Speaker 1: It sounds pretty woo woo, but compassion actually is an
Speaker 1: expandable resource. Practicing inclusion and validation means that people feel
Speaker 1: heard and heard, people hear people, which means the whole
Speaker 1: culture starts to change from one of that vindictive how
Speaker 1: dare you feel that way? To at worst we get
Speaker 1: a world built on neutral, impartial kindness. This is it's
Speaker 1: okay that you're not okay and I'm your host, Megan
Speaker 1: Divine this week on the show of Valentine's Day Special,
Speaker 1: but not in the way you might be thinking. The
Speaker 1: world is a pretty rough place right now, globally and interpersonally.
Speaker 1: So this week we're going to talk about love, the
Speaker 1: kind with a capital L suddenly and everybody. It's coming
Speaker 1: up right after this first break before we get started.
Speaker 1: Two quick notes. One, this episode is an encore performance.
Speaker 1: I am on break working on a giant new project,
Speaker 1: so we're releasing a mix of our favorite episodes from
Speaker 1: the first three seasons of the show. This episode is
Speaker 1: from season one, in which I answered listener questions, sometimes
Speaker 1: on my own, sometimes for the guest. So if you
Speaker 1: want more of these Q and A style episodes, you
Speaker 1: can find the entire collection from season one wherever you
Speaker 1: get your podcasts. Second note, while we cover a lot
Speaker 1: of emotional relational territory in our time here together, this
Speaker 1: show is not a substitute for skilled support for the
Speaker 1: license mental health provider, or for professional supervision related to
Speaker 1: your work. I really want you to take what you
Speaker 1: learn here, take your thoughts and your reflections out into
Speaker 1: your own world, and talk about it all. Hy friends,
Speaker 1: it is time for February's made a holiday. Whether you
Speaker 1: celebrate Valentine's Day or not, all that gushy pink love
Speaker 1: imagery is pretty inescapable now disclosure for me bit of
Speaker 1: a weirdo, but February fourteenth is a children's holiday. My
Speaker 1: mom loved any excuse to give us little presents, and
Speaker 1: Valentine's Day was no exception. I associate it with childhood
Speaker 1: bulk packs of cartoon Valentine's Day cards, cupcakes for class,
Speaker 1: that sort of thing I can totally see, like those
Speaker 1: mid eighties cartoon Valentine's School packs. Anyway, dating myself as
Speaker 1: I always do as with most commercial holidays, I honestly
Speaker 1: wouldn't notice Valentine's Day as a grown up if it
Speaker 1: weren't for social media and advertising and my Netflix queue.
Speaker 1: But here we are. It's February fourteenth. I do know
Speaker 1: what day it is. It's a day assigned to love.
Speaker 1: And since we've already got this date assigned as something special,
Speaker 1: I would personally like to claim February fourteenth, not for romance,
Speaker 1: but for all love. Just capitalize on that love element.
Speaker 1: A day to claim love wherever and whenever it can
Speaker 1: be found. I mean, if we've got a day dedicated
Speaker 1: to love already, let's make it a real sacred occasion,
Speaker 1: one that helps create the love filled world we all want.
Speaker 1: That is a tall order. So how are we going
Speaker 1: to do that? I have given it some thought, and
Speaker 1: I have a plan. Now. Grief is part of love,
Speaker 1: so of course we are going to talk about grief today.
Speaker 1: No surprises there. I can make anything about grief everybody.
Speaker 1: We're also going to talk a little bit about navigating
Speaker 1: clinical concerns as they relate to love. And we're going
Speaker 1: to throw in a little bit of social justice here too,
Speaker 1: because what is justice but love in action. That we
Speaker 1: have got an episode suitable for February fourteenth, and we
Speaker 1: won't even need conversation hearts to do it. Although I
Speaker 1: really like conversation. Hearts, especially the purple ones, do not
Speaker 1: at me. The purple ones are delicious, okay, listener question
Speaker 1: number one everybody to get us into this big, messy
Speaker 1: juggernaut of love. So this listener wrote, I work with
Speaker 1: a lot of clients in the middle of divorces and
Speaker 1: other separations. I also have a few clients whose partners died,
Speaker 1: so I get to hear both kinds of loss, death
Speaker 1: and divorce. Most of my divorcing clients have compared their
Speaker 1: losses to death at least once, while the widowed people
Speaker 1: have all complained that way too many people compare death
Speaker 1: to divorce, and I feel like I have this weird
Speaker 1: split vision going on. Death isn't the same as divorce.
Speaker 1: But is it okay that the people facing divorce think
Speaker 1: they're the same. They like talk about them as though
Speaker 1: they're the same. Should I be saying something about this
Speaker 1: to any of my clients or should I just let
Speaker 1: it be? Okay? I love this question. This is an
Speaker 1: exceptionally sticky and multi layered, complicated question, and I love
Speaker 1: questions like that. So comparing losses happens all the time
Speaker 1: with all kinds of loss. If your partner died. It's
Speaker 1: pretty much guaranteed that somebody will say, hey, I got divorced,
Speaker 1: I know exactly how you feel. If you're getting divorced,
Speaker 1: it is pretty much guaranteed that someone else will have
Speaker 1: their own divorce story, which, although it is absolutely nothing
Speaker 1: like your own experience, will cause them to say I
Speaker 1: know just how you feel. Comparing and conflating losses is
Speaker 1: so com If you're a therapist or a doc or
Speaker 1: somebody else in a helper role, you've probably fielded a
Speaker 1: complaint like this. People feeling like their loss gets downgraded
Speaker 1: in some kind of weird emotional competitive one upmanship. Unsolicited
Speaker 1: comparisons happen all the time, and they turn ugly really
Speaker 1: really fast. So for this listener, they've got clients who
Speaker 1: are divorcing comparing their divorces to death, and people who
Speaker 1: are living through the death of their partner feeling pissed
Speaker 1: off that people keep comparing their death to divorce. It's
Speaker 1: probably not the same people, though, right. I mean, this
Speaker 1: listener didn't clarify, but I feel like comparing divorce and
Speaker 1: death is so common. I'm assuming this clinician's clients don't
Speaker 1: all know each other and they're all just like complaining
Speaker 1: about each other in their individual sessions. That would be
Speaker 1: weird and probably have some ethical concerns to it. But
Speaker 1: before we talk about whether this listener should bring this
Speaker 1: thing up with their clients, we should really talk about
Speaker 1: comparing losses in general and why that's a bad idea.
Speaker 1: Might not be immediately clear why this death divorce thing
Speaker 1: is a problem. I'm going to give you another example
Speaker 1: using losses that get compared badly all the time, animals
Speaker 1: versus people. So let's say that you learn that a
Speaker 1: colleague's baby died at thirty nine weeks with no known cause,
Speaker 1: and you want to comfort them. You want to let
Speaker 1: them know it's okay to feel sad, help them feel
Speaker 1: less alone, all the good supportive person things. So you say,
Speaker 1: I know exactly how you feel. My dog died a
Speaker 1: few years ago and it was awful. Okay. So for
Speaker 1: the person whose baby just died, they don't hear that
Speaker 1: comment as supportive. They hear that your dog is just
Speaker 1: as important as their child. I will tell you that
Speaker 1: dog baby comparisons are never going to turn out okay. Ever,
Speaker 1: But if we point that out to the person whose
Speaker 1: dog died, like we say something like, hey, that's not
Speaker 1: a comparison that really helps hear kind of apples and oranges.
Speaker 1: The person who's grieving the loss of their dog gets defensive, like,
Speaker 1: wait a minute, you're saying that a loss of my
Speaker 1: dog isn't as important as their baby, And my dog
Speaker 1: was my family. How dare you say my loss wasn't important?
Speaker 1: Do you see how terrible this gets in like less
Speaker 1: than a minute. Whenever I describe this, I see that
Speaker 1: old Bugs Bunny cartoon where like somebody pulls out a gun,
Speaker 1: and the other one pulls out a bigger gun, and
Speaker 1: then a bigger gun and a big like it just
Speaker 1: gets bad fast. The death of a pet is an undervalued,
Speaker 1: frequently dismissed, even ridiculed loss. So if we even suggest
Speaker 1: that maybe it's not so cool to compare the loss
Speaker 1: of a dog with a loss of a child, we
Speaker 1: are stepping into battle. And what is that battle? Over compassion?
Speaker 1: We undervalue grief of all kinds in this culture, which
Speaker 1: means most people feel like they have to defend their grief.
Speaker 1: And by grief here I mean all of it. Everyday stressors, divorces, breakups,
Speaker 1: death of humans, death of not humans, job loss, illness, injury,
Speaker 1: all of it. Because we undervalue grief and emotional pain
Speaker 1: of all kinds. Most people feel undersupported just on a
Speaker 1: regular basis. There's not enough compassion to go around. Compassion
Speaker 1: is a scarce resource. And what do we do with
Speaker 1: a scarce resource? We fight over it. We fight over oil,
Speaker 1: we fight over water, we fight over clean air, and
Speaker 1: we fight over compassion. Your divorce can't possibly be as
Speaker 1: bad as my death. The death of your dog isn't
Speaker 1: as bad as the death of my friend. Your diagnosis
Speaker 1: isn't as bad as my diagnosis. You think you're having
Speaker 1: a bad day, Mine is so much worse. We get
Speaker 1: this almost like, how dare you approach to other people's pain?
Speaker 1: You don't get to be sad about this thing, because
Speaker 1: if we start allocating support to you, there won't be
Speaker 1: enough support left for me, and I already feel alone
Speaker 1: in all this. If we have to start talking about
Speaker 1: your pain, then we have to stop talking about my pain,
Speaker 1: and I already feel like I'm getting by with scraps
Speaker 1: from the people I care about. I mean, that kind
Speaker 1: of sounds bleak, like maybe I'm overreacting here, But if
Speaker 1: you think about it, if you really think about it,
Speaker 1: we do actually treat compassion like pie, like a finite resource.
Speaker 1: You give away too much and you get nothing. The
Speaker 1: stakes are a little bit higher here than they are
Speaker 1: with your favorite coconut cream pie. But still, it's not
Speaker 1: just when somebody compares their loss to our loss that
Speaker 1: we freak out like this. It's a general way of life.
Speaker 1: A lot of the time we make fun of the
Speaker 1: way people react to the death of a musician or
Speaker 1: an actor. We get all huffy when people are stressed
Speaker 1: out over not fitting into their favorite genes. When there
Speaker 1: are people starving in the world, How dare they be
Speaker 1: upset about something so little? There are important issues and
Speaker 1: losses to focus on. We can't waste compassion on these
Speaker 1: things that don't count. We've got so little compassion and
Speaker 1: tolerance for other people's pain, it's no wonder we fight
Speaker 1: over who deserves it. Here's the thing, compassion is an
Speaker 1: abundant resource. We just don't treat it that way. There's
Speaker 1: actually plenty of love and compassion to go around if
Speaker 1: we just stop hoarding it. There's more than enough love
Speaker 1: and acceptance and compassion for everybody. If we treat compassion
Speaker 1: like the abundant resource. It already is. It's not pie.
Speaker 1: We won't run out. And that means getting back to
Speaker 1: our theme of the day here, that we have to
Speaker 1: start being generous with love. If you want a world
Speaker 1: where there is enough love and compassion for your losses
Speaker 1: for your life, you have to start creating that world
Speaker 1: by extending love and compassion for all losses, even the
Speaker 1: ones you don't understand, even the ones you don't think
Speaker 1: are important, even the ones you don't see as valid.
Speaker 1: If we're able to offer compassion to everyone without asking
Speaker 1: them to prove that their pain is good enough or valid,
Speaker 1: then we start to get the world that we all want,
Speaker 1: which is a world where there is enough compassion and
Speaker 1: love and understanding for everybody. If compassion is freely available,
Speaker 1: no one needs to fight over it. That is the
Speaker 1: end goal. That is my personal plan for world domination.
Speaker 1: No one needs to defend their right to exist and
Speaker 1: to feel because there is no shortage of love and compassion.
Speaker 1: My Goofy example, no one fights over toothpaste, do they.
Speaker 1: There is toothpaste everywhere, no one fights over it. I
Speaker 1: want that for compassion and love. Now I realized I
Speaker 1: didn't actually answer this listener's question. Yet I went on
Speaker 1: a rant instead, a compassion and resource guarding love based rant.
Speaker 1: So to briefly answer this clinician's question, I don't think
Speaker 1: you need to bring all of this up in session
Speaker 1: in order to point out the not so cool conflation
Speaker 1: of losses. However, it is something to keep in mind
Speaker 1: as a possible line of self inquiry for your clients.
Speaker 1: Do your clients facing divorce feel like comparing it to
Speaker 1: death makes their loss more legitimate somehow? Do your widowed
Speaker 1: clients feel like these comparisons take away from the already
Speaker 1: scarce resource of love and support they feel like they
Speaker 1: have around them. All good questions, not solutions, but good
Speaker 1: questions with the side benefit of some subtle education around
Speaker 1: the mechanisms underneath these comparisons we make without really thinking
Speaker 1: about them. That is kind of my job here, to
Speaker 1: make you look under the surface of things you don't
Speaker 1: even pay attention to and see what's really driving the
Speaker 1: emotional relational bus, so to speak. Love is a lot.
Speaker 1: It is not exactly the simplistic, soft focused, pink pastel
Speaker 1: thing the marketers use this time of year, but love
Speaker 1: is ferocious. Coming up next, everybody, I will tell you
Speaker 1: what to do when somebody tries to conflate their loss
Speaker 1: with yours. Since you are now all newly deputized to
Speaker 1: be less defensive and more inclusive in the service of
Speaker 1: a more abundantly compassionate world, We'll be right back after
Speaker 1: this break. Welcome back, friends. Hopefully you have taken a
Speaker 1: minute to adjust and settle down if you were personally
Speaker 1: feeling defensive with all of my talk about grief comparisons
Speaker 1: and treating compassion as an abundant resource. It's important to
Speaker 1: remember here that all loss is valid, all personal experience
Speaker 1: is valid, and no matter what the loss is, everybody
Speaker 1: gets to have their own loss be the worst loss
Speaker 1: in the world because for them it is. If we're
Speaker 1: doing this new thing that I've been talking about, where
Speaker 1: we seed compassion in the world, you can let other
Speaker 1: people's losses be the worst loss in the world for
Speaker 1: them because it is. Actually I have another dog related
Speaker 1: metaphor that I just thought up in my head, so
Speaker 1: I have the best dog in the world. My co
Speaker 1: producer Tanya here also has the best dog in the world.
Speaker 1: We are not going to fight about who's correct, because
Speaker 1: we are both correct. This is what I'm talking about
Speaker 1: with all loss being valid, everybody gets to have their
Speaker 1: own loss be the worst loss in the world because
Speaker 1: for them it is true. We can even extend this
Speaker 1: whole compassion thing to inclusion and social justice issues. You
Speaker 1: don't have to understand the experience of systemic racism if
Speaker 1: you aren't a person of color in order to extend
Speaker 1: love and compassion to others. If you don't quite get
Speaker 1: the whole rigamarole around the gender spectrum, you can extend
Speaker 1: love and compassion to the trans and gender fluid communities,
Speaker 1: supporting them through the challenges of being alive in different bodies.
Speaker 1: You see where I'm going with this, Everybody, If you
Speaker 1: hoard compassion, you get a world of scarcity where you
Speaker 1: are always on the lookout for wasted support, wasted in
Speaker 1: air quotes, You're always on the lookout for inappropriate uses
Speaker 1: of compassion just to ensure there's enough leftover for you.
Speaker 1: There will never be enough in that kind of world.
Speaker 1: You'll always end up insisting that somebody else should be
Speaker 1: left out. We have to compete like that when there
Speaker 1: can only be one winner, one winner of the Love
Speaker 1: and Support Prize. That is a small and ungenerous world
Speaker 1: to live in everybody. If you want want a beautiful
Speaker 1: world where compassion is everywhere and you get to have
Speaker 1: enough for your own needs, where your own compassion cup
Speaker 1: runneth over, you have to help build that world. You
Speaker 1: have to treat compassion like the abundant resource it is
Speaker 1: and share it widely, broadcast that stuff like frog eggs
Speaker 1: like more than enough to ensure the continuation of the species.
Speaker 1: You don't have to agree with somebody in order to
Speaker 1: believe in their right to love and care. It sounds
Speaker 1: pretty woo woo, but compassion actually is an expandable resource.
Speaker 1: Practicing inclusion and validation means that people feel heard and
Speaker 1: heard people hear people, which means the whole culture starts
Speaker 1: to change from one of that vindictive how dare you
Speaker 1: feel that way? To At worst, I mean worst case
Speaker 1: scenario if we start seeding this kind of compassion and love.
Speaker 1: Worst case scenario is we get a world built on neutral,
Speaker 1: impartial kindness. Best case scenario, being generous like this creates
Speaker 1: a world built and sustained by love. Happy Valentine's Day.
Speaker 1: I'm not saying you just need to smile and nod
Speaker 1: when somebody tells you that their loss is exactly the
Speaker 1: same as yours. That conflation of personal experience is never helpful,
Speaker 1: not across types of loss, and not even in the
Speaker 1: same kind of loss. This whole loss comparison conflation compassion
Speaker 1: thing is a frustration point a lot of you share,
Speaker 1: So if you need a comeback to a grief comparison
Speaker 1: of any kind, you can always go with something like,
Speaker 1: I appreciate the gesture, but comparing losses doesn't feel useful
Speaker 1: to me at this time, or whatever. Sound like you
Speaker 1: and not like me, but something clear and kind to
Speaker 1: change the subject or end the conversation. Being compassionate doesn't
Speaker 1: mean that you still have to participate in unhelpful comparisons
Speaker 1: or other rude behavior. My point here with this little
Speaker 1: tangent is that you don't need to conflate compassion with
Speaker 1: permission for somebody to be shitty. You can start treating
Speaker 1: compassion like an abundant resource and have stellar boundaries at
Speaker 1: the same time. Just because you understand where somebody is
Speaker 1: coming from does not mean you have to go there
Speaker 1: with them. Advocate for yourself where you need to self love.
Speaker 1: Self advocacy actually increases the amount of compassion in the
Speaker 1: world too, and clear boundaries are an act of love.
Speaker 1: That's a whole episode for another day. But don't conflate
Speaker 1: compassion with letting somebody just be a jerk. Those two
Speaker 1: things are not the same. Show yourself some compassion too.
Speaker 1: That's part of building that world that we want. So
Speaker 1: as we start winding down this particular episode on love,
Speaker 1: with all of its messiness and its combat zones and
Speaker 1: its skirmishes over resources, none of that stuff makes it
Speaker 1: onto the Hallmark cards. I want to bring in one
Speaker 1: more love related concept, suitable for Valentine's Day and every day,
Speaker 1: looking for love in all the right places, and by
Speaker 1: right places I mean all of them, all of the places.
Speaker 1: One of my teachers has this core practice of asking,
Speaker 1: in any difficulty, is their love available here? He doesn't
Speaker 1: ask it like an admonishment like look on the bright
Speaker 1: side or look for the like, not that stuff, but
Speaker 1: as an actual, true question, is their love available here
Speaker 1: in this moment? If we're talking about compassion as a
Speaker 1: force for good in the world, what we're really talking
Speaker 1: about is love. Is their love available here in our
Speaker 1: own losses, in these conflict zones between humans, in the
Speaker 1: impossible things we face every day, is their Love available here.
Speaker 1: I mean, I say I'm kind of anti Valentine's Day,
Speaker 1: but I'm actually very into love, so maybe that makes
Speaker 1: me a romantic. Honestly, I think love is the only
Speaker 1: thing big enough to face this world with all of
Speaker 1: its bullshit and stress and difficulty and beauty. As Carl
Speaker 1: Sagan said, for small creatures such as we, the vastness
Speaker 1: is bearable only through love. I mean, I make myself
Speaker 1: cry all the time. How can I not be a
Speaker 1: romantic sap about love? Truly? I am a romantic and
Speaker 1: I love quoting cool people, so I can keep bringing
Speaker 1: you quotes at questions on love all day long. Even
Speaker 1: though I just gave you a new question to help
Speaker 1: you lean into love wherever you find yourself that whole
Speaker 1: is love available here? Question? I haven't even given you
Speaker 1: the official questions to carry with you for this week.
Speaker 1: Stay tuned, everybody, Those love related questions are coming right
Speaker 1: up after this break. Each week I leave you with
Speaker 1: some questions to care with you until we meet again.
Speaker 1: It's part of this whole. This weird stuff gets easier
Speaker 1: with practicing this week. Where is the love for your
Speaker 1: homework this week or your practice? If you'd rather not
Speaker 1: think about it as homework. You're not getting graded. Seed
Speaker 1: some love in the world, Like it doesn't always have
Speaker 1: to be this grand gesture, this building the whole world
Speaker 1: we want thing, even though I just talked that up
Speaker 1: for the last twenty five minutes, Like, it doesn't have
Speaker 1: to be the grand gesture. What small actions can you
Speaker 1: take this week to make the world the kind of loving, inclusive,
Speaker 1: supportive place you want to live in. If you're stuck,
Speaker 1: think about what you want for yourself and then go
Speaker 1: give some of that to the world. Acknowledge somebody's sadness.
Speaker 1: Acknowledge somebody's recent accomplishments, hold the door for the person
Speaker 1: behind you. Catch yourself when you hear someone saying they're
Speaker 1: upset about something you would normally think is no big deal,
Speaker 1: and replace that judgment with a more passionate, inclusive thought.
Speaker 1: I'm sticking that one in there because that's the really
Speaker 1: hard one to practice. It means you have to pay
Speaker 1: attention to your sort of unconscious, impulsive judgments. So I'm
Speaker 1: going to read it to you again, because that's the
Speaker 1: real homework assignment. Catch yourself when you hear someone saying
Speaker 1: they're upset about something you would normally think is no
Speaker 1: big deal, and replace that judgment with a more compassionate,
Speaker 1: inclusive thought. Try treating compassion as the abundant resource it
Speaker 1: is and see what happens. Be a good scientist, run
Speaker 1: the experiment. You can even play with that question my
Speaker 1: teacher asks, is their love available here? Give it a go.
Speaker 1: Let me know how it works. I mean with everything, everybody,
Speaker 1: I am in this experiment with you. I am asking
Speaker 1: myself these same questions and doing these same homework assignments
Speaker 1: right alongside you. This is part of why I love
Speaker 1: this show and part of why questions. You know how
Speaker 1: most people are going to scan through their podcast app
Speaker 1: looking for the next thing to listen to you when they
Speaker 1: get to the show description for here after and think,
Speaker 1: I don't want to talk about that stuff. This is
Speaker 1: where you come in, my friends, your reviews. Let people
Speaker 1: know it really isn't all that bad in here. We
Speaker 1: talk about heavy stuff, sure, but it's in the service
Speaker 1: of making things better for everyone. So everyone needs to listen.
Speaker 1: Spread the word in your workplace, in your social world
Speaker 1: on social media and click through to leave a review.
Speaker 1: Subscribe to the show, download episodes, listen to the back
Speaker 1: catalog and send in your questions. Grief education doesn't just
Speaker 1: belong to end of life issues. Life is full of losses,
Speaker 1: from everyday disappointments to events that clearly divide life into
Speaker 1: before and after. Learning how to talk about all that
Speaker 1: without cliches or platitudes or simplistic think positive posters or pink,
Speaker 1: fluffy Valentine hearts. That's an important skill for everyone. Find trainings, workshops,
Speaker 1: books and resources for every human trying to make their
Speaker 1: way in the world after something goes horribly wrong at
Speaker 1: Megandivine dot co. O Hereafter with Megan Divine is written
Speaker 1: and produced by me magn Divine. Executive producer is Amy
Speaker 1: Brown and Elizabeth Fozzio, Edited by Houston Tilley, with studio
Speaker 1: support by Chris Uran. Music provided by Wave Crush.