood knew she had a need. She had been bleeding for 12 years and had tried absolutely everything, had spent her money, had visited all the doctors and knew of Jesus, already believed in Him and went to Him and in her touching the hem of His garment, he met other needs. She had emotional needs, insecurities that she had being an outcast, that she had being an outcast.
Speaker 1:Like he met all the needs.
Speaker 3:And so grief leaves voids. But we have to go back to our creator. We have to go back to God, because he can minister like to the void that grief left, but he can also minister to everything connected to that void as well.
Speaker 1:That's good.
Speaker 3:And I think that's important when we're coping, that we're coping in healthy ways and not unhealthy ways, because it's easy to cope in an unhealthy way, I think it's easier to cope in an unhealthy way For sure, because you don't have to confront it.
Speaker 2:I think what makes coping so difficult is that you don't realize you're coping.
Speaker 2:I think that we call coping other things. We think that if our coping, the woman at the well was making it work for her. Right, she was all right, I'm gonna go to the well in the middle of the day, you know I'm gonna, I'm gonna do what I gotta do and I'm gonna make it work for me, you know. And so we put a badge of honor that, like I, I can persevere, I can go through hard things. You know I can, I can, I can, you know, be in a tough situation and still be okay. And it's like, baby, you're not okay, yeah, You're not okay.
Speaker 2:And so I think it takes somebody pointing out hey, do you know that this ain't the life you're supposed to have, Right that you have built up a false structure?
Speaker 2:of a life that is not your real life. Yeah, and it takes Jesus coming to you at a well and introducing you, because the first thing he said to her was give me a drink, Meaning like I want to build a rapport, a relationship, a connection with you. And then it was I got some living water. You got to get introduced to another option so that you will leave the false identity that you've built or the false way of living that you build up. You have to be introduced to something better.
Speaker 1:I think this is so important. I want to like what the cause? The thing that I'm hearing really loudly from um, from what you all have both said, jeanne, and specifically your examples, is that, um, you know no matter, jesus will meet those who are running to him or waiting for him. Right, um? And either either way you're, you will. Jesus will either run into you or you run into him, if you allow it.
Speaker 1:That's right, and um so I think that those are great examples of like two people who were struggling and Jesus met them from either end. Like one did not know that she needed it, but when it came she didn't reject it and she didn't know him.
Speaker 3:She didn't know him Like she didn't reject it and she didn't know him.
Speaker 1:She didn't know him.
Speaker 1:But she came to know him she came to know him and then the other one was looking like I need help. I got and ran into him, and so I think, just knowing, just know that if you are in a season where you may not know you're grieving, you may not be able to call it that, right that don't reject what comes to you, to question whether or not this is the life that you want, right, don't reject it. And then, for those of you that are running and searching, you will find him. Like, he's not, he's not hiding, um, you might have to get through some crowds, but he'll find him. And so, uh, I just, I think that's a great encouragement because everybody, people in different places, and, uh, absolutely jesus exists in all of that. And so you see how we got real churchy here. That's because y'all not here.
Speaker 3:I had to share it because I I've been studying the woman at the well, but not no, I'm sorry, I've been studying the woman with the issue of blood. This morning I was reading about the woman at the well and I'm like she's grieving too, that's real no that's real.
Speaker 1:No, that's real, and that that's how I was. I didn't know. I was grieving and I was grieving. That's, that's really good. Um, any last words, it's probably not the right phrasing. That was sad, that wasn't good listen'all.
Speaker 2:Go buy the book, ja'nae, tell them how they can get it. Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah, it's not just about processing infant loss. Yeah, like, grief is present in all areas of our life and this is a great devotional to help you to work through some of those feelings, some of those thoughts and some of those coping mechanisms that we've been building up. So, ja'nae, tell the people how they can get it?
Speaker 3:Yes, so you can order it on Amazon. If you type in Life After Loss 30 Days, you'll come right up, right to it. It's on Barnes, Noble, Walmart and Apple Books. You can connect with me on Instagram at Life After Loss Devo D-E-V-O or online lifeafterlossbookorg. I would love to hear from you if you purchase the book and how it's ministering to you. It is a 30-day devotional and we go through the whole grief cycle. So miscarriage is the lens, infant loss is the lens, but it really does apply to any form of loss that you may be experiencing.
Speaker 1:Thank you, and thank you for sharing, thank you for being transparent and coming, and we just want to let anybody know that whoever wants to invite Jhane onto their podcast, you feel free. Um and uh, she'll come for a very small fee. Uh, so there you go.
Speaker 2:That fee is going to go to Ruth Abigail.
Speaker 1:Ruth Abigail getting 10% off her booking agent off the top, no, but uh, no, I was just playing. So, um, hey y'all, let's, uh, let's keep, um, let's keep unlearning together so that we can experience more freedom, and we will see y'all next week, peace. Thank you once again for listening to the Unlearned Podcast. We would love to hear your comments and your feedback about the episode. Feel free to follow us on Facebook and Instagram and to let us know what you think. We're looking forward to the next time when we are able to unlearn together to move forward towards freedom. See you then.
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