Redesigning Life with Sabrina Soto

Finding Grace in the Midst of Grief with David Kessler

• Sabrina Soto and David Kessler • Season 1 • Episode 76

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In this heartfelt conversation, Sabrina Soto and grief expert David Kessler explore the complexities of grief and loss, sharing personal experiences and insights. They discuss the nuances of grieving for pets versus people, the societal discomfort surrounding grief, and the importance of allowing oneself to feel and express grief without comparison. Kessler emphasizes that grief is a deeply personal journey that is not linear, and that all forms of grief are valid and deserving of acknowledgment. In this conversation, David Kessler and Sabrina Soto explore the complexities of grief, love, and the search for meaning after loss. They discuss the non-linear nature of grief, the unique challenges of pet loss, and the feelings of shame that often accompany mourning. Kessler emphasizes the importance of finding meaning in the aftermath of loss and how to honor loved ones through personal growth. The conversation also touches on the need for safe spaces to express grief and the significance of authenticity in the healing process.

Website: https://grief.com
Latest Book: Finding Meaning: Grief Workbook (released on 10/1) -- https://a.co/d/g01qjhR 
Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/iamdavidkessler

Speaker 1:

Hi David, thank you for coming on Redesigning Life. For those of you tuning in, david Kessler is a expert in grief and loss, and you are coming onto the podcast for me at such a personal time because I'm dealing with grief myself. So I want to discuss with you all of the different nuances of grief, and I know that maybe pet grief is not necessarily your expertise, but it is something that for me personally is so different that I want to talk to you about that. So, the biggest introduction I've ever done in my life Hello and welcome, thank you.

Speaker 2:

I'm grateful to be here. Thank you, I'm grateful to be here and I'd like to just sort of share a little bit about me for folks that don't know me. So, first of all, I feel like in many ways destined for this because I was a buffet of losses in my childhood. I grew up with a and I hold my parents with love today, but I grew up with a father who was an addict. Anger issues would beat me. I had a mother who today would probably be diagnosed as bipolar and maybe narcissistic, and a lot of neglect and sexual abuse. Just, you know, a horrible childhood. And on top of it all, we lost our home in a hurricane, which, like I, get what's going on in the world. So then, after all that, my mother died when I was 13. And while she was dying in the hospital, the hotel we were at there was one of the first mass shootings in the US.

Speaker 2:

So I understand loss on so many levels and I've also had losses in addition to that since then. But I say all those things just to illustrate. And, by the way, I had a sweet, sweet dog in my childhood, poisoned. Now let me just to say all of that I want you to know like all those things are losses In a relationship with a narcissistic person is the death of yourself. Yes, your home being destroyed is the death of your home. And I got to tell you I so appreciate who you are and what you do. Because I will tell you appreciate who you are and what you do, because I will tell you it took me years to attach to a home because I'm willing to care about my house.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

You know so loss comes up in so many different ways in our world. I got to tell you I'm one of those people that sometimes people are chatting and I'm like, well, that's loss, that's loss, that's loss. And they're like, you see, everything is grief, and I'm like kind of is.

Speaker 1:

Kind of.

Speaker 2:

Those are all you know I say. A breakup is the death of a relationship, a divorce is the death of a relationship. Divorce is the death of a marriage. So this is life, you know, and you help people in specific ways, but you also help people in life, and that's kind of how I do too.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yeah, I had a lot of very turbulent childhood myself and for me my safe haven was my room and my home and as long as I had a safe place to retreat to, I felt a foundation there and that's what sort of has pushed me in my career, and I know that you. The loss of your mother, and then also of your son, has even put you into a deeper level of meaning, of understanding what really grief looks like.

Speaker 2:

Yeah, I had my younger son died eight years ago and I'll tell you just talking to what you're dealing with now, with the death of your sweet pet, Harper, correct? Yes, you know, I had my son die, David. I had a sweet, sweet dog of ours, Angel die nine months after. And the question I always got is well, which was the worst? Or the pet loss wasn't bad because you had a son and all that, and people always want to know either which loss was the worst and if we're talking about other people, I always go. The worst loss is always yours. Yeah, I even remember with my own son and my sweet pet going. Why are you asking me to choose?

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Horrible events in my life. There's a lot. I don't have the bandwidth for just one. I have the bandwidth for any animal or person that I love. If you know, when people say what do you think about pet loss? I always say if the love is real, the grief is real.

Speaker 1:

Grief is about love, no matter who it is, no matter what it is Right right.

Speaker 2:

And the thing is we can never know each other's grief. I will never know what it's like to have to say goodbye to sweet Harper. You will never know what it was like to say goodbye to my son. We can't know each other's pain, but we can sit with each other and love each other through it.

Speaker 1:

But is it normal? I remember so my best friend I grew up with since I was 10 years old. She lost her husband five years ago and when I was going through this pain with Harper I felt foolish even discussing it with her, because who am I to talk to her about grief when I lost a pet and she lost her husband? Is it normal to feel guilt or compare yourself to people who've lost their son, like I can't even imagine losing my daughter. So is it normal during the grieving process to sort of compare yourself and to try to dumb yourself down in a for lack of a better word in order to cope with it?

Speaker 2:

Yes, it is normal to do that, and we're also afraid of it getting minimized, and I think everyone feels that minimized. And I think everyone feels that, look, when I'm with someone who had a murder right in front of them, I'm like, well, I didn't have a murder. I mean, that sounds you know. So I mean, I think we all, just because we're humans, we compare our losses. But I have a belief that like and I'm saying this to you as a bereaved parent, and this is the part that I think people don't get I'm a bereaved parent and you have had the sweet, the horrible loss of your sweet one. All tears count.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

Your tears, count your tears count.

Speaker 1:

I know that you have a list of do's and don'ts when people lose someone and it's the what not to say, and I read the list and I also saw you discussing it and people were shocked that some people do say, oh well, they brought it upon themselves or you know enough already. I would think, listening to that, there's no way anybody would say that to your face. But strangely enough, the two days after Harper died I was crying and someone who I love very much said that to me like enough already. You know it's been two days. It's like what. And what I realized in that moment is that everyone deals with grief differently and some people can't, and it's too much to bear to watch somebody else going through that. Do you notice that in the years that you've been doing this?

Speaker 2:

Absolutely. Here's the thing Our grief makes people uncomfortable.

Speaker 1:

Why is?

Speaker 2:

that makes people uncomfortable. Why is that? Because people feel like it might be contagious and people also don't like other people's pain. Look, I'm a fixer. If you came to me with any problem, I can give you three solutions right now, unless it's grief. You three solutions right now unless it's grief.

Speaker 2:

But you're a grief expert, but I can't fix you because you're not broken, okay, and I think when people run into people that they can't, they just, you know, one of the things I've heard over the years from so many people and you might hear it someday too is we just want the old you back, and it's like well, can you bring Harper back, david back, all the people we love?

Speaker 2:

I mean, if you can't, we're going to evolve and we're going to change yes we have to accept our losses and our friends have to accept the changes in us, and it's challenging for a grief, illiterate world. You know, one of the things, and I didn't know if you were going to say this, but I'll tell you. Now that you're in grief, everyone's going to come out of the woodwork and talk to you because they suddenly know you speak their language.

Speaker 1:

Yes, yes, I was at the doctor's office and another girl in the office had lost her dog and this woman, I don't even know, was like hugging me and crying on my shoulder. And it's funny because when I was really in the depth of it, like really deep that I could not eat, I was a shell of myself. All I wanted to do and I know this sounds crazy, but I looked up pet cemeteries because I thought, well, I'll go sit. This sounds so nuts, but I wanted to go sit with other people who were grieving their pets so that I felt like I wasn't alone, because I felt so alone in the moment. But what did help me is reading about sort of life or the afterlife of pets, and I don't know what is your stance on afterlife, like, do you believe in it? In all of the years that you've been doing this? What is your belief system around that?

Speaker 2:

I do, I do. I wrote a book years ago about deathbed visions and how, when we're dying, our loved ones come to greet us, like people who are dying will see their grandmother, their mother, and people also would see their pets greeting them. I found it. I find the idea that we all might be reunited. Look, I don't pretend to know anything about what the afterlife is like, but, oh my gosh, I hope to see everyone I've loved and cared for again.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, that that gave me hope, because not just the that I will be reunited with her, but mostly just knowing that her soulmate or her physical body isn't here, but her soul is still around me. And I just that it did give me some sort of like it let me breathe again that although her physical body isn't here, she still is here. And I know if you lose somebody close to you. I do not know what it's like and I feel I feel such pain for you losing David, your your son. But there, when somebody is going through that that deep, that depth like of the grief that is so horrifying and so painful that they can't see out of it, what, what do you tell a client? What do you tell someone?

Speaker 2:

Well, a big thing is to understand the pain we feel in the moment. We think our mind would be so kind to us and tell us I'm here for you, I love you, I'm with you. Our mind says, by the way, this pain you're feeling, this loneliness, this devastation, maybe forever? Yes, yes, really, really, like I mean, imagine that. Imagine you're sitting at a restaurant and you overhear someone talking about they've had a loss and they're in horrible pain and you're like you're going to be in it for, I mean, you would never say that.

Speaker 2:

And yet our mind says it. So I often tell people our feelings change. No feeling is final, no feeling is forever. And here's the thing we need our grief witnessed. Yeah, we need our grief witnessed by other people. Now, the weird thing about our world and I teach what I call security and grief. Like I have security in my grief, harper dying doesn't take away from my grief. It's another horrible grief in the world Someone else's spouse, someone's grandmother. It doesn't. I'm secure in my grief. No other griefs change me or lessen mine or insult mine or anything like that. And when we think about these feelings are final, it's so scares us. And what happens is we often have our best friend, our spouse, our loved one, and they get everything about us. And then we go into grief and they don't get it.

Speaker 1:

Yeah.

Speaker 2:

And it's like wait, wait, you're my person, Right?

Speaker 1:

Right. It's funny. You said that you think that your mind plays games with you and I want to discuss that. But one thing that was scaring me a lot is on social media everybody was saying I lost my dog 12 years ago and I'm still can't sometimes get out of bed and so when I'm in the grief, I'm going what. I'm going to feel like this forever.

Speaker 1:

But my best friend, who lost her husband, said to me during this time she goes. You know, after my husband died, you said something to me. Um, soon after that I wanted to punch you in the face. She said this but she goes. Now I know it's true and I was crying. I said what did I say? She goes. You said you're not always going to feel like this and I'm just now telling you you're not always going to feel this much grief. And she was right, because at that moment I thought this is how I'm always going to feel and your mind plays tricks on you there.

Speaker 1:

But it also plays tricks on you about regrets. You would think, when somebody passes or passes, that you just are in grief, that they're no longer there, but your mind it's like a mind F where it's going. You should have done this? You didn't do this. You forgot to say this. You forgot to tell them that you should have taken them to the carnival. All of these should have, should have, should have, that you're already feeling horrible and it just piles on. Why does your mind do that?

Speaker 2:

Because your mind wants to find control. Your mind wants to distract you and go oh, if only you would have done this, they might've not died. If only you wouldn't have done that. Or maybe it was too soon, or maybe you didn't do it right. Or here's a regret because your mind wants to focus on something outside you. Your mind doesn't want to live in a world where we're helpless and people we love and pets we love die. It doesn't want that and so it gives us these false things. It also sometimes this is distraction from the pain, because it's just too hard to sit in the pain and you know, grief is a strange time where people who get everything and love us and know us feel like strangers and strangers can feel like family and friends.

Speaker 1:

That is so true, David.

Speaker 2:

They understand it. They understand it.

Speaker 1:

When you lost David, your son, how was that different? I mean, obviously it was very different. You were in a different part of your life. You're a parent, as opposed to losing your mother, but navigate that time.

Speaker 2:

It's a great question. I think I've been training therapists for decades and a lot of therapists go into this field because of tragedies they had and I knew, wow, if they can get through those tragedies. They're evidence that survival and life after loss. You know we always talk about life after death for our loved ones. I feel like I talk about life after death for us.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

We find that again and I knew the only way out of the pain was through the pain.

Speaker 1:

The only way out of the pain was through the pain, and I guess what did that look like to you?

Speaker 2:

I went to a grief counselor. I went to a grief group. I it took me three times to get to a group, so you need to surround yourself or at least have your grief discussions with people who get it. Now, one of the things we go really wrong with is that one person who doesn't get it and I understand the one person who doesn't get it could be our spouse, our boyfriend, our best friend. It might be them. Is we have to stop going to that? Well, for grief support?

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

You know I always say no matter how many times you walk up and down an aisle of a hardware store, you'll never find milk. Just think about, if you don't get your grief, support from them, don't write them off, don't divorce them, don't. Just they don't get grief. And there's some people in this world I call them practical grievers. Something bad happens, they just move on.

Speaker 1:

Yes.

Speaker 2:

That's how they're wired. People want to know well, which is the right way. There's no right way. They're just wired differently than us.

Speaker 1:

Yes, and you know you can't. It's like expecting a cat to bark. Exactly, exactly, it's so true, I've spent, I've wasted a lot of time waiting for those cats to bark.

Speaker 2:

Absolutely, and when you realize that it's freeing.

Speaker 1:

Yes it's freeing, yes it is. It's funny you say don't write them off, because during that time I saw a different side of a lot of people in my life and there was anger that almost came up in me because I wasn't supported in the way that I wanted to be with certain people and I did feel like God, I'm going to write them off. But now, once you get out of that cycle, you see a little bit clearer and you're right, there are just some people who cannot handle it.

Speaker 2:

Let me tell you, recently I went to dinner with a friend and I was just having a horrible day around my son. It just, for whatever reason it got me, it still gets you from time to time around my son. It just for whatever reason it got me, it still gets you from time to time. And I went to dinner and he said how are you? And I just told him how I was and I I said all this and what I was going through and he paused and looked at me and said any interesting upcoming travel, did you not? I thought, did you not hear of it? But then I went oh, remember who he is. Yeah, he's not my grief person, it's okay. I started discussing grief with a travel buddy.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

Long person.

Speaker 1:

Right.

Speaker 2:

You know it's not everyone traffics in feelings.

Speaker 1:

That's right. That's right. So during the grief process you were saying, you know, like you're at dinner with a friend and you started feeling grief for David. Why is it that grief isn't linear? And it does come in waves, and I, and out of nowhere, a lot of people say, like the wave it comes, it goes, and there are times during the day that, out of nowhere, I'll think of Harper and the tear. I mean, I'm sitting here now and I have her fur and a little vial here and her little booty, and there are times that I'm not even here and I just feel this pang of pain. Why does grief work like that?

Speaker 2:

A couple of things. First of all, I helped Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, who's you know, one of the huge names in grief and loss, who wrote the stages denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance and she was the first to tell you they're not linear. There's no five easy steps for grief. There's no one way. Grief is messy. Grief is messy, and it's one of the things that happens is we have what I call grief bursts. You're fine, you're holding it together, and then all of a sudden it just hits you. That's a grief burst.

Speaker 2:

I remember there's lots of times I I will be in some situation, whether it's work or something social, and I, for whatever reason, I'm getting grief bursts and and I'm like, excuse me, got to go to the restroom and I don't have a big cry and it's like, you know, when I come out, people like you can't, I'm like I don't know why I'm drinking so much caffeine these days, you know, and I just you know, I'm like I'm not even going to explain anything to them. Right thing is, and it's really a subtler thing, you're going to feel when we think about our love, like my love for my son David wasn't like I love you. Like my love was like oh my God, oh, I love you so much. I love you, oh, I love you. And it's sort of up and down oh, you're driving me crazy today, and that's. And here's the thing After they die, that love continues. So sometimes we don't just have a grief burst, we also have a love burst.

Speaker 2:

Yeah we'll just get filled with love for Harper. And the thing is, you knew how to love Harper in Harper's presence. You have to learn to love Harper in their absence. Yes, Agreed.

Speaker 1:

It's just wild, though, how different it is than a person, because I lost many people that were close to me, including many family members, and it's just different and I can't put my finger members, and it's just different and I can't put my finger on it. It's just different and it feels like you were just saying. There are times that I have to kind of close myself off and not tell anyone that I'm feeling it. I just say I'm okay, but isn't that a shame that we feel that we have to hide our sorrow because it's been so long? And it's funny that you say that Elizabeth had coined all those, those stages, but I think a lot of people are under the impression that it is linear, and people have said that to me oh, you're now, you're in number five, so you're almost done. Then we need to make that very clear in this podcast. It is those stages of grief are not linear. They don't. You don't get to one and then the rest are gone, and you know this from your world?

Speaker 2:

the media always wants five easy steps. Can you give us three? I mean, that's what they want, that's what they did with her, and grief isn't like that.

Speaker 1:

It is.

Speaker 2:

And we talked about end. Acceptance isn't the end, you know. I mean, I've talked about meaning now and I love that her family enabled me to add a sixth stage which is meaning, but it's still, it's, it's, it goes on and on and revolves around us.

Speaker 1:

Can you talk about your book Finding Meaning?

Speaker 2:

revolves around us. Can you talk about your book Finding Meaning so? And I would love to come back and talk about shame, because I love that you broke that up.

Speaker 1:

We need to talk about shame.

Speaker 2:

So the thing is, you know, after Dave had died, I wrestled with all these. I'm like, yep, you're, you're in denial, you can't believe it. Yep, you're angry. Yep, you're bargaining the bargaining's, the what ifs, the if onlys. When I started thinking I'm going to have to deal with acceptance someday, I'm like and then what, that's it. I just accept it. And it wasn't enough. I wanted to find meaning, and meaning doesn't take away the pain, but it cushions it.

Speaker 2:

And so when we talk about meaning, people often hear meaning there's no meaning. In a child's death, a spouse after 50 years, a murder, covid, a pet loss, there's no meaning. And I'll go correct Meaning is not in the horrible event. Meaning is in us. It's what we do after. Ah yes. And people make the mistake of thinking all right, what I got to go start a charity? No, it doesn't have to be a huge, gigantic thing, be a huge gigantic thing.

Speaker 2:

Meaning is often in the moments Like right now, someone is probably alone, isolated and in a lot of pain and they're going to hear this. And that makes this a meaningful moment for me. And one of the other things I talk about with meaning is you know, we often feel when a loved one dies, a part of us died with them, but a part of them lives on in us. Yes, and how do we nurture that part that lives on? Yes, you know, to not just go through this but eventually to grow through it. You know meaning. We often talk about the post-traumatic stress of everything these days. Meaning is the post-traumatic growth. I love that. Oh, and not just. You know. I had to decide after my son died, after my son died, is his death going to make him a smaller?

Speaker 1:

or bigger, and I wanted to make me bigger in his honor. Can you share with me how you did that?

Speaker 2:

I think one of the ways is my son. My son. He died at 21, but when he was in kindergarten he was voted most likely to be a helper and he was trying to, in his life, figure out did he want to go to medical school? Did he want to be a paramedic? He was trying to figure out his role as helper and he didn't get to do that in life and I hope somehow, with my work and talking about meaning and sharing, that that in death he gets to help people, that he didn't get to help in life yeah, I love that, I'll tell you my son loved our dogs, loved our pets, you know.

Speaker 2:

And the thing is like right now I have just such a sweet chocolate lab, lucy, and I'll tell you, sometimes I look at her and go her personality is so unique in all the world and I think that's what's important about understanding the grief is that, whether it's your spouse or your child, I mean, they were so unique in all the world and that's what we miss so much. And I think what's confusing about pet loss is, you know, when we talk about how we see grief, part of it is measured by frequency, intensity, things like that. Like you might have a brother who lives across the country, you see, once a year, I promise you your pet hours a day, every single day, no matter what, by your side, in your pet, in your bed, at your feet every day for 15 years.

Speaker 2:

That's a lot of intensity and frequency.

Speaker 1:

Yeah, yes, you're right, I never thought about it that way. I never thought about it that way. I actually thought it's just because pets aren't jerks, and sometimes people are. But you're right, it's just the frequency that I'm missing a lot, and that's why it's so hard.

Speaker 2:

Pets aren't jerks. I will give that to you also.

Speaker 1:

They are not. You were talking about shame, and it's funny because I don't like it, so the shame comes up of the. I should have done it Like. I'll give you one example After Harper passed, I had her euthanized here at the house and she was.

Speaker 1:

She took her last breath in my living room and I forgot that I had a ring camera that can capture that area of my house and I made the mistake of watching the video. After she passed and after she took her last breath, the sound that came out of my body didn't even sound human. It was this like roar coming from my stomach of a scream, and I had sadness and shame for doing that, because here she probably is taking her last breath, ascending into the next dimension, and I'm screaming like a crazy person and I felt sad. I felt I should have kept it together a little bit longer until her body left. It was like your mind makes up all of these you should have. You are not good enough. You're a piece of poop or whatever it's like. Why? Why does shame just rear its ugly head when you're already feeling low?

Speaker 2:

So we live in a world that sometimes I think we project spiritual things that get in the way of our feelings. I wouldn't write your story that way. Let me tell you sometimes and this is like the teachings we all hear I don't happen to believe entities, when they die, are just that fragile and that weak. And we live in a world that says, oh, you ruined her ascension, oh, my gosh, if you're going to grieve, you're going to break the connection. You can't have those feelings. And here's the thing they're in the spiritual realm, we're in the human realm and we have to have human emotions. And this is something I tell myself all the time. I can't be any more enlightened than I am in any given moment.

Speaker 2:

And you know, if I was writing your story, I would say that scream was a scream of love, of heartbreak. I don't think Harper was in any realm that you were interrupting anything or you should have held it together. I understand that's a story. I don't happen to buy into that story. I understand that's a story, I don't happen to buy into that story. I think that if someone had looked down at you and could have seen you in that moment, harper would have been like look at her love for me? I hope so. Look at her love for me, I mean to me. Sometimes people tell me I pounded the bed. I yelled, I screamed. I'm like, oh my gosh, I pounded the bed. I yelled, I screamed. I'm like, oh my gosh, I would love that when I die, I would love to see the people around me loving me that much. Like you. Don't pound the bed of anyone you don't care about. You don't care about them. Thank you, david. Those are acts of love.

Speaker 1:

So thank you, that made me feel a lot better. But what if somebody is has lost their husband or child and they're going through the shame? Let's say they lost their child and they think about that time that they never took them to Disneyland, or they just wanted to go to the park that day and I never took them. And why did I put work before them? And why didn't I spend more time playing on the floor with them? And it's the why, the why, the why. And it's this constant loop. How do you, what do you tell a client who's in that shame loop?

Speaker 2:

Well, first of all, I think about you. Know we all want more. We all did this imperfectly. We all wish we could have done it differently. Our mind, our work, is for our mind not to revolve but evolve, so it is to get out of that loop. One of the things is we were talking about you know, people say now you got to do your grief work. Okay, what's my grief work? And that's one of the reasons I wanted to do a workbook, like as if we're sitting at your kitchen table together. If we're sitting at your kitchen table together and shame can be insidious, can I just share a couple of things so you can hear these, please? Okay, and I have these. People can take a look at them To think about this on one hand over here, to gauge where your shame is. I'm private with my grief or I'm completely open with my grief, okay. Okay, if you're private with your grief, you might have some shame when meeting strangers, open or private.

Speaker 1:

I'm definitely open.

Speaker 2:

Okay, at work.

Speaker 1:

Somewhere in between.

Speaker 2:

With your partner.

Speaker 1:

Open for the most part.

Speaker 2:

With your closest friends.

Speaker 1:

Open for the most part.

Speaker 2:

You haven't seen in a while.

Speaker 1:

Somewhere in between.

Speaker 2:

And it goes on asking those because we don't realize how. And you and I are lucky we live in a world where we kind of determine our work right. If we worked in the post office, you and I next to each other, we couldn't be as open, right. Or if we were someone's waiter or waitress, yes, so a lot of that feeds the isolation, the aloneness we feel. And to think about even you and I, as much as we can do what we sort of want, we still have a little shame around it.

Speaker 1:

Yes, I don't think anyone in walking on this earth is open 100%, that's just. It's impossible to be because, you know, we, we are allowed to have our own thoughts. I mean, sometimes I I'm doing my, my friends and my partner a service by not being so open, because I have crazy thoughts in my head sometimes. So you know, I think that the more open we can be you're right there's less shame there. I can completely see a correlation between the two.

Speaker 2:

And I also know for me, when I've been in pain, I had more than I could give to any one person. I so needed to spread it around. Yes, you know, like you said, I can't let you see everything that's going on, so I'm going to give a little bit to everyone, and that's okay.

Speaker 1:

Yes, that's okay to do. It was during the next that Harper pass on a Friday. That whole weekend was a complete blur to me. It was almost like I was blackout drunk because there were, I was having conversations with people, but I was forgetting. Did I already tell you this? Did I already tell you that? And it is this like cyclone. You're sort of in in the beginning stages and I think that you if anyone's listening to this, that's going through that to give yourself some grace and allow the time to pass, and what Dave and I just said like you're not going to feel like this forever, not to say you won't have the moments, but that depth of grief does get a lot easier. And I think you had said it on another podcast it's not about getting over it, but it's about moving forward. It's not about getting over it, but it's about moving forward.

Speaker 2:

Right, moving forward. And to know it doesn't mean we ever forget, right, it doesn't mean we ever forget. And the outside world? One of the things that happens is so many people say to me like my friend had this loss, you know, I know it's going to be a year coming up, or it's going to be this or it's going to be that. Should I know it's going to be a year coming up or it's going to be this or it's going to be that? Should I mention it? And I always go yes, mention it. Yes, say their loved one's name, yes, mention it, and then they'll come back and they'll go. David, I took your advice and you know what I mentioned it that it's going to be a year since her mom died and she started crying. I made her cry. Thanks a lot, david, and I'll go. You didn't make her cry, she was already crying. You became safe for her to suddenly cry with yes.

Speaker 1:

Yes, that is so true. It's not like she forgot. It was a year ago. She remembered she was just hoping somebody else would too, and you saying that probably made her feel safe. Yes, I love that. Can you show the book? And so anybody listening, I will have in the show notes David's book, all of his books. He's written six, his Instagram, but also the workbook. But there is a count. It's such a good workbook that there's a counterfeit out there. So how does somebody tell which one is yours?

Speaker 2:

So mine is the one that's completely teal. It is Finding Meaning the workbook, and it's the only one by me, david Kessler. They know they got the right one because they go to griefcom and then they can go to an Amazon link, a Barnes and Noble and indie books. Or just make sure, if you go to your independent bookstore, which I love, just ask them to get the one by me, because there is. It's a shocking thing, as we said, but like how weird that success means people are going to use AI to copy your work.

Speaker 1:

It's crazy, but you know what I would give. I would take it as a compliment that people are copying your work. I'm trying. Just wait until somebody comes out as David Kessler with your picture on Instagram.

Speaker 2:

Oh, I live with that and I'm sure you do. It's crazy, it's crazy.

Speaker 1:

Thank you so much, David, for your time. Again, if anyone's listening in their car, I will have all of David's contact information in the show notes. Thank you so much for being on Redesigning Life. It was so timely that you came on.

Speaker 2:

Oh, and you know, thank you for your work. I'll tell you it's interesting, like I mentioned just about not attaching to my world and finding a safe place, that, like you know, I've called on so many people like you to help me feel safe, in sort of connecting again to my surroundings. And you know, I think you're doing healing work.

Speaker 1:

Thank you. Thank you so much for saying that. Thank you, I appreciate that.

Speaker 2:

Healing comes in many, many forms. So thank you. I love your work and I love all that you do, so thank you.

Speaker 1:

Thank you, David.