26. Your Grief Is Personal, Yet Deeply Universal: Finding Peace in Our Shared Humanity

In this week’s episode of Nourished with Dr. Anikó, host Dr. Anikó Gréger explores the tender, universal experience of grief and the deeper truths it reveals about love, control, and what it means to be fully alive. 

Through reflective storytelling and compassionate insight, she invites listeners to consider how healing and acceptance can unfold even when those we’ve lost are no longer here, reminding us that peace and integration are found within ourselves.

Dr. Anikó shares how our desire for control, often expressed through guilt can be an unconscious attempt to avoid the chaos of life. Yet it is in surrendering to what is, and focusing our precious life energy where we truly have agency, that we find presence, meaning, and vitality. 

She beautifully reframes grief as a lifelong companion that evolves and deepens our humanity, offering connection rather than isolation.

From personal reflection to timeless wisdom traditions, this episode is an invitation to embrace life’s impermanence, to honor the ones we’ve lost by being here fully, and to find nourishment even in sorrow.

Episode Highlights:

02:00 Why healing can happen even without another person’s participation
 04:00 The illusion of control and how guilt can mask our fear of chaos
 06:00 Using your life energy wisely: agency versus control
 08:00 How grief transforms rather than ends and what integration truly means
 10:00 Facing the reality of death to live more fully
 12:00 The beauty of presence and aliveness in each fleeting moment
 15:00 The parable of the mustard seed and how shared grief connects us all

Whether you are in the depths of loss or reflecting on the cycles of life, this episode offers comfort, perspective, and a reminder that you are not alone in your grief.

If last week’s episode 25. The Messy Middle: Midlife Burnout, Healing & Reinvention with Dr. Siri Chand Khalsa resonated with you, you'll find this episode is a companion and guide as we move through "The Messy Middle".

Be sure to follow the podcast to continue exploring how we navigate the messy middle those profound spaces between loss, love, and becoming.

Tune in and rediscover the nourishment that comes from simply being here, now.

Connect with Dr. Anikó:

Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/dr.aniko/

Website: https://www.draniko.com/

Thank you for listening to Nourished with Dr. Anikó!

It would mean the world if you would take one minute to follow, leave a 5 star review and share with those you love!

Your presence is truly felt and deeply appreciated.

Disclaimer:
The content of this podcast is for informational and entertainment purposes only and does not constitute medical advice, diagnosis, or treatment. The views expressed are those of the host and guests and do not substitute for professional medical advice. Always seek the guidance of your physician or other qualified healthcare provider with any questions you may have regarding your health or a medical condition. Never disregard professional medical advice or delay seeking it because of something you heard on this podcast.

Transcript

Dr. Anikó: [00:00:00] Hello. Hello y'all and welcome back to Nourished with Dr. Aniko. Today. I've been thinking a lot about an episode that I recorded where I was talking about having compassion for our parents and how as we grow older and especially. When we become parents ourselves, it can be a quick shortcut into that space of compassion for.

What it's [00:01:00] like to be a parent and that you're clearly not born a parent. You become one and you're well suited to some stuff and Ill suited to other stuff and just, it's all a work in progress. And one of the things that I said, and it's true, is that. You don't need to have the other person present either in the work or even on this plane anymore to be able to heal, and that's all very true.

We can work with our healing independently of that other person. Participating. That could be because they're not interested in therapy, they're not interested in repair, not capable of repair. It could be because they have already passed. And I wanted to get back to that because it's almost [00:02:00] something that I said in passing in that other episode because to me it's just such a.

Known truth that our healing is within ourselves, and that doesn't mean, that doesn't mean that it can't be done together and it can be beautiful when we do it together, of course, it just means that it doesn't have to be done. With the other person or group of people's participation. It's a freeing ultimately, right?

It's that you don't need somebody else's cooperation to heal. And that's a beautiful thing. But the thing that I kind of wanted to sit with today is that.

Place of things just being what they are.

Just because. Because a lot of us, especially people in [00:03:00] healing or caretaking professions. A lot of us find our stability and our okayness in the illusion that we have more control than we have. Right. I recently heard a psychotherapist talking about how sometimes guilt serves that purpose. Because guilt is basically feeling like, oh, if I had just done that differently, the outcome would've been different.

And that's true. In some cases, that's true. In some cases it's not. And in those cases, our guilt is our way to try to claw back our control of a situation where we actually didn't have that kind of control to build this illusion. Things aren't chaotic. They are. We live in a world where we don't have control a lot of the time, and that can [00:04:00] be a super, super scary place to be, and yet it is in making friends with the chaos and the places where we don't have control.

And in leaning into the places where we do have agency that we find the greatest, not just peace, but also a aliveness.

I know from personal experience that when I have gone through very difficult or scary experiences, it is. Hard, and I don't always want the experience of course, but there is a deep rawness and aliveness and presence in those moments,

and it is that reality of. This just is how it is. This just is what it is, and that's presence. [00:05:00] It is showing up fully in your life as it is. And then the other piece of that, when I talk about using agency where it exists, right?

It's the wisest use of our life energy, because when we think of it in that way, right? When we think of our energy and the things we pay attention to and the way we spend our days, what we focus on, who we're with, what activities we do, what we build.

All of it is our moments of life. It's literally us using our lifespan and our life energy in the ways that we choose, and when we choose to use that life energy to try to exert control over things that are out of our control. To me, that's not the most [00:06:00] sacred. Or just efficient, right use of our precious life force. of course, 

we've all experienced experiences that we desperately did not want to. Pain and grief and fear and all those things that aren't fun. It's not that we want them, and yet it is in moving through them

that we are experiencing our life. Our life as it is, not as maybe we would've wanted to design it, but that's not what life is and there's no. Like a rival point, which I think if you've been in therapy as well,

unless you're going for a very specific situation, there can be end points of course, but a lot of times in therapy you just kind of keep going ' [00:07:00] cause you don't ever arrive. There's always another layer. There's always something else to move through and understand.

You don't ever get to the perfect relationship or friendship or, uh. Relationship with yourself. It's always evolving. You're always working on it. And specifically today, I was thinking about this in the context of grief and mourning. And of course if you've lost anybody, and most of us have,

you don't ever stop. Grieving you don't stop mourning. It changes shape. It feels different. It takes up different amounts of your life, energy, right? Your day, your thoughts, your feelings, and your body. But it doesn't really end. You don't really say, okay, that's it. [00:08:00] I'm done. Grieving now, or I'm done mourning.

I'm done missing them. However it looks for you. You don't ever really finish. It just sort of integrates into the rest of your life. And though that can sound terrifying if you are at the early stages of grief. Because the idea of living with that level of grief just seems impossible, and it is because it doesn't stay like that.

It changes, but you don't arrive at some point where it's done.

And with grief in particular,

it's something we're all going to have to go through if we haven't already. You don't get to get out of losing people you love in this life.

And even though it can feel unpleasant, I mean, believe me, I know plenty of people who do not want to talk about death or grief. It's too scary, right? Too scary to [00:09:00] face the reality that we all know. I mean, we all know. That part of life is death. We all will die, and yet to say that out loud sometimes feels almost rude or inappropriate or too much, even though it's such an understood part of the deal

and strangely. I mean, it's not strange when you really think about it, but when you're thinking about it, when you're in a place that you just do not wanna talk about death, do not wanna talk about grief, do not wanna talk about any of that. When we

sort of live with the understanding that death is. Not optional that we don't get to opt out of it. When we really integrate that into our lived existence,

a life feels a lot more precious,

and I would personally say [00:10:00] that I feel a lot more alive. This doesn't mean that's sort of scary. Like what if it was your last day? What if you, you know, you can't live like that. But

really appreciating the preciousness of waking up in the morning watching a sunrise, and also the irre repeatable nature of life. You know that old saying where you can't cross the same river twice, right? Because the river's different. There's different water molecules in it. There's different rocks that have moved.

Maybe the river bed has expanded or contracted. The river's different and you are different and the world's different. Every single moment is a snapshot. That will never happen again. You can never see the same sunset twice. You don't wake up the same person twice. I think with children it's particularly [00:11:00] easily understood because they changed so quickly and they can also.

Just be so true to how they feel in the moment. You know, they're not as stuck in routine as US adults, you know, and just the preciousness of that irre repeatable moment and every single moment of our lives is an irre repeatable moment. And so today I just wanted to spend some time kind of. Hanging out in that space of the not arriving and the not controlling, of course, having agency and taking ownership and

working on the things that are ours and also. Just allowing ourselves to kind of be in our lives, right? Not just the doing, but the being the wonder, the floating down the river, the spending a little [00:12:00] bit of time when we wake up with that wondrous feeling of like, wow, another day. I don't say it lightly because not every day feels like a gift.

Some days are really, really, really hard and scary and painful, and yet all of it is life.

And when we are able to move through whatever life brings us that day, whether it's fun or the opposite of fun. The more that we can move through whatever's in front of us, the more alive we can be, right? Because we know both from lived experiences and research, that when we push emotions away, push away the pain, push away the grief, push away the fear, whatever it is.

We don't just get to pick and choose which emotions we are pushing out of. Our life, they all get dull. And I don't know about [00:13:00] y'all, but a word that I want to use to describe my life is not dull. It's vibrant, it's present, it's here. At the end of the day, I am one of our biggest responsibilities to our life.

And to ourselves and to the people we love is to be here.

Like if on my gravestone, I don't know that I wanna be buried, but Well, you know, in all this being like live alongside of death, I probably should think about it. Um, but if I end up having a gravestone, if it says she was here. I mean, that would be, that would be amazing. So again, another just sort of musing today for this episode, but I hope it resonates for some and I hope it gets you feeling into.

The preciousness of your life [00:14:00] and maybe even starting to focus that precious life energy of yours in the places where you truly have agency and control. And then maybe just let yourself go along for the ride and the places where you don't. Because at the end of the day, you don't really have a choice for that one.

You can either ride it screaming and fighting it every step of the way, or you can maybe find a little bit of ease and there's an old story and sometimes it's a grain of rice or a lentil or anyway.

There's somebody who's grieving and they go to the village elder or the guru or whoever it is in that particular story, and the solution or the action that this elder wise person proposes is go and get a mustard [00:15:00] seed. From a home of somebody who has never been touched by grief and bring it to me, and then the person goes around the village and can't find anybody who hasn't been touched by grief, and then they go to more places and more places and more places, and at the end they realize that not only are they not alone.

But they are surrounded and connected to people who all deeply understand

exactly what grief is, and that it is not only universal, but it is something that can and does really, really deeply connect us. So. I hope y'all found some nourishment in this today, and if you are in grief, I hope you're finding support.

I hope you're finding a network. And also I hope that there is some peace in knowing that this is a universal. A universal experience. Even [00:16:00] though your individual grief is very, very personal and very individual, grief is a deeply human and deeply connecting experience.

So take good care y'all, and I'll see you next time.

 [00:17:00]