219. Suicide Grief, Self-Blame, and the Mindset Shift That Changes Everything with Toni Filipone

What happens when the grief you're carrying is the kind most people don't know how to talk about? Toni Filipone knows, and she's here to walk you through it.

I'm sitting down with Toni Filipone, an international, multi-certified grief expert, author, speaker, and the founder of MasterGrief, a global platform helping people heal after loss all over the world. With over 30 years of experience in personal development alongside leaders like Tony Robbins, Toni has dedicated her life to helping people understand grief, master their emotions, and rebuild a life they actually want to live. 

She's also the author of In the Trenches: A Coach's Walk Through Grief, which shares her own raw and honest story of loss and the tools that helped her move forward.

Toni's expertise isn't just professional. It's deeply personal. Three and a half years ago, she lost her partner Terri to suicide. That loss cracked her open, reshaped her work, and gave her an entirely new lens for what it means to truly grieve.

In this conversation, we get into ALL of it:
✨ What makes suicide grief uniquely traumatic and complicated
✨ The shock, denial, and self-blame that so many suicide loss survivors experience
✨ The concept of "causation bias"
✨ A powerful mindset shift: moving from "what if" to "even if"
✨ Why you can't go back to the life you had before loss, and what it looks like to build a new one
✨ Honest thoughts on grief groups, including what to look for and what to walk away from
✨ The difference between grief and mental illness
✨ Finding daily "pockets of joy" and what that actually means

Whether you're navigating suicide loss, supporting someone who is, or just trying to understand what healthy grief can actually look like, this episode will leave you feeling seen, equipped, and a little less alone.

Connect with Toni:

• https://www.tiktok.com/@tiktoktoni75
• https://www.instagram.com/mastergrief_t
• https://www.linkedin.com/company/mastergrief/
• https://www.youtube.com/@MasterGriefT
• https://www.facebook.com/people/MasterGrief/61576327545212/
•  https://mastergrief.com/

Click here to get your copy of Love Like Thunder, Grief Like Rain: https://earthgrief.love/

Transcript

Welcoming Toni Filipone

SPEAKER_02 0:00

Tony, welcome to the Life with Grief podcast. Very excited to have you here. You have such a beautiful energy, too. Can I just say I'm just so excited to get into this conversation with you? And one thing I love about you, the more the little kind of research that I've done and just learned more about you is first of all, I'm so intrigued by your work in teaching people how to understand grief, right? Manage their emotions, rebuild life after loss. That is what we're all about here on the podcast. It very much aligns with the work that I do as well. But like many guests that come on this podcast, you yourself have a story of loss as well that I would love for you to share in just a moment. But yeah, just thank you so much for being here today because I just know you're going to give listeners so much clarity and support that we all need right now. Let's be real. So griever not. Thank you for having me. You world, right? By the way. I'm thrilled to have you here. So thank you for joining.

SPEAKER_01 0:57

Welcome to the Life with Grief podcast. I'm your host, grief and sole purpose coach and fellow griever, Tara Accardo.

SPEAKER_02 1:06

Like I said, I would love to just dig in and have you just share your experience with grief and loss with us. Because I think, you know, I say this all the time. No matter if someone is here listening, and whether they have experienced the same loss or you as you on paper or not, I think there's so many general feelings and emotions and things, if you will, that just come with grief that we can all kind of relate to and and just see each other in, which I think is really beautiful in a very twisted way. So and necessary. Yes, yeah. So I'll anyway, I'll pass it off to you to share.

SPEAKER_00 1:42

So I'm actually really humbled to be here because I've come to find that grief is the number one topic that people request, and it's the number one topic people don't want to talk about. Yep. So it's a really weird space. Funny how that works, isn't it? It's funny how that works, right? Yeah, I need to know all about it, but shh, yeah.

Toni’s loss story

SPEAKER_00 2:03

So I started my career actually in personal growth many, many years ago, decades ago. And a very famous thought leader, Anthony Robbins, said in one of the I was at, right? He said the best. He said, any disempowering feeling comes from the perception or reality of loss. And so I was very young when I heard that, maybe 17, I'm 50 now. Jeez. And that always stuck with me. I was like, wow, that's a really interesting reality or perception of loss. Yeah. So I became like minimally obsessed with understanding loss. And it became more about at the time of my career, like loss of a job, loss of a dream, loss of it didn't really have to do with death. Sure. And so I would go around and do these big speaking events and talk about loss, very technically about the brain and the mind. And this is, you know, this is how we change the perception of loss. And three and a half years ago, I lost my partner who died by suicide. Uh, single gunshot founder. It was like traumatic, complicated grief to the umth degree. And I thought, the first thing I thought was, I want to handwrite the tens and thousands of people that I've spoken to and said, I'm really sorry.

unknown 3:21

Wow.

SPEAKER_00 3:22

I think I taught you everything right. So I got like the heart, like I didn't know how much pain you were in sitting there. So I sort of wheeled out a whiteboard and and I taught all this stuff. And here I am, you know, on my hands and knees, quite literally. And I just everything sort of shifted for me. And I thought, wow, you know, talk about you know, imposter syndrome, right? I thought, oh my gosh, like who am I now? Also, I guess what have I done? And so I went through that complicated, traumatic grief. My my late partner did suffer greatly with bipolar depression. This was her 18th attempt. And so I'd been on that roller coaster of grieving what I thought the relationship could be. And then she'd have a dip and she'd be in the hospital again. And it was sort of this roller coaster.

Feeling relief and grief

SPEAKER_00 4:11

And so I always say you can have relief and grief also at the same time. I'm yeah, very relieved that bipolar depression isn't in my life anymore, but I'm really sad that my partner is dead.

SPEAKER_02 4:21

That duality can exist. Thank you for naming that. That's very, very important because I think there are a lot of people that whether it's a mental health struggle, an illness, watching a loved one suffer from a disease, right? Like, and we're not, I always love to clarify that. So thank you, right? We're not happy they're gone. We're not glad their presence is no longer in our life, but we we want everybody around us at our their best and our best, right? And so, and let's not discount as the supporter, like how emotionally taxing that is. And that I don't say that it's like it's not about us, but it's, you know, we deserve that release and calm in our lives as well. And we can love someone so much, but there's so much complication around that. And I think it could cause a lot of guilt and guilt, yes, yes. Anyway, thank you.

SPEAKER_00 5:13

Because that's yeah, no, thank you for allowing it. You know, people we don't want our loved ones suffering, whether it's mental or physical. Yeah, so we don't find relief in their death, but we find relief if they're no longer suffering, and that we aren't either, and we can breathe a little bit, yeah. You know, it's true. So I went, I went to my first grief support group, and it was wild because I was doing speaking events, and I walked into this group in like a leather jacket and like glasses and very like lesbianed out, you know. And I, you know, walk in and there was a there was a flyer of me that I was speaking there next month, and I thought, whoa my gosh, like I'm showing up as somebody that's like wrecked, like I can't do this event, right? I'm like, I ended up canceling it actually. And I remember sitting in my very first ever grief support group, and it was like, you know, rounds, so everybody was sort of sitting in a circle, and I was the last one to go because I was the newbie, and they said their name, where they were from, and how long they've been coming to this group. And I was like, okay, that's cool, you know. And they were like, you know, my name is so and so. I've been here 18 years, 12 years, 19 years, 11 years. This I was like, but they were all not what like they weren't a good space. And by the time it got to me, remember, I'm Tony Robbins trained, right? So I'm like, this battle between like heart explosion, but also wait, you know? Yeah. And it got to me, and I said, you know, I'm Tony, I'm five days in. This is what happened to my you know partner. Um, I don't even quite know, I can't even get water down. Yeah. Um, but I said, I have one question for all of you. I said, How have you all changed since you've been coming here? The whole room went quiet, and the facilitator sort of like was like She's like, Who's facilitating this? Right, that's right, Tara. And I said, and I and I said, I'm out of here. But I promise you I'll be back in one year and I'm gonna facilitate this group. And I did. I showed up a year later to the day, and I went home and I went bananas over, like, okay, it's okay to not be okay for a little bit. And grief isn't love with nowhere to go. That's not what do you mean love with nowhere? Love always is a place to go. And I sort of dove into these like little taglines that we get, like as if it was like you know, plastered inside of a bathroom stall at a corporate office. Like, I'm like, you know, the five stages of grief. I'm like, well, that's for the dying, not for the living.

SPEAKER_02 7:34

That model right, thank you. So misconstrued, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:37

Like Elizabeth Kubel Ross, love her, but like you're that's not what she meant. That's what she wasn't talking to you. No, like it was so wrong, right? And it was in that moment, Tara, that I was like, okay, I converted my entire company to understand how we grieve with the brain and the mind. Yeah, very important part, yeah, how to grieve with more love than pain, yeah, and sort of to find purpose in the pain and to create the new identity and the new vision with our future and the meaning and all of it. And that's how I came to be here with you today.

SPEAKER_02 8:11

Yeah. Wow. Oh my God, so powerful. So oh, I just snaps. I just I love all of this. Um

Grief clichés

SPEAKER_02 8:20

and what you just said too about like really leading with love, that has been such a theme in so many of my conversations lately, like it always is. But just thank you for naming that because I, you know, I think a lot of people like have like displaced love, right? And I I'm so with you on the grief is love with nowhere to go. Maybe it's because I'm so jaded from like working in grief as much as I do. And I'm I am so sick about a line. Is that eradicated? I'm always like, I know, no, I don't know. I'm like, listen, if it's helpful, I guess, for someone, fine. If it resonates with you out there, whoever, fine, zero judgment. But I've always even from the beginning, I question like, what does that even really mean though? Because I believe in continuing bonds.

unknown 9:10

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 9:11

I I don't, you know, I am not of the belief, unlike my lovely father-in-law, I am not of the belief that when we die, it's just it's black and that's it, and and we die. Just like that. Okay, that's a hot take. I don't I don't prescribe to that. And we don't, you know, that's a whole nother conversation. But I'm like that, and this is also gonna sound very cliche, but it's like the love, it does have to evolve. We do have to find other places to put it in terms of yeah, we can't physically maybe hug our loved one anymore. We can't send our love through a text. We can right, we're in such like a physical world. I would actually love your perspective on this, so I'll stop talking in a second. But I think it's like when people say that, I almost feel like that's what that means, right? Because we're so in this human world, it's everything's very tangible, whatever. It's like we can't, and rightfully so, when we're especially in like the earlier days of grief, so to speak, figure out like what to do with ourselves and where to put that and like figure out their lack of presence. So I almost feel like I'm I'm just totally projecting right now, but I almost feel maybe that's where that comes from. I don't know. I don't know who came up with that. I have thoughts and feelings, obviously. But so it's that it's like the whole grieving thing is a process, it's a journey, but that's that's a lot of it. So to bring it back to you and to your experience, and maybe specifically we can we can speak about your partner, and please feel free to share her name if you're comfortable doing that. I love love to name them so we know who we're talking about. Yeah, and so maybe with with your loss, like can you I hate to make people relive this, but like can you take us back and like so clearly that experience uh well needless to say that was jarring for you, but not only of course her passing, but as you mentioned, like even in the work that you do, you're like, whoa, I kind of maybe missed something

Early coping after a partner's death

SPEAKER_02 11:07

here. So big question, but like what did coping look like for you in those early days? Because as you mentioned, and I I think so many people here listening that have experience with a uh suicide, you know, death as well, like can empathize with that feeling of perhaps a lack of closure. Understand even if the individual like was dealing with mental health issues, right? Like it still doesn't make the passing any less uh shocking in some ways, right? When they're actually gone. So yeah, just talk to us about those early days. Like what literally what did you do to cope?

SPEAKER_00 11:46

You know, I think shock gets a very bad rap. Um, I think I was in shock and denial for a long time. I always say, you know, if our bodies were to feel the pain all at once, we'd be on the ground and we wouldn't be in backup. Yep, definitely. So I think for the first couple months, I just it it just wasn't, I was you're like everybody, like what? Like hold on, what? You know, you wake up every day and you go, Wait, what? You're reliving it every day. They don't just die once in those first couple months, they die every day.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:17

And you know, somebody in my early days said, Well, how long are you gonna grieve? I said, Well, how long will she be dead? Because if she's gonna be dead a very long time, I'm gonna grieve a very long time. And that's when it was about sort of to your point earlier, is like, you know, it's more about grieving with more love than pain, not not no pain and all love, you know, and okay. So in the early days to cope, especially when it's death by suicide, um I was it with the questions, you know, it was like, How did I miss it? What if I did this? What if I had done that? You know, I've been in the personal development space my whole life. I had never lost one until my partner. So, you know, I was sort of like, what did I do wrong? What did I do wrong? We go through causation bias when somebody dies, right? And our brain is designed to look for what causes the pain. If I put my hand on a burning stove, my brain's gonna say, Oh, that pain was caused because you put your hand on the burning stove. If you don't want to feel that way, don't put your hand on the burning stove. So the brain is looking for a way to put us in control of the pain. That's why we blame ourselves. What can I have done to stop that pain? So when it's, you know, when somebody you know is on uh anticipatory grief and they're dying of pancreatic cancer, it hits the heart the same and the mind is still in pain, but the brain, there's no confusion. My uncle went on to hospice, pancreatic cancer, the pancreatic cancer took over and the and the death occurred.

SPEAKER_02 13:42

That's totally what happened with my parents.

SPEAKER_00 13:44

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 13:45

It was it was like yeah, no, I lost both my parents to cancer. That anticipatory grief was there. I lost them six months apart to that. And it was like with my mom, she died first. So it was like shh shocking, quote unquote, in terms of like, I just can't believe this is happening to her. She was like 62, 63. I was like, You're way too young for this. And then once when my dad died kind of shortly after, I was like, all right, I kind of know how this is gonna go. Like writing's on the wall, like not like been there, done that. It was a very different experience because different person, different parent, but like, you know, but yes, to your point, there's it's hard to process it in the moment, but you can it's not let's say as abrupt, I guess, for lack of a better your brain can identify the pain.

SPEAKER_00 14:32

Yeah, yeah. Your brain can go, this is like you're like my parents both died of cancer and compounded grief within six months of each other. So the mind is still what the heart is still aching, but the brain goes, Oh, they died of cancer. That's what happened. There's a why, there's a cause. There's why, yes. We can we are in such a grief illiterate society and a mental health illiterate society, and people mix up the two all the time. They're not the same, which I also want to ask you about here in a moment, but yeah. Oh, sure. Yeah, oh yeah, that's a big issue, right? Yeah. So when it's death my suicide, yeah, you know, people still think it's a choice, people still think it's selfish. You know, we were very clear that it's an illness of the mind, and that's what took over. But you asked, you know, about coping.

Going from "What If" to "Even If"

SPEAKER_00 15:17

I understood with all of my years doing personal development that we can't generate a feeling without first asking a question. So the way the brain works is we ask an internal question, which dictates what we focus on, what we think about. And when we think about something, we must assign meaning to it. And when we assign meaning to it, that's when the feeling generates, okay? Whether it's anxiety or depression, whatever you're feeling. So I knew that everything was dictated by the questions. Now, when somebody dies by suicide, the questions are quadruple. I mean, like steroids. What could I have done? Had I seen it? What if I didn't fight with them? Well, you know, fighting doesn't cause death. Well, what if I gave them tortilla soup instead of chicken soup? Well, chicken soup doesn't cause death. So you we have all these what-ifs. So I teach, like, take the what-ifs to even if. Even if you said I loved you one more time, the death would have occurred. Even if you didn't fight that day, the death would have occurred, right? Because it's not about things that we do. So the very first thing I did to gain control of my absolute spiral was to gain control of the internal questions that I was asking myself and understand that her death had nothing to do with anything that I was doing. So, how could I ask better questions? Better questions lead to what I can focus on. And when I say sign meaning, you know, people, this means I'm broken. This means that my life is over too. This means that I'll never find love again. I'll never, what does this mean for life after loss? And then that meaning dictates the action. So it actually went from dwelling onto what was lost to creating what this new life, unwanted life was going to look like. So that's what I did early on to start shifting how I felt in this death by suicide. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 17:05

That's so powerful. And honest, thank God you were in the work that you were. Because I don't think and thank you for saying all of that too, truthfully. And I hope this episode finds so many people because there's a lot of us who who don't know to ask those questions, right? We don't know those reframes. We don't even, we don't even know which way is up. Let's be real. So to have that introspection and go inward and do those reframes, that's why that's why I coach, right? That's why people like us are out there and and try and help because that's hard to do on our own. We don't even know where to start, right? We need some guidance in that. So, but that's and anyone here listening, no matter where you are in your grief experience, like even what you just said there and just some of those reframes, or again, those like questions to kind of get clarity and like dig a little deeper, I think is such a beautiful exercise, right? And it challenges us a little bit, yeah, but it's uh it yeah, it's something I wish I had done earlier, but I didn't know what I didn't know at the time. And I give myself all the grace in the world for that too. And that's the kind of the knowledge you had then. Yep.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

You know what I mean? Exactly. The change from what if to even if is a powerful thing. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 18:18

Really quick. Okay, so I want to get to like kind of grief versus mental health. I think that's really important to touch on really quick. But that what we were just saying just brought up something when going back to that grief group that you were in, when you were mentioning how long people had been there for, I don't know how to kind of say this properly, but that was a little concerning to me. In terms of not because that their grief isn't valid or whatever, but I was kind of wondering like how effective the grief grief group was, if they still seem to be, dare I say that stuck? That not okay. Like, what did you observe in that group? I'm so curious. I ask because I've I've had other people that I've just spoken to on and off the podcast that went to groups groups like that, and not to knock grief groups, they're very important, I think, if they're properly led and done well, but like there's an alarming number of grief groups that have not resonated with people. And I don't feel like really helped. So I'd love to.

SPEAKER_00 19:23

Like don't have to be vetted. And as long as they have a grief story, which we all do, yeah, the willingness, which is beautiful, yes, to curve, they're sort of there to facilitate. Number one, yeah. Number two, because we've lost our way in grief, even though we've come from a long line of dead people, you know, we've lost our way in grief that we have just been taught to validate.

unknown 19:46

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 19:46

So it's like, okay, you know, we're going around the room. Now I think that there's people that go to meetings, AA, let's say, for years. Yeah. And I think it's great. They find community, they find support, they've been so over, you know, 18 years. Great. That's why I asked, how have you changed since you've come here? I wanted to see if they were here just for like progress, like community, cool. Like, oh no, like I've done this and that. This is just my these are my people. I would have been like, great. I would have been so into it, but they were like, Oh, like, no, I'm still not. And I was like, Oh, oh no. Like, I was like literally panicked. And you know, I to truth be told, I I never went to a grief group after that as a participant, yeah. Or facilitator, and that's why I think it's really important when you're searching for a group to make sure that the facilitator, of course, doesn't just have a grief story. We don't really go looking for this line of work, it finds us, so most of the time with the grief story, but that they have some sort of education in grief, some sort of certification or something, at least to get people to move in this in their process. So I, you know, it was shocking to me. Again, it wasn't the length of time because I get community.

SPEAKER_02 21:01

Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. It's the why they were still there, I think, is what without any progress. So that's that's what was alarming to me. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:10

You know, I also taught a couple more things that I learned throughout my, you know, studying under Tony Robbins was he always said that you're always preparing for something you don't know you're preparing for. And sure, that sure hit me three and a half years ago.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:24

And he said that, you know, what the third human need that we have is significance. And most people find their significance by having a significant problem. And so when I looked around the group, and and grief, although isn't a problem, yeah, we can create problems and blame it on our grief. And so that's what I thought sitting there is, oh, these are the people not attention seeking, it's unconscious. Yeah. You know, think about if I walk by you on the street, you're in grief. So I know you have compassion and empathy. If I want you're so friendly, if I walk down In the street and smiled, I know you'd smile back and maybe like, we'd keep, but we'd keep going. Yeah. But I know if I walk by you on the street and I was sitting on a bench, really sad and crying, and I looked up at you. I just wouldn't you come over.

SPEAKER_03 22:15

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:16

Say, Hey, you're right, you good? How can I? I'm gonna get more attention and significance out of you if I have a problem than if I don't. And so the brain understands patterns. So when I sat in that room, that's what I thought. Oh, these people haven't been taught to find their significance in an empowering way versus a disempowering way. And that's when I started to combine what is now my company is grief with personal development and say, hey, I get where you're at. Cool. Yep. Let's give you a minute. Early grief is two years, that's gonna happen right away. But this isn't the end of your story. It's grief and your story. And here's how we're gonna get you there. So that's what I was thinking in that circle.

SPEAKER_02 22:57

I love that. Coming at it with that lens. Okay, yeah. I I just I had to ask because I was like, Oh man, and then again with the background that you had and all of that, and the fact that you were so early in five days in, right? Five days in.

SPEAKER_00 23:09

It was the day before the funeral. Oh god. Night before the funeral. So you know it was it was probably four days in because she died on the fifth. The funeral was the tenth, so I went on the ninth. Four days. I was I was like, I gotta, I gotta move in this.

SPEAKER_02 23:23

Like you have the wherewithal to do that. I mean, uh, most of us are still oh my god, in bed on day four. Like desperation. Kudos, even though it wasn't maybe the most fruitful. Uh but it maybe it was. I at the end of the day, for you and your my god, your company, you're just uh you I like let's put it this way. I feel like you were meant to go to that group for sure for yourself, for those people, all the things. Sure, not if it's a fun story, yeah. Right. It's a good life experience, if nothing else.

Grief vs mental health

SPEAKER_02 23:53

Okay, so let's move on quickly to the the grief and the mental health. And I yes, because we've touched on this a little bit already, but mislabeling. Oh, does it happen? And I and in that can delay the healing process, if you will, which you know, I think in a lot of ways is is continuous, I guess. But yeah, just again, especially with your personal experience in this, and then of course your your expertise, right? Like just shed some light on this and anything we can keep in mind here.

SPEAKER_00 24:24

I think the difference between grief and mental health is very clear. Um, grief isn't an illness. Yep, it's not a pathology, it's not something broken inside of you. An illness of the mind is different from grief because grief is a physiological response to loss, not a disorder that needs fixing. It doesn't have a prescribed timeline, it doesn't have a treatment plan, you know, that you can check off. It's it's messy, it's unpredictable, and that's okay. But grief requires understanding, witnessing, integration, reintegration, not correction. Mental health, like mental health struggles or challenges demand oftentimes interventions, therapy, you know, to change symptoms, sometimes medication. Grief demands presence, reflection, support from people who can hold space, of course, without the judgment. So the reality is that grief touches the brain, the heart, and the body all at once. And it's exhausting, it can be disorienting, and it can bring moments of unexpected clarity or insight about life and what mattered. But if you think of it this way, an illness of the mind is often treated.

SPEAKER_01 25:42

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 25:43

Grief is lived, and the way we live it, the way we let it touch us, shape us, connect us, that's what makes the difference. So it's not this illness, it's not a sickness, it's not a chemical imbalance, it's an emotional response to something, and most times very catastrophic, very traumatic. Yeah, people, because it can show the same symptoms depression, irritability, anxiety, isolation, all of that, they mix it up because you can have all of those symptoms with an illness of the mind as well. So that's where society doesn't take into fact that there is an event versus a chemical in that a balance, right? Yes, yes. They'll be like, I'm depressed, I'm anxious. And I'm like, you don't have anxiety disorder. You're anxious because your life was just shattered and you don't have a vision for your future.

SPEAKER_01 26:41

Rightfully so, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:43

Rightfully so. So it's very, it's very um it's I think it's very damaging to the mind when we say I am and put an emotion after it. Because when you say I am to the brain, the brain thinks of it as fact and it and it won't give you any wiggle room. It and it becomes your identity, and we're most committed to how we identify. So if I say I am anxious, the brain's like, Well, I'll find any way to make you anxious. I'll give me a million things to bring out God, yes. Versus I feel really anxious about that gives your brain wiggle room to say, okay, well, we can handle that. Yeah, again, grief is not an illness, it's an emotion. Yeah. An illness of the mind is uh something that's chemically wrong.

SPEAKER_02 27:31

Yes, yeah. Thank you. Thank you for clarifying that. And some people listening might have might know that, right? But the way you explain that is is so helpful and and supportive. And you know, there's like prolonged grief disorder, and there's like another one too that I am thinking of. I was talking to another guest, and I'm totally kind of blanking on something just got like reclassified or renamed.

SPEAKER_00 27:53

There's something about that, but what was it? Delayed grief, delayed grief, prolonged grief disorder.

SPEAKER_02 27:58

Yes, maybe that maybe that is what I'm thinking of. Anyway, the disorder part. I'm like, what what are your I don't know. What are your do you have any something?

SPEAKER_00 28:06

See, I get asked this a lot, and I have an unpopular, I have an unpopular. I love that they said disorder. Here's one. Okay. I know everyone looks at me.

SPEAKER_02 28:18

I did a panel once and they're like, wait, no, but uh this is why I want the different perspectives.

SPEAKER_00 28:24

So yes, like lay it on me. When you in this country, when you put disorder behind something, yeah, that it opens up the possibility for insurance companies to pay for treatment. And most people can't afford grief treatment or out of pocket. Good point. So if it's a disorder, then insurance companies, you want you'll only have to pay a copay or something.

SPEAKER_02 28:46

That's a great consideration there.

SPEAKER_00 28:48

Yeah, that's the only reason why I like it. I don't like it's a disorder in the fact that the title like the label right, but at the end of the day, grief support shouldn't be a luxury. And as you know, as we just spoke about, free support can be very unvetted, yes, and keep people stuck. So I was like, okay, if I really look at it as like a societal need, you're gonna have to be certified, you're gonna have to go through training. People are not gonna have to pay and they're gonna get quality care. That's not true.

SPEAKER_02 29:19

Yeah, okay, fair enough.

SPEAKER_00 29:22

I I don't because I know what disorder means to insurance companies, yeah, I didn't mind it. I didn't mind it. I was like, it's about time that you took it seriously. So I have an unpopular no, but you know what?

SPEAKER_02 29:35

Okay, but that's I get that actually. And and initially, but before you just explained it in that way, I'm like, you know, the the the disorder part, I think it freaks people out, and it it's it's you know, there's something wrong with me. There's something wrong with, you know, and I think people like that becomes their identity and they kind of like live there. And so I get, but the way you just broke that down in terms of getting the quality care, which we all deserve, and should you have access to all the things sold. Okay, that's fair. I can I can get on board. I don't like the title. I wish they would do like give me call it literally anything else, but okay, fine. If it gets people the freaking help they need, better, right?

SPEAKER_00 30:11

Yeah, so the end user gets more help that way. So if you need to call me a display, like cool, whatever.

SPEAKER_02 30:18

Yeah, yes, yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. Okay, I hear you.

Rebuilding your life after loss

SPEAKER_02 30:22

Okay, so this all being said, and again, to kind of bring it back to your experience, how you've gotten to where you are now, so to speak. We can talk uh personally and professionally, but also again, would love your just insight on this with your the work that you do. I just wanted to talk about rebuilding after loss. And and re-we can talk more, maybe more specifically about like rebuilding identity and just that idea of like picking up the pieces and how we do that. And you know, I I think that's something so many people struggle with is just the the what now and then the who am I now? Especially if our identity was so tied to being someone's partner, to being someone's kid, to being someone's mother or father, right? Like, but I also just want to acknowledge too, non-death losses, right? This could be divorce, this is work transitions, you've mentioned that, right? Losing a job, like all of the above are valid. So again, in your experience, just talk to us a little bit about that. You can frame it through like your experience or just like what you've seen working with others, and I think without a vision, we perish.

SPEAKER_00 31:37

Number one. And when to your point, grief to me is any change you don't want. I mean, betrayal is the death of trust. I mean, you know, that's grief. Yes, yeah. So I think the first thing we realize when we really lose our parents, and you know how people might label you as orphan, right?

SPEAKER_02 31:57

My own grandmother did, and I was very offended. I was my mom's mom. I was hoping that was just an example. Oh no. I was like, I guess I am on paper, but I don't resonate with that word. Okay.

SPEAKER_00 32:08

You didn't give it any meaning. Good, good. I was like, that sounds so harsh, but yeah, I guess you're right. We we lose our vision, you know, parents walking us down the aisle or just what any of these my these life events.

SPEAKER_02 32:24

Meeting my daughter, I have a two-year-old. I talk about that. Yeah, they never didn't see me get engaged, didn't see me get married, didn't meet my daughter. I'm like, cool. I thought you'd be here for all of that. Here we are.

SPEAKER_00 32:36

But remember, yeah, you know, they might not be there to see it, but their souls are still impacted.

SPEAKER_02 32:40

Oh, a million percent. Yeah. Oh, my mother is all up in my business. I joke about that all the time. I'm just like, that woman her own way is not leaving me alone. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 32:48

Like, I'm breaking through. Hold on. Yeah, my grandbaby's here. Move out the way.

SPEAKER_03 32:52

Oh, yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:54

I think that without a vision, like I said, we perish. And we as the human race are most committed to how we identify. If I'm if I identify as an a runner, even if it's I'm on the East Coast, right? So even if it's raining and sleeting and snowing out, and we've seen those people, they're out there all wrapped up running, and a part of us thinks they're nuts, and a part of us is jealous, right? I should be doing that. But they they they commit to something, and that's how they identify. So they do. If somebody identifies as a smoker, even if there's no smoking signs everywhere and social consequences, they'll find a way to light up. Yeah, we are most committed to how we identify. And when a death happens or any change we don't want happens, and we lose who we are, when we don't know who we are, we don't know how to act. And when we don't know how to act, we lose our vision for the future. And when we don't have a vision, we perish. We literally like we shut down. If we're not growing, we're dying. And so what the way it ties into sort of like how does this happen is having to understand that you are creating a new vision. You cannot go back to where you were. I had a really dear friend, uh, mentor of mine call me about five or six months in. And I was at this point, I was like doing seminars, and I'm gonna be the Martha Storta grief. And you know, I was like, you know, and I'm doing this and this is it, you know. And he just called and he said, Hey, I was like, Hey, you know, I'm doing this. He said, You're sinking. And I was like, Excuse me? How dare you? I'm thriving. How dare you? I'm thriving. So I think forever, you know. And he said, You're sinking. Uh, and I see you, and I said, Okay. When your mentor says that, you sort of stop talking, right? And I said, Okay. And he goes, You're you're sinking and you will hit the bottom, and you're gonna have a decision to make. Let this overtake you, and just you're gonna just be saturated in this, or you're gonna put your feet down and you're gonna push off and grab some air. And he said, but he said, you know, your death happened in Bermuda. But when you come up, you're gonna be in Bora Bora, just as beautiful, and I was like, probably more, and he's like, just as beautiful, the sky will be blue, and the clouds will be white, and the sand will be soft, and the water will be warm, and the sun will shine, and the people will be cool. Just don't try to swim back to Bermuda because I'm telling you, you will make it.

SPEAKER_01 35:24

Well, I just got chills.

SPEAKER_00 35:26

Wow. And I knew exactly what he meant. Like, you can start a beautiful life in Bermuda or in Bora Bora, and you can get your binoculars out and look at Bermuda. But if I try to swim back there, I won't make it. It'll overtake me. I literally will die trying. Yeah, figuratively and maybe literally. And and I thought, okay, the first step in creating a new vision is like just accepting the acceptance part of the living people in grief, not the dying. Yeah. Accepting that this is your new reality and not trying to go back to the way, like I just want to go back to the way it was. It's not gonna happen because it was because your parents were there the way it was, or because my partner Terry was there, whomever, you can't go back. Don't try to go back, just try to say, okay, this is now. I really miss Bermuda. I get it. But where can we find the joy in Bora

Finding pockets of joy

SPEAKER_00 36:25

Bora? My late partner. Again, she suffered greatly with mental ill, you know, mental illness. So she would always say, When I die, she was very clear that she was gonna die by suicide. She never, she died exactly the way she told me she was gonna die. And she said, Listen, when I die, even the day I die, I want you to promise me something. Always find pockets of joy in the day. And I was like, Well, pack her up, time for the behavioral health hospital. I was like, All right, you know, I had like a little, like, you know, you have like a little bag when you have a kid. I had like the mental health problem. I'm like, all right, let's go. I've got the suitcase. And I would do that. I'd put her in the car and she'd be gone for 10 days and she'd come back good as new, right?

SPEAKER_01 37:03

Oh my God.

SPEAKER_00 37:04

And she would always say that. So I remember the day of her death, I was unable to be alone, I was out of my mind. And I was sitting at my friend's kitchen island, and there was well over 100 people that came to see me, half because they care and half because they're curious. And no, and I just remember sitting there and I said, Okay, Terry, I feel a pocket of joy that I have this much support. And I bet you that there's a lot of people that don't. And then I went right back to being angry, right? So every day I committed to finding one pocket of joy since she's died, which is three and a half years ago, to now like the pockets of joy outweigh the pockets of pain. Yeah, and by doing that, from her advice, I was able to start to tweak a new vision for my future and open up to love again and possibility. I think it's very hard in early grief, which is considered the first two years, to have somebody create this new vision for their future, especially with its sudden or complicated or compound, right? So I don't touch it quite early on, but as you go on and you start to sort of say, okay, who am I now? Where do I find the purpose in the pain, not in the death? And how do I find meaning in my life now, not meaning in the death? And finding a little bit of some people call it gratitude, I call it pockets of joy because of my late partner. Like, right? Just like, where can I fill in? And as you know, because of the work you do, healing is is is helping, and helping is healing. The secret to living is giving. So then you find that people want to start giving back. And you know, the minute you have a death, you're a practical psychologist. The next person that you know loses their parents is calling you, right? So you you're sort of like helping anyway. And I just think in time it's reestablishing who you are now. In early grief, we focus on all the parts of us that died with them, and there are parts that did, absolutely, yeah. But in time, the reframe is to start to focus on the parts of them that live in you and how you can create that as your new identity. That's how you grieve with more love than pain. That's how you bring them with you.

SPEAKER_02 39:22

Integration, like if everyone anyone's wondering what this elusive integration of the grief into our life and all of these things. That's an example.

SPEAKER_00 39:33

Yeah, my state partners thing. It was so weird. When you went grocery shopping, you had to bring the cart all the way back to the front of the store. They have these kiosks in the parking lot. I parked next to that on purpose, you know? And she's like, No, that's so rude. I'm like, no, they pay people for this. Like it's literally their job. Okay. No, it would be a fight.

SPEAKER_02 39:56

She's like, that's so funny.

SPEAKER_00 39:57

So to this day, and I could I'm like, oh my god, all the way up to the store. I can't do it. I can't not bring it up.

SPEAKER_02 40:04

You're like, now I feel guilty for because I got you in my freaking head.

SPEAKER_00 40:07

Like, you're gonna curse me from the heavens, storm coming, cart hitting my car. Oh my god. And as funny as it is, I sort of now go, okay, babe. Yeah. Gotcha. I love the love versus the pain. Yes.

SPEAKER_02 40:23

Yes. Oh, I love all of that so much. I'm I'm all about the sparks of joy. I kind of stole that from Marie Kondo. I totally didn't, you know, make that up. But that's I feel that same. I love the pockets, the sparks, all of the things. And yes, the gratitude, the gratitude practice, and it can all come with it. I am here. I'm a gratitude practice girly for sure. I love journaling about that.

What not to say to someone grieving

SPEAKER_02 40:44

But the gratitude practice is not gonna be the end all be all thing that like gets you through your grief. Right. It's it's it's all of it.

SPEAKER_00 40:50

Oh hard to find gratitude in early grief. Well, you should be grateful for the time spent. I'm like, huh? Okay. And I'll say that again. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 41:01

I was like, I don't want to hear that. Even six years now, uh, later, I don't even really feel like hearing that, although I know it's but like there are some things that only we can like tell ourselves. Like we have to get there on our own. We can't just have other people spewing that kind of stuff at us, right? Or the person that asks you, How long are you gonna grieve for? I don't know. Leave me alone.

SPEAKER_00 41:22

Like, how long is she gonna be dead? And they go, What? Like, she's gonna be dead a long time and a grieve a long time, and they're like this. People say to me, Like, how is that shocking? Like, maybe it's what do you think? All of a sudden I'm like, Oh, it's been three years, thank God. Latin for that, it's not a cold or a flu, you know. No, it's it's so true. Or what what's the number one thing to not say to somebody in grief? I'm like, first of all, don't call them grievers because then they identify as a griever and they're gonna say stuck there. So I'm always like, How's how's everybody here today that's experiencing grief? It's an experience, it's not who you are. Okay, yeah, and then I say, uh, don't give suggestions, don't suggest things to people in grief, don't shoot all over them, right? Like you should this, like, just don't suggest. Just I'm here, I'm here. Just hold this. Not even what you need because that also puts responsibility on them.

SPEAKER_03 42:10

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 42:11

We're going to lunch, throw your hair up, throw some lipstick on, let's roll. Yeah. Don't have to talk.

SPEAKER_02 42:18

I think that's that's what's uncomfortable. Actually, this is perfect. This perfect segue is that kind of wow, I wanted to sort of like close the conversation of just like how we can build a more grief, literate society and workplace and stuff too, right? And I think you just hit on something so important. That's that's the problem. That's like one of the cores of the problem. Is like people don't know how to hold space or they try to and it's uncomfy, and the silence is awkward, and they want to say something to make it better. I get that. I I validate that, like I was that girl. I still am that girl sometimes, even though I like do this kind of for a living. Like, I just yeah, sometimes it it it hurts to see someone in pain. So I understand why and how the platitudes come out, but it can feel invalidating, it can make us feel like we are being rushed to get to an emotional place with our grief that we are not at yet. It can make us feel like we are doing it wrong, quote unquote. So what uh what would you say about that? I guess I'm just curious, just again, in your experience, like yeah, just shed a little light on that.

SPEAKER_00 43:33

I think it's important to first acknowledge that pain is inevitable, but suffering is not. We're gonna be alive on planet earth, we're gonna feel pain. But suffering variate actually with our system of thinking. Yeah, especially when I'm working with people or meeting people that are you know in active, really deep grief. I always say, I know I can't touch your pain. I'm not gonna try. Yeah, yeah. But how can I help your suffering? You know, what have you what have you created? For your life out of this? What are the things you're telling yourself? And I I get to like the void, like you know, if they're saying, I don't know, I'm just broken. All right, well, let's let's talk about that. Are you broken? Now that's if I'm working with somebody. Yeah, yeah. No kind of one-on-one setting, maybe. Yeah. If if I'm meeting somebody just by chance and they're in grief, it was a really great movie. And I wish I remembered the name, I don't remember. But this young boy lost his wife, and he went home to his parents' house, and he was just sort of lying in bed for days, curtains down, kind of thing. And the mom walks in and she opens the curtains, you know. She's like, get up. You don't have to get dressed, just get up, you know, come sit in the living room. And he's like, Mom, she's like, get up, you know, Italian mom.

SPEAKER_02 44:44

I'm not taking no for an answer.

SPEAKER_00 44:45

Yeah. So he sort of gets up in his t-shirt and his flannel pants. It's just so accurate. And he gets there, and the mom's sitting there, like writing recipes, and the great Anne is sitting there with the newspaper, and the other cousins sitting there knitting, and they're all sitting there, and he's going, he goes, What's going on? And the one knitting goes, Well, this is what you do in grief. You just sit with them. And I thought, wow. Wow. He wrote that. I thought that was brilliant. So good. It was you get it. Yeah. They just sat with them. They didn't ask them qu they just sat, you know, just meet them there. This is what I say to people. I don't know your pain of losing both your parents. I don't. I don't know what it's like to have a child and not have your parents there. I'm not gonna try to know. I don't know. That's not our job. Yeah, it's right. I I know what your brain's doing in your mind, but I don't know what your heart's doing, right?

SPEAKER_02 45:41

Pretending to know can almost be worse sometimes. I've had people be like, I'm a day. Oh, I totally, I, I totally get it. Who still have two happy, healthy parents? I'm like, I'm sorry, I love you so much, but you so don't.

SPEAKER_00 45:52

You yes, you so don't. Like I work in grief. I still don't know your pain. Yeah, yeah. So I just say, look, when you're with me, you don't have to wear a mask. You have to wear the close mask. When you're with me, take the mask off. If you want to talk, let's talk. If you want to be quiet, let's be quiet. If you want to read poetry, let's read. If you want to dance to the new pussycat dolls song, I'm in. Okay, love song all the way. You know, whatever you want. I'm just here. My cousin did that once. She knocked on my door and I opened the door and she went, move. And I was like, and she had, you know, marshmallows, chocolate, graham crackers, and a beautiful bottle of wine. And she goes, light your fire. She died in October, so it was winter month. She goes, Light your fire and put on your favorite movie, Devil Wars Prada. Oh, and she goes, just sit in front of the fire. And I was like, and she goes, Don't talk. And I was like, Okay. She's Italian, you know. We're like, shh, and she just came over five minutes later. You know, we made s'mores, drank wine. I fell asleep watching the movie. I woke up on my couch, she was gone. And it was the best night I ever had in grief.

unknown 47:06

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:07

She didn't do anything. She just sat there, had a couple glasses of wine with me, watched a movie, and put me to bed. Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 47:15

I'll never forget it. You just kind of needed that tending to. Yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 47:20

Show up and and just say nothing and say, I have no idea what to say, but I'm here. I I find that people are not ill-intended. They're just grieving. Yes. They want to fix you. First one because you make them uncomfortable. Yes. Like a normal Tara, because I don't like this. Number two, you remind them they can lose their parents.

SPEAKER_01 47:42

Yep.

SPEAKER_00 47:43

They don't want to see you hurting. They're not ill-intended. No.

SPEAKER_02 47:46

It's usually out of love. Truthfully. I mean, you you can tell when someone is like judgmental or ill-intended with a comment, you know, and it's coming from a place of expectation and like their own stuff and their own beliefs around grief and how they were raised to grieve or not grieve. And you know, it's like I've been able to discern. Grief has taught me nothing if not discernment in a lot of areas of my life. And I'm just like, that's more about you than it is about me. Okay. I can and then I can just release that. And and I sleep well at night because I can be like, that's on you. That's your burning activity, right? But don't bring that over here. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 48:25

Keep that there, girl. Yes. Um, yeah. So I think just showing up, being awesome, being cool. I'm trying to feel it's not an illness of the mind. Yeah. No, it's this is completely, you know, sh shattered their world and on a Tuesday, and you're back to work on a Friday. We're not.

SPEAKER_02 48:43

Yeah. You know, yeah, yeah. Beautifully said.

SPEAKER_00 48:46

Okay. I Oh, sorry. No, no, go ahead, please. I think grief is a big time where family and friends can feel like strangers, and strangers start to feel like family and friends.

SPEAKER_02 48:58

So well said that happened to me.

SPEAKER_00 49:01

Did it? Oh yeah. That's interesting, right?

SPEAKER_02 49:04

Yeah, it is interesting. Yeah, it is. It's it does nothing if not teach us like who's really there for us. And then and also I think it's an energy exchange too, right? Like for me, when I was, you know, when I lost my parents, I was just like, I'm the only daughter, who's there for me? You know, it was very like, you know, but then I had to think about my grandmother too, who lost her daughter. Like both my father's parents were gone already. But like, you know, I was in like my late 20s and it was like, you know, more about me back then. And I'm just like, you could have done a little bit better of a job checking in on other people in your parents' lives who knew them longer, technically, knew them differently, right? It's not to take away from my relationship with them at all, but they're siblings, they're you know, but then there was a part of me that I'm like, they didn't even check in on me. So what I you know what I mean? Like it just That's the riff, right?

SPEAKER_00 49:56

Bereaving on our own, and we're like, we're all going immediate grief makes you a victim because we're bereaved. The word bereaved comes from the word robbed, right? So we you know something was taken from us, so it's very hard to get your brain to care for others when you can barely take care of yourself, totally and feel like it was taken from you. So as your brain matured and your grief sort of you sort of started to understand, then you were set in a little. Yeah, it's true though, it's not your fault. No, you're totally normal when the abnormal happened. You don't know how to handle that, you know? Totally, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 50:32

Really quick, as we as we wrap up,

Master Grief

SPEAKER_02 50:35

I just want to touch on master grief and because again, just where your entire life and career and all this beautiful work that you have done has gone for you. It's this incredible platform. You help so many people with with healing, with navigating grief, all the things. Can you just very quickly touch on that and just what it is, how people can maybe work with you, all of all the good things?

SPEAKER_00 50:57

Master Grief is not that I am master grief. It was more like master your grief. Mastering of the grief. Master of grief, not don't call me a master of grief. Um, yeah, Master Grief was formed three and a half years ago, and I'm uh honored to say that we are now recognized and accredited in 82 countries. It's the largest global grief platform that uh exists. We have people that become certified coaches under the program, and so we're all over the world, and it's very humbling. Uh, you can go to mastergrief.com, you can work with me directly or any of my coaches. We also have the largest grief support platform on school, s kol.com, which is where most people are coming and becoming a member of our community. And we do endless grief groups there, workshops, live QA's with me. So most people are heading over to school, but you can also find me on the website and get all the resources there as well.

SPEAKER_02 51:47

Amazing, such important work that you're doing. And the fact that it's reaching so many, yeah, so many countries too, right? Like it's it's so fascinating. Just, I mean, that's a whole separate conversation culturally, how one country handles grief versus another, whatever. But I can definitely speak for America and saying, you know, we got a little ways to go. We do it the worst. We're making some we're making a little. But you know, but people like us, right? We're out there, we're trying to do all the things and get get the word out on the realities of grief. And this was such a great conversation. Thank you so much, Tony. I just really appreciate again your time, your no your vulnerability, sharing Terry with us and just your your expertise and your experience. Cause I mean, and I just love your angle, the personal development with the grief, like what a beautiful, you know, culmination of all of it.

SPEAKER_00 52:36

You're really kind. Thank you.

SPEAKER_02 52:38

That's true. Um, great. So people can find you there, and then also on social media. I just want to make sure you or else can people can find you.

SPEAKER_00 52:45

Believe it or not. Uh yeah, Master Grief T at TikTok or Master Grief underscore T on Instagram.

SPEAKER_02 52:51

Amazing. All right, Tony. Thank you so much for your time today. This was an absolute pleasure.