Episode #22-Putting The Work In

In this episode, Greg and Don explore what it truly means to “put the work in” on a grief journey. They acknowledge that there’s no one-size-fits-all approach—grief is deeply personal, and the path forward looks different for everyone. Still, they highlight several practices that many have found helpful in fostering growth: staying connected to one’s emotions, engaging with others who have experienced similar loss or trauma, and prioritizing self-care through exercise, healthy eating, and meditation or prayer.

They also reflect on the meaningful ways people choose to honor and remember their loved ones—whether through visiting a gravesite or urn, creating foundations or scholarship funds, advocating for legislative change, mentoring others, or finding other personal expressions of remembrance.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to this episode of Turning Grief into Growth: The Journey of Transformation. This is a podcast that's hosted by Greg Jacobs and Don Lipstein. Well, good day, Don. How are you doing this nice fine day?

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Good day, Greg, and and good day to our listeners as well. Just had a great walk with my wife and my dog walking around the island and the birds singing, and uh it's just a beautiful sunny day. Uh so uh I'm doing great.

SPEAKER_00 0:35

You know, as somebody who suffers from seasonal depression in the wintertime, I can honestly say that man, when the sun comes out and the green gets grass, and I start hearing those birds chirp, it just does something for me. I just really feel energized.

SPEAKER_01 0:52

Here, here I thought you were gonna give me a hard time for that was coming.

SPEAKER_00 0:58

No, that was coming. So, as somebody that does not live on an island in South Carolina, that doesn't get to walk the dogs next to a lighthouse every morning, uh, yeah, let's give you a hard time.

SPEAKER_01 1:11

You know, it but the spring spring does it it you know it brings hope. It just it's a beautiful time of year for me. I I love the spring, I think it's the best time of year, even though the pollen is out there uh and it gets all over my black car, and you know, it's like constant look, like the car never looks clean.

SPEAKER_00 1:34

Um, so I like to say, oh, the smell of allergies in the air, you know, it's everywhere. But I do like to also say, get out in nature and rub some on you. We need to uh we need to let nature rub on us a little more and uh stop being so tidied up inside uh houses and businesses.

SPEAKER_01 1:53

So rub its good stuff on us.

SPEAKER_00 1:56

That's right, right that's right, even if it's yellow pollen. Well, I I do want to stop right here, and I want to ask our listener audience to do something. Um, I don't think it's a big ask. Uh, you know, we have on the intro and the outro of every podcast to like, uh, to subscribe, to comment. Um, those are obvious things I would like for you to do, but I'm gonna ask you to go just a step further. Just think of someone in your life, one person in your life that might be grieving. And I'm gonna ask you to send them a text with the name of this podcast and just say, hey, no particular episode necessarily. Just wanted to throw this out to you. I encourage you to listen to this podcast. Um, we are starting to get a lot of comments in from people that are saying this is very helpful. People that are not even directly affected by grief, but are indirectly affected by grief. Um, so it doesn't have to be that you lost, you know, a child or a spouse or, you know, a direct loss. It could be that you're friends with somebody or another extended family with somebody who has had a direct loss. And we just want to be able to get the word out there that this is a resource. It's not a self-promotion, it's not a tap on the shoulder of, you know, saying, hey, we're doing something incredible. This is just something that are two guys who've lost sons that would like for others to be able to have some resources to know they're not alone out there. And uh there's some hope and we can uh turn grief into growth.

SPEAKER_01 3:30

Yeah, I'm gonna ask uh rather than just give them the name, like Greg suggested, maybe even provide the link uh just to make it a little easier for them to you know check us out. Um so absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 3:46

And you know, we're on pretty much every uh podcast platform, the major ones are Apple Podcasts and Spotify. Uh, we're also on YouTube. Um, so yes, I agree, Don. Let's uh let's ask our audience to do that. We appreciate you all following through with that. Just one person uh that you can think of. Well, today is going to be a little different uh podcast. Uh, Don and I, we love to be able to um kind of bounce ideas off each other. We love when we have our guests on. Uh, this episode, we do not have a guest on. We're we are each other's guests uh today. And today we're going to kind of drill down on the topic of putting the work in. Uh so frequently I talk um, especially with dads uh who have lost children, because that's kind of my uh gravitational pool. And I basically always talk about putting the work in in your grief journey. And Don had uh a person recently inquire and say, what does that mean? And I get asked that question all the time. I wish it was as simple as um, here is a list of everything you have to do, uh, but it's not because it morphs and it changes and it's unique for every single individual.

SPEAKER_01 5:03

Absolutely. Yeah, I couldn't have said that any better. And um, you know, when I think of work, and and Greg's probably gonna have different uh different ideas, but um, you know, for me, it was all about, and and I say it was because I'm not doing the work uh so much anymore. Um, I feel like I've you know gotten to a place in my grief journey that um I I'm still grieving, uh, but it's not uh painful. Um it's I don't feel like I'm suffering. I've integrated my grief in into my life. Um so what I did uh work-wise was to you know talk to people. Uh first off, talk to professionals who uh who know about grief. And that's you know, that's work. Um uh read. I did a lot of reading and um you know tried to get the the um understanding of what I was going through. And there's a lot of books out there. Some of them are good, some of them are really good, and some of them, you know, may not resonate with with me or with you as a listener. Um, but don't give up uh because uh there's truly uh there can be a lot of help through reading books. Um some people like to journal. Uh I was not a journaler. Um and and I but I know a lot of people that do journal that they say that really helps them and that's you know that's part of their their work that they do. Um I uh you know connecting with other grievers that understood and understand uh my grief was super big for me. Really important. And you know and and I think like Greg and I were talking earlier, and he he brought this up, and I'm gonna ask him to expound on it even more. But um sometimes doing the work isn't actual work, uh, but we have to we have to rest, we have to, you know, allow ourselves to just sit with our grief, and that can be work as well. So if you would.

SPEAKER_00 7:44

Yeah, you know, it's a great uh concept and thought, um, mainly in the fact that putting the work in is not always an action verb. Um putting the work in appears to be something that you're going to do. It can be inactivity as well. Now, that's not apathy, that's not complacency that I'm addressing and talking about. What I'm talking about is taking uh a lawn chair and sitting in a park. And for me, the cemetery is a park. Uh so whatever you know works for you, um, I'll just sit out there and I'll take my uh tablet and I'll read my book uh on a nice spring uh sunny day, and I'll fall asleep a lot of times, take a nap. Um, sometimes it entails breathing exercises in the morning and just really getting my heart to slow down and not rush as fast to eliminate stress. So a lot of times meditation and prayer, uh, I'm a Christian man, so um I do pray to God and to Jesus. So that is something that I do. Um, when you were talking about reading, I was an avid reader of the Bible every morning, and I found that I could not read after David died. It just, you know, they say don't be surprised if there's certain things like golfing or fishing. Uh, I've shared on previous podcasts where I would like throw my fishing reel in all my tackle box in uh Hamlin Lake in Michigan, uh, the same year David died when I tried to go in honor of him and fish for him, and I just couldn't do it. So there's certain things that do go away. Uh, I would say that give it time, and if you put the work in, most of those things come back, such as reading for me. I do enjoy pleasure reading. I don't read books on grief, I don't read resource uh nonfiction. I just enjoy like thriller genre, like David Baldacci is my favorite author. But getting back to the religious aspect of things, I couldn't read my Bible. So I started putting on the audio Bible. So if there's certain things you can't do, there's other alternatives for that. Same for Audible. If you want to read a book on grief, but you just can't sit down and read it, go ahead and find an audio version of that and uh read it. Whether it's Dr. Alan Wooffeld, You're not crazy, you're grieving. Uh, it's a great book. Um, just different things, you know, to kind of work it out. Um, I did want to talk about uh when it comes to putting the work in, um, there's a caution that I want to lay out. And I want to be very careful here. Um, the the caution is that in America, we're a very sick society overall, physically, mentally, spiritually, whatever you know category you want to put it in. Um, we we really uh kind of um really gravitate towards pharmaceuticals. Um I'm on a uh several different like you know, blood pressure medicines, thyroid medicine. So I'm not saying that I don't take medicine myself. Uh I do have a very much um uh uh slant towards trying to do as much as I can holistically. So I take a lot of vitamins, I try to exercise, I try to get my vitamin D from the sunshine, uh things like that. So what I would say is in America, the caution is if you're depressed, the the go-to automatically is call your doctor and get an antidepressant medicine. For some, that is that's fine. That's what they need. For others, maybe they need it, but then they need to also do other things along with it. For others, yet they choose not to. For my route, I got a script for it. I took one pill and I decided I didn't want to take antidepression medicine. Um, I was depressed, don't get me wrong, but I didn't want to mask over my grief either. I wanted to feel it, I wanted to go through it. And I think that it's important to point out, Don, that it's not something that you could just say, oh, I've got diabetes, therefore I'm gonna take metformin. Um, it's something that you can curb your appetite, you can curb your intake, things like that. It's the same way with depression, where you can feel it, you could still be depressed, but you can work through it uh to the point where you're saying you're not actively in pain and suffering. Um, so I feel the same way now. Um, and I and I just really encourage people be cautious. By all means, go to therapy, go to counseling, go to psychologist. Um, if you need antidepressant medicine, that's fine. But don't let it be your instinct go-to and think that it's going to solve everything because it won't.

SPEAKER_01 12:27

You know, I'm glad you brought that up, Greg, because um, you know, Dr. Walkfeld, uh, and I've said this before on previous uh previous podcasts, but he says you have to feel in order to heal. And and I'm a firm believer in that. Uh and some people will turn to alcohol or other drugs that aren't aren't um uh prescribed uh to help relieve the pain, which makes you know it makes a lot of sense. We don't want to be in pain, uh, but I can uh tell you from my experience personal and the experiences that I am very much aware of with other people. Um all it's doing is is, like you said, putting a mask on, and it's not uh it's not taking care of the grief. The grief's not gonna uh go away uh if you uh decide to do that. It's still gonna be there and wait for you for when you are ready and able to face it. So um it you know it's a uh a bomb uh type uh when when we decide to use that for that. Um and um like I say, the the uh the pain and the suffering is gonna be there uh when you decide to stop. And sometimes, you know, alcohol is a depressant, so it just can make it worse. Um so I'm not you know, I don't think either one of us is is telling you what you should or shouldn't do. Um but uh putting the work in uh it's you know it's a healthy uh healing way of getting through the grief. Um so hopefully that that describes it.

SPEAKER_00 14:26

Yeah, what are some other ways, Don, that people mask grief?

SPEAKER_01 14:33

Some other ways that people mask grief. I mean, you know, uh going to work. Um people can dive into their into their work. Um they can uh I mean uh whatever addiction is out there could be sexual, um it could be um you know uh gambling, um, but anything to take your mind off the pain that uh that we are uh feeling at the time. Um so that yeah, that's uh that's something that uh and and you might have other other things that I haven't thought about, but um that's yeah, those that's what I was thinking of.

SPEAKER_00 15:22

I I think that there's those items right there. There's a gravitational pull when you're grieving hard, especially to fill that void with something. Um there's a natural response to go ahead and to try to um substitute that grief with something else. And a lot of times I hear people say, if I could just stay busy, if I could just stay busy, if I could just stay busy, whether it's work, whether it's volunteerism, whether it's this or that, then I uh I won't have to address my grief. It won't rear its ugly head. Don and I have to be careful of that, even in volunteerism. Um, it's not just working 80 hours in a corporate world structured that uh can get you down with that. Sometimes just even doing what I do or the podcast and all this stuff can add to the busyness where it goes to that previous podcast where we recorded on capacity. Um, I've talked to people with gambling addictions. I've talked to people that just they spend a lot of money every year in a 12-month cycle and they start back over the next year on vacations. Um, I've talked to people that have gotten into certain hobbies. Like I've told you, I've gotten into collecting vintage German beer steins. I really do enjoy collecting them, but I've slowed down, and here's why is because I realized I was trying to fill a void. I was trying to have that uh that Christmas present experience come to my door with the UPS man, uh, where I felt uh like Christmas morning unwrapping a present, and it was making me feel good. It was making me feel energized. So I had to be careful where I was trying to find that pleasure that was taking away from just you know working through uh a lot of this grief.

SPEAKER_01 17:09

Yeah, you know, there's a lot of guys that I'll talk to, um uh clients of mine that uh will will tell me they had a good day um today or yesterday because uh they were busy. You know, they're they they went to work and and they didn't think about their grief at all. And it's kind of backwards in my mind that you know we we want to think about grief. Uh we want to to recognize and acknowledge it uh because that's part of the work. That's a part of the work that we're talking about. Um Elizabeth Kuvler-Ross you know has the five stages of grief, which was really not written for uh for grief, it was written for people that had terminal disease that you know were dying, and and the um yeah the acceptance uh piece is um is kind of huge. Um that that we have to accept the fact that we have lost a loved one. And um once we are able to do that, um then it it becomes a little easier to uh do the work that we're talking about.

SPEAKER_00 18:31

Yeah. So some of the other aspects of putting the work in, uh, Don, I believe are kind of memorializing our loved one. Um when we use the word memorial, uh, we think in memoriam of, and we think of a headstone, I think, or a funeral. Um, so this is going to be a little more offshoot from that. Um, some of the ways that you can memorialize are gravestones or headstones, maybe if your loved one was cremated in urn. Um, some people form foundations and scholarship funds uh in honor of their loved one. Um, there's a lot of people that really emphasize legislative change, for example, if um their loved one was killed by gun violence or by a DUI uh from somebody that was driving under their influence, things like this. Um, but I kind of want to uh go in a different uh direction, even I want to show, uh I'm gonna share my screen, and I'd like to be able to just kind of show uh our YouTube audience uh that is watching uh just kind of some uh things that I did just around my house. So I wanted I had a little hillside overlooking a creek, and I wanted to go ahead and build a memorial garden uh in honor of David. Uh I call I call it my honor garden, and I have you know a flag of David. This is an old picture, it's definitely more mature now, bigger bushes, rocks around it, and things like this. This is when I just first built it. Um, but I built this little fence. I put all this mulch down and put flowers and plants and everything. Like I said, it's more developed now. But this was something that really brought a lot of peace to my wife and I. Uh, I would say we had a borderline domestic dispute on the placement of it and where it should be, the angle it should go, and this and that, which was very therapeutic because we talked through it, we worked through it. And I'm so glad I didn't just take it on myself and my wife get home from work and say, ta-da, here it is, versus her being able to have an impact in it as well. Uh, one of the other aspects that I have uh done is I have uh always tried to decorate. Um, I'm gonna put another picture up here, my son's grave. So this is uh my son's grave. You can't see to the left of that headstone is my grave headstone, which freaks my uh surviving children out uh that we would actually have that put into place. Um, but I try to go out there and I try to plant some really nice flowers, keep uh American flags uh near his headstone uh and things like that. So that brings me peace. Um it also is a matter of honor and respect that I feel like I have towards my deceased son. Um Don, do you want to share kind of what you do as far as uh in honor of Josh?

SPEAKER_01 21:26

Sure. Uh I can tell you it started off um with just uh just deciding to live my life uh to to honor him. And I went to work for TAPS Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, and I worked with them for 10 years uh before starting my own um brief coaching uh business called Imagine Family Recovery. And I do all of that in honor of Josh. Um I wake up Every day um I have a a little um uh flag uh necklace that I put on every day uh and you know it's to honor him. I uh I after about uh three years of grief, I wanted to do a little bit more and uh I was given a a military coin, a um challenge coin they call them. And uh I uh had with taps, I was with uh taps and I took this group to Garden of the Gods and the coin was given to me on Joshua the day that Joshua's funeral was by one of his battle buddies, and uh I lost the coin at Garden of the Gods, and I thought, oh my god, what a um I guess you know somebody needed that coin more than I did. Uh, after three years of of grieving, I I felt like maybe I'm this is a message telling me that I'm moving forward. But I wanted to do something to honor him. I've been trying to figure out a way and I couldn't uh think of anything. And then I decided why not uh make a coin in his honor? And this is um one side of the coin, which for those that are on uh YouTube you'll be able to see it. And then this side has um an anchor uh that uh with his name and his uh date of birth and date of death on it. Um Rivereen Squadron is uh who he uh served with and went to Iraq with twice. So um those uh those are some ways and then I um uh I don't know how long ago it was, but um I saw this bottle of wine at a liquor store and it was called Josh, and I thought, oh my god, I gotta I gotta pick pick that up. I I bought the bottle and then I read the story, and it turns out that um this uh guy his his name was actually Joseph, but they called him Josh and he served in the military and um they uh they started a uh uh winery uh and named it Josh. And um I have a bottle here that uh after a while knowing my son who was always busting on me, um I thought, you know, he would probably really enjoy uh if I were to put his ashes uh inside a bottle of Josh. So uh after drinking the wine, of course, I uh I took the ashes that I had left that I hadn't spread somewhere, and they are in this bottle right here. Um, you know, some people may think that's crazy, uh, but for Josh and I, I I um I feel really uh good about it. I think he uh with the humor that he has, uh he would feel good about it. And someday uh that bottle will um get buried. Uh, but right now I'm having fun with it sitting sitting here and and just being able to talk about it and see him and see his name and see the ashes.

SPEAKER_00 25:53

So you know Don told me about that about six months ago, and um I laughed so hard uh when I saw that. Um and I I felt guilty afterwards. Uh, but Don was also laughing, laughing. And I and I just um I think that to bring mirth uh to our grief journey and to also keep him close in a very unique way. Um it just it's very meaningful. Um now there's others that have urns um, you know, that they keep in their son's or daughter's bedrooms or spouses or on the mantle, and it's uh never touched or whatever. That's fine. It's not any less respect uh for Don uh putting Josh's ashes in a Josh bottle of wine than it is to have a decorative urn uh on the mantle.

SPEAKER_01 26:44

Um by the way, if if I may, I just want to say that if you are a wine drinker, Josh is a it's a great winery, it's an associate uh and uh really good good stuff.

SPEAKER_00 27:01

It's my go-to for Cabernet Sauvignon. I uh I love Josh, it's a it's a really good brand. Um, and I also want to say that uh you also coined me, uh me and Tim Jabin uh at a breakfast um over a year ago, man, maybe two years ago, um, in uh with that coin. And man, it just it brought tears to my eyes. It meant so much to me. Um, and it's just really cool how we do things, even you wearing the flag around your neck. I think you have Josh's actual flag box on your desk there as well. I've got David's here in my office.

SPEAKER_01 27:33

He's he's uh he's looking over my shoulder.

SPEAKER_00 27:37

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 27:37

Um yep.

SPEAKER_00 27:38

And for those that can see on YouTube, this picture uh right above my head is a paint by numbers picture I did where it's got two chairs, and one's David's and one's mine. Uh I look at that every day. Um, so there's just different things that we do along the way. Um, I haven't you know felt the need to uh do a different memorial or honor garden. I haven't felt the need to do another paint by numbers. Um, I'll go over to the cemetery and tidy up his grave. It's probably not going to look uh as immaculate as it did year one or two. Um, but that's all you know, that's okay. It's things that we do and we morph into. Um the most pleasure I get in life right now, believe it or not, is this podcast. Um, I absolutely love doing this. I love doing it with Don. Uh, me and him have just really grown our friendship. Uh, we pair well together, but it also helps me to talk through my grief and to also listen to others that we have as guests on here. So, this is what I do uh really um to put the work in. Um, it's not for everybody, you know. Like I just uh this morning took on a new mentee uh in Georgia who lost his uh son in a motorcycle accident. Um, this will be my sixth one through taps uh that I've done. And you know, people question and say, I could never do that. And it's like, well, look, not everybody is meant to be a mentor. Um, but uh there is something that you are meant to do. And it's I I like going back to that City Slickers movie with Billy Crystal and Jack Pallance where he says it's that one thing. What's the secret to life? It's that one thing. And at the end of the movie, he's like, Well, that's for you to find out. You have I can't tell you what it is. Uh same thing for this. You have to find what works for you, especially when it comes to putting the work in. Don and I can't tell you this is what you have to do. We can give you some guardrails and some parameters and say, hey, self-care, eating healthy, exercising, um, taking care of your mental health. All these things are yes, you absolutely should do. Uh, do you have to? No, because you know, people choose not to do things, and there's consequences for inactivity with that as well. Um, but we can give you some uh suggestions, and that's what we're doing this morning is just you know, kind of talking about. I said morning. That's what we're doing today, is kind of talking about um what has worked for us, might not work for you, uh, but maybe it'll spark something where you can kind of uh dig in a little more.

SPEAKER_01 30:16

You know, thank you for saying all that, but good morning. I it just dawned on me. Uh, you know, if we spell it M-O-U-R-N-I-N-G, yeah, uh that that what is what we're promoting, right? Good morning. Yep. Um, that we want people to uh to find ways, whatever way that looks like for the individual, as long as you know, find ways to to uh help them through their grief, uh try to be as healthy as you possibly can uh going through that and doing that. Um yeah, there's gonna be times where you have trouble getting out of bed. And um, yeah, something I I wanted to touch on. Um and I've spoken about this before, but stretching our comfort zones is is another way to um to uh uh help us do the work. Uh I found that it really helped me to just kind of put myself a little like baby steps, you know, put my toe in the water, um but little by little stretch it so that I could do something that I found really hard to do. We I think we talked about that when we talked about triggers and and emotional activations, um that you know you you just have to figure out what works best for you. And uh anyway.

SPEAKER_00 31:52

And I and I did want to mention too um that grief is not linear. Um when you talk about good mourning, M O U R N I N G, um, we talk about a lot of times mourning being kind of the first phase of grief where it's this real active, you know. I mentioned the Bible earlier. There's a lot of uh passages that talk about mourning in the Old Testament where they put sackcloth and ashes on their head. They would even hire professional mourners for a period of time. Um, there was this whole active phase of just crying and wailing. Um, that is not necessarily a time frame. So I've known people that are several years out that are still mourning because there's just they're stuck. Um, for others, it might be that in the first three to six months of their journey um that they were mourning and then they merged into more of a grief where it's not like they're crying at the drop of a hat if their you know child's name is mentioned or spouse or father or whatever. Um the other linear aspect of it is I know people that are 10, 15 years out that uh didn't start their grief journey until year 10. Um, and therefore, for the first 10 years, they were suppressing with covering it up, whether it was work, addictions, whatever it might be. Um, so it's it's not necessarily a day one thing of your loss. Um, and it's hard because we love to play the compare game. We love to say, how come I'm not a little further down the road? How come I'm still getting triggered by this or that? Um, so just be aware of that, that it's not something that uh follows the same path. You can't look at a chart and say, I'm in this time frame of the the loss of a loved one, therefore you should be this or you should be that. It it doesn't work that way.

SPEAKER_01 33:52

Yeah, I agree. Well don't go ahead. I feel like um I feel like we've wrapped we should wrap it up. I agree. Yeah. Uh but uh I hope that our listeners um have a better understanding of what it means to do the work. Uh and uh also you know, just that there are so many different ways that that you can do this work. And you know, just the way Greg and I talked about memorializing, and I mean it's it's like he you know, when he goes to the grave site. Um I've uh I uh had Joshua um cremated um and still haven't buried his ashes. Um am I you know is either wrong? No, uh neither is wrong, and and uh whatever works best for each person is what um is what yeah, that's the best thing for for you as a griever to follow your heart. Um just try to do it in a healthy manner.

SPEAKER_00 35:06

Absolutely. Couldn't agree more. Well, folks, we appreciate you listening, and uh, we would love to hear how you put the work in, how you memorialize your loved ones. So drop us a comment and uh let us know how you do that. Until next time. Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen. We hope turning grief into growth spoke to your heart and becomes a part of your own journey of healing and transformation. If you know someone who could use a little hope, please share this episode with them. And don't forget to follow, like, or subscribe on your favorite platform so you don't miss what's coming next. Don and I can't wait to share more conversations to help you keep turning your grief into growth. Until next time.