The Art of Grieving with Dr. Sheila K. Collins

In this conversation, Dr. Sheila K. Collins shares her profound experiences with grief, having lost both a son and a daughter. She discusses the importance of community support, the role of art in healing, and the misconceptions surrounding the grieving process. 

Through her personal stories and professional insights, she emphasizes the need for a deeper understanding of grief and the transformative power of love and connection during times of loss. 

We explore the significance of end-of-life discussions, the caregivers' role, and the transformative power of grief. We emphasize the importance of intentionality in life choices, the need to face fears surrounding death, and the value of art and dance in processing grief. 

We highlight how joy can coexist with sorrow and the necessity of sharing experiences to foster understanding and healing.

Sheila K. Collins, Ph.D
Author, Key Note Speaker, Workshops
817-706 4967|
sheilakcollins@gmail.com

https://www.sheilakcollins.com

https://www.artofgrieving.us

Intro to Sheila’s Work

Sheila’s YouTube Channel

Her books

When Death Threatens Someone We Love
Aging with Aging Parents
Discovering Healing Through Art

Her Books

Her Website

Transcript

Wakil David Matthews (00:10.386)
Welcome, everyone. Today, we are joined by Dr. Sheila K. Collins. Sheila knows grief, having lost a son to AIDS and a daughter to breast cancer. She chronicles her experiences in her award-winning memoir, Warrior Mother, Fierce Love, Unbearable Loss, and the Rituals that Heal. In her many years, she has found careers as a therapist, professor of social work, and dance. She applies wisdom from her myriad careers and has guided thousands of people through tough challenges, inspiring them to turn grief into a gift.

Annalouiza (01:03.118)
Sheila has delighted audiences worldwide with demonstrations of how art-based expressions, such as dance, storytelling, song, and music, can help anyone turn life's toughest challenges into growth. Her 2016 TEDx talk, When Death Threatens Someone We Love, offers a poignant perspective for anyone accompanying a loved one through illnesses and even death.

Her first book, co-authored with Christine Gautreaux, Stillpoint, a self-care playbook for caregivers to find ease and time to breathe and reclaim joy, has become a popular online course for professional and family caregivers. currently directs the Wing and a Prayer Pittsburgh Players, an interplay-based performance troupe that helps individuals and organizations 
tell their stories in transformative ways. Thank you so much for being here, Sheila.

Wakil David Matthews (02:04.604)
Yeah, I love that name. That's a great name, a wing and a prayer. And in fact, the way Sheila and I connected was that my wife was at an interplay event here in Seattle. And that's where she heard about Sheila. Sheila, maybe you were out here teaching it. And she was just, she said, you got to talk to this person.

Sheila  K Collins (02:22.728)
I was out there and then also online too later. So yes, we it's great. Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (02:27.608)
Great. Well, we always begin with the same question because we love this question and it helps us kind of get to know you a little better. So can you tell us a little bit about when you first became aware of death?

Sheila  K Collins (02:44.842)
Well, you know, I think it is when my father took me to his rural community. He grew up on a farm. And so I don't know how old I was, but maybe five or six. Anyway, we went to an aunt's funeral. And we went to her home and here was her body laid out in the parlor, in the front parlor. 

And I was so taken back by that because even in my, although I'm pretty old, I had not had that experience. It used to be what everybody did. But in my family, we had already moved more into the medicalization of these things. So I think that was probably the first time that I can remember just seeing a dead body and people surrounding that and that kind of thing. So yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (03:45.554)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, it's very true that that used to be everybody used to do that and yeah, some people still are and some people are reclaiming that too now, which I think is really sweet. So, yeah.

Annalouiza (03:49.666)
The norm. Yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (03:54.312)
Yes,

Annalouiza (03:55.03)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. Well, it's like the industrialization of our lives, right? That's changed. And I just, as you started saying that, I was thinking, it is a shame that more young people don't have that experience either. So yeah. So Sheila, that first death made you aware of some shift in human experiences. And how did that contribute to your life? Like, how did that frame your interaction with folks at the end of life.

Sheila  K Collins (04:31.018)
Well, I’m not sure. think the other thing I have to say is that my father was also a very history buff. So on this trip to my aunt's and back, I'm sure, we'd stopped at any of the historical markers that there were. 

Wakil David Matthews (04:48.564)
haha

Annalouiza (04:49.602)
Beautiful.

Sheila  K Collins (05:00.148)
And many of these historical markers were of cemeteries. And so we'd get kids who'd get out of the car and go, you know, trepsin' around and lookin' at these markers. And I think that had a more profound effect on me because we would see kids that were younger than us there. So that did something to my brain about the notion that people die at any time, not just my old aunt, you know, so that, I don't know, that perspective, just seemed that's the way it is. 

So when my own young, children, they weren't babies, but you know, they were young adults. When my young adult, especially the second one, my cousin said to me, this shouldn't be happening to you. I said, what do you mean? Who should be happening to you? I don't know, somebody that hasn't had it happen to them already..

Wakil David Matthews (05:45.875)
Haha.

Sheila  K Collins (05:57.119)
But that notion of people, that this is an interruption in the way that life is, that your children would die before you, I didn't have that concept. I didn't. mean, of course I didn't want that, but that isn't the way I looked at it.

Annalouiza (05:59.629)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (06:06.452)
Sure, yeah. Yeah, you mentioned that, we mentioned that in the bio that you had lost your son and daughter, both son and daughter. And yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (06:14.866)
Yes, my son died of AIDS at 31, and my daughter died of breast cancer at 42.

Wakil David Matthews (06:25.16)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, that's one of the harder things that people go through is losing their children. We know that. So thank you for sharing that. We hear these stories. And we interviewed somebody last week whose 14-year-old daughter died. And she wrote a whole memoir about it, which is also sounds like what happened to you and maybe that's what we could talk about next. Talk a little about your work, the role and the work you have and these books that you've written. Tell us more about those and how those came up.

Sheila  K Collins (07:02.962)
Well, I was a social worker, and I was a teacher. And so I had learned the theories based on Freud and all that. And when I'm going through it, it's not what I thought. It's not what I was taught. And I even say to people now, we're taught things that are not so. What we know is not so, so we have to unlearn what we learn. And so I think...

Wakil David Matthews (07:12.052)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (07:20.78)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (07:27.304)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (07:30.54)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila  K Collins (07:32.914)
I began to feel like there was some, well, I don't know if you could say it this way, but there is some good news in the process. And so it's not all just horrible. It's horrible at times. I mean, I'll buy that. 

So I wanted to understand better what it was that was really happening at another level, I guess, in that whole going through, well, with my son, when he was diagnosed with AIDS, that was a death sentence. So there wasn't, you know, that was, he was not gonna live to be an old man. We knew that. And so that was a four-year journey. And in that case, there was a lot of, well, he was told not to tell anyone. 

Annalouiza (08:10.979)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (08:16.052)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (08:28.654)
Wow.

Sheila  K Collins (08:31.594)
There was so much, you know, there was so much, stigma related to that. Then so we didn't have the supportive community going through that, the larger community. We had friends. So then eight years later, my daughter goes through breast cancer and we have, 

Annalouiza (08:33.036)
Yeah. Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (08:38.12)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila  K Collins (09:01.448)
With breast cancer, right? mean, it's like a, you fall into a huge community of support and she did, and we did. And the difference between those two things was so vivid. And so that was another thing that I recognized that was taught to me by this experience, the difference between having that community support.

Annalouiza (09:23.404)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila  K Collins (09:29.584)
And not having it and having to be cautious. My son was, he wanted to keep working. And so the AIDS outreach people said to him, well, don't tell anybody, even your best friend. I mean, we have lawyers that we can try to get your job back, but you don't really want that.

Wakil David Matthews (09:31.635)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (09:40.854)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila  K Collins (09:55.102)
So that going through that aspect of it. so, yes, so warrior mother became...that was, it took a long time for me to get good enough to write it, I always say, because I was an academic and we have terrible habits about how we write. Everything is in the third person removed. don't know what. 

Wakil David Matthews (10:03.912)
Ha ha ha ha.

Annalouiza (10:07.442)
Right, no emotions, no spirit, yeah. Yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (10:23.466)
Terrible. I mean, you know, so I knew I didn't want it to be that kind of a book. Yeah. So I had to give myself, you know, the opportunity to kind of give myself a course or something. And so I did that for several years before I wrote the book. And it was, of course, a lot of, I got a lot from it in the process of, because grief is processing loss. 

Annalouiza (10:32.045)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (10:36.84)
Yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (10:53.074)
So one of the ways you can do it is writing and you don't have to carry it to the extremes that I did, but to get it published. But then the next journey was to recognize where people are with the whole topic and how uncomfortable people are. So as a performer, we're doing interplay programs and we're taking the book and doing stories from it, and people that are there love it, but they're very nervous about inviting anybody. They might not be ready, they might not be ready for this experience and really a concern of, I think, not knowing how to companion one another.

Annalouiza (11:23.5)
Right. Yeah. And I just want to say, Sheila, I bear witness to the loneliness of walking your son into the end alone with him. And that's seriously. It's, I feel it, you know, like if, and I think that's what people sometimes experience with the shame of the languaging around being beaten up by cancer or losing to death. 

Wakil David Matthews (11:46.868)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila  K Collins (11:56.692)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (12:11.618)
And that doesn't, that doesn't distill a sense of like, I think it creates more anguish for us as a society. So your story is so relevant even today and so important because,There is this element of like, I shouldn't tell people that I'm that sick. And I should just like carry on and show up. But your son and you, ow.

Wakil David Matthews (12:15.475)
Yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (12:16.754)
Right. Right.
Well, and yet I did have some close people. I have a women's group I've been with since 1991. And so that's, I felt they're going with me through this always, through all of it and still. 

Annalouiza (12:37.432)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (12:37.844)
So good. Yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza (12:46.419)
Mm-hmm, beautiful. Mm-hmm.

Sheila  K Collins (12:51.058)
But then that was when I came up with the most recent book is The Art of Grieving, how art and art making help us live our best lives because the next, so it's like having that experience taught me about what is it that helps us? What is it that helped me? Because I was having a different experience than some other people were. 

Annalouiza (13:00.748)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (13:06.44)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (13:12.12)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila  K Collins (13:20.036)
And many of my clients or my friends or my neighbors were not having the same experience that I was having. And so that made me recognize that we need help in the processing of it.
And the arts are such a wonderful tool. And in fact, now we are getting more scientific information about what music does, what dance does, what storytelling does, just to say the name of the person and bring them into the room. So, yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (13:35.838)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (13:40.044)
Yes. Wow. Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (13:42.334)
Yeah.
Yeah, so right on. Yeah, yeah. Which is kind of why we're here, right? Is to make sure that story gets told.

Annalouiza (13:52.77)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila  K Collins (13:52.99)
That's right. That's right. Well, and then when I think about how we got it wrong is that the way I tell it now is we have in our brains an image of a stair steps that we climb. And so then you get, you you have anger or then you have depression or whatever it is, but you get to the top and you dust your hands off and you say, okay, that's what I'm, you know, except. That's not how it is. So nobody does that. So everybody feels bad about themselves.

Wakil David Matthews (14:22.482)
Not at all. Right? Yeah.

Annalouiza (14:18.926)
They're Mm-hmm. Right. Right. Right. Or they worry they're not progressing in the right amount of time or, know. Mm-hmm.

Sheila  K Collins (14:30.61)
Yeah, well, that's right. Exactly. So this is where I have an art piece here. I had a young woman do an image of a spiral because that is the path that energy takes. in our brains and that as the season comes around, we have memory of what happened. 

Wakil David Matthews (14:30.706)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Annalouiza (14:37.772)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (14:46.172)
It is, yeah.

Annalouiza (14:50.473)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila  K Collins (15:00.336)
Our bodies even have the memory, well, we don't that this was something that was interesting with clients sometimes. A client would say, I don't know what's the matter with me. I mean, just, I nearly had a wreck and I'm just, I'm not sleeping. mean, they don't know what's wrong. And so then you say, well, is there anything that happened this time of year? 

Annalouiza (15:17.672)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (15:22.644)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (15:30.324)
And then they go in and search, they, yes, yes. And it might, yeah, it might be somebody's death. It might be a diagnosis that happened at that time put everything in a different light or something, but the body remembers. Sometimes we have to get it into the brain.


Wakil David Matthews (15:36.816)
Absolutely.

Annalouiza (15:36.81)
Yes. Well, the body remembers, the wind remembers, the earth remembers, right? The whole everything, it's there to the seasons, yes.

Sheila  K Collins (15:44.424)
Yes, The seasons of it, yes. The seasons of it, yes, yes.

Wakil David Matthews (15:44.487)
Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (15:51.348)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And if you don't pay attention, it'll knock you on the head.

Sheila  K Collins (15:58.984)
Well, and it knocks you on the head anyway sometimes. So one of the stories in the book, I worked with group, I worked with two different groups of nuns, sisters, who are in some ways experts on some parts of grief, which is one of them, the ritual, know, the need for ritual, the need for, you know, as a group, they really had that. But some other things were harder for them. So one of the sisters told me this story. 

So she's in the grocery store. It's a lovely day. And she starts just immediately coming unglued, crying, remembering her colleague and best friend that had died several weeks before, you know, and she didn't know why it was coming on her then in the middle of the grocery store and until she looked around and she realized that she was in the bakery section. And what she was smelling was mincemeat pies. And that was her friends. This woman was the expert on mincemeat pies. So we can have a smell, a scent, a song, you know, something that can take us back to that, you know.

Wakil David Matthews (17:07.438)
Wow, yeah.

Annalouiza (17:13.806)
That's right. Right. Right.

Wakil David Matthews (17:15.422)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (17:19.361)
Right.

Wakil David Matthews (17:19.386)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, that's so good, so important to remember.

Sheila  K Collins (17:22.642)
And if you know that, you know you're not going crazy. You just look around and see, of course, of course, that's my connection. That's the connection.

Wakil David Matthews (17:26.708)
going crazy. Yeah. That's great. Good thing for people to have in mind. Yeah.

Annalouiza (17:27.938)
Yeah. Yeah.

Annalouiza (17:33.43)
Yes. So yeah, and we always want to remind them of these particularities with seasons, right? But so what are your challenges that you find as you're out in the world? Like I heard one already that inviting loved ones into interplay, talking about death might actually make people feel a little squeamish or uncomfortable. what other?

Sheila  K Collins (17:58.236)
Well, yeah, I think so. I think that's it. I think there's another thing about a kind of loneliness for somebody who is really, I know you're focused right on the end of life. That is what your program is called. What about the end of life? And when you have gone through that with someone, you are not, You are not the same.

And you have some things, I felt I had some things that were so wonderful and beautiful. wanted in some ways to tell everybody. I wanted them to know. I wanted them to know. And people are not really up for that. 

Wakil David Matthews (18:37.204)
Hmm.

Annalouiza (18:45.838)
I know that. I'm very well aware.

Sheila  K Collins (18:57.458)
So what I've done, I've thought about it this way now. I remember the generation where we did not, when we were gonna have babies, we did not just let the guys run the show, you know, the docs. So I was in that first group that we decided we were gonna take that back and we were going to learn how could we, we want the doctors to be there for, know, that we were not saying we don't want anything, but we don't want it to be like what my mother had, which was she was put out and three days later woke up. mean, she didn't remember having the baby. 

Annalouiza (19:26.926)
Right, Twilight births, right.

Wakil David Matthews (19:28.436)
Yeah.

Annalouiza (19:45.55)
Beautiful. Yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (19:54.442)
She was not there for that. And so we were saying, no, we want to be there for that. And yes, there's pain, yes. But you learn how to work with it, how to, you know. So I think that's where we are with the process of death. I mean, we're trying to, we're starting to take that back because this transitionis it's magical in many ways. It's amazing. 

Annalouiza (20:00.076)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila  K Collins (20:24.626)
And what set me up for that was of my very best friend. So my son had been diagnosed with AIDS. So I knew what my future was gonna look like. And about a year later, my best friend, she was, I think 62, something like that. She had had a cancer diagnosis several years before and anyway, she calls me and says, it's everywhere and I don't have very long and I want you to come and be with me. That's what she said. 

Wakil David Matthews (20:43.667)
Wow.

Sheila  K Collins (20:54.066)
And she also said something else very strange. She said, you come and be with me and then I'll be with you when it's your turn. That's what she said. She said that I didn't, I didn't know what that meant. I mean, I, I thought, I don't know how that's going to work, but okay. 

So, I went there and we both thought it was like, we're just going to be, you know, how much time, you know, half an hour, two hours, we didn't know. 

Annalouiza (20:56.472)
Yeah, yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (21:23.338)
We were so, but between the two of us, we didn't know. And the only thing I had was that my, the leader of my women's group was a Native American teacher and also Jungian, you know, therapist. So she had a lot of wisdom and she was on the phone, you know, as my coach, I mean, I would call her, okay, what do we do now?

And so she would say things like, well, you've entered ceremonial time. Ceremonial time is when the past, the present, and the future merge together. And it is, there is nothing except that moment, that time. 

Annalouiza (21:32.622)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (21:45.534)
Yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (22:00.382)
And it is incredible. So even experiencing that, you know, and so here we were and she was in the hospital and so people were dropping by and you know, and we would meditate together every morning. And then she would say to me, this is taking longer than I thought it would. What do you think? 

Annalouiza (22:19.736)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila  K Collins (22:26.664)
So the kind of intimacy that we had in that time was an incredible gift. what I tell people now, and I think it helps people to know, when they lose somebody that is so close to them. And I just say, well, I'll tell you this, Rose died 30 years ago. And I can tell you there has never been anything that has happened in my life that I didn't already know what Rose would say about it. 

Wakil David Matthews (22:44.393)
Hahaha.

Annalouiza (22:44.759)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (22:48.574)
Yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza (22:54.03)
Mm.

Sheila  K Collins (22:56.522)
I mean, totally, totally. She is so much a part of me and I of her that I can call on her.
I can, as I say, can call Anna. I can call.

Annalouiza (22:57.932)
Yes. She's one of your ancestors, your beloved ancestor.

Wakil David Matthews (22:58.004)
That's great. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What a beautiful story.

Sheila  K Collins (23:25.994)
Yeah, exactly. Exactly. Yes. Yes. Yes. Yes. So I had that experience. Having that experience with Rose then made it possible, I think, for me to be with my son when he was, and in his situation, he came home. So we weren't in a hospital. With Rose we were in hospital. But they made it so that that room was a hospice room. And so they weren't trying to, you know, put wires in and all that. I mean, it was, they would just have, keep her comfortable. So it would be that kind of palliative care sort of thing. But, and so with Rose, that set me up to understand also even in that case, I had the most amazing experience of song or singing. You know, there are now choirs that people that go to somebody's bedside and sing to them. 

Wakil David Matthews (24:08.062)
Yeah. Yeah.
Yeah, yeah, we interviewed a threshold choir, threshold choir, right? Yeah, we interviewed them. 

Sheila  K Collins (24:23.454)
And they're called. did you? Yeah. Yes. Well, I had never heard of that. I hadn't heard of that.
But I'm with her all this time and her, you know, she's seems like she's close. And the nurse said, well, if she keeps breathing like that, she's not gonna be here very long. Her breathing had changed. 

Annalouiza (24:33.294)
Uh-huh.

Wakil David Matthews (24:42.996)
Hmm.

Annalouiza (24:43.234)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (24:45.726)
Yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (24:52.202)
So I just held her hand and I started singing to her. I mean, I never heard of anybody doing that. I just felt like I was gonna do that. And so I did. So I started, so it's a song from my women's spirituality group. So it's, you are woman, you are woman, you grow out of the earth. So that's, you know, kind of a chant. And so I'm singing that. And then when I come at some point, it changes, the words change. And, and I sing, you are woman, you go back to the earth. It just came out of my mouth and she let go right then.

Wakil David Matthews (25:21.396)
Wow.

Sheila  K Collins (25:22.568)
…in my hands. it's such a, when I say it's such a magic time that so many things are possible. And it's a healing time also in families often. 

Annalouiza (25:26.926)
Hmm.

Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (25:39.144)
Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (25:52.392)
There's, you know, stuff that's happening and people, the energy changes to that, to love really. The energy changes to what is true when a baby comes in, it is pure love, right?

Wakil David Matthews (25:55.898)
Exactly. Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (26:09.016)
I mean, you look and you go there, I mean, and the energy in the letting go in that, it changes to that, yes…

Wakil David Matthews (26:09.064)
Yeah, very, very true. Yeah, we actually had somebody, I guess, come on and a doctor who had worked in Canada and had, I think, worked in like many, many, end of life situations. And he was actually saying, he was saying that even though Canada has illegal medical aid in dying and there are states that are in the United States as well, he was sort of saying, you know, people should really think seriously about how important those last moments can be and how much they teach us and how big, much of an important part of life they are. 

And not to say people who can't make, should make that decision if that's what they choose and if they, you know, make, but just to kind of have a little more thought around, you know, this isn't actually, yeah, this isn't actually a horrible thing. 

Annalouiza (26:53.024)
Intentionality.

Wakil David Matthews (27:06.74)
As you said, there's so many gifts there. Yeah. And I also wanted to kind of, think back. One of the books that you wrote, I think is really important too, is The Caregiver Support book and we talk a lot about caregivers I think that's but maybe a whole nother subject for another another podcast But I love that you did that work and wondered if you wanted to talk about that a little bit

Sheila  K Collins (27:17.844)
Well, yes, I do because I'm sometimes accused of doing too many things, know, maybe aren't connected, but they are all connected. 

Wakil David Matthews (27:24.66)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah.

Annalouiza (27:25.504)
Aren't we all? Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (27:32.06)
Hahaha.

Wakil David Matthews (27:41.864)
Yeah. Yeah.

Annalouiza (27:42.231)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila  K Collins (27:47.25)
They are all connected. I can't always explain it, but I know they are. That was my first book was the art of, was the book that is, we still point, it's called Still Point, Still Point. And we did a second edition of it because when I was working with another book, they said, you need to re-release that book. There's so many more caregivers now than when you actually wrote it, you know? And so, and when I wrote it, wasn't a big seller. mean, it was, know, I don't know. People were, you know, not that impressed, 

Annalouiza (28:07.086)
They weren't ready for it, It's coming. You're just ahead of your time.

Wakil David Matthews (28:09.07)
Hahaha.

Hahaha.

Sheila  K Collins (28:12.344)
I don't think, I don't know. But, but, but and that is exactly what my daughter said about me. In fact, the example, my daughter would say, the trouble with my mother is she's ahead of her time. And her example, I'm speaking as my daughter, who's like 30 some years old. I was born, my mother had me with natural childbirth. And her friends are saying, I don't believe she did that. I don't believe it. 

Wakil David Matthews (28:16.411)
Hahaha.
Sure.

Sheila  K Collins (28:41.97)
That was how she proved that I was ahead of my time. So, yes, and so that's the good thing about living a long time. have to plan on living a long time if you're going to be ahead of your time. So I'm having a pretty good time right now. I have to say I'm having a pretty good time. even, yeah, even this book, so the woman, Christine Gautreaux is the person that did it with me and she's in the women's group with me. I've known her for many, many years.

So we did it online actually. She was in Atlanta and I was, know, we revised it. And then of course when it was, when the shutdown came, you know, and we were in our rooms, she said, we got to put this online. And I said, very positively determined, what we do is not going to work online. I just knew it wouldn't. And of course, I'm so glad I was wrong. I was totally wrong.

So, so I like being wrong in that kind of situation, you know, so that that group is still meeting every week since 2000. It's five years now. I mean, it's just and and and the other part I would say about it is we we we would we said to ourselves or to each other what people are going to need this now, you know, and so but so many times we would come off and say, boy, did I need that. 

Annalouiza (29:48.93)
Beautiful.

Wakil David Matthews (29:49.012)
wow.
Yes.

Annalouiza (30:08.044)
Yes!

Wakil David Matthews (30:08.136)
Yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (30:09.18)
Right? So, so one of the things I've discovered is if we give what we need, sometimes it really works, right? You know, it really works. So, but yes, yes. And, and

Wakil David Matthews (30:18.484)
Yeah, yeah. Yeah. We, we end every, every episode of our podcast, we end talking to each other and saying, well, that was so great. So good for us. So, yeah. So we meet so many amazing people. Yeah, go ahead. didn't mean, I didn't mean to interrupt you.

Sheila  K Collins (30:29.866)
No, no, that's, that's, you have the same experience of you're giving something, but somehow you're getting a lot. Yeah, yeah, it's very special. Very special.

Wakil David Matthews (30:40.466)
Exactly.

Yeah, always.

We also like to ask if there's anything that frightens you about the end of life, having worked in this for as long as you have.

Sheila  K Collins (30:57.736)
Well, I think what people, when you talk to people about, people will say things like, well, I'm not afraid of dying. I'm afraid of pain, you know, the pain. 

Wakil David Matthews (31:08.34)
Mm-hmm. Yeah.

Annalouiza (31:09.666)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila  K Collins (31:26.506)
And that's where I think we can be pretty reassured that that is something that our medical people have figured out about that pain part. mean, and also to keep it so people can still be aware of what they're still, they're not just, know, a coma, you know, yeah, it's there, there's still opportunities for more, more like there is so much life in the dying. It's so interesting that that would be but but there really is. There really is so much still, still growing still still.

Wakil David Matthews (31:48.85)
Yeah, really, what a great quote.

Sheila  K Collins (31:54.43)
You know, happening. And so, yeah, so when you ask about what are my fears, I don't know, I've tried some things. Sometimes I think I have to be more, well, I tell myself I have to be more realistic, you know? 

Wakil David Matthews (32:19.432)
Yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (32:21.77)
And one of the ways I think being aware of the fact that we're going to die is real. That's a real thing. And it's important because what it tells me is, what do I want to do with this amount of time that I have? And it's getting shorter. Everybody's is, but I'm already, you know, I mean, I'm 85 years old, so, you know, it's, I'm not going to die young. I mean, what won't happen? And yeah, so what do I really want? What is the best thing, you know, that I can do? We are here for this time. I mean, that's another thing I've been so aware of is that the time that I was born and what was happening in the world and all of that, that has created who I am and that has created the gifts I have, I think. 

Wakil David Matthews (32:57.214)
Yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza (32:57.548)
Right.

Wakil David Matthews (33:14.172)
Mm-hmm. Yeah, yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (33:21.89)
So the opportunity to use those is such a great thing that, yeah, that I would not, I would not want to be just stuck on a back burner somewhere, you know, you know, well, and you know, being an old person, there are people that think you should not, you know, I mean, that you don't have much to offer. That's right. Exactly. Yes. Yes.

Wakil David Matthews (33:30.164)
Yeah, yeah, so basically, yeah.

Yeah, they think you should stop. Yeah, Yeah, yeah. So yeah, in a way, it's similar, kind of the sense that we love this life, we wanna spend this precious life as best we can. And that maybe the only fear we have is that we somehow will be denied the agency to do that, right? Yeah, yeah. So I totally hear you there, yeah.

Annalouiza (33:41.442)
Yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (33:59.018)
Absolutely. Absolutely.

Annalouiza (34:03.766)
Yes. So Sheila, what do you do to make sure you still have that energy to get out there and do what you're meant to be doing?

Sheila  K Collins (34:14.066)
Well, I say that I'm a dancer. I say that I am a dancing social worker because, you know, I put these things together. But dance, I'm going more and more back to dance. 

Annalouiza (34:33.453)
Mmm.

Sheila  K Collins (34:42.162)
I mean, as a principal even. And so of course I have been in my life. I started out three years old dancing. My mother always wanted to dance and she, wouldn't, her parents wouldn't let her, her mother wouldn't let her. So she gave me that opportunity and the love of it. I think she just gave it to me. So when things would happen in my life, I would just say, well, I don't know, guess I, but I'm gonna keep it. I'm gonna keep dancing, figure out a way to do that. Keep moving, keep dancing. And that was a good decision.

Wakil David Matthews (34:52.948)
Mmm.

Sheila  K Collins (35:11.69)
For me, you know, and so, and I know that that is, you know, when people say, well, you don't look your age or you have those, it's dancing. It's not sitting down and, you know, in front of the screen or staying in front of the screen. It's moving. And so, yeah, so I do every morning. I'm very good about, and my husband is even joining me now. The current one I'm doing is a program called eccentrics and it's actually a stretching and strengthening regimen. It takes about 20 minutes and I mean it just, well, and this, I don't know if this would make any sense to you, but one of the things, one of the goals I had in life was if I could stand up straight for my whole life. 

Annalouiza (36:06.07)
love it.

Sheila  K Collins (36:09.896)
Now this sounds funny, but you know, I'm going to demonstrate to you that what happens is that life pulls us forward and then we can't get back up, really. And so everything is not in the right place anymore. And I can even tell you the moment when I made that decision because there was Naomi Brill was her name and she was my supervisor as a social worker. And I saw her enter the courtroom to testify.

Wakil David Matthews (36:21.711)
Hahaha.

Annalouiza (36:21.826)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila  K Collins (36:39.198)
And as she walked in, I mean, what she said without words was, don't mess with me. I'm here to tell you the truth. And boy, they didn't. So, you know, she was just her, she was so, her posture, her everything about her. Yes, yes. So anyway, that's what I said. Well, that's what I want. I want that.

Annalouiza (36:59.136)
Mm-hmm. Her carriage.

Wakil David Matthews (37:02.024)
Yeah, yeah.

Annalouiza (37:04.012)
I love that. I think I'm going to do that too. Like I'm gonna sit up still better.

Sheila  K Collins (37:08.01)
So how do you do that? So a lot of it, Well, yeah. And so that's what a lot of it is, postural work it is, having your body in balance. yeah, so that's definitely something that I do that every day. Yeah, yeah, every day.

Wakil David Matthews (37:08.852)
That's great. Yeah.

Annalouiza (37:21.069)
Yeah I love that. Perfect.

Wakil David Matthews (37:25.844)
Yeah, yeah. And you use that for your own resources, but you also share it. That's what the beauty of it. Share it with so many people. Yeah. Yeah.

Annalouiza (37:29.932)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila  K Collins (37:30.41)
Oh, yes. Well, and then of course, in interplay, we always have warm up. always have the way we think of it is you have to be in your body in order to have everything, all your resources available to you, all your memories, all your stories, all your, know, if you're not in your body, then you don't have that. that's, yeah. 

Annalouiza (37:35.726)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (37:43.1)
Yeah, I love that. Right? So true.

Sheila  K Collins (37:56.778)
So I've been in, I came into interplay pretty early. It was started in 89 and I think I came in in 91. So I've been doing it a long time. Been part of the development of it. Yes. Yes.

Wakil David Matthews (38:01.8)
Wow. You've been with them? Yeah, yeah, yeah.

Beautiful, yes. I know my wife has a great time with it. She keeps trying to get me to go, guess I should do it sometime.

Annalouiza (38:14.638)
Is there interplay Colorado?

Sheila  K Collins (38:15.754)
Well, and I would even tell you, well, yes, there is, actually there is, absolutely there is a Colorado. But I do want to say to you, David, there is a reason that you may have some reticence because we have rules about who gets to dance and what it means if you do it. 

Annalouiza (38:22.646)
Really?

Sheila  K Collins (38:45.706)
I had a son who was, he got the dance gene. I mean, clearly he did. I mean, he had the, you know, it was a kind of a natural thing, but he didn't become a dancer. He became a gymnast because, you know, guys can do that, right? So, so that, that is a lot of the, the notion that this make, this is not okay. And in our culture for a man, especially a white man to, you know, what does he assist me? You know, what's the matter with the guy? You know, so.

Wakil David Matthews (39:07.806)
Mm-hmm. Yeah. Yeah, very soon. Yeah, yeah. And I love to dance. do dance a lot of times. Well, yeah, but also just in general when there's dancing happening, I get out and dance. But it's often that I may be the only male out there sometimes, but that's okay.

Sheila  K Collins (39:24.916)
Well, there you go.

Right, right. Well, it's great to see younger men claiming that. I think it is. You're maybe a little ahead of your time in terms of, you know, because, yeah, I mean.

Wakil David Matthews (39:35.772)
Yeah, absolutely.
Maybe, yeah. Well, we're getting toward the end of our time. I want to give the opportunity if there's anything else that you wish we had asked you about that you'd like to tell us before we move on to poetry.

Sheila  K Collins (39:56.146)
Well, just to mention that the four arts that I focused on in the book, The Art of Grieving, and I had this notion that maybe grieving itself should be an art, because we're going to do all our lives. 

Wakil David Matthews (40:17.427)
Yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (40:25.438)
Then if that's the case, maybe the arts are the tools. And so, I started, you know, asking that question or thinking about it that way. So I focus on storytelling. I have a chapter on storytelling. I have a chapter on dance. I have a chapter on music, and I have a chapter on visual art and architecture. so if you think about a really good memorial service, you know, it's going to be in a beautiful environment.

Wakil David Matthews (40:52.414)
Yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (40:55.422)
That lifts you up, right? It's gonna affect your brain that way. And I remember my sons, they had huge bouquets of flowers, because he had friends that were gay, florists, and they, I mean, it was, it was gorgeous, you know, and, you know, and then there's music, right? There's music. 

Wakil David Matthews (40:55.454)
Yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (41:23.004)
So, and depending on your culture, depending on, you know, what songs are relevant for you. That puts the whole group into a kind of entrainment, I would say. know, everybody becomes a large body that's connected through the music. 

Wakil David Matthews (41:32.5)
Yeah, yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (41:50.25)
Then of course we have story. People tell stories, you know, beforehand, afterwards, and sometimes as a eulogy, that's part of it too. So, and then not as often dance, but I have danced, I danced at my son's funeral. And I, well, Rose, Rose was the one, she wanted me to dance at her funeral. And I never heard of that, but you know, she said she wanted that. 

Wakil David Matthews (42:02.494)
Haha. Haha.
Yeah, yeah, absolutely.

Annalouiza (42:12.514)
Mm-hmm.

Sheila  K Collins (42:18.26)
Okay, I'll do it. And so I began to see that that shouldn't be left out. That shouldn't be left out. And so I wrote about that. And sometimes I go back, I can always go back to that experience. And the experience I would say in relation to my son was that, so I'm at his service and I start to dance and then I hear this, what is she doing? 

Wakil David Matthews (42:33.192)
Ha ha.

Annalouiza (42:33.354)
Hehehe.

Wakil David Matthews (42:38.43)
Ha ha ha.

Annalouiza (42:42.978)
Yeah.

Wakil David Matthews (42:43.2)
Hahaha!

Sheila  K Collins (42:46.108)
This kid's voice. And so I know it's the three-year-old, he's in the front row and he is saying out loud what everybody else is thinking. What is she doing? You know? And so I go over to him and I say, well, I'm dancing for Uncle Ken. Would you like to dance with me? Oh, and he does not. I mean, he climbs into his mother's pregnant belly lap. I mean, he does not want this. But the five-year-old takes my hand. And so we start dancing. We start dancing together in honor of my son. And I mean, I lift him up. And when I do that, I realize that in the midst of the most sorrow I could ever imagine having, I am having also the most joy I could ever imagine. So I like to tell that story partly so we know we don't have to just say we're sad or we're happy. Maybe we're both. Maybe we're both. That's right. That's That's right. Yeah, absolutely.

Annalouiza (43:31.758)
Mm-hmm. Mm-hmm. We can live in paradox. Paradox does exist.

Wakil David Matthews (43:32.584)
Yeah. Thank you. That's such a beautiful story. Brought tears to my eyes. Yeah. Thank you for that.

Sheila  K Collins (43:45.534)
Yeah. Well, and you had mentioned about a poem and in this poem that I was working with the sisters and we were wanting something that would communicate the positivity of grief, the gift of grief 

Wakil David Matthews (44:06.068)
Mm-hmm, mm-hmm, yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (44:17.502)
that we've already said a little bit about, know, the depth of the connection and the truth that we enter that we don't have in our regular life, know, almost a transformative space. So anyway, so the sisters came up with a poem that they thought would do this. And it's called The Well of Grief, and it is a David Whyte poem. And they also went in the closet and gave us a whole roll of fabric so that we could dance with it while the poem was being read.

Wakil David Matthews (44:29.406)
Hmm. Yeah.

Annalouiza (44:36.767)
beautiful.

Sheila  K Collins (44:47.518)
So I just wanted to, a poem is very short, but I wanted to give you the way we've been playing with this. 

Wakil David Matthews (44:47.924)
Beautiful.

Wakil David Matthews (44:57.554)
Yeah, share the experience.

Wakil David Matthews (45:09.268)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (45:09.344)
Mm-hmm.

Annalouiza (45:14.732)
Okay, well let's have you share it. Yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (45:15.892)
So the first lines call attention to people's unwillingness to grief and people who avoid grieving. And then later it talks about the rewards of grief. So is this a good time for my to do it? All right. It is one of my favorite poems.

Wakil David Matthews (45:18.793)
Yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (45:23.326)
The Well of Grief.

Sheila  K Collins (45:28.402)
Those who will not slip, slip between the still surface on the well of grief.

Turning downward through its black water to the place we cannot breathe.

Sheila  K Collins (45:48.99)
will never know the source from which we drink.

The secret water, cold and clear.

nor find in the darkness glimmering the small round coins.

thrown by those who wished for something else.


So I think we always wish for something else, you know, when in the middle of it. And then we see what is there and we can have that assertion, even joy sometimes if we're willing to mourn.

Annalouiza (46:23.758)
Mm-hmm.

Wakil David Matthews (46:35.55)
Yeah, yeah, beautiful. Yeah, yeah. Thank you. That's such an incredibly beautiful poem. I love it. And so, yeah, so, apropos of exactly our conversation this time. So we really thank you for coming and for your incredible, beautiful stories and your life. Yeah.

Sheila  K Collins (46:56.51)
Well, I appreciate the opportunity. I do, I appreciate the opportunity. It is really wonderful to share these ideas and these experiences that lot of people don't know about, you know, and people should know. It's like having a baby. If you know it's going to be okay, then you're maybe more willing to do it. I don't know.

Annalouiza (47:00.609)
Yes.

Wakil David Matthews (47:15.572)
I don't know about that but I trust you all.