# Dr Emily - Grief Lightening

An episode of [The Imperfects](https://invisiblenetwork.ai/podcast/1476501557), 11 May 2025, 1 h 25 min.

Audio: https://enrichment.soundstack.com/4vjqq8/episode.flightcast.com/iy7b6pinmuiod8mmtpr2f5rq.mp3

What would it look like if we were more open to grief? This week, as promised, we are joined by our resident psychologist Dr Emily Musgrove to talk through grief from a clinical perspective. Grief is proof of life, and proof of love. And while it is an incredibly unique experience for each person, there is a universality to it as well. Dr Em walks us through how grief impacts the brain on a neurological level, and unpacks its unpredictable, non-linear path. Explaining the difference between grief and grieving, Em reminds us about the importance of turning towards the pain and how to learn to ride the waves of grief, rather than expecting them to disappear. And on a practical level, Ryan asks about what you can actually do for someone in grief to show them love and support. If you’d like to watch this full episode on YouTube, follow this link: https://bit.ly/4jKdlco If you would like to pre-order Em’s book Unstuck, click here: https://bit.ly/4bhmCp2 🫖 Other Imperfects episode’s mentioned in this episode • Lauren Zonfrillo - Grief: The Shittest Greatest Gift - https://bit.ly/3GGXCMA • Jamila Rizvi - Living with the effects of a brain tumour - https://bit.ly/4jK7CmV • Gina Chick - Don’t Fight Life - https://apple.co/3UKpxQ8 • Clare Bowditch - Music, Panic Attacks & Body Image - https://apple.co/43iqzau 📖 Things to read • The Grieving Brain - Mary-Frances O’Connor - https://bit.ly/4m55Mi3 • Self Compassion - Kristin Neff - https://bit.ly/4iQC25O • Wherever You Go, There You Are - Jon Kabat-Zinn - https://bit.ly/3Z5LeMo • Till Death Do Us Part - Lauren Zonfrillo - https://bit.ly/4m7Dy6z 💻 Things to check out • Stroebe and Schut Dual-Process Model of Grief - https://bit.ly/4kbIeqc • Elisabeth Kubler-Ross Stages of Grief - https://bit.ly/45tThVu • Meghan Riordan Jarvis’ work - https://bit.ly/3RTyy7v ☎️ If you, or someone you know, is struggling with grief, Griefline 1300 845 745 is a great place to start 🩷To host your own Vulnerabilitea House, purchase the Vulnerabilitea House Cards here - https://bit.ly/3Cx4tGP 🩵To purchase our journal (or your novel) My Imperfect Life, click here - https://bit.ly/3Cx4tGP 🩷To subscribe to the Vulnerabilitea-mail weekly newsletter, join through our website - www.theimperfects.com.au 🩵To join our patreon community, A Little More Imperfect, follow this link - patreon.com/theimperfects The Imperfects is not a licensed mental health service and is not a substitute for professional mental health advice, treatment or assessment. The advice given in this episode is general in nature, but if you’re struggling, please see a healthcare professional, or call lifeline on 13 11 14.

## Transcript

[0:00] The grief represents the love, the attachment that you had to that person or that part of your life.
[0:12] And so if I was to say to you, you should be over your grief by now, it's like saying you should be over loving that person.
[0:20] So grief and love are two sides of the same coin.
[0:24] Quick, is anyone here a doctor?
[0:27] Yes, her name is Dr Emily and she's a psychologist.
[0:32] Please welcome to The Imperfects our very own psychologist.
[0:39] Dr M. Oh, it's a good day.
[0:41] It's a good day when we get Dr M in.
[0:44] Oh, thanks.
[0:45] Good to see you.
[0:46] Yeah, it's great to be here.
[0:47] Breath of fresh air.
[0:47] Oh, thank you.
[0:48] Ray of sunshine.
[0:50] And a brain and an iPad pulsating with information.
[0:54] That's not a saying.
[0:59] What a brain and iPad pulsating with information.
[1:04] You don't hear that often.
[1:08] No, I'm just looking at him.
[1:09] That's what I'm saying.
[1:10] I'm just saying what I'm saying.
[1:13] It's the more literal of the three.
[1:14] Yeah.
[1:16] How are you, Em?
[1:17] I'm good.
[1:18] Yeah?
[1:18] Yeah.
[1:18] I'm very excited to be here.
[1:20] Yeah.
[1:20] Yeah.
[1:20] And this is your first time in our new studio.
[1:22] It is amazing.
[1:24] I can't believe it.
[1:25] It's very professional.
[1:26] Yeah, we can't believe it either.
[1:27] Yeah.
[1:28] Let's not, like, tease him anymore.
[1:29] What happened on your flight on the way over here?
[1:32] Oh.
[1:32] What happened?
[1:34] Oh, well, as I was boarding, I saw a man who was the flight attendant who used to work at the Bournemouth Cinema.
[1:45] Oh my God.
[1:48] Yep.
[1:48] And I was too much of a scaredy cat to say hello.
[1:50] Scaredy cat.
[1:52] Was he an intimidating employee at the Bournemouth Cinema?
[1:55] Not at all.
[1:55] Like the nicest man ever.
[1:56] Okay.
[1:57] How was he with the Chop Tops?
[1:59] I'd say quite supreme, yeah.
[2:03] Wow.
[2:03] Yeah.
[2:04] Okay.
[2:04] So can you say his name or no?
[2:06] Yeah.
[2:07] Oh, shout out to Darren.
[2:08] I should have said hello to you.
[2:09] I think I gave you a nod at the end as I was getting off.
[2:12] Darren from Baldwin Cinema, now flight attendant at XL.
[2:17] Which airline?
[2:18] At Qantas.
[2:18] At Qantas.
[2:19] See, I reckon I have had him on my flight as well once before and I can't remember if I said hi either, but I remember going through a thing in my head of like, what do I do here?
[2:27] I don't know.
[2:27] Yeah.
[2:28] Got nervous.
[2:28] I mean, that seems like a pretty natural progression from like cinema worker to flight attendant.
[2:36] Well, if Amy used the word supreme before, I'm going to do it again, but his customer service skills were supreme.
[2:41] Really?
[2:42] Yeah.
[2:42] What made it so?
[2:44] Confidence, but also a real gentle touch.
[2:49] Just for everyone at home, Hugh closed his eyes when he said that.
[2:52] Hugh closed his eyes when he said gentle touch.
[2:59] I'm trying to take myself back there.
[3:00] I really went back.
[3:01] Yeah.
[3:02] Anyway.
[3:02] Yeah.
[3:03] Okay.
[3:03] That was lovely.
[3:04] Em.
[3:04] Yes.
[3:05] So you're here as you are every month.
[3:08] For those who are new to the podcast, Dr. Em is our resident psychologist.
[3:13] You will come in and you will find a moment or a previous episode from The Imperfects and talk about it from a clinical psychology perspective.
[3:23] Sort of expand on it a little bit more.
[3:25] And today this is a topic that we have wanted you to talk about for a while and we knew when Lauren Zonfrillo was going to come on the podcast, we thought, well, this might be the perfect opportunity to talk about grief and that's what you're – well, I hope unless you've changed your mind.
[3:51] That's what we're hearing about today.
[3:53] Gosh, it felt so, such an important episode.
[3:58] And I've got quite a lot to say about grief, but I wonder if maybe I might play the grab first and then we can talk about that.
[4:06] Yeah.
[4:06] Okay.
[4:09] Nothing is under my control.
[4:10] And...
[4:13] The one thing actually I would hate for anything to happen to our children, but the one thing I would have wanted to stay in my life was Jock because together we could conquer anything.
[4:22] And I had no control over that.
[4:23] I had no control over anything that happened afterwards.
[4:26] And there were points where I said, I've just got to get out of the way.
[4:28] I've just got to let this run its course.
[4:30] I can't stop any of this from happening.
[4:34] And I don't have the strength to just let it go.
[4:36] It's a big lesson.
[4:40] And it's a humbling lesson.
[4:42] And I think it's like part of the shittest greatest gift, which I, you know, my version of the silver lining, which is that this is the shittest greatest gift I could have been given because my gratitude is...
[4:57] exponential.
[4:58] I value my life more than ever.
[5:00] I've never wanted to be a mum more than I am in this moment.
[5:04] I've never been a better mum than I am right now.
[5:07] I think I'm a better sister and friend.
[5:09] I'm just more aware.
[5:11] But I also know my capability.
[5:13] I was pushed really close to the edge.
[5:17] I'd turn around and said, no, I'm not doing this.
[5:19] And I had to turn around and walk back.
[5:21] And, you know, a new version of me was formed and the bits that kind of could be burnt away were.
[5:29] And so this other version came out of the flames and I'm really proud of that.
[5:34] It's lots of scar tissue and some, you know, unsavoury bits, but that's who I am.
[5:41] Yeah, it's God, just listening back to it.
[5:43] It's so, she was amazing in how she was able to articulate that experience.
[5:49] I mean, she's written a book, of course.
[5:51] But even just hearing her talk about it, losing jock, that whole process, it's so full on even just to hear it back now.
[6:00] I feel really quite happy we're doing this topic because I have had so many people request and say I would love a topic on grief.
[6:08] And if we'd done this probably a year ago, my very basic assumption would be that this is for anyone who's ever lost anyone.
[6:15] But now the last 12 months has taught me personally and from conversations I had with people close to me that grief is so much more than just that, that we can be grieving so much more than just grief.
[6:26] I love one and that is devastating for anyone who has or is experiencing that.
[6:31] But it can be a whole range of things.
[6:33] Mm-hmm.
[6:34] You're absolutely spot on.
[6:35] I think, you know, to be honest, this is a topic I have avoided bringing on this podcast, actually.
[6:43] And I have wondered whether that is for a number of reasons.
[6:46] I've wondered whether it's because it represents our collective discomfort with grief and our collective avoidance of death.
[6:57] Mm-hmm.
[6:58] But then on the other hand, clinically, it is a universal experience, but it's also so broad and so unique that maybe part of my hesitation has been to not do this justice, to not do this topic its best work.
[7:20] And so I guess I start there by just really acknowledging
[7:25] the duality of this, that grief and grieving is something that is a universal experience that we will all have.
[7:35] No one is immune from that.
[7:37] But at the same time, it is also a very unique and specific journey that you will undertake when you encounter your own grief.
[7:48] I can only imagine that a large percentage of the people who come in to see you in clinic would be experiencing grief.
[7:58] It certainly can be, but grief, like Hugh, you alluded to, is not always about the loss or the death of someone important to you.
[8:05] It can come in so many different forms.
[8:09] I mean, I think predominantly today I will talk like really around the loss of the death of somebody, the loss of a loved one, but the same principles apply when we talk about really the ending of something, the loss of something, so whether that's,
[8:27] the loss of a job, it might be retiring, it might be the loss of a relationship, it might be the loss of having children.
[8:37] It might also be the loss of something we never had.
[8:41] So I want to kind of just really briefly mention this at the start that grief manifests itself in so many different ways.
[8:49] But there is a grief that we can experience for things we never had.
[8:53] So things like the grief for never having had a warm, loving family.
[9:00] And the person that experiences that kind of neglectful childhood or abusive childhood will be exposed to this grief, the yearning for that kind of life where you could feel a sense of being unconditionally loved.
[9:15] So there is, there's a lot of complexity to grief.
[9:18] It's, it's holding, you know, again, there's an experience here of grieving the thing you never had.
[9:25] And also grieving the thing that you did have and the thing that you can no longer have now.
[9:29] And so, yes, that takes a whole lot of different forms.
[9:32] Yep.
[9:33] And I think some people don't, can often go through something difficult and not realise they're experiencing grief.
[9:37] That was definitely my experience when I was chatting to my psychologist who, who said to me, you are very deep in the depression stage of grief.
[9:44] And that was, as a lot of people know, sort of grieving the life that I was not going to have, that my family was not going to be able to have the relationship I was unable to have, all that kind of stuff with everything we'd been through.
[9:54] So.
[9:55] with our journey as parents of a neurodivergent child.
[9:58] So, and I had no idea that's what I was going through.
[10:02] But when it was spelled out to me, it was so, I guess, obvious, but then also incredibly helpful to understand that.
[10:10] Yeah, I think that is, there's so much power in that.
[10:13] And often, you know, in the work that I do, if I have ever named to a client,
[10:20] you know, there's, I can feel this grief here or I'm wondering, it sounds like this is grief.
[10:26] It's almost like that naming becomes that, I mean, that's knowledge and information, which is so powerful and also can feel deeply validating.
[10:36] Like, yes, this is not depression.
[10:40] This is not anxiety.
[10:41] This is grief.
[10:43] And I will kind of explain that there are distinctions obviously between those experiences there.
[10:49] But yes, being able to identify what this is, is so crucial for how we work with it.
[10:55] Do you think the relief that people have from when you name it comes from an idea that maybe grief is justified and temporary as opposed to permanent and unending and maybe not justified when it's depression or anxiety?
[11:14] That is a very complex question.
[11:17] It's really interesting.
[11:18] You just got here, Josh.
[11:20] No, it's really interesting because...
[11:22] I use justified in like very much inverted commas, I should say.
[11:25] Yeah, of course.
[11:25] Because I'm not saying that the others aren't, but yeah.
[11:29] Well, it's interesting because I think it also brings to question what grief is and what grieving is, and I'll define that distinction in a minute.
[11:37] But more broadly, the research is actually really clear around the importance of what's called affect labelling.
[11:42] And that is our capacity to label our emotional experience and how powerful that is.
[11:47] So it has relevance, whether it's this is a depressed mood or whether this is grief.
[11:52] It's still going to be important across all those experiences.
[11:55] But yes, it might highlight, maybe it might highlight stigmas attached to what's
[12:02] acceptable to experience and what is wrong or what's abnormal.
[12:07] So, I mean, that can, that is certainly something.
[12:09] Yeah.
[12:10] Yeah.
[12:10] That makes sense.
[12:11] That probably with that individual would require quite a bit of unpacking about like, what's the history here for you.
[12:18] But there's an interesting question that comes in there around the notion of ending.
[12:24] Yeah.
[12:25] And I really want to highlight this because I think this feels so paramount in understanding grief and grieving.
[12:32] And that is that the grieving and the grief never goes away.
[12:40] And I just want to unpack that really deliberately here.
[12:43] Because that feels very overwhelming.
[12:45] It does.
[12:46] And it feels quite disarming and probably very disappointing.
[12:51] Mm-hmm.
[12:53] I have to give a big nod here to neuroscientist and Professor Mary Frances O'Connor.
[12:59] I have to tell you that, like, as you probably all know, I have quite a number of academic crushes on people and she is my latest one and I just, like, listening to her...
[13:13] talking about grief actually feels so empowering.
[13:18] It's very strange because this is a topic that we obviously have a discomfort with.
[13:21] So I want to give a big nod to her.
[13:23] Her work is incredible and she has a book called The Grieving Brain.
[13:27] And it's from a neuroscientist point of view around what's happening when we experience grief.
[13:33] But she begins in some ways by delineating the difference between grief and grieving.
[13:38] So grief is the intense emotional experience
[13:42] that is attached to the loss of the person or the thing.
[13:47] Does that make sense?
[13:48] So it's literally the experience of intensity, the wave of sadness, of sorrow, of yearning, of longing.
[13:58] Like the feeling.
[13:59] The feeling, exactly.
[14:01] But grieving is the process.
[14:05] So it's the difference in some ways between experience and process.
[14:08] So grieving is the process of how grief changes across time.
[14:14] So how we relate to grief over a lifetime, for example.
[14:18] So we are always grieving and we can have moments across time where grief is intense, but it comes and goes like a wave.
[14:30] Mm-hmm.
[14:32] Now, the grief experience obviously is much more likely to be very, very intense at the start of the loss.
[14:44] For the majority of people, over time we do see that people do adapt and that the grief becomes less intense or that we can work with it in a really adaptive, healthy way.
[14:59] But the grief doesn't go away.
[15:03] And I think what feels really relevant in there is that the grief represents the love, the attachment that you had to that person or that part of your life.
[15:17] And so if I was to say to you, you should be over your grief by now, it's like saying you should be over loving that person.
[15:27] So grief and love are two sides of the same coin.
[15:32] And I think this is what feels so pertinent in this work is that we grieve because we loved.
[15:39] And that's kind of the key message in here is that is if you love something, someone, some life, some imagined future, and we lose that, of course, there will be great sorrow and great sadness.
[15:51] God.
[15:53] It's almost, it's such a, in a weird way, kind of makes it a positive thing because it's almost like, it's like a, it's like the love lives on.
[16:07] Yes.
[16:07] And it becomes like a reminder of the good times.
[16:11] Yes.
[16:12] And that's ultimately what we're working towards is this ability to be able to sit with the cherished memories and the joy and the love and the gratitude alongside the pain of its absence.
[16:28] So we'll get to some of that as we kind of move towards how to work with this.
[16:32] Is it, sorry to jump in, but is it insensitive or inappropriate when people say things like, oh, I'm grieving?
[16:40] It might be something not as significant as losing a loved one, but it might be like, I don't know, someone goes from uni where they're so happy they love uni and they go into full-time work and they're just really down because they miss their life they used to have.
[16:51] Is that like, is that people going, well, that's not grief, that's just like,
[16:54] Well, no, I think it can be.
[16:55] I think, I think this is the thing.
[16:57] It's, it's, it's all dependent upon the individual and what that thing meant to them.
[17:02] And I think this is also where we can be as a community, very judgmental around someone else's experience and what it has meant to them.
[17:11] I say this really often actually in terms of like losing a pet and this sense that for a lot of people, the loss of a pet can bring immense grief.
[17:24] But we don't judge it as as valid as the loss of a human, for example.
[17:32] And that for a person that's grieving the loss of a pet or the loss of a part of life or like a divorce, that we need to honour that experience for them because it is their experience and it represents their attachment and their relationship with that experience, that person, that thing.
[17:54] rather than it being like this grief is better than this grief.
[17:57] Does that make sense?
[17:58] Oh, yeah.
[17:59] I mean, it kind of makes me think that it reminds me of times I've heard people say like, oh, I couldn't, I can't get another dog.
[18:09] Because I can't go through losing it again.
[18:13] Like I said, the grief is so overwhelming that it's like people might then choose to not even enter that loving experience again.
[18:26] Yes.
[18:26] Because of the fear of what the grief will then be when the dog dies.
[18:31] Yeah.
[18:31] Yes, and that's a huge conundrum, which I'll come to as well, because it represents how we move forward in life and towards what's called like a restoration orientation.
[18:44] So I'll come to that.
[18:46] But I do want to mention like just like really kind of pausing here and really having a look at why is it that we're so uncomfortable with talking about grief?
[18:55] Yes.
[18:56] And in fact, what would it be like if we could be able to bring language to this with much more ease, more often, to have education around grief in the same way that there's like, for example, burgeoning discussions and communications around menopause that was never being had before.
[19:16] You know, the same thing can be said about grief is that when it's hidden in the darkness and no one wants to touch it, when you go there, how isolating is that?
[19:25] Mm-hmm.
[19:26] Like it's very lonely to be sitting in this place because no one wants to talk about it.
[19:32] People feel scared about talking to me about it.
[19:35] And so it becomes, and it can become extremely lonely.
[19:39] How does that resonate?
[19:42] It does.
[19:43] It's certainly something that feels not talked about.
[19:46] The thing that is popping into my head is that your own death must be the most, like that is the ultimate grieving moment, I would assume, for a lot of people.
[19:59] Because if it's about ending, that's about everything ending, everything you've ever loved.
[20:06] And so I'm imagining that...
[20:08] our reluctance to talk about death and our own death and end of life, it would be weaved in with a reluctance to talk about grieving.
[20:16] Yeah.
[20:17] I think that's really spot on observation.
[20:19] Absolutely.
[20:20] Yeah.
[20:21] Yeah.
[20:21] It is weird.
[20:22] And someone said this recently and it could have been, it could have been Lauren.
[20:26] I'm not sure, but I remember someone saying that like there's so many books about birth.
[20:31] But there's just not that many books about death.
[20:33] Yeah, that's so fascinating.
[20:35] It's like there's so much information on the beginning of a life, but on the end it's just like no one, it's just mysterious.
[20:45] Yes, exactly.
[20:46] And like a definite outcome.
[20:49] Yeah.
[20:49] Yeah.
[20:50] And it's weird because it's like extremely relatable content.
[20:54] Like I'm just surprised that more people aren't writing books about it because it's like everyone experiences it in every way.
[21:02] Exactly.
[21:03] Yeah.
[21:03] I do think it's an opportunity to reframe it from a, if it's sort of linked to love and it's,
[21:13] proportionate to love, then surely it's a chance to celebrate how much connection and love you had with whatever it is that you're grieving.
[21:22] Yeah, it absolutely is.
[21:26] But it can take a while to get there.
[21:28] Yeah.
[21:28] Yeah.
[21:28] Am I right in also saying our culture, the way that we deal with death is obviously very different to other cultures and how they deal with death.
[21:36] And it's probably easier for other cultures, religions, nations, other people around the world talk about death in a much more open way.
[21:46] Yeah, it's actually really interesting.
[21:47] There are quite significant differences across cultures and across religions and spiritual practices in terms of how open we are to death and how open we are to talking about it.
[21:59] And that, yes, there are definitely some cultures that...
[22:02] that death is embedded in the living and that there can be such a greater comfort with this knowledge that we will die.
[22:12] And I think, you know, if we zoom out, basically what we're looking at here is avoidance of pain.
[22:17] And from any psychological perspective that we can look at,
[22:21] avoidance of pain causes us more suffering.
[22:25] And it's the same thing when it comes to grief and talking about grief is that, you know, we do have an opportunity, even gently, even if you haven't experienced grief before, to gently move towards, you know, being able to hold this in the mind or to approach people that you do know that are suffering, that are in, that are grieving.
[22:47] So I think I'm just holding this here that
[22:49] The reason we avoid it is because it's painful and as humans, we want to avoid pain.
[22:55] So I think this is why I had to bite the bullet to do this episode because I think it feels really important that we can bring a language to it because it's happening everywhere.
[23:05] It's happening in all of our lives to some degree at some point in time.
[23:09] The thing that's just what you said before about how people
[23:15] the feeling of grief is like a reminder of the love.
[23:19] What about the grief you also mentioned about the thing that never was?
[23:23] And so there is no, it's, it's, you're grieving.
[23:27] It's not even necessarily, I mean, maybe there is a positive in there, but that feels very, very different type of grief.
[23:34] Yeah.
[23:36] Yeah, it can be because it's grieving the imagined love.
[23:39] Yeah.
[23:40] It's grieving the yearned for love in some ways.
[23:44] So no, you may not have had that, but there's a deep human craving and yearning, longing to feel loved, to feel seen.
[23:55] So it can be imagined.
[23:57] It doesn't have to be that you did have it, I think.
[23:59] Yeah.
[23:59] Yeah.
[24:01] I wonder kind of moving into some specifics around maybe the grieving processes or an experience of grief, I wanted to highlight again, the work of Mary Frances O'Connor around the early stages of grief and in particular, what's happening in the brain.
[24:22] And I just find this so fascinating.
[24:25] So if we think about grief in terms of the death of a loved one,
[24:30] In essence, what we know is that the brain encodes bonds.
[24:35] So the brain encodes this relationship with this other person.
[24:41] And the brain then keeps this map, this internal map of all of these relationships.
[24:45] So what do you mean encodes?
[24:47] I don't quite understand.
[24:48] So our brain is constantly encoding information.
[24:53] And when we have the presence of a relationship, the brain encodes that person as an attachment, as a bond.
[25:01] Okay, gotcha, gotcha, gotcha.
[25:02] And so neurologically, the brain is now different.
[25:07] Oh, yeah.
[25:08] As a function of this relationship being in my life.
[25:12] It's influenced the brain.
[25:13] Yes.
[25:13] Okay.
[25:14] At a neuronal level, which is like quite amazing.
[25:18] So you have a child and your brain is forever changed.
[25:22] You have a partner.
[25:23] Your brain is forever changed because this brain encodes this relationship.
[25:29] as an attachment and therefore my brain structure and function is different than it was before.
[25:37] So what she explains is that the brain is really a prediction machine.
[25:42] So it's also predicting that I have this attachment here with this person and I also know based upon a history of experiences that, for example, when I leave the house, I know the brain will predict that I will see my partner when I get home.
[25:56] So it's kind of this constant experience of predictions with evidence based on evidence and a history of experiences.
[26:04] So I know that when my partner leaves, they'll come back or equally that a child will know that when I drop him off at school, there'll be a separation.
[26:14] They don't see me anymore but they know, the brain predicts, that I will come back and pick them up.
[26:19] So prediction machine.
[26:26] This is so destabilising to this prediction machine and so disorienting to the brain.
[26:35] The brain is extremely confused by this loss.
[26:40] So in the early stages, she gives this great example of how, and actually also kind of referencing here, Megan Riordan-Jarvis, who's also a trauma and grief specialist, gives this example here of the idea that the early stages of grief,
[26:57] is akin to, you know, if you wake up in a hotel and for a split second you don't know where you are.
[27:02] I did that for, actually, it doesn't matter.
[27:04] I literally had that for 20 seconds the other day.
[27:07] 20 seconds, I didn't know where I was.
[27:08] When I was in Delhi.
[27:09] Yes.
[27:10] Anyway, good going.
[27:11] So in that split second, the brain is trying to orient itself.
[27:16] And for someone that's in the early stages of grief, this is exactly what's happening.
[27:20] Yeah.
[27:21] is that the brain is trying to update this new information.
[27:24] So you wake up and then for a split second, like, oh, God, they're not here.
[27:30] Mm-hmm.
[27:32] And this is so destabilising to the brain.
[27:37] And for someone in grief, this happens a thousand times.
[27:40] The brain is constantly having to update its map because its previous map is no longer working.
[27:46] It's not relevant anymore.
[27:48] So the prediction that it makes is that my partner will come home after lunch, but then he doesn't.
[27:54] And so the brain is constantly having to update its neuronal map.
[27:59] to make sense that this is now a change.
[28:03] And it's suggested that this process can take anywhere between five days after the loss, up to five weeks and sometimes beyond, for the brain to understand that this person is no longer here.
[28:16] Wow.
[28:17] And so if we think about that, like there's so much happening in the body and in the mind, in the brain, to understand, first of all, that a loss has happened and that my life is no longer the same than it was.
[28:35] So what I wanted to read out was a quote from Mary Francis, which I think really in my mind kind of explains this a little bit more beautifully than me.
[28:44] So she says, It is because your loved one existed that certain neurons fire together and certain proteins are folded in your brain in particular ways.
[28:56] It is because your loved one lived and because you loved each other, that means when the person is no longer in the outer world, they still physically exist in the wiring of the neurons of your brain.
[29:12] Grieving requires the difficult task of throwing out the map we have used to navigate our lives together and transforming our relationship with this person who has died.
[29:23] Grieving or learning to live a meaningful life without our loved one is ultimately a type of learning.
[29:30] Because learning is something we do our whole lives, seeing grieving as a type of learning may make it more familiar and understandable and give us the patience to allow this remarkable process to unfold.
[29:45] Like I was going to pause for a minute just cause I'm just thinking of people listening to this, wherever they are, who have lost a loved one and just hearing that must ring true and must be very, I don't know what it'd feel like, but, um, difficult or confronting or just upsetting.
[29:59] Yeah.
[29:59] Um, yeah.
[30:01] So this moves us, Ryan, you know, so even kind of listening to this and getting almost like in touch with even the imagined feeling of grief.
[30:11] That our brains and our bodies have been changed because of this person.
[30:15] And even though this person is no longer here with us, the change has still happened to us because of their presence and because of their existence.
[30:26] It's pretty amazing like that in that Mary Frances quote saying that they aren't still here, but they still exist physically in the neurons in our brain.
[30:39] Yeah.
[30:39] That's incredible.
[30:41] It feels both comforting and really upsetting.
[30:47] So, you know, I wanted to bring this here to start with, just to kind of really acknowledge that we never exist as silos, that we're always in regulation with, in attachment with other people.
[31:02] And so, yes, their loss is actually going to profoundly influence our body and our brain, not just the heart feeling, if that makes sense.
[31:13] So...
[31:14] In the early stages of grief, of grieving, like in those first kind of couple of months, for example, it is, first of all, physiologically, an enormous activation of the stress response.
[31:30] So if we know this, we can also then imagine what's actually happening in the body.
[31:34] So there is an actual threat.
[31:37] We have experienced the loss of life.
[31:38] So this immediately will activate physiological change in the body to rise to meet the stressor, which is the loss.
[31:46] Okay.
[31:46] So it's really not uncommon.
[31:48] There's a myriad of presentations of symptoms in the early stages of grief too, and I want to mention many of them because they're all super normal.
[31:58] All of them are normal.
[31:59] Mm-hmm.
[32:00] You're going to experience things like loss of appetite, sleep disturbance, irritability, low mood, anxiety, panic, nightmares.
[32:11] You will experience the desire to withdraw, to stay in bed.
[32:16] You'll experience anger, rage sometimes.
[32:20] All of these are all really normal responses.
[32:23] And in fact, they're healthy responses.
[32:26] You'll experience guilt.
[32:27] You'll experience changes in your concentration capacity.
[32:32] So cognitive learning, cognitive skills become compromised.
[32:36] We become more forgetful.
[32:39] We have difficulty attending to information.
[32:42] It's a full physiological mind, brain, body response, which is present to try and help us cope with this loss that's here.
[32:53] This may be a silly question.
[32:55] Obviously in Lauren's experience, her loss was completely unexpected.
[33:03] But there's obviously so many different versions of loss where it's like there's the expected of someone's sick and they've been sick for years and there's an inevitability to it versus the sudden shock.
[33:16] Yeah.
[33:17] Just with that, with what you're talking about with the prediction machine, I imagine like if someone, if you're expecting the prediction that someone is going to stop coming home or stop being around, does that affect the grieving or the grief or any of that?
[33:34] Yeah, look, to be really fair, I don't know the exact answer to that neurologically speaking.
[33:38] Yeah.
[33:40] Trauma and grief are inextricably linked.
[33:43] And so sometimes there might be experiences where a death is sudden, a death is violent, a death is you were present for the passing of someone where we actually get, we're having a really significant trauma response.
[33:59] That may be different, not necessarily better or worse, but may be different from like someone who's in palliative care that we know is terminal and that that person dies.
[34:12] The grieving and the grief.
[34:15] Again, not better or worse, but just different.
[34:19] So we can say that for some individuals who are exposed to, like, for example, a car accident or perhaps they were having to rescue someone that then died or that there are, you know, kind of really traumatic incidents that are happening around the death of that person, that can be really, really important.
[34:42] really complex and can make that the grieving have a different trajectory or a different pathway in some ways.
[34:52] Can you pre-grieve?
[34:54] That's a good question.
[34:55] So you could ask the Stoics.
[34:57] So the Stoics, I mean like Marcus Aurelius in his meditations would talk about the idea of pre, like I guess of pre-grieving.
[35:04] I don't know if that's.
[35:06] He would lie in bed at night and he would imagine everyone he loved not being around anymore.
[35:11] Every night he imagined them all dying.
[35:13] So if it happened, he was more prepared for it.
[35:17] And look, to be honest, again, like I don't know, being really transparent around that, but I think maybe it's bringing to question this idea that if we can talk more about it, that we can be okay to have the pain.
[35:28] Sorry, just were you more thinking like if someone has a diagnosis and you know that they're not going to be around?
[35:33] Yeah, I mean, it's the same activity really, but it's the knowledge of, I imagine if it's a sudden thing, there's shock attached to it.
[35:43] Yeah.
[35:43] Whereas if it's the palliative care situation, there's time to absorb that reality.
[35:52] And obviously there's nothing like the moment that will actually happen.
[35:55] But that there's a period of time for you to start
[36:01] having this dialogue about it more, if you choose to, I guess.
[36:04] Yeah.
[36:05] And, you know, for some people it can be a real gift to be able to grieve with the person alive.
[36:12] You know, again, there's so much individual difference in this, but it can be an opportunity to say all the things you want to say, to have experiences that you may have put off, for example.
[36:25] That's an interesting idea.
[36:26] Because, you know, what can often show up, particularly an unexpected death, are regrets.
[36:31] So the things that went unspoken, the experiences that went left behind.
[36:37] And so sometimes, you know, with the knowledge that there is a terminal illness here, that there can be if we're willing.
[36:45] And this is the key, if we're willing.
[36:48] to turn towards the grief that is here with this person alive and to be able to have the conversations, the difficult ones, the loving ones, to be able to find the words.
[37:01] So there is so much variation in our experience of grief.
[37:05] Yeah.
[37:06] Yeah.
[37:07] Right.
[37:08] It's interesting to me that you would, because if there's,
[37:14] and I could be wrong here, but in grief, say in the example of someone dying, a loved one, I feel like the grief isn't necessarily singular in that maybe you could be grieving many aspects of that person and many aspects of that life.
[37:31] And if you have the chance to say things that you want to say and have conversations that you want to have, maybe there is less of a loss in grief.
[37:44] not getting to a point where you didn't get the chance to say something.
[37:48] So it's there in, in the multiple aspects of grief that you could experience, maybe it's lessening some of them.
[37:54] I don't know if there's any, if that's possible or if that makes sense at all.
[37:58] I mean, I wouldn't necessarily say that the loss would be less, but there may not be as much regret.
[38:04] Yeah.
[38:05] And that can, we can get really bogged down in regret.
[38:08] Yeah.
[38:08] Okay.
[38:09] And sadness and disappointment that I didn't have those words or didn't have an opportunity.
[38:15] Having said that, you know, sometimes in the work that I do, we will do things like, you know, being able to say those, those words to the person that's passed away.
[38:25] whether this is through letter writing, whether this is through like actual communication in a session, whether it's through going to a, like a memorial space, whether it's a gravesite or a special place and being able to actively say the words to speak the things that, that you've wanted to say.
[38:42] So, you know, that that's an avenue in terms of processing grief that we can look at.
[38:47] Certainly when regret is really present, um, which we'll come to more of in a minute.
[38:51] Right.
[38:52] But I wonder, you know, theoretically speaking, there have been a number of different models of grief and grieving that, you know, that have become prominent in culture and in our communications.
[39:06] And obviously one of them is Elizabeth Kubler-Ross's stages of grief model.
[39:12] And I want to mention this because.
[39:16] It feels really important.
[39:18] So when she developed this, she developed this in the 60s.
[39:21] Basically, it came to be because she was observing and then describing the experiences of people with terminal illness.
[39:29] And that she described what she observed as these different experiences here of, you know, whether it's anger, denial, depression and acceptance, and there's probably shock in there too.
[39:41] And this is really exemplifying the fact that I don't really use this model, but she was describing this experience here through what she observed of people with a terminal illness, the dying.
[39:52] And it's had enormous relevance and clinical utility to help people understand that there are all these experiences that we have when we're grieving.
[40:02] One of the kind of, I guess, criticisms of the model is that it's suggested that it can be like a step-by-step model to get into a place of being okay and accepting the loss that's here.
[40:18] But when we look at the research and when we look at clinical practice, grief doesn't work in a linear way.
[40:26] And I think this feels really important to mention because it sometimes can feel like I'm not doing grief properly.
[40:32] Like I haven't done this right because I'm still in anger or I've gone backwards to shock or I've gone, you know, back and forth this way.
[40:41] So...
[40:42] It's a useful model to understand that, yes, these are all components of grief, in grief.
[40:47] So there will be days when I do feel like I've gone into bargaining mode where I'm trying to imagine different ways in which this could have eventuated.
[40:54] Or there will be days when I feel so angry.
[40:57] Anger is a very common experience in grief.
[41:00] Very, very common.
[41:01] There will be days when you experience a sense of acceptance that like I can really hold this grief and hold this loss and also be OK with it being here.
[41:10] But.
[41:11] The way that I tend to work and a way that I guess a number of other models work is that more that it's that we learn to live with grief and that life expands and contracts around the loss.
[41:23] So at the beginning, if you imagine that it's like, I think I've used this analogy for something else, but it's the only way I can describe it.
[41:29] If you imagine that your grief is a pebble inside a balloon and it's an unblown up balloon.
[41:35] And so this grief takes over your whole experience.
[41:39] You are the balloon.
[41:40] The pebble is your grief.
[41:42] Now what we do with grief work is that we learn how to expand around the grief.
[41:47] The grief never goes away.
[41:49] The loss never goes away.
[41:51] At different times, we will expand around it and we will find meaning and we will find purpose and we'll find cherished memories.
[41:59] And then there'll be other times when we contract again and we are pulled into a wave of intense grief.
[42:06] And that, you know, as time progresses, it might be things like, um, anniversaries, birthdays, times of year, smells.
[42:15] So it's like our life is expanding and contracting rather than moving in a linear way.
[42:22] So I just want to kind of mention that because it feels really, I think one of the things that I will often see in therapy is that people think I should be over this by now.
[42:30] I shouldn't be feeling this way anymore.
[42:33] In fact, yes, of course you should.
[42:35] All these, and this is the thing, all of your experience is normal.
[42:40] There are some circumstances where grief becomes complicated.
[42:47] Now, until recently, this was actually in the DSM called Complicated Grief.
[42:53] What's a DSM?
[42:54] So that's the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Psychiatric Disorders.
[42:58] Of course.
[42:59] Yes.
[43:01] So it's what we use to make diagnoses, basically.
[43:03] Yeah, the DSM.
[43:03] Yeah, correct.
[43:05] And that grief is a normal human emotion for a start, okay?
[43:10] There is a small group of people...
[43:13] who won't follow perhaps the trajectory that we would expect in terms of being able to restore a life that's worth living.
[43:21] There will be some people that get really stuck in the grief.
[43:27] And in fact, for some people, the grief can worsen and intensify over time rather than gradually improve.
[43:34] For that set of people,
[43:37] That's where we would now, in accordance with the DSM, maybe kind of bring about a diagnosis of what's called prolonged grief disorder.
[43:47] And there are some predictors of that.
[43:51] So one of the big ones is a preexisting mental illness.
[43:55] So if you have suffered from depression, for example, a severe psychiatric illness, then there is maybe an increased vulnerability towards experiencing prolonged grief disorder.
[44:07] Also, previous losses.
[44:11] particularly early childhood losses and attachment disruptions.
[44:16] So if you've experienced the death of a parent as a child, for example, or a primary caregiver, or you had intense attachment anxiety, for example, as a child, you experienced childhood trauma, then that can be a predictor or increase your likelihood of getting really stuck in grief.
[44:37] But what feels so important in there is that
[44:41] The stuckness doesn't have to be permanent.
[44:45] You know, we, and this is often when people will show up in therapy.
[44:48] So, you know, I might have someone come in that, that might be grieving and really stuck in the grief of the loss of someone that died 10 or 20 years ago.
[44:58] And there's enormous suffering there.
[45:01] And again, this is never around it being someone's fault or it not being that you can't move on.
[45:09] It's more that the conditions of this experience have made it very, very difficult for you to do that.
[45:14] So what I will mention in there is that one of the things that shows up in something like prolonged grief is really active ruminations.
[45:27] Intense ruminations about the lost loved one.
[45:30] So this kind of constantly on my mind, constantly ruminating.
[45:33] It might be also ruminations around how this happened, why did this happen?
[45:38] So getting so fused and hooked into the stories around this loss.
[45:44] That's a very, that would be a feature of prolonged grief.
[45:48] Obviously really intense emotion.
[45:49] Yeah.
[45:51] So intense and prolonged emotional response.
[45:55] Behaviorally, we would say that people haven't been able to restore or create a life after the loss.
[46:02] So it will look like lots of avoidance and withdrawal, staying at home, staying in bed, difficulty going to work.
[46:08] And I'm talking in a prolonged way.
[46:10] I'm not talking about in the months or even year after the death of a loved one.
[46:14] So if that, if those behaviours have continued over a long period of time, we might say, okay, so we need to name this so we can work with it.
[46:23] So looking at the behaviours of the person, what they're doing.
[46:27] Also, a hallmark of this would be avoidance of anything to do with the loss of the loved one.
[46:34] So it might be not being able to drive anywhere near where they lived or where you lived,
[46:42] Avoiding anything, suppressing anything to do with this person.
[46:47] So it's like we're keeping a door locked on the fact that this person existed.
[46:51] But for the person that is locking the door, they are trapped like in such immense and painful experience that there's no life there for them either.
[47:03] not talking specifically to prolonged grief disorder here, but you do hear people talking about waves of grief.
[47:12] Do waves sort of last forever and do they change?
[47:16] Yeah, good question.
[47:19] I think what we would probably see is that
[47:24] over time that we get better able to handle the waves so that, you know, here it is again.
[47:33] And I have these practices or these skills to help me be okay with this feeling being here.
[47:39] So that, that can happen over time.
[47:43] There isn't a normal, there isn't a normal in this.
[47:47] And I think this is what feels really tricky in grieving and in grief.
[47:51] is that there isn't a handbook of what it's going to look like or what you're meant to be doing or feeling or experiencing.
[47:58] And so as a therapist, my question is always around like impairment and like how much is this getting you stuck?
[48:06] How much is this impairing your life?
[48:09] And if it is really impairing your life, like how do we work with this feeling so that we can get back on track with something that is meaningful for you?
[48:18] So it's always a question of, it doesn't matter if the wave comes, it's more what we do when it comes and how we then kind of continue to move with it.
[48:28] There's a very kind of common metaphor from Jon Kabat-Zinn, who's a mindfulness guru, I suppose, about the notion of we can't, oh God, I'm going to forget this quote, but something all kinds of, we have to learn to surf the waves.
[48:45] So we can't control the waves coming, but we can learn how to surf them and how to be with them.
[48:50] So there isn't a normal amount of,
[48:54] We probably would say, like I said before, across time that the intensity might reduce or the frequency might reduce, but not necessarily.
[49:03] There'll again, like there'll be things that come up so unexpectedly that hit you and you might get totally knocked down, but that that is okay.
[49:11] My question is always, how stuck are you in it and what do you do next?
[49:17] I never really, having never gone through it, I never really understood that waves analogy that well.
[49:23] But thinking about it more and more, it gets more profound and interesting, I think, when you think about it in the context of trying to surf.
[49:32] Like I'd always thought of it as just being smashed by a wave and being dumped.
[49:36] But I never considered that you could potentially have a surfboard with you.
[49:39] Yeah, yeah.
[49:40] Yeah, and I think if I remember correctly, the quote is, you can't stop the waves, but you can learn how to surf them.
[49:45] Yeah.
[49:45] Yeah, exactly.
[49:46] And it doesn't mean that sometimes another wave might come that is too big for you to surf and you might get dumped again.
[49:53] Yeah.
[49:53] And then you get up and then you get up.
[49:55] Yeah.
[49:55] Yeah.
[49:56] Exactly.
[49:57] Like, I can't surf though.
[50:00] Yet.
[50:01] Yeah.
[50:01] Yet.
[50:02] It's true.
[50:05] What about like when you're like a friend of someone who is grieving?
[50:15] And because like you've said, like it does often feel it's so hard to talk about.
[50:20] And often we don't know what to say and we don't know what the right thing to do is.
[50:23] We don't want to put our foot in it.
[50:25] We don't want to make it worse.
[50:26] And so we, you know, can often just sort of like be the ones who are avoiding the thing ourselves.
[50:33] Yeah.
[50:34] And I'm just conscious of like how that might be, just from what you're saying, that might be quite damaging or harmful or I don't know.
[50:44] I mean, maybe it's different for different people.
[50:45] But because more often than not, you know, when someone we know is going through grief and they're grieving, we want to be able to support them.
[50:54] But we also often resort to just like avoidance and not even talking about the person.
[51:02] And so, yeah, that just popped into my mind.
[51:04] Yeah, I think that's a really good point.
[51:06] And so there are kind of two parts to this in some ways in terms of prolonged grief.
[51:11] how you show up and support someone that might be really, really stuck in there.
[51:15] I mean, also how we support them when, you know, when there is a death, for example, or there is just a change in life.
[51:20] How do we show up and support them?
[51:22] And then there's also like therapeutically, what do we do?
[51:26] So from a friend point of view, again, I want to really highlight that there's so much nuance in this and that what is right for someone will not be right for someone else.
[51:36] Um, like for example, I've worked with people who desperately want to be able to talk about the loss of their loved one with their friends, but they feel like no one brings it up.
[51:45] They want to be able to bring in the memories of that person.
[51:48] Um, and so for some, you know, with someone like that, it might be that in our sessions, I feel like,
[51:54] Tell me about your dad.
[51:56] Tell me about him.
[51:57] I want to know more about him.
[51:59] So we start to bring that person into the room and their memory is alive.
[52:02] But for other people, if I was to do that, that would be too hard, too painful.
[52:07] So we would start somewhere else.
[52:09] Um, but with friends, with loved ones that are suffering, like for me, it feels like we've got to ask them.
[52:17] Either what do you need or I'm just going to like, I think I've said this in terms of a previous episode is like, how do you just let them know that you're there?
[52:27] I'm here.
[52:29] I will be here.
[52:30] You might offer practical support.
[52:33] So for anyone that's experienced the loss of a loved one or a diagnosis, you will be flooded with cooked meals in the early days in particular.
[52:46] Specifically lasagna.
[52:48] Often lasagna.
[52:50] Inundated.
[52:50] And I think it's like it's an outpouring of like of love, really, to try and care for these people that are so deep in suffering.
[52:59] And yes, I think that can be extremely helpful.
[53:01] But you- Especially if your friend's Ben Shuri, that would be great.
[53:05] Yeah.
[53:07] But you as an individual trying to support someone who's grieving, maybe you like maybe food is not your thing.
[53:12] Maybe you can offer something else.
[53:13] Like maybe you offer to take the kids.
[53:16] Maybe you drive them places.
[53:19] Maybe you take care of some of the administrative tasks that happen in the space of death.
[53:24] So we need to kind of think more broadly around how do we show up and really care for the people that are really suffering.
[53:31] Just sorry to jump in there, but an example springs to mind from this podcast from maybe even season one or season two, but we had Jamila Rizvi talk about when she was diagnosed with a brain tumour and she just talked about Claire Bowditch, her friend, who also was a guest on the podcast, just saying how incredible she just turned up at her house.
[53:51] Anyway, we'll do a link to that episode because it was a really, I remember thinking, gosh, what an incredible friend to have because she showed up in the way that really worked for Jamila.
[54:02] And I think for a lot of people in grief, again, whether it's the loss of someone or grieving something else, a diagnosis, um, separation, any other kind of loss that there is an opening to receiving so much love also, and to really take in.
[54:27] how loved I am by these people in my lives.
[54:30] So it can feel like from personal experience, um, during some like difficult times for me and for my family.
[54:41] We have been inundated with meals and we've been inundated with flowers and inundated with gestures from people that just blow your mind.
[54:51] And I think that this almost highlights, and I mentioned this in the joy episode, the moral beauty that exists here that can also in the time of grief feel so incredibly powerful to know that I'm not walking alone here.
[55:08] Um, and so as a friend, like, yeah, how do you show up in those moments?
[55:15] But also when things have quietened down, like when, maybe when the funeral has happened, when people begin to return to their lives, that's also a really crucial moment for the people that are grieving because now they are here with this life that is totally changed and other people have moved on with their lives.
[55:38] Yeah, it also brings to mind, I've heard people talk about as the time gets further away from when the person passed away or when the event happened, the thing that they're grieving happened.
[55:53] I've heard people describe like being in groups with people at work or wherever and they feel like everyone is tiptoeing around certain topics.
[56:02] And they feel like they're not getting everyone's true selves because people are...
[56:08] And I can completely relate to that.
[56:10] Like, of course, like if there's someone who's just lost someone, you don't want to make an insensitive joke or you don't want to say the wrong thing.
[56:18] Yeah.
[56:19] And I imagine that's like that would be really hard for the person who's grieving because, of course, they don't want to be offended.
[56:24] But at the same time, they don't want to be left out of the fun that is happening without them.
[56:30] It's, you know, having worked with a lot of people who are, you know, grieving.
[56:36] This is a really common experience.
[56:38] A feeling so, it feels so disorienting and people are acting differently and you can feel really angry and you can also feel really lonely.
[56:48] You can sometimes feel like you're sitting there in this world that has continued on, but my life has completely changed forever and will never be the same again.
[56:57] And so it's like you're walking in this world where you're a totally different person now, but everyone else is still the same.
[57:05] Yeah.
[57:06] And you feel like your starting point is so far behind.
[57:09] Yeah.
[57:09] Everyone else is just to get whatever it is you're doing.
[57:12] If you're working in a team, you just feel like.
[57:15] Even to get to the point where I'm sitting at this table is so difficult and so everything feels so affected.
[57:20] Yes, yeah.
[57:21] I mean, to be honest, like even in this episode, I feel like, you know, sometimes I'll try and, you know, in these episodes usually we try and, not just with you, Em, but with every guest, try and find some light and shade and try and, you know, think.
[57:37] you know, have, try and kind of relieve a heavy moment with a laugh or with something.
[57:42] But I feel very, very conscious of the fact that the people who are listening to this may be grieving and I don't want to be insensitive and I don't want to make light of anything.
[57:53] And so I feel like it is a sensitive topic.
[57:56] So you're tiptoeing a bit.
[57:57] Yeah, that's a really good catch.
[57:59] And I think this is the thing in terms of like having authentic connections with other people is even saying that, like, I've got to be honest, I just don't know how to show up for you right now.
[58:08] I like being honest and they'll probably say something like, I don't know either.
[58:13] But being able to have this moment here of authentic connection is so important.
[58:18] Because the person that's sitting there screaming, like, I want to be seen, but I don't want to be seen at the same time.
[58:24] It's like acknowledging the elephant tiptoeing in the room.
[58:28] Yeah.
[58:28] Yeah.
[58:29] This is going a little bit sidebar, but I don't know if you've watched Shrinking.
[58:34] Yeah, watch the first episode.
[58:36] There's a daughter that's grieving the loss of her mum and she's out with her friends and she's like, oh, I'm the girl with the dead mum story.
[58:44] And then she actually makes a joke out of it and then people are relieved that the elephant is being named in some ways.
[58:52] But I think this speaks to the fact that we yearn to have authentic connection.
[58:57] And when people aren't saying the most obvious thing, that feels, it feels really harmful.
[59:03] It feels really tricky.
[59:04] And so, yes, there's some ownership on
[59:08] the people around to step in and like put your arm around that person and say like, how, like, how are you today?
[59:14] What do you need from me today?
[59:16] I see you.
[59:17] I saw you over there gazing off into the distance.
[59:21] What's happening for you now?
[59:22] So this onus on us supporting people who are grieving to really tune in and to ask, to ask what you need.
[59:31] Death is such a common experience.
[59:34] Yeah.
[59:36] But it feels so, oh, it's the right word, but it feels so like don't mention it.
[59:44] Yes.
[59:44] Don't mention it.
[59:45] Yeah.
[59:45] Yeah.
[59:45] Yeah.
[59:47] Yeah, it's really similar to birth, like in that it's happening everywhere.
[59:53] But I think when you have one of the things that struck me with having a child is like, how is this happening every, like this is the biggest thing ever.
[1:00:01] It feels like this is the biggest thing in the world right now, but it's happening.
[1:00:05] There's like 10 more of them happening down the corridor.
[1:00:08] But we're just so much better at talking about that, I think.
[1:00:11] I'm so much more used to it.
[1:00:12] Yeah.
[1:00:12] Yeah.
[1:00:13] I think one of the things that sits with me too around the being so sensitive to talking about it is it also represents our discomfort with other people's pain.
[1:00:24] So, for example,
[1:00:27] Obviously, as a psychologist, I hope, I think I have more comfort with pain because I see it every day.
[1:00:33] And so I'm fine to sit with other people who are crying.
[1:00:38] But normally when we see other people crying, first of all, we might have, I don't want to make her cry.
[1:00:44] I don't want to make her upset.
[1:00:46] But she is upset.
[1:00:49] So what is wrong with allowing the tears to be there?
[1:00:51] What is wrong with asking the question like, how are you going?
[1:00:56] It represents our aversion to other people's discomfort.
[1:00:59] And so our task as supporters is to be able to let them have the tears, to not try and cheer them up or to distract them or to make them laugh.
[1:01:12] Our task is to allow the space for them to have this so that they can then also move through that as well.
[1:01:20] Oh, that's such a good thing to say.
[1:01:23] Like they are upset and this is probably just, and this is not for me to put this on anyone else because this is just probably my experience, but the fear of like, oh, I don't want to be the one who tips them over the edge.
[1:01:37] But that's like...
[1:01:38] already over the edge.
[1:01:39] It's like, I'm not that powerful.
[1:01:42] It's putting a lot of my, it's kind of like that main character syndrome of like, God, I have, as if I have the power to make them happy or sad.
[1:01:50] Yeah.
[1:01:50] Probably have to mention, I mean, you could argue the most powerful moment in the history of this podcast is when we asked Jenna Chick.
[1:01:58] when we were doing the episode with her outdoors in Tasmania, what it's like to lose a child.
[1:02:03] And she spoke so eloquently and so powerfully about her experience of being, it being a gift.
[1:02:12] And, but she said, I can only say that, I can only say that because I've grieved.
[1:02:15] She said, I've grieved so hard and I have, um, done so much work.
[1:02:20] I've danced, I've cried, all this kind of stuff.
[1:02:21] And she, she talked about.
[1:02:23] the physical act of grieving for her, the amount of things she did physically to let her body and mind grieve.
[1:02:30] And, um, we will definitely put a link to that in this episode because it was an amazing, I remember thinking like when the time comes for me and I'm grieving in the loss of a loved one, I will absolutely be calling Gina and saying, I want you to play book.
[1:02:46] Yeah, and it was such an incredibly powerful episode and what she shared is such critical information.
[1:02:52] And what sits with that, like one of the main messages in there is our ability to be able to touch the grief, to go to the grief and give it space and room to be there.
[1:03:04] Yeah.
[1:03:05] which is an enormously difficult task.
[1:03:09] And so I want to mention to kind of bring in some like theoretical background to maybe the process of change and working with this.
[1:03:18] So maybe in contrast to Kubler-Ross's model of the stages of grief,
[1:03:26] There are many other actual models of grief, but one that I think resonates with me in particular is one that was developed by Strobe and Schutt, Hank Schutt, I think, in 1999.
[1:03:38] It's called the Dual Process Model of Grief.
[1:03:41] And it suggests that we have two processes that are occurring in the space of grief.
[1:03:48] There's what's called loss-oriented stresses or loss-oriented process.
[1:03:55] And then there's the restoration-oriented process.
[1:03:58] And so the loss-oriented process is...
[1:04:02] is around the loss, obviously.
[1:04:06] It's around the experience of the grief, the intense sorrow, the longing, the yearning, the depths of despair.
[1:04:14] That's what's called loss-oriented process.
[1:04:18] There's another process that's occurring also, which is around what's called restoration-oriented process.
[1:04:25] And what that means is that in the space of grief, we are dipping in and out, oscillating between the loss and the restoration of life.
[1:04:34] Now the restoration of life looks like, how do I make sense of my life now that this person is not here?
[1:04:42] It can look like really practical things like,
[1:04:46] I don't know how to do internet banking.
[1:04:47] They were taking the kids to school.
[1:04:49] They were doing this.
[1:04:51] So all the minute changes that you have to make to restore life again.
[1:04:57] And both those processes, the loss-oriented process and the restoration-oriented process are inherently stressful.
[1:05:04] Both of them are really stressful experiences.
[1:05:08] And we will oscillate between the two.
[1:05:10] So what struck me about Lauren's episode was that she talked about the fact that she would kind of be in grief at nighttime when it was quiet.
[1:05:19] Yeah.
[1:05:20] And when she had, in some ways, gone through all the practicalities of keeping life alive, so keeping her kids alive, having to go through the processes of continuing to live, that process there during the day was what we'd call restoration-oriented process.
[1:05:38] The loss oriented process was occurring at nighttime where she was in the grief.
[1:05:43] So in essence, what we're learning to do is how to, um, how to move between the two and to have both, to have both.
[1:05:54] But it does really exemplify and highlight that grieving is inherently stressful.
[1:06:02] And that's also why people will often describe being absolutely exhausted.
[1:06:08] Years into grief, for example, because the body and the mind are constantly attending to the loss and to the change.
[1:06:17] And so our great task in grief and in the grieving process is to learn how to kind of dip in and out in a healthy way.
[1:06:25] So.
[1:06:28] You know, when, when you brought up Gina and like the work that she was doing there to so kind of intensely feel the emotions.
[1:06:36] I don't want to speak for Gina, but my suspicion would be that you couldn't do that 24 hours a day.
[1:06:42] You need breaks.
[1:06:43] You can't be constantly in contact with pain.
[1:06:45] It's simply too overwhelming.
[1:06:47] So it's almost like we touch the pain and then we come out again.
[1:06:51] You know, a lot of the work that we do as therapists is around like turning towards the pain and facing it.
[1:06:56] And this is a really critical part of grieving is how we turn towards it, how we hold it gently, how we offer ourselves compassion.
[1:07:05] But we cannot do this all the time.
[1:07:08] We have to have breaks from that.
[1:07:10] And that's where there's kind of what I would say is like healthy distraction.
[1:07:14] So, you know, where we can go and maybe it is like particularly in the early days, if someone comes to me as a new client and they've just lost someone and it's very recent...
[1:07:25] My sense is like you do whatever you need to do.
[1:07:27] There is no right or wrong here.
[1:07:29] If you need to listen to podcasts, distract with this, with the exception of criminal behaviour, obviously an addiction, you do what you need to do.
[1:07:37] There will come a time when we will move towards the pain and we will sit with the pain and we will learn how to be accepting of its presence.
[1:07:46] But you do what you need to do.
[1:07:48] And then as time moves on, then we start to bring in both.
[1:07:52] So there'll be times when I will feel the pain and I will let it be here and it can sit alongside me.
[1:07:57] And then there are also times when I start to restore life.
[1:08:01] And now I start to find meaning in this life that exists now.
[1:08:06] And that might mean things like being open to joy, being open to laughter, being open to gratitude.
[1:08:14] And that's actually what kind of sung out to me in Lauren's episode is that there was this holding here of both the loss and the joy at the same time.
[1:08:25] This framing might not be right.
[1:08:27] I have a hunch it's probably wrong.
[1:08:28] But is it allowing yourself to do both but also to kind of do them both well?
[1:08:36] That's the framing bit I thought might be wrong.
[1:08:39] Yes.
[1:08:42] Yeah, I don't know what I'm trying to ask there, but there's like a, it feels like the amount that you could have
[1:08:50] an element of success in both would dictate how well you are to have a fulfilled life moving forward.
[1:09:01] Yeah, I get that question.
[1:09:03] That's really interesting.
[1:09:05] I think the dangers that comes with the idea of like kind of the idea of like I'm going to nail this grief.
[1:09:10] Yeah, that's the framing that felt wrong about it but.
[1:09:13] Yeah, but no, I think that that's a really interesting observation in there.
[1:09:16] And that is that like, yep, I'm going to nail this grief and it is not going to touch me.
[1:09:20] Or like, I'm going to be totally fine about this in a year's time.
[1:09:23] We're going to be sailing.
[1:09:24] No problems.
[1:09:25] That's not how it works.
[1:09:27] As I said at the beginning, it's always with us.
[1:09:29] It's how we learn to live, almost like to live with it.
[1:09:32] to live alongside it, and to also hold a great deal of patience and compassion for the times when, yeah, maybe it was really too difficult to leave the house.
[1:09:44] Like this was not my moment, but that's not you not doing it well, so to speak.
[1:09:49] This was just a really intense moment.
[1:09:51] And the best thing for me in that moment was to stay home.
[1:09:54] So I want to be kind of wary of the judgments that we will make about ourselves, about whether we're doing this well enough or good enough, good enough grief.
[1:10:04] But just kind of really making space for all of this.
[1:10:08] Um, but of course, if you find yourself so stuck in this, that we really need social support more than anything.
[1:10:18] Um, it's one of the most kind of critical ingredients to working with something like prolonged grief is having therapy, having social supports, being connected is absolutely crucial in there.
[1:10:30] Yeah.
[1:10:32] I'm interested to know about the experience of grief through the lens of, well, if someone was to take their life, the people who act close and love them, it's such a confronting thing to go through.
[1:10:49] Interested to know about what grief does in that situation.
[1:10:54] That's a good question and I think unfortunately I don't have a really specific answer because again, it's so unique and it depends so much on the circumstances, the attachment to that person and your pre-existing relationship, the pre-existing losses you've had.
[1:11:12] But I will say that it's not uncommon to feel abandoned.
[1:11:19] it's not uncommon to feel a lot of anger.
[1:11:23] It's not uncommon to feel anger towards systems, like medical systems, doctors, the mental health professionals that were involved perhaps in the lives of the person that has died by suicide.
[1:11:37] So that's really not uncommon.
[1:11:40] But, and I also will mention that sometimes there can be a sense of,
[1:11:46] aloneness with the grief of someone who's died by suicide, that in some ways we can't talk about this in the way that we might with other experiences of grief.
[1:11:57] So I do want to mention that it can feel...
[1:12:03] It can feel different from other forms.
[1:12:05] Absolutely.
[1:12:06] And I think with respect to that, it can be really helpful to be in contact with support groups, for example, um, of loved ones who've also died by suicide as well.
[1:12:17] Um, that you get a sense of feeling not so alone in this and to, to kind of be able to process some of those feelings that can feel quite unique.
[1:12:26] Um, having said that though, we know that suicide is not unique.
[1:12:30] Um, so, so that's kind of important to note.
[1:12:34] Um, but certainly having space to be able to language and verbalize all the thoughts and feelings you have that can be very complicated and complex.
[1:12:43] Um, when someone has, has taken their own lives.
[1:12:46] Yeah.
[1:12:47] Well said.
[1:12:48] I just wanted to end on the message of hopefulness because this exists in here so subtly, but it really needs to be cultivated.
[1:12:59] And that is like the process of remembering and cherishing and building a life that's worth living.
[1:13:05] And so when we're in grief, we want to have a look at the tools that can help us be okay with that feeling there.
[1:13:13] So, you know, for me, that would be working with, like working with the body, much akin to probably what Gina was doing.
[1:13:19] So, you know, being able to sit with the pain in the body and to hold that gently, I would often use like...
[1:13:26] some compassion work, so placing the hand on the heart, being able to slow down and honour the space that's here, really kind of giving it room to be here, that would be kind of one way of working.
[1:13:36] It's much more in depth than that, like in actual practice.
[1:13:40] But there's some beautiful books on self-compassion and grief that you might want to have a look at.
[1:13:45] Maybe without naming them all now, but if you let us know what they are, we can put them in the show notes.
[1:13:50] Absolutely.
[1:13:50] In those books, yeah.
[1:13:51] I think also, you know, really therapeutically in some ways, we work with the pain of grief in the way that we work with pain because it's a universal experience.
[1:14:00] So I would in some ways work with this pain in a similar way to I might work with a different kind of pain.
[1:14:07] And the principles of self-compassion apply regardless.
[1:14:11] Yeah.
[1:14:12] So there's the stuff that we would do to help us be open and accepting.
[1:14:15] So mindfulness practices, self-compassion practices, journaling is really great.
[1:14:23] Drawing, art, sculpting, anything that is allowing us to almost like objectify this grief here, to bring it out from us so that we can see it.
[1:14:37] For people that...
[1:14:39] Like, for example, if you have lost, maybe you've lost your mum and maybe you had a ritual of talking to them every day.
[1:14:49] And so sometimes it might be something like you will voice memo every day.
[1:14:54] And you would tell your mum all the things that you would have said to her, as if she was here.
[1:15:00] Or you would write to her every day.
[1:15:02] And I have a lot of clients that will write letters to their loved, their loved one, you know, whether that was, you know, the loss of like a perinatal loss, for example, is the child that you never got to meet.
[1:15:13] It could be the loss of a grandparent.
[1:15:15] It could be a loss of a pet.
[1:15:17] It could be also even writing to the younger part of you.
[1:15:21] The younger part of you that was yearning for a particular life.
[1:15:25] The younger you that is grieving the loss of this part that didn't happen.
[1:15:29] So letter writing, I think, can be really powerful and really important work.
[1:15:33] But as with all this work, it requires confronting what's here.
[1:15:38] And that can be the barrier, I think, to us doing that.
[1:15:41] Mm-hmm.
[1:15:43] I also want to mention the importance of rituals and honoring the legacy of this person that we have lost or this attachment.
[1:15:55] So, you know, I would often talk with clients around like, how do you, like, is there a place that you go to?
[1:16:00] And I know Lauren mentioned that they had a tradition around going to Jock's grave site, for example, and that that might on the surface seem really macabre, but it's this kind of ritual of connection and remembrance.
[1:16:13] of honouring, of speaking, of remaining attached to this relationship.
[1:16:18] So I would kind of talk with people, is there a special place that you had?
[1:16:22] Is there a place that you feel like a sense of spiritual connection even?
[1:16:28] That's a whole other area, which I haven't got to, which we probably won't have time to, but spirituality is also something that I'd be really looking, exploring with a client about.
[1:16:38] And it doesn't have to be that there's a religion that you're ascribing to, but your sense of connection to their essence or to the soul or to their presence.
[1:16:50] So people might look or notice that they're looking for signs.
[1:16:53] So rainbows tend to be quite quintessential kind of signs that I'm not alone here, that you're here with me still.
[1:17:00] Things like butterflies, certain numbers, angel numbers I know is a thing.
[1:17:05] What's angel numbers?
[1:17:09] I actually don't know if I know the technical term for this.
[1:17:11] It's not in the DSM.
[1:17:13] No, it's not.
[1:17:14] Definitely not.
[1:17:17] They're like special numbers that represent something to you.
[1:17:19] So like usually they're often numbers.
[1:17:22] I'm really not.
[1:17:23] I don't have much expertise in this at all.
[1:17:27] Like 333 or 1111 or, you know, numbers that have some relevance and you see them everywhere you go.
[1:17:34] So they're kind of like signs that this person is still here.
[1:17:37] in some ways.
[1:17:39] So what we're doing is, and we don't even need to question it, there might be, and I think Lauren mentioned this also, is that you may not have been a religious person, but you have a sense of spiritual connection to the loss of the love person.
[1:17:50] And that holds us with such tenderness.
[1:17:54] And I think we can choose to look for that.
[1:17:57] We don't have to have, uh, we don't have to hold really strong religious beliefs around what happens after death.
[1:18:06] Um, so there's, there's that area.
[1:18:09] And also other religions and spiritual practices, they have different perspectives on so many things that you've never maybe heard before.
[1:18:18] Yes.
[1:18:19] Buddhism has some really simple kind of clear ideas about death, which kind of uncomplicates it in a really...
[1:18:31] I would say for me, like kind of a heartwarming way, which sort of makes sense.
[1:18:39] But if you've never been exposed to it, you don't have to be, you don't have to become a Buddhist to find out about it, but it's so interesting to learn about it.
[1:18:46] It is, and I think a lot of people can find themselves turning to religion very understandably.
[1:18:53] And that that can provide a lot of comfort and a lot of support, absolutely.
[1:18:58] But again, this is just, it is just such an individual experience.
[1:19:02] And sometimes people will do it privately.
[1:19:04] Sometimes people will do it in communities.
[1:19:06] It's kind of an interesting thing to note there.
[1:19:08] The other thing I really want to mention is around you as yourself, but also maybe as a family or as a community bringing in the lost person.
[1:19:18] So, you know, at Christmastime, is there a tradition that you continue to uphold that that person did?
[1:19:24] Do you make like a tribute to that person and bring that in frequently?
[1:19:29] So this person starts to come alive and,
[1:19:32] And the cherished memories start to become more prevalent than the lost does.
[1:19:38] So we speak about the lost one.
[1:19:40] We speak about the memories.
[1:19:41] We might bring photos in.
[1:19:44] We start to reconnect with the relationship that is still here, even though the person has passed away.
[1:19:51] This relationship will continue to exist and how we bring this in and really honor them.
[1:19:57] It feels like there'd be, in doing that, there would be, often people would bring a lot of judgment to you from the outside of like, oh, they're not getting over it.
[1:20:09] They're not.
[1:20:10] This is unhealthy.
[1:20:11] Yes.
[1:20:12] This is strange behavior that they're doing.
[1:20:14] To bring it back to what you said earlier about that loss, that person is always in your brain anyway.
[1:20:21] Like they're not going away.
[1:20:23] Yeah.
[1:20:24] Yeah.
[1:20:25] So.
[1:20:25] The love is not going away.
[1:20:26] Yeah, that's there forever.
[1:20:28] Yeah.
[1:20:28] So to deny that is the stranger thing to do.
[1:20:32] Yes.
[1:20:32] And I think to really be respectful of how each individual carries that grief and how they want to express it.
[1:20:41] You know, grief is expressed so differently amongst different people.
[1:20:45] And we just can't assume what someone's experience is like.
[1:20:48] Yeah.
[1:20:49] Yeah.
[1:20:50] I think that kind of brings me maybe to, I mean, I could go on about this for a very, very long time, but this brings me to kind of the last thing I really want to mention, which feels really important.
[1:20:59] And that is the experience of joy.
[1:21:01] And I say this because often what happens in grief and in the grieving process is that we will feel guilty for noticing moments of joy, laughter, gratitude, joy.
[1:21:18] And that can really kind of bring us back in.
[1:21:21] I should not be feeling this way.
[1:21:23] It's almost like it can feel like a betrayal of the person.
[1:21:27] If I'm out there enjoying myself, having a good time.
[1:21:32] And I guess what I would really invite you to contemplate is the fact that this person that you've lost or the life that you've lost
[1:21:49] brings with it an invitation to live for that person, to live for that life that you've wanted.
[1:22:02] And I'm not sure if I'm making great sense here.
[1:22:04] No, you are.
[1:22:05] Yep.
[1:22:06] You absolutely are, yeah.
[1:22:08] That our great task is in fact to live a happy and joyful life because they didn't get the chance to.
[1:22:17] The person that has passed away would not want you to be sitting at home and to not go out and enjoy life.
[1:22:24] That person would want you to be living because they didn't get the opportunity to.
[1:22:30] We want to really expose ourselves to the beauty of life because the death has exposed its finiteness.
[1:22:40] So I just want to really kind of name the criticalness of allowing ourselves the space to feel the other emotions alongside of the grief, alongside of the pain, because it's that that then creates this meaningful life, even though I've suffered this great loss.
[1:23:04] Hear, hear.
[1:23:04] I don't know if there's much more we can say off the back of that.
[1:23:07] Other than that, I really hope that anyone out there who is experiencing grief right now or anyone who knows someone who's experiencing grief and wants to be able to support them has taken a lot from that because that was amazing.
[1:23:20] Thank you.
[1:23:21] My pleasure.
[1:23:21] There's a lot more to it, but I hope that if this has felt like it resonates, that there's more that you can look into.
[1:23:30] There's a really important part of our lives.
[1:23:34] Yeah.
[1:23:36] Well, that was amazing.
[1:23:38] And you did, you mentioned a few times during the episode about people being stuck and to get unstuck.
[1:23:45] Very good.
[1:23:46] Worth mentioning that your book is out very soon.
[1:23:49] You can pre-order it now.
[1:23:51] Or if you're listening to it after the 20th of May, it's out now.
[1:23:54] Or if you're listening to it in six years, you can probably get it in a different cover now.
[1:24:03] I'm Stuck by Dr. Emily Musgrove.
[1:24:09] We'll link to it in the show notes, but it is a great book.
[1:24:13] Maybe the best book.
[1:24:14] People are saying it's the best book ever written.
[1:24:17] I've heard people say that.
[1:24:19] Yeah, it is.
[1:24:20] I've read it.
[1:24:21] It's the highest praise you can possibly get.
[1:24:25] It's pretty high praise.
[1:24:26] I know you're a first-time author, but authors would love to have that as a review.
[1:24:32] Best book ever written.
[1:24:33] So if that is true, congratulations.
[1:24:36] Thank you very much.
[1:24:40] If you enjoyed this episode, you'll love the vulnerability email.
[1:24:43] It's a weekly newsletter that helps you remain imperfect.
[1:24:45] Each week, we'll send you one vulnerable question inspired by the current episode to help you unpack your own imperfect life.
[1:24:51] Subscribe at www.theimperfects.com.au.

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