Episode #26-Choices

In this episode, Greg and Don discuss what it means to make choices throughout the grief journey. Some choices may lead toward healing and long-term growth, while others can prove unsustainable over time. While they avoid taking a one-size-fits-all approach to grief, they explore several foundational principles that can help guide healthier decisions along the way. They also discuss how choosing to pause, avoid, or remain stuck in grief is, in itself, a choice. Although life is filled with decisions, the grief journey often confronts us with some of the heaviest and most difficult choices we will ever face. 

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 today?

SPEAKER_01 0:12

Actually, if you really want to know the truth, Greg, uh I'm sore. I uh I did some kayaking over the weekend and I'm still paying the price. Around your lighthouse. Around the lighthouse, yeah. We went out to a sandbar that I feel like it's like a new island that's going to be created. Um it's kind of interesting because you know, here nature just takes over. And um here we have this sandbar that's huge, it's getting bigger and bigger, and uh it's having an effect on on our island. I feel like there's either going to be a lake that um develops where the sand, you know, goes around it. Uh I don't know, but it's just every day um get to watch it, and it's pretty far out. Um, so uh my brother and I went and kayaked out there. I haven't been in the kayak for many years now. Um, and I have two of them. I own two of them, but for whatever reason I just haven't gotten in them. And this weekend we did, and man, I'm telling you, I am sore. I'm feeling paying the price.

SPEAKER_00 1:28

I have uh been kayaking my brother and I took a kayaking trip up to Michigan uh several years back, and it's never my arms or anything like that. That's sore, it's my back. Is that what's sore for you, or is it your arms?

SPEAKER_01 1:42

Uh everything legs, arms, uh back. I I used every every muscle in my body, I think.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

Yeah, we were uh we went out on uh we started off at an inlet and then uh went out on Lake Michigan, and uh a lot of times we were fighting the waves and the currents and stuff like that. So I was totally wiped out and sore the next day. I can relate with that. Well, I'm glad you got out in nature and let nature rub on you a little bit. Um I'm hoping to do that a little bit today, and I'm glad you got to spend some time with your family, your brother, when he was in.

SPEAKER_01 2:12

So oh, and and I should I should add to uh we launched from the beach and the waves were kind of small. Um, so it made it easier to do that, but um but I went to get in mine and a wave came and flipped the kayak over. I went down in the water, the kayak went under, and I had a and my brother had already launched, and he's getting ready to come back in. I'm like, no, no, no, no, you stay out there, I'll I'll figure this out.

SPEAKER_00 2:44

Now, were these sea kayaks with holes in the bottom and stuff?

SPEAKER_01 2:47

Or are they they no, no, they are not sea kayaks, they're um touring kayaks. So uh they have the neoprene and the yeah, and the holes like there's a cockpit and yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 3:02

The kind I don't fit in. Can't fit in a six foot seven guy in those.

SPEAKER_01 3:08

You you probably fit in my wife's kayak. Mine, I I used to fit in pretty easily, but I don't know as I get older, and maybe that's why I haven't kayaked for a while. Um, I can't get in it as easily.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

Well, Don, when you get to be as old as I am, you'll know what it's like for your knees to creak and your back and everything else. Yeah. Well, we're gonna go ahead and uh start off uh this episode. Um, we're gonna talk about choices today. This is a topic you picked out, and uh, we do not have a guest uh today, so I'm excited for you and I uh to kind of just uh toggle back and forth on uh organic conversation uh with this. And just for our listeners, we never prepare um a list of questions, an agenda, anything like that. Uh we would like to keep it organic. We like to just kind of see where the conversation leads and uh go from there. So, Don, kind of start us off with your thoughts on choices.

SPEAKER_01 4:05

Well, I'm gonna start with my early days of grief and you know how important it was to me uh to follow um follow these. I like first uh I was all in my head, you know, when you lose a child to suicide, um you're trying to figure out why. You've got all these questions and and um I didn't find any of that very helpful. Um, you know, just gone ruminating in in my thoughts, um none of it was was helpful. So I I decided to go get therapy. I mean, um I think that was a real important choice that I made. Um, and I did that pretty early on. And uh I also uh got some peer grief support through TAPS. And uh I made the decision, I made the choice to attend uh their um seminar. It was six months after Josh died, attend their seminar for suicide loss survivors. And that in itself, that one choice that I made put me on a path and in the right direction to healing. Um and I can tell you that what I learned from that experience was that I had to get out of my head and just kind of not allow my thoughts to take control and start listening to my heart. Um and my heart was giving me much better guidance, and and some people might call that intuition. Uh, some people may say, you know, follow your gut um instead of your your brain. Uh that's something that I've heard a lot. Um but I I felt this in my heart. And when I was um going through these, the like from that point, I just I chose to trust uh my intuition, my heart, uh and uh the amazing uh healing journey that I found uh was kind of un unbelievable. Now I don't I can't say that that's gonna work for everybody, um but it certainly worked for me. And you know, I it it kind of dawned on me. I was like, oh my god, you know, I just need to make good choices, choices that that uh align with my heart. Um and I think that that's you know one of the things that I learned. So that's the start. Let's get us started.

SPEAKER_00 7:29

You know, um I was thinking about when you said, you know, it's but you didn't use this verbiage, but I wrote it down, slant or bent. Um when you make that choice, there's like this slant almost, and it's so ever so slight uh this bend towards that direction. Um, the problem a lot of times is people don't see that. So it's not like you went to the TAPS seminar for suicide survivors, you went to therapy. Oh my gosh, the world was just like opened up, everything was clear, you knew exactly how your future was gonna unfold in front of you. And it was butterflies and rainbows and lollipops. And it was like, I am so glad I made that choice because it's just so clear to me now uh what's gonna happen in the future. And that doesn't happen that way, right? It's just a white band. Yeah.

SPEAKER_01 8:23

Not at not at all. In fact, as I was going through it, um, and I think you know, we may be having an episode on on what I'm uh about to say, but I didn't recognize it at all. Um, I I'm looking back. This is looking in the rear view mirror, saying, Oh yeah, this um uh this happened this way. Uh, but I could not tell you that it was happening that way when I was going through it.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Yeah. And I think for me, uh retrospective, looking back in the rearview mirror, as you said, is powerful. Um, I feel like it's a daily inventory we should all take because one, there are things that we have done wrong or incorrect, that maybe we need to write the boat, as you said, tipping over the kayak, or maybe it's the wrong bend or slant in the wrong direction. And we could see that over time that maybe that's not the direction we intended or wanted to take. Uh, for me, looking back, I could say that it was a week or two after David died, where the TAPS crisis care team reached out to me and invited me to a men's uh uh call that you led, and it really um helped me. But I will say that every single call before it happened on a Wednesday night, I fought it immensely. And I said, and I came up with every excuse in the book why I couldn't and shouldn't and didn't want to be on that call. Um, and then I got on it, and every single time at the end, uh talked to my wife, and I'd be like, man, I'm so glad that I surrendered to that and did it uh because I'm a better person now. Um, but it didn't come easy. So I think it is important to emphasize with choices, it's it's not like you're greasing the skids and you just slide right in. Uh there's there's a lot of bucking and a lot of hesitation.

SPEAKER_01 10:19

Yeah, it's you're right, it's absolutely not easy. Um, there's nothing easy about this journey in my mind. Um but when you think about you're always at choice. We always uh everyone, like we can go to the right, we can go to the left, we can go straight, um, or we can even turn around and go go back. I mean, we all have those choices, no matter what it is we're going through at any point in our lives. I think when we when I think about the grief journey, and especially mine, um I I feel grateful that I made the choices that I made. Maybe not all of them were right, but uh the majority of them was guiding me through into this healing journey and and helped me to understand that I can help other people. Like this this is not just about me he uh finding healing, but maybe I can help myself by helping others as well. And um so uh it like we talked about, it's not something that you you're clear about when it's happening, um, but as I look back on it, I I'm very clear that those choices that I made uh turned out really well. I didn't, you know, I didn't turn to uh alcohol or drugs um to to numb my pain. Um and that was a good choice for me. Um I I did choose to seek professional help. That also was a good choice for me, and I sought peer group uh or peer support. That was you know probably the best choice that I made. Um so the the list could go on and on, uh and but throughout the journey there's choosing do I go right, left, straight, or back?

SPEAKER_00 12:45

So that brings me to my next question. Um, it might be a rhetorical question. I haven't gotten there yet in my mind. Um is there any such thing as not choosing? Um, because I I believe that you have this whole aspect of, well, let me go back. We we had a guest on Dr. Frank Campbell uh previously, incredible man, incredible psychologist, based out of Baton Rouge. I think he's retired now. Um, but you know, he's writing a book called The Canyon of Why. And he says that you're, you know, to use your kayaking analogy at the beginning, you're you're kayaking in this canyon. Let's say you're out in Colorado. And um there's a fork in the in the river up ahead. You could either go right or you can go left. Uh, you don't have a choice to just, you know, tread water and not go right or left because the current is pushing you. Um, so I think that not making a choice is making a choice. Um, and it's way better to be proactive than apathetic. Wouldn't you agree with that?

SPEAKER_01 13:51

Uh that's a good point. And you know, when you brought that up, I was thinking about it like, is there a possibility that you you don't make a choice and and you just allow you allow the current to take you, right? If if we're talking about that river analogy, like you don't have to choose, let the water choose. Um and and but that is a choice, you're right. Um so yeah, um, and you know, when I think about my life before Josh, uh that's what I was doing. I was floating down the river, um, living life by default, you know, not really feeling like I had much control over that. Um and uh in my grief journey, I I felt similar at the beginning. I felt like I didn't have any choice. Uh but as I experienced um some of the things that I was experiencing uh that you know had to do with my heart-based uh guidance as opposed to my brain or my my mind uh guidance, I definitely uh you know took the right path.

SPEAKER_00 15:19

You know, I think that um when you look at um well here's a comment I've I've said from the beginning. And I don't know if it's right, wrong, or indifferent, but I I say it. I don't know if I heard it, if I made it up, honestly. Uh let your emotions lead you where they may, just make sure they don't destroy you. Um so I think that when you're talking about the river kind of taking you, um, it is a choice. So I do think that we need to be in tune. You were mentioning intuition in our heart. We need to be in tune with where our heart is taking us. We need to make sure that we are in tune with our emotions. But there is a possibility of your emotions actually destroying you if you don't want to get out of bed, if all you want to do is stay in a morning phase and you get stuck because all you're doing is concentrating and thinking about your lost loved one. And you're not making space for growth, you're not making space for emotional um support, whether it's through therapy or peer groups. Um, I think that it would be uh healthy to talk about the negatives and the positives of choices. So some of the um negatives, I'm I'm kind of hesitant in saying steering away from right or wrong, uh, because there can be some um neutral consequences on some of these. So I like in like drugs and alcohol, for example, um, like my back was hurting yesterday and I had to leave. So we're not talking about that kind of drug. We're talking about um, you know, opioids, um, things that would numb you. I will even throw out antidepressants, can be a negative for a lot of people. I'm no doctor. Um, I got a script for antidepressants. I took one pill um when David died, and then I decided, you know something? I don't want to mask my emotions and my feelings. I don't want to be numb and suppress this. So that was a choice I made. I have known a lot of people that have benefited greatly from being on antidepression medicine. So it's it's not a cookie cutter A or B type choice necessarily. Uh, same for alcohol. I drink beer occasionally, I'll have an old-fashioned bourbon uh type thing, but I never drink to excess, and I'm not an alcoholic, so it's not unwise for me to you know have an alcoholic beverage occasionally. Um does that make sense?

SPEAKER_01 17:45

You know, yeah, it does. And and it brought to mind, I think on one of our previous episodes, Greg, we talked about uh sustainable and unsustainable.

SPEAKER_00 17:55

Yes.

SPEAKER_01 17:55

Um and and I think you know, this is what we're talking about right here. Um the things that you know will can help us um heal uh in the long run um versus things that might uh might make it harder for us to uh find that that healing space. Um and you know, I've heard a lot of talk lately about, you know, do we really heal from our grief? And you know the answer is um we're we're always going to grieve. I I feel like when we lose somebody very close to us, we're always gonna grieve that loss. We're gonna miss them. We we won't ever stop loving them. Um but uh I call it uh active grieving and inactive grieving. And so I don't consider myself to be actively grieving right now. Uh I feel like you know, I've gotten to a space where um I have integrated uh Joshua into uh my current life. You know, he I know where I believe um where he is. Um and you know, in my mind, uh he he resides right here in my heart. Um and uh that works for me. Uh it's not gonna work for everybody. And and many people may find what I just said to be uh kind of crazy. Um, but you know, it it fulfilled my heart was broken open when he died. Um and I needed to find a way to to fill that empty space. Uh so I feel his presence, his spirit in my heart. Um, that's a choice that that I have made. Um and it works for me. So I'm not saying it's gonna work for everybody. And um, you know, but I I think that's the the thing that I think we're trying to say here is yeah, it we all have our own things that are gonna work for us. Make those choices, choose to do that as opposed to giving up. I think the giving up piece is not sustainable. I agree.

SPEAKER_00 20:38

Yeah. I you know, I I think that um when you mentioned uh that question that people ask, uh, do we ever really heal? I I don't think that we regenerate that hole in our heart and it gets filled over and replaced. I think the hole in our heart that we have from our lost uh sons is always going to be there. But I have had transformation around that hole in my heart that it is sustainable to live and to not just exist again, but to thrive again. And that was not my vocabulary earlier on. It kind of was because it was a goal of mine. Um, but I didn't know what that looked like. And now I do uh with that. So yeah. And you know, I have when you talk about you have Josh in your heart, I I feel the exact same way. Um, I am a Christian, I do believe in a heaven, and I do believe that David is in heaven. Um, I also believe we have no idea how that really works or looks. Um, so sometimes in the evenings I'll walk in my office, my computer's shut down, the lights are off, and I have a ring light right in front of my desk. Uh, like for those on YouTube, I'll turn it on now. You can see it go on and then off. And sometimes I'll walk in and that ring light's on, and the computer's off. I never turn the ring light on. And you know what I do? I say, Hey, David, and I say hi to him. I go over and I turn the Light off. Now, for those on the outside that have never experienced grief, probably think I'm a little cuckoo for that comment. That's okay. I don't care because I don't share it that somebody else needs to go buy a ring light and see if it goes on and off to be able to communicate with their children. No, that's just something, a little quirk that I do. I hear people that talk about red tail hawks and cardinals and different things that are Godwinks to them out in uh the you know nature. Um it's what we do to get by. And I fully believe it. It's not like I'm just making it up. I fully embrace that, um, but nobody else does. And that's okay because it's so unique, that choice to me. Um, so I want to I want to just kind of move us in a little different direction when it comes to choices. There's a whole um adage of being stuck in grief. Um we'd said that inactivity is a choice in and of itself, but to back up from that, let's say it's not. Let's say that you're just stuck. Um, how do you get unstuck? And I think the answer is the title, choices. Um, you have to make a choice. But I get people all the time that are five, 10 years out that will call me, they're like, I just went to the cemetery and I broke down, and now I'm in this spiral going down this rabbit hole. And for me, I was just at the cemetery and I was planting flowers and I was watering David's, you know, flowers around the grave, and I went to Kroger and I got some steaks for dinner. Um, and it's not uh, you know, that demoralizing rabbit hole experience. Um, now that's because I went to the cemetery every day earlier on, and it wasn't this ominous thing, like, oh my gosh, I can't go out there. And I'm not exalting my choices, trust me. Um, but what would you say to people that feel stuck or feel like they have some real traumatic events that trigger them and have an activation of emotions at that point?

SPEAKER_01 24:06

I would encourage uh people that feel stuck to get professional support. Um and you know, that's a choice. Um and sometimes people are okay being stuck, uh, and and that's okay. There's no judgment at all um from me or you, or you know, there shouldn't be from anyone else either. If if that's where you feel comfortable being stuck, then that's your choice. Um, but when it becomes uncomfortable, when it's uh unsustainable, that's when you know you need to start making different choices than what you've been doing. Um then for each person that's gonna look a little different, right? It's not gonna be the same for everybody.

SPEAKER_00 25:02

Yeah, I I think you're right. Um it's uh the the choice to be an active mourning uh is a choice. Um the choice to hit the pause button is your choice. I I want to make sure that we're not saying that, hey, you can't ever hit the pause button. You and I have hit the pause button numerous times.

SPEAKER_01 25:23

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 25:24

Um and and we have been stuck in in seasons of our grief journey as well. So it's par for the course in many ways. What I will say is my experience, and not just for myself, but talking with a lot of people, as you have, you've talked to way more than I have, um, is that if you hit that pause button indefinitely, it will catch up with you. Um, so you have to be prepared for the consequences of that pause button being prolonged too long. What kind of unsustainable effect, what kind of detrimental effect will it have on you? Um, I didn't go to therapy earlier on per se. I did group therapy with with uh groups. Um, but when I lost my job and was laid off due to uh cutting of employees at my job, it threw me into a spiral. And I was just, I guess, on the cusp at that point uh that it was like, you know, I need help. And I ended up getting like seven online therapy sessions uh that were provided to me through work. And it really did help because the guy was explaining to me you just had another instant loss in your life, just like your son died in an auto accident instantly, you just lost your job. It wasn't you know foreseen. You were there 13 years, you just got promoted to assistant vice president, all this stuff, and then bam, you know, your legs are chopped out from underneath you. So there's things that happen in life that have nothing to do with our grief journey that still put us into a spiral, and we have to learn how to handle those.

SPEAKER_01 27:06

Well, and you made choices on how to respond to that, right? True. When when that happened, your job, you know, you could have you could have just put your head in the hole and said, I give up. But that was not what you chose to do. You chose to, you know, do something about it, and and and that's it's hard. It's not easy, uh, especially when we're going through this. So um, you know, I I'm 15 years out from my loss. Uh, and I just want to I say that because I want to remind people that you know I've done a lot of work uh on myself and continue to do it. Like I'm continuing to um to learn new ways, better ways to uh be a better version of myself. And but it it was um the loss of my son that put me on this path. And and that was a choice. You know, that those were the choice it a choice not knowing what I was doing when I made the choice, but but as I was walking this path, and as I look back on it now, I can see that it was all about the choices I was making at the time.

SPEAKER_00 28:30

Yeah. You know, I was thinking back to when I did lose my job and the choice to choose the therapy. Uh, there was another choice I made. I don't know if you remember this or not, but uh it was probably one of the best choices psychologically I could have made. Um, I there's a uh Christian group, uh music group called King and Country, and they kind of relived the Cortez um landing. I think it was South America or Central America, it might have been the Caribbean, I'm not sure. And when he landed, he burned the ship. And uh he basically uh said there is no going back uh to the motherland, there is no retreat. We're gonna burn the ships and we're moving forward. Uh I took my corporate shirt from the company I got laid off. It wasn't a spiteful thing. They were, you know, um embroidered shirts. And I went out to the garden and I poured some lighter fluid on them and I lit them on fire. And I played that song. And man, I sang that song and I laughed out there. And it was just a very therapeutic thing for me to say, okay, that season of my life is over. There is no going back. It's I could sit here and wallow in being bitter and upset. And trust me, it didn't go away just then, but it was it set me on the right slant and bent that we started off talking about at that point. Now I could look back and I think, man, that was very healing for me to say, okay, I'm gonna burn my shirt just like Cortez burned the ship, and I'm not going back. So we do that in in our grief journey with different things. We do that in our life where we kind of firmly plant our feet in the ground and say, this is this, this is the path that we're taking going forward. I'm not gonna live in regret whether it's the right one or not. Uh, because there's a lot of hesitance, hesitancy out there with people making decisions. Am I gonna make the wrong one? Just make it, you know. Yeah, just make it. Don't live in regret.

SPEAKER_01 30:29

Yeah. And and you know, it you can you can make that decision. And if it feels like it was the wrong decision, you don't have to stay with it, right? You can always choose to to back up and and start over if if you feel like you're heading down the wrong path.

SPEAKER_00 30:47

That's right.

SPEAKER_01 30:48

I agree.

SPEAKER_00 30:49

Don, on this topic, is there anything else that you want to add or discuss?

SPEAKER_01 30:58

Uh no, I I just love the thought uh that we're always at choice. And no matter what it is, whether it's dealing with grief, uh dealing with a job loss, which is grief, um, but you know, dealing with um how to respond to uh you know your wife who um who is upset with you for whatever reason. Um you know, there's there's just all kinds of uh you know what what to do about when you tip over in a kayak and and uh you know you gonna um give up or or and you know call it a day, or are you gonna uh get get out of the water and and get the water out of the kayak and and dump it out and and move move forward? Um and I had a great day. I could have chosen to just say up, I give up. I didn't.

SPEAKER_00 32:10

So yeah, I think uh don't cry over spilled milk is uh you know something that's very applicable.

SPEAKER_01 32:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:18

Well, folks, we appreciate you listening. Uh I'm gonna give a shameless plug to Don because he wouldn't do that because he is a humble man. But uh, if you are looking for a grief coach, um you can uh contact Don at imaginefamily recovery.net. Uh he does a lot of great work uh with grief coach and counseling. So uh thank you so much. Uh yeah, thank you so much, Don, for this uh conversation. And uh listeners, thank you uh for uh listening. 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.