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What We've Learned So Far
Women, wizened by experience, presence, and attention, gather to discuss topics of depth in a world deeply in need of softer, fiercer, clearer perspectives.
What We've Learned So Far
Grief
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What We've Learned So Far gathers a group of wise women around life's big questions and everyday experiences. We explore what we're learning about life, relationships, purpose, community, and what it means to be human in a rapidly changing world.
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In this episode our wise women explore Grief. And these are some of the questions we are posing to ourselves:
- What is grief? What is its purpose and how is it expressed?
- Is it inevitable and are we powerless in its face?
- Is grief something we can or should lessen or heal?
- What is the best way to be with our own and others’ grief?
Our panel of wise women:
- Kay Eck (This Episode’s Moderator): kayeck.com
- Joan Advent joanadvent.com @joanadvent7171 (YT) @joan.advent (IG)
- Lesa Spravka: lspravka@yahoo.com
- Thea Sullivan: theasullivan.com thea@theasullivan.com
- Lisa Stokke
Video Production by Cyber Citrus Creative: https://www.instagram.com/cybercitruscreative/
Music and Performance by Keith Hill: https://www.instagram.com/khillcorp/
Welcome, welcome, welcome, welcome. This is what we've learned so far. Welcome everybody to our panel chat on grief. And I just want to start today by dedicating this panel chat to a dear friend of mine who is going through some grief, and also to all of the humans who are grieving over the now and into the future. So all right, welcome everybody, welcome panelists. Thank you so much for joining us today. As we start out today, we're just gonna jump right in. I would like for you to introduce yourself, tell us where you're coming from, any other pertinent information that we need to know, and also um to just tell us what your how you define or describe grief. Lisa, let's start with Lisa, Lisa. Well, you're both Lisa S. Lisa, Lisa Spravka. Can you start us off?
SPEAKER_04Um I'm really I'm really feel first of all, I'm Lisa. I'm from San Antonio, Texas, and um I'm all about feelings. So this topic is very attractive to me. Um and um actually I have a sociological mind, and I feel like the word grief a little bit sanitizes and uh pulls us away from the feeling of sadness um and makes it complicated and mysterious. And uh it's pretty um to me, it's just feeling uh a lot of sadness. Um yeah, that's it.
SPEAKER_05Wow, that's interesting. I can't wait to dive a little bit more into that. Thea, could you please introduce yourself?
SPEAKER_01Sure. Um, I'm Thea Sullivan and I'm in Ojai, California. And uh gosh. I think I I think about grief as just an the inevitable sort of result of love and loss or expectations and loss. Um yeah, I think it's a lot about the painful experience of letting go of something or someone, whether it's it can be an idea or an expectation or a person or a period of time. Um yeah. I think that's what I'll start with.
SPEAKER_05Thank you. Thank you. Lisa Stokey.
SPEAKER_02Um, I'm Lisa Stokey. And um I live near Boulder, Colorado. Um right now I'm uh visiting family. Um, so I'm in the Midwest right now, um, where I grew up. And you know, it's interesting when um I started thinking about it's interesting because I've actually been thinking about this topic all week. So it's interesting that um you asked me to join this, you know, rather recently. And I was just talking um, you know, with my daughter yesterday about it and the importance of experiencing grief um just for something or acknowledging it rather, which is also experiencing it a part of you that you didn't get to experience or that you didn't choose to, or you a life you didn't choose to live. And so, you know, I think as women it can be, you know, I know women who didn't have as many children as they wanted. I know women who didn't get to have like the type of career they wanted or some aspect of their life, right? And I feel like the more that these things go unacknowledged or not experienced, it makes it that more chal that much more challenging to move into you know, whatever else there was for you. Now that's a different kind of grief, obviously, than when we, you know, may suddenly lose someone we're close to, you know. But I liked what Thea said that a lot of it does have to come with expect, you know, a lot of times expectations are involved, right? Just like with what I said. But I I think to sum it up, I think I mostly see it as the ending of a cycle. You know, that life is just a series of cycles and cycles and cycles, right? Many different cycles. And so I think it's crucial to experience it so we can move move forward into the next incarnation, the next birth, if you will. I love that. Thank you.
SPEAKER_03Joan Wow, reflecting on I'm Joan, yeah, Advent, and I'm in uh Virginia in the Richmond area. We just had the monks looking for peace here a week ago. That feels noteworthy just to mention that. Um and when I think about this topic, it's interesting because so much of what's been said already I absolutely resonate with and I can could say yes. That that is that is it. And for me, um I'm a deeply heart-centered emotional person as well, as Lisa uh expressed at the beginning, but it it's always a very visceral experience for me. And so I was thinking about like whether it's the architecture of who we are, like our being, and whether it's our dreams or loved ones or um things that have naturally come to completion, that there is in a way from my experience, like an an altering that occurs with the loss. And I think about a tree that's fallen and the roots are pulled up out of the earth, and you see this hole. And depending on the size of the loss, you know, it could be um that big, like cavernous. Uh I was walking in the woods today, you know, like this big cavernous hole in the architecture of who we are. Or it might be just like a little weed that's been plucked, depending on the spectrum of things. But part of grief and being willing to grieve as I see it, is that it is the um the reforming of who we are, having been touched by whatever that, whether it be it a person or as I said, a dream of ours, how it impacted us, how it structured us, and then who we are in the aftermath of going through the process of grieving and letting go and kind of being reborn, as you said, in a new form.
SPEAKER_05I I I just love the um the analogy of the of the tree. I think that's that's really beautiful and and very powerful. Um, I would just I'm I'm Kay, I'm still in Arizona. I um I just wanted to add here that um one of my teachers once said that trauma occurs any time. And I and I I want to say also that I feel the same way about trauma the word trauma um as Lisa was hinting to with the word grief, is that it it is it's such a clinical term for something so incredibly powerful. But he said that trauma occurs anytime something happens that you didn't expect. And I thought, wow, you know, this kind of describes the spectrum of griefs that we encounter as human beings from something very slight, like somebody standing you up or breaking up with you, to uh something much much bigger, the loss or a terrible diagnosis, or you know, all the things that we know about. Um, and I feel like shock is what occurs after the the trauma creates shock and grief is what happens after any shock. Um, I get I want to give this example that I was thinking of today. Um I was hit by a car as a pedestrian when I was five months pregnant with my first uh child, son. And I uh I had these two simultaneous experiences going on within me. On the one hand, I felt very lucky that I didn't lose my life, I didn't lose my baby, I wasn't terribly injured. And at the same time, it was such a shock to my system and my body and my experience that I experienced this incredible grief over it, that uh the world was no longer the safe place that I thought it was just minutes before. And um I I also want to kind of bring up the idea that as Joan mentioned, we have this spectrum of experiences of grief. And also there's there's different categories of grief, like like grief. Like we have our own personal grief that we go through, and then we have the collective grief that you are part of humanity, and what humanity is experiencing right now is a shock and a trauma, and so we're experiencing grief there. And then there's sort of this existential grief, which I relate to um the shock that being human is something inside of us knowing that this is not the way it was supposed to go. You know, we are loving children of God, and we should be playing in flower fields and um uh so yeah. So I just kind of thought I would throw that out there as we're moving through this discussion, whether you can kind of address the grief on these varying levels. So um let's just get personal for a moment. And can you describe uh maybe one of those three categories of how you experienced grief and how it was expressed, more importantly, all of the varying ways that grief can be expressed in any one human being? So, Lisa, you're on my screen, so I'll just Lisa Stokie, I'll go with you first.
SPEAKER_02Okay, sorry about that. I have a almost four-year-old here. So I'm sorry.
SPEAKER_05Right, all right. Joan usually has a dog.
SPEAKER_02So um could could you please repeat um what your question is?
SPEAKER_05Yeah, can you share with us um uh an ex an expression of grief that you have had that maybe fits into one of those three categories, the the personal, the collective, the existential. And what I really am getting, what I really want to get at is the many forms that grief can be expressed in in us.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a that's a very um that's a really good perspective. Um because I, at least for me personally, I find that that as I'm able to process grief more more personally, then I can stabilize into it a little bit more as I expand that perspective. Um because you know, I think that processing that grief as a human or existentially, you know, that can be incredibly ungrounding, right? Because you have to acknowledge all of these things. Lots of times, like just what you how you even define reality, right? And of course we have and everything is layers like that, you know, it's like layers of the onion, the macro, and the mic and the micro and as above, so below, and the whole thing, right? Um, but I feel like it's almost comparable to, and maybe it's because I'm thinking about my granddaughter in the other room, but you know, how we how we can how we can process things as a child. And then of course, as we grow older, you know, the our world gets bigger and and we can hold more, right? And we can process more and we can feel more and we can stabilize into those things, right? And when I say stabilize, because lots of times our emotions, you know, it it is something that we really have to learn, you know, to really lean into and see the gift uh that's in it, right? And those emotions that are these you know energetic um catalysts, right? I'm I'm a big believer that uh energy is just energy and it just takes on these different forms and edges and you know geometry, right? And it has different uh information in it, right? Depending on what the emotion is. And so as we're able to, you know, receive it, like really receive it and sit with it, um there's always a gift underneath it. And I think a lot of it has to do with, like I said, for me, back to those cycles again of being able to move into what uh the next incarnation is, because if we allow ourselves to experience these things, to feel the energetic um impulses that we're generating, um, and allow them to really move through our whole bodily system, the gift in that is you know, it's like um it is like a lot like the tree is a good analogy because I processed that this last winter that I watched this big old c mother cottonwood in my neighborhood. And I noticed as she lost her tree, or her leaves rather, I thought it's not likely, you know, grieving the loss of those leaves, right? There will be more leaves that are coming, and it's this cycle, and it's just over and over and over. But imagine if you say, no, no, no, I'm going to stay in this winter. I'm gonna stay in that winter and be in grief and sadness and you know, I call it looping, you know, when we don't allow ourselves to to move on. Um, but but then we miss the gift of what there is, and there's also a lot of trust in that too for me and and that trust that I've grown and as I've grown as a woman, that there is always another spring in this example, like infinitely infinitely and so when we can step out, like you're saying, and have these smaller views, we it's like this pulsing that we can do, and then we come in like in the winter, and then we can expand again and we can hold more, and then as we hold more, we have to come in and contract and hold more, and then we and that's how we that's how I believe we evolve and we grow.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I I love a couple of things that you well, I loved all of it, but there was a couple of things that you said that really resonated with me. And one of them is that um I think what you're pointing to is that there is this possibility of directly experiencing grief and also becoming the observer of you experiencing your grief. And this isn't like a dissociation or a detachment from it at all. It's both experiences at once, and it's like a it's like a muscle development and developing, you know, we have these opportunities in our lives to to feel grief, to express grief, to heal from grief, and that makes us stronger and more capable of accepting these cycles of life that we uh, you know, we are here to experience. I I love that. And then um, I think the other thing that you were alluding to was um, I don't remember, so I'm gonna, sorry. Um Thea, can you please talk to us about this, about your experiences with grief and how it how it expresses itself and whether it relates to the personal or the collective or the cosmic?
SPEAKER_01Yes. Well, what what's been popping into my mind as we're talking, I mean, many things, but one is so I'm um, you know, I do uh intuitive guide, give intuitive guidance and do healing sessions, but I also currently have a full-time job as a middle school language arts teacher, which is how I started my career many, many years ago. And when you talked about collective grief, I my seventh graders and I just finished reading a book about Japanese American incarceration. And it just so happened that a bunch of them were on a trip, a ski trip this past weekend, and we stopped at Manzanar, which is one of the internment camps or incarceration camps in um yeah, uh in the Eastern Sierra. And I was walking around that camp with one of my students who's a very sensitive soul, and a lot of the kids were just kind of taking it in, but kind of joking around doing what middle school kids do. But this one kid was just carrying it very heavily and and looking to me for help, I think, with like, and he said to me, What do we do with this? kind of like I don't know what to do with this feeling, and I thought that's collective grief right there, and I had so much respect for him, you know, just to be so open-hearted. And I even saw his dad a couple days later, and he said, That really struck him, and and I I felt the responsibility as the adult to honor the grief that he was feeling, you know. Um it's there's a beauty to it there, because he was really connecting with what other human beings had gone through and what humanity can do to each other, you know, what we can do to each other. So on the collective side, I I think um, I guess I just want to say in some ways, collective grief is evidence to me of our humanity, humanity, you know, the ability to feel. Um, and and I guess our challenge is not to get uh submerged in it. And and like the two of you who said, I mean, I'm sure we all are this way, but I'm like super emotional, you know, I process everything through the heart, and that's not an easy way to be. Um, I don't think it's an easy way to be a human. I don't know if there's an easy way to be a human. Um uh and then on the personal side, I'm thinking about I I I feel that I've many have had many seasons of grief for different, you know, losses of parents and um dreams or visions of what I thought would be in different areas of life. But the one that really stands out for me was that um I so wanted to be a mom, and it took my husband and I six years to have a child, and there were some heavy losses during that six-year period. The first one was a miscarriage, which is you know very common, but it hit me so deeply that I didn't under couldn't understand the grief that I was feeling, and and then in that case, it actually was coupled with like some shame because I didn't think I should be as devastated as I was, and and it felt quite existential, actually. It was like it was based on an idea that if I were a good person and I wanted to be a mother, and I always believed I would be, and I intuitively felt that I would be to have this loss was somehow an indictment. Or a, you know, a failure. And anyway, I took it in so deeply. And I did do that thing where you witness it. Like I watched myself just go down into this hole. I remember, and then there were many years after that of still not conceiving, or you know, other pregnancies that didn't work out. And I remember sitting in meditation at one point during that time and feeling such raw pain of the situation that I was almost like, wow, there's nowhere I can go from this moment. Like I'm just in it. There's no relief. It made me think of that Pem and Children um book, you know, The Wisdom of No Escape, because I and I just thought I'm so alive right now. And I'm and it's just pain. Like I remember that feeling of both witnessing it and experiencing it and wanting to get away from it and not being able to get away from it, and just feeling like I guess this is just what life is right now. I'll just always remember that. Of course, you know, it changed and evolved, and and and then as I got older and there were a lot more losses or difficult experiences. Now I'm quite seasoned at knowing what grief is and and knowing that it ends and knowing that it changes will change me. As as Lisa said, it'll change me again and again, and I'm not afraid of it anymore. But I was so shocked by that law, those losses early on, and I I connect it back to my student only because working with young people is so intense because I'm often the first person they find out about terrible things from, which is hard, you know. And I try, you know, I try to lighten it up, but it's like we do talk about the Holocaust or we talk about um, you know, things that adults throughout history have done. And some of them they've they've they've never heard of this before. And it's um it's a deep responsibility to sort of it's almost like introducing them to collective grief, which is not really what I want my role to be, but sometimes I'm in that role. So I'm kind of all over the place. But um those are the two things that that popped into my mind.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, beautiful, beautiful share. That that is so powerful. And I I think that you know, the it's so easy for us to know when we're in personal grief. Something has happened and we don't feel good about it, and it's overwhelming and it's terrible. And then the the collective and existential grief, it you may not necessarily know that you're in it. You know, you just may be feeling incredibly overwhelmingly sad or listless or uh whatever it may be, and not really understand the the nature of it. And um I want to hear from Lisa because uh Lisa Spravka, because you're also a therapist, and so you have the opportunity to um guide people through this process. And I'm wondering if you could deep dive in a little deeper to the what you said earlier about sadness and you know how how that's expressed for people in different ways.
SPEAKER_04Um the the other big thing I am about feelings is the need to express them um to yourself and you know, without shame, if you can do that, but shame in itself would need to be processed, but um mostly with another person who can who can be empathetic. And um what I was thinking of was um uh I'm losing my train here, but um oh, that the the phrase uh misery loves company is wrong. It's actually misery needs company. Um because uh and um like it the other thing I've always heard about grief is that it will take as long as it takes, but I think it is a problem if you're not expressing it, if you don't recognize it in yourself. And actually, Kay, I love that you even I didn't really know what collective grief was or existential grief, but I've always had I've always thought to myself that I feel like when I was born, I was like uh born into all this family conflict and pain. And I was like, I don't understand why we're just not enjoying each other. Like, and and that's that's like like coming in with, you know, I just got here, and and uh, you know, and to all of a sudden have all this conflict thrown at you is I feel like existential pain. You don't there's nothing specific, but you're just really sad about it. Like it could be so different. Um yeah. So I get everything.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I I love what you said about you know, this that within our experience of grief, there's this innocence, and I think that that is one of the clues to how to help yourself through it. Knowing what, you know, Thea said, uh, there's no way around it. We seem to have chosen a path that brings us a great deal of grief on the daily. And um, so I like to think of treating yourself as you would a child, you know, as if you're your inner child and experiencing something that is, you know, too difficult. It's too difficult for any of us to to really process these things that we go through. And to tend to tend to yourself like you would with patience and compassion and love and allowing it to play out on its own timetable, as you said. There's no there's no timetable to it. And um also I want to, I mean, the the idea of speaking to your grief is I think it's so important because you know, there seems to be after you experience something, you you almost feel like people's empathy has an expiration date. And we have to just challenge ourselves to, even though it's been a year or two years or three years or 10 years, to say, hey, can you sit with me? I just want to tell you like how much I miss my husband, or you know, whatever it may be, and to give voice because when you give voice to these feelings, they leave your body and you don't have to hang on to them. And Joan, I'm wondering if you could thank you so much, Lisa. I I love that, those reflections. Joan, you also are in the um have the uh you're in what am I saying? You are able to sit with people in various stages of grief. So um I want to ask you if grief has a purpose. Um, and is it inevitable?
SPEAKER_03I would say it is inevitable. I would say to the extent we are in our humanity, allowing our humanity, not fighting or defending against our humanity, that grief is inevitable. That it it just it's what is it, it comes standard with the with the the issue of a body and an emotional body. Um and then can you ask me the first part? I guess um does it have a purpose?
SPEAKER_05Does grief have a purpose?
SPEAKER_03Well, to some extent, I I think it it certainly illuminates how profoundly connected, attached, how deeply we loved or let something in. I think it certainly does that. It it can clean out, um you know, can clean clean us out, so to speak. I would dare say even purify, make us new in some ways. Um so I would say yes, it it does have a purpose.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I can speak to that. I had an experience um I don't know, 15, 20 years ago, um, that was probably one of the most difficult things that I faced. And um I prior to that, you know, I would I had kind of experienced myself as being sort of almost numb uh in an emotional way. And then this experience happened, and I consciously let myself feel everything that I was feeling, and I just opened myself up to that, and my god, the amount of grief that poured through me. I I don't think I've ever wept like that in my in my life, and I can remember, you know, like shouting to the universe, like what I'm feeling now, you know, like goddamn it. Like, and um it because I let myself really, really go into the depths of those feelings. I mean, laying on the floor, a mess of tears, and letting myself lay in bed for a week or whatever was required. Um, I really felt like, as you're saying, it that in itself was so healing. And I I felt like it was not being held in my body. I didn't so subsequent grief was not piled on top of that. I it was new grief and it was appropriate to the situation. So um that was sort of remarkable um to me at the time. And and I think what Lisa, what Lisa Stokey was saying about um us becoming more seasoned with grief, you know, as we experience it more and more, that we do become a little, I mean, better at it. And and I also feel that the way that we can that the one of the things that can help us process grief is our is allowing ourselves to love all of life, all of it, regardless of how gnarly it can get or how punishing and damaging and scary and all that stuff. That we don't understand it, but we can still love it, and I I think that that does help us process it a little bit more, or at least keep it in a in a context where it doesn't feel quite so overwhelming. I'm not sure.
SPEAKER_01Can I say something about that, Kate? Yeah, please. There's a wonderful quote. It's a line of poetry from Jane Hirschfeld. Maybe you know her work, and it goes, um, love everything that happens to you. And it's a challenging line, I think. And I uh I thought about it a lot, and I think it's just what you said that we can, I think loving something doesn't mean we like it, right? But it means that we sort of surrender to it or say, Yes, this is for me, even though I'm hating it right now, or I'm a mess, or I'm whatever. Um, like I think it's the resistance. I'm not a therapist, so you know, Lisa, you can help me out here, but I it feels like it's the resistance to feeling it, or the res the no that that slows it down and blocks it up and um yeah, and just gets it stuck, or the layering over of it uh with whatever substance or distraction or just resistance, like because what you're talking about that you experienced is such an act of like radical surrender, right? And acceptance and said, I'm just gonna let this flow through me. And it feels like sometimes it'll kill us, but it doesn't. I think that's what we find out is that it doesn't kill us, and we and it, you know, we move through it or it moves through us, and then we you know we begin to come out the other side.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, yeah. Thank you for sharing that. That's that's beautiful. Thank you. Um Lisa Stokey, can you um do you think it's possible to lessen our grief or to ease the experience of it? And if so, how?
SPEAKER_02Um well that's and and maybe I'll take that question as the opportunity to to share with you the the first major loss that I had in my life. And until I'll say this too, that until just a couple of years ago, maybe I didn't even I never knew how old I was when I experienced this. Um and it was it was the loss of my um my grandmother. And at the time she um I'm at my parents' house, let's stop saying this, but she was um, you know, she will I'll just say that she was the one who um probably best understood me. Let's just say that. And she was um my source of unconditional love. And the reason I'm bringing that up is because I've called upon that experience before, uh, or excuse me, since in my life when I've experienced grief since then. And I've noticed the difference in how I experienced that, even though I would probably say that's that's been probably the most dramatic loss that I've had in my life, I would say. Um but due to my age, I I I didn't have the expectations with it for one thing. I was always in the now. I was five years old. And I will I'll I mean I remember the day very, very, very, very clearly because it was so profound of when my father told me, you know, that she was gone. And I'm sorry, I still cry like 50 years later, I know. Um but I'm gonna try not to now. Um so I I guess I've just but I've used that experience to be like that was such a major loss in my life, but I I um I just kept rolling, you know, because of my understanding as a child of how life and death worked. And I remember immediately just silently, I was remember I was looking up at the at the sky, which is crazy to me that I did this as a five-year-old. But I remember just looking up at the sky and just silently saying, I'll I I'll I'll see you again soon, you know, when this life is done. And I and I just knew that so much in my bones, you know, that it was that way. Um, and I remember I had some experiences afterwards, you know, the things that reminded me of her brought up a lot of emotion for me as a child. Um, but I've called on that sense that how of how I just so kind of not I don't want to say effortlessly, but sort of seamlessly just moved through it and accepted it and didn't blame anything or anyone or wished for things to be different or whatever. I just I just immediately accepted it as that's how it was now. And so I've called upon that sense to when I have uh difficulty letting go of other losses that I've had, that a lot of times it it is that expectation or or shame attached to it or guilt attached to it, or some sort of judgment attached to it, like it shouldn't have been that way, or you know, we do that shoulda, wulda, coulda, and how much the story attaches us to it in a way that um maybe pro um prolongs um feeling that discomfort, you know, instead of that acceptance, and then we can feel it and it becomes a part of us. You know, like my grandmother's death became a part of my story. It it changed me forever.
SPEAKER_05Um yeah, I don't know if that answers your question, but yeah, I I think we we do tend to think that uh we're going to automatically be changed for the worse by these things. And I think what you're saying is that's not necessarily true.
SPEAKER_02Yeah, no, it I mean I don't I don't know who I would have been if she you know had stayed alive forever. But I guess I just developed such and I've still developed throughout my life, such a profound sense of faith and trust that there's a much higher order to my existence here and my being is timeless. So I accept that there is a divine occurrence, especially with something as profound as that for me. That that you know that I mean if depending on your belief system that it was something that was already, you know, ordained or manifested before I even arrived, before it even occurred, you know. Um because it it it definitely shaped me as a human, no question. And it gave me a strength and a sturdiness and a knowing in my life of that strength that I that I carry. And like I said, I was five years old, you know.
SPEAKER_05Um thank you. I I think that um you know there's this strange occurrence where we're we're going through the grief as a human being because that's the reality. And and also there's this additional grief that we should be going through, that we are going through this thing. It's it's these two it's like grief from two different directions when you're and you're hit by by something. I don't know if I'm making myself clear on that, but it I do feel that it speaks to what you're saying about the fact that we we have a little bit of a misunderstanding about the nature of life here because our memory was wiped when we came here, and we apparently believe that we have a finite life in these finite bodies, and when in reality, the part of life that we're viewing is a infinitesimal fraction of the truth of life, that nothing ever dies, nothing, nothing of God ever dies, and that we are still connected long after the alleged ties have been cut, and that we will always be together. And I mean, I think that's probably helpful to us in in some way. I thank you so much for that reflection. I want to ask Joan um really the same question, which is how do we is it possible to lessen our experience of grief? And um How do we do it? What helps you?
SPEAKER_03What's been your experience? Well, as Lisa was sharing, I was thinking that culturally, you know, we've really moved away from a collective experience of grief. We we have been um as with most things, left to our own devices, left to handle it either on our own or in our small little um nuclear family or or you know, as Lisa has experienced in in a therapist's office and in previous civilizations and pre you know in previous times, grief was a more collective experience, even if it was a personal loss. You know, there was that communal support and presence to help uphold the person. And I I actually have a very dear friend who is walking through the most unimaginable grief that we can live through as a parent. And I have been witnessing her because she has a vast community of support. And I'm seeing the ways that it is enabling her to meet the grief that that comes in waves, and she has that larger kind of that larger sense of things, but but having community, you know, having a we to help support any of us or us as a collective to process the grief in my experience does help lessen it. I did want to mention, I know I had put it out uh when you raised this topic, the book called The Wild Edge of Sorrow by Francis Weller, uh, which really explores all these dimensions of grief that you're naming, but it also speaks to the importance of ritual and the importance of coming together in a communal way to process our grief. And I happen to, I don't know, five years ago, six years ago, go through a group process with a number of people who are all using this book as a foundation and and just really acquainting ourselves with grief and you know, in a way like preparing ourselves for when grief comes along, how to meet it in the most effective way or graceful way, or without the resistance that was named previously.
SPEAKER_05I love that. Can you share some of the the ways that you've seen? You know, like what what you know it feels what I'm uh it feels like you know, a cup a funeral that's a couple hours long and a luncheon afterward. It's just not enough usually to to process the the the bigness of grief, oftentimes. So do you know of any rituals that we can employ to with our communities to help with that? I love I love the idea of sharing the grief because you know having people help you hold it is has got to be so helpful.
SPEAKER_03Right. Well, I would I don't have one that it immediately comes to mind, but the book does speak to specific rituals that you can do. But I think about like I think about the wailing wall or the you know the keening that um women might do together in those in those times of grief or collective grief. I also think about the Jewish tradition of having a collection of people come to forgive me, I'm not gonna get the word right, but is it kaddish? They're they're sitting in oh, sitting Shiva?
SPEAKER_00Shiva, thank you. Kaddish is a different thing. Kadish is the prayer and Shiva is the like seven-day gathering, yeah.
SPEAKER_03Okay, so there are traditions built into some cultures like that, even the wearing of black or the armband, you know, which was a way to signify like I'm a person in grief. So people can hold you with a little more um tenderness or consciousness. Beautiful. But but there are all kinds of things we can do.
SPEAKER_05I love that. Yeah, it it seems like in the past, probably the you know, the community came together and orchestrated that for the grieving. And today, if in the in the absence of that, it's almost upon the the onus is on the person suffering to reach out and say, like, I need help, which is a shame, but it's so important. It's it feels like it would be very um very helpful. So thank you. Thank you for that. Um let's see, Lisa Spravka, can you speak to how what is the best way to be with the grief of others?
SPEAKER_04Um, I want to answer that, but I've been sitting here thinking of all these things I want to say in response to these things. Go for it. Okay. Um there, I've only heard about this, uh, but they've done studies where um they've uh looked at the chemical makeup of your of tears, and there's a difference between when you're crying about something truly sad, or if you're crying because you're happy, the the sad ones have actual toxins in them. So somebody spoke about about detoxing is a purpose. Um, and then uh a friend of mine who is a Romanian told me that they have a tradition in their churches when someone dies, there's like three or four women whose role it is to cry for everyone. And I was like, I love that. Um yeah, and that was it. And then allowing someone to to um like how to be with someone's grief is to normalize it, to say anyone would feel that way if that happened to them. That's exactly how you should be feeling. You're operating uh, you know, well.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Oh, thank you for those observations. I love that. Thea, can you answer that question as well? Like, how do we what is the best way to be with people with the grief with the grief of others?
SPEAKER_01I have a friend who um uses the phrase just staying in the room with people. And I love that. It's like just not running away, just I'm here, just being, and I think that's holding space, right? But it's just a way of of um a way of saying that, uh, just staying in the room, not being afraid of it. And and I think that implies what we all know here, but sometimes out in the world, people don't know this. It's like not trying to reassure or placate or say, well, at least dot dot dot, or it's gonna get better, all of that, right? Like not trying to fix or solve or rush or yeah, minimize, um, just honoring it. I think that can even be in, you know, in silence and a hug and a presence, presence. Yeah. Beautiful. Thank you.
SPEAKER_05Does anybody else have anything uh to say on that subject about upholding the grief of others?
SPEAKER_03I do think when people are in fresh grief to just show up and tend to the basics, like the being there with food, seeing what they need help with, just those those very simple things, and just being a presence to receive because there are moments like there are moments of joyful memories, there are moments of immense sorrow, and just not having an expectation either of what you're supposed to do, what they're supposed to do. It it's it's like anything goes in some ways when someone's in fresh grief.
SPEAKER_01I remember when my mom was she was in hospice care at home, and my siblings were all there, and friends of hers would, you know, ask us what we needed. And I remember we did need food because none of us could seem to make food or remember to eat. And I remember one of her good friends saying, Well, what kind of food do you want? And even that question was too difficult. Like we were just like, food, any food, it doesn't matter. And I remember having a little amnesia too. Like I couldn't hold a thought in my head at that time. I couldn't remember what I was doing. And and so that idea of like somebody just doing some executive functioning for you, because um I found it really that was probably the deepest loss I've experienced, and the way that it just wiped my brain for quite a while. While also you have to, you know, then after someone dies, there's the funeral and there's all the functioning. Um, I remember someone saying, like, what a great idea. You're at you're at the lowest point ever, and you have to plan a party. Like, what? Anyway, uh, so yeah, that executive functioning piece is so critical.
SPEAKER_05Yeah, I love that. It's so true, you know. I I I've experienced that where you're just walking around like a zombie without any real understanding of how you're walking through the world. It's like, how am I even upright? I I can't function, can't even see your own hands, and yeah, so um beautiful. Well, um, if anybody has anything else that they would like to contribute to the conversation, um, something that you think would be helpful to people to know about grief, um, or how to support people in grief.
SPEAKER_04Um Thea said something that made me think of um a friend of mine, uh, her husband had died, and she's in the social work community, so there are a lot of social workers there. And I remember her good friend saying to us, don't ask her what she needs. Um, give her options to say yes or no to. Can I get you this? Can I get you that? Can I do this for you? And just let her say yes or no. Very good, beautiful.
SPEAKER_01I I had one thought, Kay, if I can just please um well, two things. One is that as I'm I'm looking at a slight like shift in my career, and one thing I've been thinking that's calling to me, among other things, is like doing like learning how to be a ceremonialist, like learning how to um create rituals for people, because I've craved them all my life, and I'm sort of like, oh, well, now maybe I can offer that to others. So that feels really exciting to me. Um, but what I was gonna say is I think what's helped me the most around grief, I've also had a long parenting journey that was absolutely nothing like what I expected and still isn't, um, and has been very challenging in many ways. I think the thing that's helped me most is to tell myself, remind myself that it wasn't supposed to be different. That even though I my ego tells me, or my, you know, I think this goes back to what a lot of you guys have said, but this idea like we come into this human life and we form an ego and we create expectations and we have a narrative and a storyline, right? And then as we get older, like we deconstruct it. But the deconstruction is so painful, and that spiritual knowing of like tapping into that, like even if I feel that it should be different, that's not what's true. Like, what's true is what is, and I may not understand it or like it, but that gives me relief when I can give myself that reminder. Um, I'm allowed to have my feelings about it, but I also don't have to make it wrong.
SPEAKER_05Yeah. Wow, that's beautiful. Thank you so much. One more oh yeah, go ahead, John.
SPEAKER_03So I I am aware, and it feels like what wants to be said is that there are a collection of souls on this planet who are more, I will say, tasked with um holding or as Thea was describing, like sensing the larger collective grief. I think there are there are souls like that in the world. And if you're if you are one of those souls, just to say that there's nothing wrong with you, that it's not um something you need to get over, that you're not like a downer or heavy, you're you're just tuned in and sensitive. And on behalf of the human family, you are the members who are feeling those layers, those many layers of um the variety of ways that we need to grieve.
SPEAKER_05So I just wanted to add that. Beautiful. Thank you so much. What a beautiful way to end. So thank you everybody for joining us. And if you're grieving, our hearts go out to you, and we're here supporting you. And um, yeah, so thanks everybody. Thank you, Kay. Thank you everybody. Bye, everybody.