A Father's Heartbreaking Loss Led to Discovery That's Helping Millions Heal From Pain

Think grief is something you just "get over" with time? Phil Cohen is about to flip everything you know about healing upside down.

Phil has helped thousands navigate their darkest moments after losing his 14-year-old son in a tragic boating accident 10 years ago. But here's what shocked us most: he argues that avoiding grief actually imprisons you, while facing it head-on sets you free.

In this deeply moving conversation, Phil breaks down why our grief-illiterate society keeps people stuck in suffering, how your body is literally tricking you into staying paralyzed, and why the famous "five stages of grief" are actually harmful to your healing process.

The Grief Revolution:

• Why avoiding pain actually creates more suffering in the long run
• How your survival instincts are secretly keeping you trapped
• The choice between being consumed by grief or becoming a student of it

The Healing Science:

• Three proven ways to instantly change your emotional state
• Why movement and sunlight are medicine for your grieving brain
• How focusing on beautiful memories can transform your pain

The Cultural Problem:

• Why our "culture of silence" around death is making everything worse
• How other cultures handle grief more effectively (Jewish Shiva traditions)
• Why we desperately need to start talking about loss openly

💡 Key Insights Revealed:

1. The Choice Point: Pain is inevitable, but suffering is optional
2. The Guilt Trap: 99.9% of people blame themselves unnecessarily
3. The Action Cure: Movement and attention heal what time alone cannot
4. The Focus Formula: What you focus on, you feel - choose your memories wisely
5. The Service Secret: Helping others with similar pain accelerates your own healing

🎯 Perfect For:

• Anyone grieving the loss of a loved one, relationship, or dream
• People supporting someone through grief who don't know what to say
• Those feeling stuck in trauma or emotional pain
• Professionals wanting to understand grief better
• Anyone afraid of facing their own difficult emotions

🌟 Why This Episode Hits Different: Phil doesn't just talk theory - he's lived through the unthinkable and emerged as a beacon of hope for others. While other grief "experts" offer platitudes, Phil provides practical, science-backed strategies that actually work. His vulnerability and authenticity make this one of the most powerful conversations you'll ever hear about healing.

🎧 What You'll Walk Away With: 

✅ A complete reframe of what grief actually is and how it works
✅ Three immediate techniques to change your emotional state
✅ Understanding of why guilt keeps you stuck and how to break free
✅ Permission to heal without feeling like you're betraying your loved one
✅ A roadmap for turning your pain into purpose

📱 Connect with Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy":

• Website: PhilCohen.com or TheGriefGuy.com
• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/philthegriefguy
• Program: The Inner Garden 12-Week Healing Journey

🌻 Special Note: Tomorrow marks the 10th anniversary of Perry's passing. This conversation is a testament to how unimaginable loss can transform into unstoppable purpose.

Transcript

Rob Pene (00:01.504)
Okay, so I know I say this often, but this is actually a quite special and very meaningful conversation that we're gonna have. Boy.

It's, this guy's incredible, incredible. I need to hold back just because I know what Phil's gone through. Phil Cohen is the grief guy. And when you think about grief, it's devastating. But he's been able to pull himself together to a point where he can actually be the guiding light for a lot of people that struggle with guilt, grief, silently.

I've known Phil for a while, about almost five years when he didn't have the long hair. But yeah, the dude is really, really insightful just in his life. But now the message that he's helping people through is really, really, and that's why it's pretty special for me to have him here. I lost my dad and that threw me off, literally threw my entire world off. And I feel like I'm making that

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (00:50.919)
and then

Rob Pene (01:11.968)
shift back to where I used to be. But that was almost 20 years ago. So for Phil to be on and to help shed light on what all that looks like is pretty special. So man, I appreciate you, dude. California.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (01:17.661)
Wow.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (01:29.361)
Yeah, I appreciate you having me on to talk about things like this. We live in such a grief-illiterate society, everybody's so afraid to talk about death, it's crazy because it's going to happen to all of us. So yeah, I appreciate you talking about something like this.

Rob Pene (01:43.522)
Yeah. Phil lives in San Diego too, and I'm in LA, so we have that in common. But I think just being grounded, and you can just tell people that are like, you know, there, and that's Phil, how he resonates with me, but I will say a lot of people, man, on social resonate with you. Now, how did you start talking about grief online specifically?

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (02:12.903)
Yeah, so I mean, it really all started back about five years ago. So well, 10 years ago, I lost my 14-year-old son. He and his close friend were last seen leaving the Jupiter Inlet on a 19-foot fishing boat. This is out of South Florida. There was a really bad storm that came out of nowhere. The Coast Guard was notified.

They searched for seven agonizing days. It was all over the news and social media. And then from there, obviously, my life got completely flipped upside down. Happy to go into whatever you'd like to there. But to answer your question, about five years later, I was sitting with a friend, and we were talking about grief and how frustrated I was, because at one point, I actually googled how to grieve. I didn't know if I was doing it right.

There's not a lot of resources out there. And we were talking about the five stages and how that didn't apply. And he was like, you should do a TED talk on that. And then so I did this TEDx talk. And then from there, one thing led to another. Then about a couple of years ago, I just started posting and started resonating with people. And yeah, just started continuing to do that in an effort to serve.

Rob Pene (03:25.676)
Yeah, yeah, the are you okay to go into a little bit about the story?

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (03:29.436)
Yeah, absolutely.

Rob Pene (03:32.278)
Yeah, yeah, feel free to, cause it was 10 years ago. And yeah. What was it like, man? Cause that, I mean, I can't even imagine.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (03:36.539)
Yeah, almost looked up.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (03:44.008)
Yeah, yeah, I mean, and you shouldn't have to, you know? It's a lot of people say that. And it's funny, sometimes, a lot of times in my work, I often find myself saying that, like, yes, I went through this crazy thing, you know, when I still don't even know exactly what happened. The boat was recovered, neither of their bodies were ever recovered. So to this day, I don't even know exactly what happened, which adds like a whole new element to all of it.

Rob Pene (04:02.243)
Hmm.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (04:12.689)
But yeah, in the beginning, my world was just completely shattered, right? I'd never lost anyone that I loved before, my parents, my grandparents, but I wasn't very close with them. So it was a brutal introduction into grief.

And like I said earlier, we live in such a grief-illiterate society that this culture of silence that surrounds grief, almost like if we don't talk about it, maybe it'll go away. But at some point, grief gave me two choices, either to be consumed by it or to become a student of it. And as I got to learn and understand what was actually happening to my body, what was actually happening to my brain, it made more sense

for me to understand what was happening so that I can take action. But yeah, losing a child is something that you wouldn't wish upon your worst enemy. And I know that's a cliche, but it's so true. But at the same time, you really want to talk to somebody who understands what that's like. So it's this whole paradox where it's like, you know, so.

Rob Pene (05:10.894)
Hmm.

Rob Pene (05:18.232)
Bye.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (05:24.103)
That's what I realized from doing the TEDx, how many people reached out to me afterwards who lost children. And just the fact that to see hope, to see that you can actually survive. And then people started asking me, what did you actually do? And that's when I started to think back. What steps did I take? How can I figure out how can I help other people in this way? And there really isn't one specific way to do that because there's so many factors that come into play.

But there are key things that you can do that will help throughout the process.

Rob Pene (05:56.044)
Yeah, yeah, one of my, so I used to teach public school and one of the kids that was in my class, good kid, man, but he was young and cancer took him out and his mom was devastated. And then I didn't see her for a while, but I started to see her at church now and then we talked every so often and she's doing better, but it took a long, long, long time. Yeah.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (06:20.157)
yeah, yeah. Especially if you don't know what you're dealing with, right? Like if you don't know and you don't understand, you can get stuck in that loop for very long time. In fact, I talked to lot of people that do. But know, man, the fact is, humans are so resilient. mean, we're built to survive this. Many, many people have lost children. And you look back in history, how many, the survival rate of children was much, much lower.

It is something that is survivable, but you can get caught in this head space where it makes it really hard to move.

Rob Pene (06:57.644)
Yeah. So how are you encouraging people because it's such a deeply emotional thing that you can get paralyzed and then not want to do anything, not want to move, even, even decisions are hard. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. What's one of the first things you encourage people to do? Cause it sounds like there's the physical element that right. Could help.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (07:09.531)
Yes, the brain fog is real.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (07:21.147)
Yeah. Yes. Yeah. mean, so, know, you know, we're three part beings, right? You know, spirit, soul and body. A lot of people say, you know, body, soul and spirit or whatever. Spirit is the biggest part of us. I like to start there. Right. So if you don't, because at first I didn't do any like I didn't know what to do. I definitely stuffed it down. It was too painful to actually face. But the fact is, you can't you can't outrun this thing. You can't. There is no.

Rob Pene (07:33.826)
Hmm?

Rob Pene (07:46.762)
and

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (07:49.811)
There is no avoiding it. You can hold it down for a while, but it will find its way out of you one way or another. And it can either be spiritually by lashing out at God. Physically, it will come out in your body in aches and pains and diseases, or emotionally through outbreaks and ruined relationships and things like that. So it's important to be able to. The first thing really is to take some sort

of action, not right away. you know, if this is like something that's happened in a week, like there are no rules in those those early days, right? Like you have to do like you're in survival mode at that point. You know, I mean, so many weird things were happening to me, like I couldn't sleep and I was making these weird noises. My weird things were happening in my body. And now I understand why. But, you know, when you don't understand, you don't know, it can really freak you out. So is to really just start small.

Rob Pene (08:23.34)
Yeah.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (08:46.641)
Right? Like go outside, feel the sun, take a walk. What cures, what cures this is action. It's attention, paying attention to the certain parts of your life, you know, your health, your weaknesses, your strengths. There's so many parts of this that you need to pay attention to and tend to.

Rob Pene (08:50.382)
I'm gonna leave now.

Rob Pene (08:56.93)
Mmm.

Rob Pene (09:07.884)
Yeah, so action would not be, or would it? Binge eating, junk food, and like the things that come normal to people like binge watching for hours on hours, TV, like it seems unhealthy, but is it unhealthy or is that part of the process?

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (09:26.515)
Well, so great question. So people say there's no wrong way to grieve. And I disagree. I mean, think if you're hurting yourself or other people in the process, then that's not the right way. But again, in the beginning, if you have to watch Netflix to just be able to just survive, then that's what you've got to do. But there will come a point where you're eventually forced to choose. Yes, when I think about

this insanely horrible thing, some people would consider the worst thing a human can possibly endure, in terms of losing a child in the way that I did. What was the original question? I lost my train of thought.

Rob Pene (10:04.952)
Hmm.

Rob Pene (10:18.792)
Is like, is there a healthy or unhealthy way to do it? Yeah, like binge eating, binge watching. Yeah.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (10:23.815)
Right. Yeah. So, you know, all those things in the beginning, like to do whatever you got to do. But again, yes, there will come a choice. Like, do I want to live here? Right. Do I want to stay here? Because that is the choice. Like the pain with losing someone you love, that is inevitable. But the suffering, that part is optional. Right. Like I can choose to focus on all of the parts of me that died with Perry that day.

And there are times sometimes where you do go there. Or I can choose to focus on all the amazing things that He left in me. And that's a choice. That choice is ours, what we decide to focus on, because what you focus on, you feel. And even Jesus, you look at the healing pools. You walked up to the man who'd been there 38 years. You walked up to him and said, do you want to be healed?

Rob Pene (11:09.55)
yeah!

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (11:20.657)
And the first thing the guy did was give him an excuse. He said, but the water stir and nobody will take me into the water. And he said, well, that's not what I asked you. I asked you, do you want to be healed? Then he gave another excuse. My brothers left me here. You can either give excuses or you can decide to heal. And the fact is that, yes, it sucks, but you staying in that place doesn't serve you. It doesn't serve the person you lost, doesn't serve the people around you. It's tough, but...

Your body is tricking you into staying still, know, all the time. You know, you're that survival mode, the cortisol levels in your body, especially at the beginning, like literally drain you. they're saying, they're saying, don't move, like stay safe, right? So, but it's what you think is protecting you is really imprisoning you.

Rob Pene (11:53.198)
OOOOH!

Rob Pene (12:12.716)
Wow, that's really interesting. Now would that also be true for like trauma and traumatic experiences that are extremely acute, know, whether it's losing someone or losing a job or a relationship or like does grief show up in a similar way?

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (12:28.707)
Yeah, for sure. Grief is not just the loss of a person, right? It's definitely the loss of a dream or a job or a relationship. You know, that is grief. It's not defined as we think of it that way. But it's really how we feel after losing something that's important to us. You and you bring up the word trauma, which is, you know, it's different than grief. Right. There is there's there's grief and trauma is kind of like the nasty like

Rob Pene (12:45.965)
Hmm.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (12:58.125)
overlays that stay with you forever, right? Like they keep, they keep, the waves that keep coming back and your body experiences trauma a little bit differently than it experiences grief. So if your event was traumatic on top of just losing the person, you know, there could be, you know, a little bit more there.

Rob Pene (13:00.974)
Emily.

Rob Pene (13:18.22)
Yeah, yeah. Your account is growing super fast. And I can understand why. Because there's so many people that hide behind the emotions. And then as they're scrolling, they'll come across in the for you page. Social media just finds you. You know what I mean? Has that helped in your process, pouring into other people through social?

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (13:34.813)
Yeah, it definitely does.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (13:44.787)
Oh my God, Yes, definitely. 100%. I'm so grateful for the opportunity. It's just as healing as it is for me, you know, as it is for other people. And there's there's something about I think there's like this I may mess this up, but there's this old Chinese tale about, you know, woman who lost her son and she went to like a sage and said, you know, what what can I what potion what can I do to get rid of this pain? And he said, you know, go to a fight. You have to find a home.

get a mustard seed from a home that's known no pain or sorrow, you know, and then bring it to me. So she immediately went out and knocked on the first door. And the first person was like, no, there's pain and sorrow in this home. And she's like, well, you know, I've already been through so much. Maybe I can help. So she stayed a while and helped and went to the next person, found the same thing and helped and eventually stopped searching for the answers because, you know, she was found. She found so much joy in helping other people. But.

Yeah, there's something, you there's so many people like you see that go through these crazy things and then they want to start something to make some light of something so dark. You know, it's so interesting to me how that happens. But yes, it's so it's a way for me to honor Perry and keep his name alive, you know, and I really enjoy it. I really enjoy helping the people.

Rob Pene (14:52.973)
Mm-hmm.

Rob Pene (15:00.014)
Amazing.

Rob Pene (15:05.526)
Yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Would you prescribe that as one of the steps for people to start their healing process? Like, would you encourage people to, hey, you know what, it's free. Nobody's going to just put it out there. Because I think there's something to be said about utilizing social for this purpose.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (15:30.319)
Yeah, man, you know, as human beings, I really believe that we're always most powerfully positioned to serve the person that we once were. Right. So maybe you didn't go through exactly what I went through, but you went through something. Right. And you learned lessons through that thing. And other people can benefit by knowing those lessons that may be just trivial to you and by sharing what you've learned and what you've been through.

Rob Pene (15:53.806)
We did it.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (15:59.943)
you realize you're helping a lot of people. And if you feel like there's even this little bit of calling inside you, maybe I should be doing that, maybe I should be talking about this thing that happened, then I like to think of that as all the cries of other people who need to hear what you have to say, you're being called. So definitely share it, share your story if it's something you feel called to do.

Rob Pene (16:20.024)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (16:27.15)
Yeah, because there's at least 100,000 other people in the world just like you, know, at least. Yeah.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (16:32.701)
for snark that don't say anything or you mean that are doing what I'm doing or.

Rob Pene (16:38.454)
Or just like us in general, right? For each individual, there's at least 100,000 people with a lot of similarities. Yeah, the awareness and attention, right? mean, because we're, let's say we're by ourselves physically, right? But it's the awareness and the attention that we get from either social or from people next to us is what helps us to get through. So.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (16:46.182)
I see what saying.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (17:05.851)
Yes, so true. know, grief is such a thing that doesn't make you reach out. It makes you it makes you go inward. Right. And and oftentimes you don't you're not talking about the person that you love because you don't want to feel like you're bothering other people. And the other people around you aren't they they they aren't talking about it because they don't want to upset you. So nobody talks about it. And then but it's it's important to be able to talk about these things. You have to be able to talk about these things. So

Yeah, one of the reasons why I really wanted to do this is to really just challenge the whole culture of silence that's around grief because people need other people.

Rob Pene (17:41.966)
Mmm.

Yeah, yeah, yeah, there needs to be a reframing in suffering because I think we equate like, I'm going through something by myself. You know, when in reality, no, not really because there's a ton of people out there that feel the same way. They're just not right in front of you, you know, but they are. So there's a way to connect with them.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (18:05.682)
Yes.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (18:10.579)
100%, 100%. It's not, obviously, something you don't want to force, but if it's something you want to share, there's a reason why it's in you to share. you will definitely bless and help other people if you share the lessons. And that's really all I started doing was be like, when this happened, this is what I went through, and here's what I've learned. And all my messages are all about just service. It's not about anything else. Yeah.

Rob Pene (18:12.492)
Yeah. Yeah.

Rob Pene (18:36.524)
Yeah. Do you like run a in-person group where you connect with people like in person or do you do run a group online or is it just through your social that you?

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (18:48.305)
Yeah, yeah. So for years it was just through my social, you know, and then people started reaching out to me. And for years I worked with people one on one, didn't charge anything just because I wanted to help. And because, you know, I wanted to understand what people truly need, right? Like I thought I know because because I went through it, but you don't really know until you start talking to people one on one. And what I realized is that, you know, this grief thing is so messy. There's so many parts of it and it's so confusing for people.

Rob Pene (19:04.876)
Bye.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (19:18.195)
So yes, I put together what's called the inner garden and it takes the most, it's 12 week program. It takes the parts of life that are most affected by grief and compares that to those of a gardener tending to their garden, right? Where soil is your health, other gardens are your relationship, the weeds are your weaknesses. And it basically teaches people how to tend to each area of their lives in a...

structured, guided way. So yeah, I've been doing that and that's been super successful. Yeah.

Rob Pene (19:48.685)
Mmm.

Rob Pene (19:55.218)
Nice, nice, nice. I know off camera we talked a little bit about YouTube. I think the long form on YouTube would be credible for this kind of stuff. I don't know who else is out there that does this kind of stuff, but yeah, I can definitely see it expand and grow through YouTube, because there's so many people searching on YouTube too.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (20:03.634)
Yeah.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (20:17.232)
Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And I think honestly, that's one thing I looking back, it probably would have been smarter to maybe be focused on one, you know, one platform, you know, instead of trying all of them because but my biggest following is on TikTok and then Instagram and YouTube is a little bit behind that. Yeah. So I've been focusing mostly on the short form, but you're right. I've not really I've been so focused on that. I've really been given a lot of thought to the

the long form, but I appreciate that.

Rob Pene (20:48.95)
Yeah, you might be able to just push everything over to Shorts, because if it's lagging a little bit in terms of... Yeah, there's tools, but we'll chat later. Yeah, okay. I'll share some tools where you can just power through everything from TikTok to Shorts and then have that Shorts channel grow. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. How are you feeling now? Because I know that 10 years, is it harder every day or does it get easier or...

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (20:56.595)
Yeah.

Rob Pene (21:18.136)
Does it go in like peaks and valleys?

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (21:21.699)
Yeah, yeah. Definitely always going to be in waves, right? That's just the way. mean, even 10 years later, now since it's actually tomorrow is actually the 10th anniversary and it was such a public thing, there's a lot of articles coming out right now. Some of the old pictures and everything, you could see how the body remembers, right? You could feel some of the feelings that I felt back then.

Rob Pene (21:45.038)
Mmmmm.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (21:50.553)
So yeah, so it's just interesting how even years later it could still affect you in certain ways, you Yeah.

Rob Pene (22:01.442)
Yeah. Yeah. Man.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (22:06.301)
Yeah,

Rob Pene (22:06.84)
Grief is tough. Grief is... I think about people in foreign countries, because there's so much pain and all kinds of just hostility, all that, you know, and...

I wonder what the concept of grief is in other cultures.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (22:30.299)
Yeah, yeah, it's definitely, it's totally, you know, honestly, you look back at the Jewish culture, you know, and there's something called sitting Shiva, right? So if somebody dies, they would basically block out all their windows, they close the doors, people just come over and there's rules to it. One is that you don't say anything to the person unless spoken to, right? So you just quiet, you bring them food, you just sit with them, you just be there, you just show up. And that's

Rob Pene (22:52.398)
Hmm.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (22:59.923)
One of the biggest things about this is that people just need to show up, right? And then at the end of seven days, you open the door, you walk out, and that kind of signifies like, you know, I'm I'm coming, I'm entering back into the world, you know? And it just, even that process of actually seven days of just sitting with it, no TV, no nothing, you're just sitting with, instead of pushing it down or avoiding it, yeah, and there's definitely...

cultures that grieve differently. And it also affects how you handle it, right? Like how you react.

Rob Pene (23:32.162)
Yeah. Yeah.

Please.

Rob Pene (23:40.312)
How is there forgiveness? How does forgiveness figure into grief?

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (23:46.331)
that forgiveness. Well, how does forgiveness factor into grief? In what way I want to make sure like, do you mean

Rob Pene (23:57.966)
Yeah, because I think there's the, where you take on too much blame for yourself. then, you know, or there could be a lot of anger, you know.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (24:04.687)
yes. Yes. Grief shows up, but does not always show up in tears, right? It could be something else, like you mentioned anger. And man, after doing this for as long as I have, talking to so many people, the one thing that's always consistent is guilt.

Rob Pene (24:23.79)
Okay.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (24:28.043)
some level of guilt. And there's only three reasons why people should feel guilty. Either one, you actually did something like that actually contributed to the person passing away and 99.9 % of the people, that's not the case. Right? Or, you you feel guilty because you think if I didn't do this, maybe this wouldn't have happened. Or if I'd only done that. And that is one of grief's like cruelish tricks, man, to make you

Rob Pene (24:28.908)
Yeah

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (24:55.251)
The fact is that it's easier for our brains to believe that we had some sense of control, like that we could have done something than to believe that this freaking world is so chaotic and random that you have zero control over what's going to happen today, tomorrow, you know, at any point. But it's so it happens to everybody where they're like, if I only didn't or maybe if I didn't, this would have changed it. And really, that's that that's a lot.

You know, it's a lie that will keep you stuck there. That happens. It's so, now that I see it, I can see it, it's consistent throughout everyone. It's just part of the thing that happens with And to give yourself permission, that's one of the biggest things I feel like at one point I felt so guilty. Why didn't I do this? And how come I didn't do that? And, know, and, you know.

Rob Pene (25:38.732)
Yeah, yeah.

Rob Pene (25:43.064)
No.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (25:52.499)
The fact is all the things I wanted to feel, know, like thinking about life being okay again, and even though I'll never be the same Phil again, it doesn't mean you could be somebody different, right? Or somebody that's grown in such a way that wouldn't have throughout this, but all of that wouldn't have started if I didn't give myself permission to stop blaming myself, permission to heal, to stop.

you know, figuring out ways that I could have made it different. And that's just super important. You have to give some compa- you have to have some self-compassion.

Rob Pene (26:23.031)
Hmm.

Rob Pene (26:28.972)
Yeah, that's a good word. Yeah, self-compassion. Boy, there's so much gems in your feed, in all your videos. I know when I was going through a rough patch not too long ago, you talked about just movement, just get up and walk. And I walk often for health reasons, but there were a couple walks that was specifically

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (26:47.923)
Yes.

Rob Pene (26:58.508)
to address the pain. And that helped so much, the awareness of it and then being able to walk in the discomfort. Yeah, so how many videos do you have? And that probably was like a 15 minute video that I saw, but it, man, it took me like, helped me for so many weeks.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (27:00.732)
I love that.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (27:07.656)
Yes.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (27:20.091)
wow. Thank you so much. Yes. And yeah, the movement is, like I said earlier, you know, it wants to keep you stuck and getting outside, you know, and even just feeling the sun and taking a walk, let your body know that you're still alive and that you're still here. Right. And it slowly will get you back into life again. Sitting around. If you do that, that will dig a deeper hole. Like it makes you the longer you stay inside and stay alone, just makes you want to continue to do that more.

Rob Pene (27:48.364)
Yeah. Yeah.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (27:49.395)
And just like even man, by physiologist, like three ways to change your state, right? Like if you're in a depressed state, one is either just how you move your body, right? Literally get up, move your body. Like there's, this isn't BS, like there's studies that, lots of studies shown on this. And this is one the things that piss me off because we're still hand in hand in pamphlets about five stages. And there's so much studies on resilience and mindfulness as it relates to grief that people don't know about, you know?

Rob Pene (28:17.517)
Mmm.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (28:18.323)
And it's important to be able to educate people because they're still hearing about the five stages, which is, can go on for an hour about why that isn't helpful. But yeah, moving your body, like even like standing like the Superman pose, right? Like literally doing something like this for a few minutes and deep breathing deep will change your state. The next thing is like, what are you focusing on? Like we talked about earlier, right? Like if you're...

what you focus on, you feel. So in my coaching, I'll often at one point say, tell me about a time when you and that person, it was just amazing, your favorite time with that person. Instantly, bro, you could see their whole state change. Like, oh my God, there was this time when we did that. You could see it all lift. And at the end of that, I make it a point to be like, you can choose to go there any time. That memory exists. You don't have to.

Rob Pene (28:54.744)
Thank you.

Thank

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (29:12.195)
just sit in all the what ifs and things like that. Yeah, you can always put any time. Yeah, you there's there's key memories like, you know, that that I've I go to like, you know, and then especially like in the beginning with all what I would all the should have where you wind up, you know, shooting all over yourself, right, because you think I should have done this and I should have done that. You know, that's normal. But, you know, allow yourself to

Rob Pene (29:17.1)
Wow, anytime!

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (29:41.799)
Like, and then stop, you know, like, because it's not, you could just continue to do that for a long time. Yeah. Yeah. And then, and then the last thing, I think the third part of that is like, you know, what, what are you making it mean to you? Like what's, what's the meaning? Right. Like, so like rain on a wedding day, right. Like a lot of people here in the US, my big, man, my wedding, my, my wedding is ruined. You know, like, everybody's not gonna have a good time. I got to go inside and.

Rob Pene (29:48.95)
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's awesome.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (30:11.399)
whatever else that might mean to you, where another culture's reign on your wedding day is a sign of fertility. They even call it a wet knot. Like a wet knot is harder to untie, where they look at it as a blessing, right? So it's like, it's all about what you make it mean to you, not that what happened to you is a good thing, right? But there are ways to look at some of these things that aren't so horrible.

Rob Pene (30:17.208)
Hmm

Rob Pene (30:35.404)
Yeah, yeah, yeah. And you talk about a lot of these things on your accounts, right? Your profile? Yeah. Would you rather them go to Instagram or TikTok or are they the same content or? Yeah.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (30:43.441)
Yeah.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (30:51.709)
Pretty much. Yeah, pretty much the same on both. There are little bit differences, but whatever platform that people like to use them on both. And YouTube.

Rob Pene (30:59.798)
Yeah, and they type in Phil Cohen or the grief guys usually the or anything grief related you'll find you

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (31:06.227)
Yeah, either one of those. mean, if you type in the grief guy, I will pop up everywhere.

Rob Pene (31:12.494)
Yeah, nice. Your program, can you share a little bit about that?

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (31:18.385)
Yeah, so like I said earlier, trying to figure out and having all these conversations, I realized that people were all over the place. The talking about it, it's helpful, but there were specific areas that needed to be addressed. Instead of just talking about things, there was action. There's actions that you need to take. So it's the course is over 12 weeks. I limit it to 25 people each workshop just because I want to keep it intimate and small.

Each week I meet with people one on one. So there's a guided journal, prompted journal that they go through through the week. You don't have to do all the questions, but each week's focused on something specific. Then we'll meet one on one. And then there's also a group meeting that week as well. And then when we're meeting, they're doing like specific activities, right? And I try to make it as meaningful as possible. Like one of the first things we do together is what's called, tell me everything. And so I send them the book.

Rob Pene (32:09.517)
Hmm.

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (32:17.573)
And I sent them this little potted plant with the dirt. It all comes together and sunflower seeds. And as we're talking and they're telling me everything about their story, I just have them plant the seeds in you know, in the in the little pot. We're like painting the pot. We're having this conversation. And then over the course of 12 weeks, these things grow into these beautiful sunflowers. But you're tending to it as it's happening. So it's like part of the program. And so I try to make all the activities like really meaningful and long lasting. So.

By the end of 12 weeks, they have a book of like, here's what I can do in any one of these moments.

Rob Pene (32:52.364)
Hmm, nice, nice, nice. That sounds cool. Is there a website that they can find out more information or just DM you?

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (33:00.443)
Yeah, it's just Phil Cohen dot com or the grief guy dot com. They both point to the same URL. I've got all the information there.

Rob Pene (33:07.318)
Yeah. Okay. Great. Dude, I appreciate you, man. Yeah. And I appreciate all the content that you're putting up. Cause I see it often and I take it in and I use it and it's been extremely helpful. So I'm excited to share, share this with, with more people. And so if you're listening, go to Phil Cohen, P H I L C O H E N.com or the grief guy.com and the links should be in the description.

But follow him on TikTok and Instagram and soon all over YouTube. Amen, amen. Thank you, brother. I appreciate you,

Phil Cohen "The Grief Guy" (33:40.947)
Amen.

Yeah, I appreciate the opportunity.