Laughing Through The Pain: Navigating Wellness
Welcome to Laughing Through the Pain: Navigating Wellness. A podcast about the wellness industry, breathwork, bio-hacking, exercise, and mental health. Designed to help regular people and practitioners find their way through the confusing, conflicting, and often untrustworthy world of wellness. While at the same time trying to make you laugh. Hosted by Richard and Andy. Richard Blake, AKA the Breath Geek, is a PhD psychologist, breathworker, bio-hacker, and amateur CrossFit athlete. Andy, aka the the funny one, has his bachelor's in psychology and helps to avoid the curse of knowledge by asking the questions the experts don’t think to answer. They want to help you avoid making the same mistakes they made while trying to make their way through all things wellness - subscribe and like the podcast now.
Laughing Through The Pain: Navigating Wellness
How to deal with grief and trauma - Nathalie Himmelrich
What happens when you lose the people closest to you and turn that pain into a mission to help others? Nathalie Himmelrich joins us on this heartfelt episode of Laughing Through the Pain to share her journey from personal tragedy to becoming a guiding light for those grappling with grief and trauma. With her unique blend of professional training and deep personal experience, Nathalie offers an unparalleled perspective on navigating the turbulent waters of loss.
We explore the intricate layers of trauma and grief, beginning with the foundational concepts like the three E's—event, experience, and effect—and contrasting them with broader definitions from experts like Gabor Maté. The discussion takes a cultural turn, analyzing how societal norms influence grieving styles, from the cognitive to the emotional. By unpacking common themes such as disbelief and physical reactions during anniversaries, Nathalie helps us understand just how varied and unique each person's grief journey can be.
But how can you truly support someone who is grieving? Natalie emphasizes the power of presence over platitudes. Misguided advice to stay busy often sidesteps emotional healing, but presence and specific offers of help can make a world of difference. Drawing inspiration from specialists like Bessel van der Kolk, we examine the importance of co-regulation and the art of simply being there. Learn practical strategies for offering empathetic support and discover the profound impact that a compassionate presence can have during moments of grief and trauma. Don't miss this enriching conversation filled with practical advice and heartfelt stories.
2.47 - Link to ‘A Year to Live’ and Stephen Levine
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/371830.A_Year_to_Live
3.10 - Link to Working with People
https://www.workingwithpeopletrainings.com/
15.47 - Link to ‘What Happened to You?: Conversations on Trauma, Resilience, and Healing’ (Bruce Perry and Oprah Winfrey)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/53238858-what-happened-to-you-conversations-on-trauma-resilience-and-healing?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=cJAoFbDvOS&rank=1
24.07 - Link to Elisabeth Kubler-Ross and the five stages of dying
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/10373574-on-death-and-dying-by-elisabeth-k-bler-ross-summary-study-guide?ac=1&from_search=true&qid=dPPjedDWUH&rank=3
45.43 - Link to Bridging the Grief Gap (Nathalie Himmelrich)
https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/61869841-bridging-the-grief-gap?from_search=true&from_srp=true&qid=HoiilSnF2K&rank=6
55.46 - Link to https://nathaliehimmelrich.com
56.12 - Link to Nathalie's Instagram
https://nathaliehimmelrich.com/about-me/
https://www.instagram.com/mymissbliss/
Find us on Instagram
Richard @The_Breath_Geek
YouTube - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCl_gOq4wzRjwkwdjYycAeng
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Hello and welcome back to Laughing Through the Pain, navigating Wellness. Today we have Natalie Himmelich. Am I saying that right, natalie Himmelich? Or Himmelish Himmelrich Himmelrich saying it completely wrong, sorry, natalie, I'm saying Natalie right, though, at least I hope. But yes, so we're thrilled to welcome Natalie, a very special guest. She is someone I had the pleasure of meeting during our Working With People, training, where we were both on our journeys to become holistic counsellors.
Speaker 1:Natalie brings a wealth of knowledge and compassion to her work. Natalie holds a postgraduate diploma in psychotherapy, demonstrating her deep commitment to understanding the complexities of human psyche. She's also trained in somatic, experiencing a therapeutic approach that focuses on the body's response to trauma, as well as the polyvagal certificate course, which delves into the nervous system's role in emotion regulation and social connection. In addition to her extensive training, natalie is the insightful host of the podcast how to Deal with Grief and Trauma, where she provides valuable support and guidance to those navigating the difficult paths of grief and trauma. Her deep understanding and empathetic nature make her a beacon of hope for many. So welcome, natalie. We are very excited to have you here.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much for having me being usually on the other side, being a host and now being a guest, so let's see how that goes.
Speaker 1:Absolutely yes. And how are you doing, Andy?
Speaker 3:Yeah, very good. Thanks very much. Yeah, hottest day of the year in London, feeling very positive.
Speaker 1:And, yeah, I'm very happy to have Natalie on. We've had to reschedule this one. So, yeah, it's 37 degrees pretty much every day. It doesn't get below 26 degrees even at night. So, yeah, I did find that a little bit comical, but nonetheless, we're not here to talk about the weather. We're here to talk about Natalie and grief and trauma. So, natalie, would you mind sharing a little bit about your personal journey and how that led you to becoming an expert in grief and trauma?
Speaker 2:Sure. So I was thinking about that when you asked me to speak about that and I realised that, looking back, I had a fascination with grief and loss for a long time. So in my personal growth work, I read books on death and dying and participated in a year-long process called the Year to Live, which is based on a book by Stephen Levine so not Peter Levine with a trauma, but Stephen Levine and so I was fascinated with exploring the experience of grief and loss and deeply explored the topic of mortality. Now, that didn't have a reason in my personal life, I just seemed to be interested. So already in my training of applied psychology that was prior to working with people I had a close relationship with the topic of grief and loss and chose some modules in that topic throughout my training. But again, more on a personal level, however, not working with clients. That wasn't my focus at the time. Retrospectively, I think that somewhere I was preparing myself on a subconscious level. That's my guess Because when I first became therapists, in my first years, I was focused on supporting clients in relate relationship related issues. So such as the normal relationship issues such as communication, trust, intimacy, sexuality, infidelity etc. Often leading to separation and divorce, and so I was working with individuals and couples and supporting them or mediating their separation and therefore helping them also deal with loss and grief as part of those issues mentioned.
Speaker 2:And then, further on in my career, I became pregnant with twins. That was 13 years ago, and then I stopped working with clients in about 26 weeks into the pregnancy, and so during a scan we found out that my younger twin so twin B as they're called had a condition called Potter's syndrome. And then the girls were born on September 1st and on the third day of life, amaya died in my arms, and so that was the first big, significant loss, I would say through a death-related loss. I had many boyfriends that I split up with, but that was, besides my grandparents, the first very close, significant loss. And then, following that, I was raising my surviving twin daughter, preterm baby, being a first-time mom. So I was dealing with the aftershock and trauma of losing my daughter, also with postpartum depression, and then followed the shock as my mother died four and a half months later from suicide following years of depression. So these were the two very significant losses, that sort of, I'd say, on a personal level, most extreme losses which made me a grief expert on a personal level.
Speaker 2:But having those experiences that really propelled me into taking a professional specialization, which was, I call this a choiceless choice, people were seeking me out, especially grieving parents, at the beginning for guidance on that topic that I had experienced. So, looking back, I can see that both my personal experience and my depth of experience grief myself. That was actually no comparison to the professional experience that we get in training, because it allowed me to draw from a personal experience and understanding that you don't get from looking at films or reading the manual on grief and loss. And I can see that differentiation as well with my colleagues, people who are grief trained but not really in-depth grief literate, and I don't believe that you can learn certain things through studying. I don't believe that you can learn certain things through studying.
Speaker 2:Having said that, I also had the support from a therapist at the time my mother died, a person that was really good in supporting me. She, in fact, was pregnant at that time. So it doesn't have to be that someone is grief-experienced to be grief-informed and grief therapist. But I think it helps. And, having said that that, I'm deeply passionate about teaching others, especially non-berief supporters and professionals who want to become even more grief-informed caretakers and now also trauma literate in those dealing with loss, so that that conjunction, that junction between grief and trauma is really the place where I feel really comfortable, where my nervous system feels really in the right place. And so, in summary, I've written six books on the topic of grief and loss and mainly about how to integrate back into life, and my work is with clients and participants in my trainings has been really become the focus on how to deal with grief and trauma.
Speaker 1:Wow, thank you for sharing that, natalie. Such huge things, dealing with loss of a child and then a mother in in such close proximity and wondering, if it's okay, could you share a little bit about like the actual phenomenology of that experience you mentioned and the trauma there? But what was it like to actually go through those huge, huge events? And, just for anyone who may be going through that as well, what did you learn for yourself?
Speaker 2:First of all, I learned that, no matter how much you read, if you are coupled to this experience, it's like nothing you could ever have experienced reading or knowledge. So, personally for me, I can still remember the time when we were at the hospital. I had just given birth. I was like an actor in a movie. I felt this is not real and I'm going to wake up from this nightmare. That's one of the things that I remembered. I also remember that things around me were taking shape and were happening, but I wasn't really there.
Speaker 2:So that's one of the common elements of trauma being in that shock, in that numbness, and it took me quite a few days to, for example, even inform my parents. Having said that, my sister was present at the time and she had informed them, but I was just functioning. I was functioning well. I was in a functional freeze, I was doing the breastfeeding or pumping milk. I was doing the things that a new mother would do. But I was also dealing with what do we do next? In in at the beginning, in the care of the two sibling, the siblings in the NICU, but then, once it was clear that Amaya had had not the requirements to be life sustaining in her body, then deciding to take her off care and then in the space after that, okay, what do you do then? How do you what comes next? So it was at least because we had a little bit of time to lead into that as to having had this Potter syndrome recognized, and then some doctors said you have to look into palliative care, and I was completely in shock. But that gave us a little bit of preparation to look at bringing in heartfelt, which is the synonym of now. I lay me down to sleep in America where the volunteers come in and take pictures, something that you don't have a second chance to do.
Speaker 2:So certain things we prepared, but personally for me, I remember in the beginning I was just in shock and I was functioning. And then, because in my experience that was parallel with being a new mom, completely overwhelmed and sleepless, I became a bit zombie-like. That was expressed from outside to me and that I needed some sleep. And then so in my experience it's again new mother and grieving and being joyful with that baby, sort of that all happened at the same time and I knew quite from the beginning, being a therapist myself, I wanted to have help. So that helped me then to say, okay, I need help from outside. And I went to my GP and she referred me to someone else to give me that sounding board that I needed and to get an idea of am I doing this right, because knowing knowledge was one thing and I had plenty of that but to get a feedback of how I was doing, that's what I needed. And I remember I was in therapy with her and she was supporting me, and then I had my parents come to visit in December, so the baby was then three months old and my parents stayed with us for four months and then they left just at the end of the year and went back to Switzerland and 19 days later my mother died from suicide. And then I again was in another shock.
Speaker 2:These two experiences layer onto each other. I can't really separate the two, but I remember that coming back home and then for the funeral, it was again like as if there was a blanket over me. Functioning, functional freeze was perfect. People would say, oh, my god, she's doing so well, but actually I was just functioning, yeah, and I would say when I look back to the first year after those two losses that I, I just was functioning. I remember clearly also I was walking because by the time of one year past since the birth of our girls we were then living in Switzerland and sort of the second year I was walking in the creek behind our house often and I was really angry.
Speaker 2:I dreamt of my mother continuously. It was a lot going on and I remember that because in my first book I wrote about it and so I haven't forgotten. About 18 months into the loss I said to my husband at that time you have the chance to get up and leave. I'm stuck with myself. And that was a description of my state. I was so angry, I was so unhappy with myself, I disliked my new self. They're calling it the new normal. I was so challenged with that and I had no place to go.
Speaker 2:So that is actually really good, because my first book was written in the second year after the loss and when I translated it into German, which was the third year, I looked back at it and I said, really, did I just say it like that? Was it really that hard? Because already a year later I would see it differently. But because I did a literal translation, I didn't change the wording. So it's actually really good because it's in that raw grief. It's written from that place where things are just functioning. Did that answer your question in some form?
Speaker 1:Yes, sure, andyy, you want to say something yeah, very much.
Speaker 3:No, I think that the link between, I suppose, the multi-faceted experience of actually being a psychologist, so knowing the theory and then going through it yourself, is a very interesting common theme, and certainly I connect more to people who have got both, if you see what I mean. So, yeah, very interesting. Could I just ask a pretty basic question, which is that maybe it's not that the difference between grief and trauma, um, and understanding the kind of nuances between those two things, yeah, so everyone who has a trauma also grieves something, but not everyone who has a loss is necessarily traumatized.
Speaker 2:Okay, yeah, so that's the differentiation. A trauma can be relating to a loss. That's a traumatic experience, not necessarily the loss, but maybe the way it happened. And the definition of trauma is different depends on who you talk to. But basically what I like, that the definition that we have from somatic experience is too much, too soon, with too little ability for the body to handle it. Yeah, it's like too much, too fast, too soon to be able to handle it, and that sort of summarizes no matter what the event actually is. So child loss per se is not a trauma. Depends how the person relates to it. That can make it traumatic or that can be experienced traumatic or not.
Speaker 2:I would say that certain kind of losses, let's say if there's force or violence involved, it would preclude that it is traumatic because of the nature of the kind of death, of something that has happened with natural force as well or with human force. Homicide is, I don't want to say by definition, but I would expect this to be traumatic. So, for example, an unexpected loss. I can think of clients who lost their child unexpected after an illness that didn't seem so severe, that would very likely lead to trauma. However, then you have two parents and they react very differently to that kind of loss. Yeah, that makes it clear, right, in terms of the differentiation.
Speaker 1:Yeah, if I may add, I like Bruce Perry's. I love his book what Happens to you with Oprah Winfrey. I don't know if you've read that one, but that one I think is an excellent one for people who want an intro to trauma. But one of the things he explains there is trauma can be very different for different people and he uses the example of a fire in a school. A fire, let's say a fire, he says. Let's say a fire breaks out in a fifth grade classroom, a child who's never seen a fire, they're potentially going to be traumatized, whereas the firefighter who runs into that room sees that same fire, deals with that fire, is is used to dealing with fire, probably not going to be traumatized. And so you can never say, oh, that event is traumatic, a fire is traumatic. It depends on many, many different circumstances. I also like that.
Speaker 1:He says there's the three E's of trauma there needs to be an event and an experience and an effect. So he would disagree with Gabor Mate who would say that trauma can be bad things that did happen as well as good things that didn't happen but should have because there's no event there. So, for example, a father leaves a family aged 10. That absence isn't enough of an event to be specifically traumatic. Maybe that could be like complex PTSD, but it wouldn't be traditional PTSD. And so there has to be an event, like a fire or violence or something traditional a car crash, that kind of thing. There has to be an experience. The person has to be experiencing something most likely fear, most likely overwhelm, and then there has to be an after effect. So he would also say there needs to be a sustained change in the stress response system. It's going to have a lasting effect and it has to have those three things to be called trauma.
Speaker 1:So yeah, I'm a fan of that. Hopefully that, hopefully that helps, andy. Yes, so yes, grief is something that supposedly British people are terrible at, this whole stiff upper lip thing. I don't know if it's just a British thing. I feel like it might be a Northern European thing. But yeah, maybe Swiss people are better at it, maybe they're similar to the UK. But why do you think grieving is so important?
Speaker 2:And it's what happens. It's the whole system's way of restoring past, present, future to that person. If it's a death-related loss not being physically here, or if it's a non-death-related loss that thing or that someone no longer being with me, so the job, even so, it's equal important death losses and not non-death related losses, and it is. It is the whole system's way of of dealing, of of wrapping your mind not just mind but also body around the fact of what you do with is not no longer being here. And it's interesting when I look at my clients who work around that in different ways. Some approach it from a cognitive point of view and want to understand it and want to look behind. Why is it like that? And some others breathe from a point of emotionality. They need to talk about it, they need to feel their way through it. So neither of those ways is good or bad or better. It's just different.
Speaker 2:And I would say it's also important, as you were saying, in terms of the British being. It's the kind of social how do you say? The social source that you grow up in also influences how you think about it. That's what people bring to it, but the common myths that there are are proclaimed because of what has been said to you, what has been lived through you, through your family, through your society. This is how you come to believe how it should look like, how long it should take or when it should be over or when people should get over it.
Speaker 2:And that is difficult because each person has a different nervous system, therefore reacts to something in a different way. Their capacity to deal with what's happening is different and therefore they react. That's beautifully seen in grieving parents, because one person and the other person, even though they have the same loss at the same time, in the same circumstances, they react very differently. Some, as I said, deal with by going into their head, head over heels, and others avoid it. That's what they can handle, based on what their nervous system is capable to do or not. And I like that saying without going to diminish grief or negatively equated to dirty dishes. But I like that because it exemplifies something and it's grief is like dirty dishes in the sink they will wait for you and when you're ready you will wash them, and the washing up is also not determined exactly how you need to do that.
Speaker 3:And does everyone's kind of grief journey look very different? Because I was grieving a pretty major loss in September 2022. And I look back at that period and, other than planning a funeral funeral, I don't really have much of a concept of what I did. I was privileged and grateful not to be working, so I had quite simple day structure. I think I slowed everything down, I exercised quite a lot, I slept quite a lot, but I was. I asked my dad the other day. I just said what did I actually do with my days? Because I can't almost can't remember. It was just quite a surreal period of time. So, yeah, I suppose my question is like how do we know when we're grieving and how do we know what it looks like? How do we know if we've done it?
Speaker 2:just even by your question whether we've done it includes that that there's a done, a finish, and only speaking from my personal experience and the experience that I see clients go through, I see differences, but there's also common themes, like I can see certain things coming up, not necessarily in a timeframe at six months, this happens but I see certain things that are repeat, repeatedly expressed. For example, the notion of this can't be real. I'm. This is not real, like I expressed before that I was an actor in a scene and I was waiting to wake up. That is often expressed. Another thing that is often expressed is experiences, especially physical experience. On milestones or on anniversaries, like death anniversaries. They often felt prior to them happening something's physically remembered. But in terms of grieving I mentioned before, there's different ways. There's more the cognitive way of grieving and the emotional way of grieving. These are the sort of the two main areas, but people know that they're grieving because they had a loss.
Speaker 1:Yeah, I would say yeah, if you had a significant loss, then you're grieving.
Speaker 2:Your way of grieving might be by avoiding it, by feeling it, by feeling it 10 years later, when there's something else happened that might not be actually very significant to you in your brain, but actually your body says, oh my god, that has the same frequency as the other loss that I had 10 years ago. So I I just came up with the answer. But basically, if someone had a loss that they're grieving, you can't not do it. You do it, just when and how.
Speaker 1:That's a mystery I think my experience of when I lost my father, I think I was in denial for a long time, I was in functional freeze, I was. I did not have any idea how to grieve such a big loss and I think from that I developed mental health issues, including an eating disorder. So for me it very much felt I wasn't grieving for those first two years. I was just binging and out of control and my life was a complete mess. And then I got some, some professional help and only at that point do I feel like my grief process actually started. But I can understand why you say oh no, you were grieving, that was the eating disorder. That was the eating disorder. That was a part of grief. But I've never contextualized it in that way. So that's interesting.
Speaker 1:But yeah, I'm wondering what your take is on elizabeth kubler-ross and the five stages of dying. I think that is what most people know about, about grief. So for listeners, the five stages. Supposedly the simpsons do a great meme of this as well. So it starts with denial and goes to anger, then goes to bargaining, then depression, then acceptance. But yeah, do you subscribe to this theory, natalie?
Speaker 2:I actually spoke to David Kessler on my podcast so people will have to listen to that episode because I asked him that. But basically when he spoke about that, I can relate to what he says. He says that people misunderstood her as to need five steps. You do one, then two, then three, then four, then five. This is not what she actually said. First of all, her premises was based on people who are going to die, so people who are not the supporters or those who are left behind, but actually of people are facing death. That was the first thing, and it was also not a matter of a neat step to go through a system, and I guess it's something that people or that a mind wants. It wants a system. What do I need to do? Tell me, how do I deal with that intense, emotional, overwhelming experience? What am I going to do, tell me. So they want a neat program or someone to tell them what they need to do, and so Elizabeth Goodwill Ross' five stages have been used as that, or misused, or misunderstood. But that's not actually what she wanted to say with that.
Speaker 2:That's what David Kessler said, and he had been working closely with her, so from that point of view, I think it's an understanding of the different emotions that we go through. And when I work with clients I tell them I see it like a pie chart or a chart with a pie with different slices, and each one of those slices has an emotion attached to it. And I see it like a snail, sort of a snail house, and you go through those from the innermost part where your loss has occurred in time. You circle through those different emotions, whatever they are, not just five. There are many kinds of emotions that people go through and sometimes you travel slower and then you travel faster through something, but the distance from the center becomes larger. So, even though there might be anger again, you're in a different trajectory to when it was right at the beginning.
Speaker 2:Or when you have disbelief again. Sometimes I think did my mother really die and why? So that sort of disbelief again, if you want to call it like that, but it's in a different place than when it just happened. So that's how I see in terms of the experience of grief, that I can take her model or her ideals that she wrote in terms of the people dying and not just in terms of the people grieving. If it can help normalize a person's experience. That's what's needed. And one thing she said to David, which I like. She said don't tell them what stage they're in or what phase they're in. Meet them where they're at.
Speaker 3:I suppose my question is then is it a good thing that we're destined to be shaped by our losses and by our grief? It sounds like it's something you're potentially never going to shed or never going to finish complete, as I said, however I phrased it. Is that a good thing? Is that kind of a blessing that we have that those experiences in some way, and what they teach us about life, is that important?
Speaker 2:what would you answer if I were to ask you that question?
Speaker 3:I think it goes back to something you were saying earlier in terms of when you're saying it's unavoidable. It's a bit like death itself. It's kind of like maybe life is so precious because it's so short. Maybe when we grieve it gives us a more realistic set of skills for coping with life. Maybe you need to grieve to actually properly form your character, form who you are and have a full-rounded view of the world.
Speaker 2:Perhaps I think that having been so closely related to death in terms of the losses that I explained, has made me aware of certain things that I wasn't aware of and I use the metaphor with grief often as, like a map, and there is a land or a continent that you have never traveled to and never wanted to, because you don't feel drawn to it or you actually dislike it, and and also it's not a map that where you are is here and on the other side is here. It's more like an error in yourself, more this way, but bear with me. And so what I say to people is you are being transferred to this land of life after loss, without your choice, without your agreement. You never wanted to go there, but you are there and you can never go back, you can never go back to your other place. So then the question is how do you do that? You don't have a guide. So then the question is how do you do that you don't have a guide? As I said, we never wanted to go there and you'd be placed there, and then you have this reaction. But you actually can go and see this land and there's places which you might discover that are actually beautiful or interesting or insightful. It doesn't make the loss worth the loss to go there. But there's no choice in the matter.
Speaker 2:And for that, if I look at my personal experience, the loss of my daughter has made me look at things and do things in my life that I would not have otherwise done. I would have never written a book. I was writing a lot in my professional work, but writing a book was not on my bucket list. Now how did I write six books? I don't actually know, but it made me do something and bring something to the world that I would not have otherwise. It doesn't make the loss worth it and I would rather not have the loss than to have those six books. It's not about that, it's not a trade-off. But yeah, I think I like in my way of resilient grieving. I like to take those glimmers and say, okay, I can't change the loss, that's a fact. But I can look at life and say, okay, what are the beautiful places or the worthwhile places in this land after loss that I visited without wanting to? But given that I'm here, I might as well go and look. You're smiling.
Speaker 3:You can totally relate to what you're saying. It's very real for me, so I suppose for people who haven't maybe been through a major loss like you're talking about, and I can't imagine what it must be like to lose a, a daughter. You mentioned preparedness earlier on how we prepare, and obviously you just mentioned resilience. Can you give us a bit more about what that might look like?
Speaker 2:when you say preparedness, you mean how people prepare for the how can we prepare ourselves for these things, these losses?
Speaker 2:I think we, as those who are bereaved, are a good example of how we show up in the world and how other people who will sooner or later experience that. There's no doubt, there's no way around it. We're helping them in a way to say this is what it can look like, but preparing yourself? If I look at myself in my professional training, yeah, I learned a lot about grief and loss, but in retrospect I think that my soul was preparing me for those losses. But what does prepared mean? Does prepared mean I suffer less? No, no, that doesn't work like that. There is no preparation that makes it less intense. It's the experience that you go through in the moment that makes it the experience. No preparation. It's like. The picture that comes in my mind is like the ski racer they can prepare for their race, but the actual race will make the time tick and make their race go good or bad. No preparation will be it.
Speaker 1:That's not what we wanted to hear. Natalie, one thing I kind of struggle with is I don't know if it's just like a masculine stereotype, but often the advice whenever I've had a loss, a breakup or things like that, the advice I've got and certainly from men has been like you just need to keep busy, don't think about it. I'll play squash with you after work, so you don't have to have any time alone. Get it, get out there, keep yourself busy, don't think about it. I think that's probably bad advice. But why? Why do you think that is bad advice? Do you think there is some negative side effects, like you know, with when the body says no and the body keeps the score gabber, martin, bessel, van der kok, they their idea is sort of like if you don't do your emotional work, if you don't do your emotional expression, then it comes out in side effects like chronic illnesses.
Speaker 2:No, gabber, mater, bezel, wandelkog, but I would think that might be quite near to the mark. I think it's like you have a wound and if you don't want to attend to the wound, you put plaster, or you put a cast on and say I'm not looking at it, I don't actually want to attend to it, but the wound is going to stay there anyway. So, yeah, it can turn into something worse. If it hasn't, or if you had a broken bone and if you don't set it or if you don't get it looked at, it's fine, I don't look at it. It can turn into something worse. It doesn't have to, but it can. It doesn't have to, but it can.
Speaker 2:And the thing about staying busy or stay strong all these myths are proclaimed by a society that wants to avoid strong emotions, because those people who want to rather play squashy-do than sit in your pain, they themselves feel challenged by their own strong emotions. And it's easier to keep you busy, to get you to think on staying strong or being successful in getting past as fast as you can through. The grief is the measurement with which you make good or you make bad. But it's because we as a society don't have the capacity yet to stay with someone else in their pain without needing to fix it, fade it, offer good advice or suggestion, or comparing their loss with our loss, or using another comparative story to liven up the mood. But to me it's. Can you stand in someone else's pain without you needing to fix your own or change it? Can you actually be with that? And that's where my nervous system is in the right place, being a person of support, because I can and I believe we need that. We went through a pandemic that affected the whole world. We needed to be comfortable with whatever it did to us, and some people had anxiety, some people had mental health issues. It doesn't have to be grief, but we need to be able to become more resilient with what's showing up, because in many cases, we don't have a choice In the matter of death. We don't have a choice because you can have 15,000 more days to live or you can have just one day, and so sooner or later, those people around you or you yourself will go. So when there's someone in our circle that experiences grief, then it's our potential, our possibility, to be with them. What happens within me that I can attend to, to be with that someone else who is grieving.
Speaker 2:Helping someone who's grieving is obviously my favorite topic, given my profession and what I'm doing. I'm passionate about that and usually when I tell people what I'm doing, they look a bit doing I'm passionate about that and usually when I tell people what I'm doing, they look a bit. They have these big eyes and say, oh my God, that must be so hard, this sort of pain-ridden face, and I say, no, it's not because me, my nervous system is at the right place. When I was working with couples it was the right place and then after some time I realized I'm no longer in the right place. But helping someone grieving and supporting them through that's my passion, because I can be there with someone in hard time and I think it can be learned. Someone else could do that as well. But it needs a willingness. It needs a willingness to be with your own emotional response that you can't control, and a lot of people don't like to be out of control. And, yeah, people want to do the right thing usually and then they're afraid they don't want to say the wrong thing or do the wrong thing and then they'd rather not say something. But actually not saying something is not bad. It's mostly nervous system co-regulates just by being with each other. Yeah, so if you can be there and if you can attend to your own regulation, you can be with someone who is grieving and be very supportive without needing to do something or help them or change their mind or keep them busy. I call this the art of presence. I I like that, and it's being there without judgment, without expectations, without an agenda, without well-meant advice or suggestion of what to do or, as I said, comparing my loss to your loss, but it's just awareness to be there and say okay, this is hard for you, I see that this isn't challenging for you.
Speaker 2:I have a beautiful example my daughter when she had her fourth birthday. At the end of the birthday party she comes to me and she starts crying and I thought what's going on? In my mind I thought it might have to do with her sister's death anniversary. I was wrong, but I didn't know. But I had the awareness to just be with her in that sadness. And she was crying and she had her crying as a four-year-old. It didn't make sense. She didn't explain, she just cried and I also didn't offer explanation. I also didn't ask questions as to why are you sad.
Speaker 2:I just let her have the experience and then, about 20 minutes into that which was a long time, I don't know how I sustained ability to just be present to her experience. She said, mommy. Then I asked so what makes you so sad? And then she said mommy, I'm so sad that the birthday party is over and it's another year until the next birthday party. And so that was the first time that I that I felt she was grieving something, so the the dissolution of her birthday party and something that she obviously looked forward to as a four-year-old does.
Speaker 2:And I was allowing herself to have the experience of that grief, that emotional reaction, and I was in that moment, just present to her. And then there was another five minutes or so of crying and after that she said okay, mommy, it's, it's good, now I'm done. Can we do something else now? And I don't know where I took the patience from. It wasn't hard, because she wasn't, she was just crying.
Speaker 2:But I also didn't know why until about 20 minutes in. But I trusted that, okay, whatever that experience is it, it's transient state, it will finish after some time, and I think that's the same with someone grieving, because those emotions that we go through, but it's the five stages or the five emotions that are assigned to elizabeth kublerRoss or any other emotions. They are transient. It's just that in raw grief the intense emotional responses are more. It's like waves that come again and again and later they come as well, but the intensity spike is less and the time in between those intense emotions widens. That's the difference, but can still come as unexpected. 10 years later, what is your guys' experience in terms of the losses that you had?
Speaker 1:Yeah, that's a good question. I love what you said there. I want to add several things and yeah, I think what you said there is it is so difficult to be with someone who is grieving and I think you've given some great advice there and it's so complex as well. There's so many things you think are helpful that are not helpful. For example, they say don't hand someone some tissues this is something I learned in psychotherapy if they're crying, because they might think that's you shutting them down, just be there, let them cry, let them get snotty, and when they're ready for tissues, they can ask for tissues. There's so many things you shouldn't do. Hug someone front on. You know you can maybe put a hand on the side or on their shoulders, but again, hugging someone front on can be seen as like shutting things down.
Speaker 1:And Natalie and I learn a lot about being with people through their emotions in our year-long training and with Rafia and Turia. And this is really like it's bringing me back to why I've been having a lot of conversations about weekend breathwork trainings, and breathwork can bring up these emotions so much, so quickly, and the idea that someone could understand how to deal be with someone who's's grieving, who's traumatized in a weekend training is just so makes me so angry. It's so much the dunning-kruger effect. People who have this, they think they're experts when they, when they don't know.
Speaker 1:I'm still learning so much about how to be with grief and trauma, despite all my trainings and as well I can see the depth of your knowledge, natalie, with all your trainings, with your grief training, with your psychotherapy training, with your holistic counseling training. But yeah, I'm just like the magnitude of of learning to be with someone. It is so good. But I just want to ask you to go back and maybe just just reiterate some of those key points you said for tips for how to be with someone who is grieving. I think you said don't offer advice. What else did you say? Could you just highlight those points?
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I would say that the umbrella would be presence. I would say if you can be there with someone and you have the capacity to be there, Just being there is co-regulating for another nervous system. So if someone doesn't have the capacity because they're overwhelmed by that, it's also good to not be there. I would also say that offering someone give me a call or let me know what you need is trying to be helpful, but it's actually in most cases unhelpful because people in early raw grief they don't know what they need and they can rarely voice it. So, to make a suggestion, let me bring you some food. Would that be okay? Let me know what you don't want on that burger. As Sheryl Sandberg says, let me know what you not want on a burger and I'll bring it over as an example to make suggestion.
Speaker 2:Like, for example, I remember at the time we were in the hospital there were friends coming over and one of them I remember clearly she was sitting there and she was helping us make a to-do list on things that we needed to do for the next, things that needed to happen and practical help, but without being being prompted, but maybe suggesting things that would be really helpful, like. I also found it really helpful at the time also, I had a new baby, I was. I was receiving meals from my friends, which was really helpful in the in the scheme of everything. Also the help that we received preparing for the funeral. We had a celebration of life that was really helpful In terms of being with someone on a long term. It's really important to know it's not the first ones, not the first three, not the first six, but to stay present and that can be just by sending a text message hey, I'm thinking of you. There's actually one service that I think is fantastic, which is a system that does that, which is HelpText, I think it's called, which is one thing that I recommend because these people have vast knowledge and it's personalized to the person's loss. But if you can be there for another friend and just send a weekly text message and say, can I come over or I'm here for you, I'm thinking of you in remembrance of, for example, I have one friend who, even after years like I think about 10 years after the loss of my daughter, she still sent me a Christmas card and she addressed it at me, my ex-husband and my two daughters name by name. So, for example. That is a really beautiful thing.
Speaker 2:Also, some people described sharing memories of that person with them because people have the assumed understanding that, oh, I don't want to remind them, I don't want to make them sad. Well, the truth is, you don't need to remind them of something that is painfully obvious to them and blatantly obvious every day the absence of that person and you don't make them sad because it's actually hopefully in most cases and I want to not to generalize, but it's mostly beautiful to say hey, I just remember that story with your dad and I just remembered him doing this or enjoying that in many cases. Now, actually, my latest book is called Bridging the Grief Gap, and this is what I wrote about, because I had situations where supporters called for help and said my sister lost her baby and I don't know how to deal with her, I don't know what to say, she seems easily upset and things like that. So I would realize, okay, they need mediation, because the griever has an experience, which I completely understand, and the supporter doesn't. He doesn't have the perspective shift. So I was understanding that I needed to bridge a gap for them, and that's often what I do with clients as well. But in that book I actually collected all the ways that people were helpful or found to be helpful and what the grievers actually experienced that helpful, and when or why not. So that's really that's a really good resource.
Speaker 2:Without wanting to advertise my book, but that has been written just because of that, because people say what do I say? When do I say it? It's individual, but there's common things. And to be expecting feedback, it's really good to say, look, I want to do this for you, Would that be okay? And the other person to say, no, I don't want that, I want to be alone. But often people assume the person grieving wants to be more alone than they actually want. Yeah, it's wrong assumptions and I think it's good to say, okay, let me get feedback. Let me ask that person can we talk about your dad? Would that be okay? I'd love to? Or I'd love to go for a movie. Is that, is that good for you right now or another time? Ask for feedback and allow to be wrong.
Speaker 3:If the person says no, I don't feel like it I think, if it's coming from a good place as well. That's what I always thought, I think, even if someone said something that maybe didn't seem to help me, I think the very fact that people are trying, I think, is in of itself a nice thing yeah people are opening their hearts and trying to connect and trying to help you yeah, the common situation that people who are grieving have is that people walk towards them and then change the side of the road.
Speaker 2:that's something that I hear all the time and in this situation I would recommend to someone don't change the side of the road. Obviously, walk up to that person and say hi, I don't know what to say. Or another thing that people say is to say look, I'm lost for words, but I want you to know, I just want to be here for you. Just even making contact is much more helpful than changing the side of the road or not contacting them out of fear of doing something wrong or not knowing what to say. You can say I don't know what to say. And also, in terms of the question of how are you, I have one area in the book that I say do you like people saying I'm sorry? And for some people that's really infuriating, for others it's nice, but just say what's here.
Speaker 2:And in terms of how are you, it would be good to ask a more specific question, because how are you is quite big, but it could be how are you this morning? Or how were you at drop off of your kids, to make it more specific then. It's not. It's not just a big question where people then modulate what can I say? What? Not do you really want to know the answer? But something small that is containable for the person, the griever, to answer and I see you're nodding, andy, can you know?
Speaker 3:it's just already really helpful and it's really interesting. I think also that perhaps the problem with how are you is it's almost like a pavlovian people have got their stock responses like I'm fine, I'm okay, and they're not actually focusing on the question necessarily as much as just getting it away.
Speaker 1:Yeah, yeah, one. One of the things I remember about my grieving process early on was like I often felt like I had to take care of other people. I didn't. I knew exactly that they probably wanted to cross the other side of the road and so I very much felt right, I have to show that I'm fine and they should feel comfortable in my presence. And I think that probably blocked my, my, my, slowed down my recovery process.
Speaker 1:But one thing I can actually remember when meeting you, natalie and getting to know you, natalie was like just to be in your presence. You just felt. It just felt like I could really lean on you. When we were doing counselling together, giving each other counselling and just talking in the canteen. It was just very much your presence just emanated. This person really understands grief and trauma and they can handle it. I just felt like I didn't have to take care of you and I think, as you say, it wasn't you were doing anything, you were just being, and that was really like just really spoke volumes, even without words. So I actually feel quite emotional remembering that, natalie, because it was a very special meeting you and and getting to know you. But yeah, andy, anything else you want to ask?
Speaker 3:no, I was just going to say the same for you because, yeah, rich was actually with me when I found out my mum passed away and again it was just like that thing of just having someone there who's just a been been through it, unfortunately, and so A been through it and B just that calming presence and just knowing what to do, basically. And that wasn't. He drove me quite a long way on a motorway, but beyond that, practically speaking, didn't do a huge amount. Just being around someone like that is really, really reassuring and helpful.
Speaker 2:Speaking didn't do a huge amount. Just being around someone like that is really, really reassuring and helpful. I want to add something, because I think when I look at that now from a polyvagal lens, I can see that if someone is able and and capable in the moment to send cues of safety to the other person with whatever they're showing up with, then the nervous system can relax in that experience, in that fullness of intensity of whatever it is and it signals and this is, I think, what my nervous system does now that I look at it is saying I have the container to hold this, I'm okay with this. And that is the beauty, where someone else's nervous system would say this is really overwhelming, but I'm in good hands. In a way, I can be with what is.
Speaker 3:Yeah, I think when you talked about that I don't know how you phrased it, but almost that autopilot phase as well I think that was a really interesting one to look back on, because we were in America and we had to get home.
Speaker 3:That's the first sort of priority, if you like, and I knew that I was definitely the best place love my family to bits, but I was definitely the best place to be booking flights and getting organized and getting us all home. So I feel like I just went into this mode of just sort of like booking flights and cancelling stuff and telling people and getting myself around America, getting us all home, like organising this funeral, and then I thought after a few weeks I kind of thought I actually haven't like really felt. Obviously I felt pangs of incredible sadness, but that autopilot thing was a very strange function, you know, functioning your way through that just seems like it shouldn't be possible and it was quite an out-of-body experience, as you said, just like you're an actor acting all these things and acting fine and acting like you want to book flights.
Speaker 2:So I found that, yeah, that really resonated me when you were talking about that I think it's fascinating that the that the system, without calling body, mind or whatever, is able to do that. Because imagine this when I found out that my mother died, had died, it was early morning and I look at my phone and I see all these missed calls. So we first wake up in australia, in switzerland, it was evening, and in that moment I knew okay, I already knew, but I obviously didn't know, but literally. And then I called my family and my father was sitting where I'm sitting now and I could see this picture and he said you've got to be strong now. And I knew. And so in that moment I was, my daughter was there on the bed, four months old at that time, yeah, and I was wailing, I had this guttural thing coming out, and then my husband at that time was getting ready to go to work.
Speaker 2:And so we found out, okay, my mother had died just that day. But then we needed to go into functioning mode. We needed to get a passport for my daughter, we needed to book flights and like an urgent passport to get on a flight and it was Friday, so the passport needed to be done that day and we just went into functioning. There was someone coming a friend again, the same friend who did the list in the event of the death of my daughter and we just went into functioning mode and it's fascinating that the system is able to do that to say, okay, this is the fight-flight activation mode, where you say, okay, we get through this.
Speaker 2:And then there comes a point for example, me on the plane where the people on the plane, the staff, must have known that we're flying, for they have something termed for that fly for compassionate reason, and then suddenly all that stress of that adrenaline goes out and then suddenly emotions can come in. I clearly remember that. But when you have to function, you can, and then you can let go of it. I don't know how your experience was in that, but there was also international travels involved.
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely the same felt like up until maybe even the point of the funeral or just after the funeral. That's when I really felt I could be with it and don't have to look after anyone, don't have to do anything, just have to be like get myself through it, I suppose thank you, andy, and thank you, natalie, for sharing all of that stuff.
Speaker 1:So, natalie, can you tell us a bit about your work? Can people work with you? Have you got any future projects coming up?
Speaker 2:yes, I do so. People can find me on the website natalie imagecom I suppose you put the links on there and I work individually with clients and I sometimes run small courses for people. I have something coming up which is the first book that I've written is it has its 10-year anniversary this year in September. That end of August it was 10 years that it was released. So I have something coming up for that and the best way for people to find out is sign up on my newsletter if they want to hear about it, or follow on Instagram. That's where, the place where I I share about what's happening.
Speaker 1:Yeah, and what's your instagram handle?
Speaker 2:that came from a time prior to understanding what was happening. So that's my miss bliss, and that's just a little play of words, because my daughter's name is ananda, and ananda is means bliss, and so I was, at the beginning, just thinking of posting pictures of her at the time when instagram started yeah, 13 years ago. So my miss bliss my miss bliss.
Speaker 1:Okay, thank you, and we'll link to that in the show notes, of course yeah, thank you so much for coming on.
Speaker 3:That's it's been unbelievably amazing talking to you. I feel like you've been philly, you've been talking to me personally. I know you have been talking to me personally, but so much of what you said is just completely what I can relate to and I'm sure many of our listeners will find the same, and I love your phrase the art of presence. I think that's a really important takeaway, thank you thank you too.
Speaker 1:Thank you for having me thank you natalie, thank you andy and thank you listener. We will see you next time. Bye.