Speaker 1: Pushkin. When tragedy strikes, it can feel like everything in
Speaker 1: your life is falling apart, like you're trapped in some
Speaker 1: old building and the walls are crashing down around you.
Speaker 1: Big life plans may have become uncertain or even impossible.
Speaker 1: You may have lost some of the people you relied
Speaker 1: on most for Karen support. Experiencing a big loss can
Speaker 1: make it feel like all that's left around you is
Speaker 1: chaos and confusion. People feel like this is internal rubble.
Speaker 1: The roof and the foundations of their building has been
Speaker 1: completely obliterated, and so what they need is scaffolding. This
Speaker 1: is a psychotherapist and grief expert Julia Samuel. If you
Speaker 1: haven't heard part one of our conversation, go back and
Speaker 1: listen to it now. When we're grieving, cleaning up all
Speaker 1: the emotional rubble can feel impossible, But it gets worse
Speaker 1: because our minds come up with all kinds of stories
Speaker 1: about why we shouldn't even try. We might deny what
Speaker 1: we're feeling and try to power through, pretending that nothing's wrong.
Speaker 1: We try to block ourselves from experiencing grief, which, as
Speaker 1: we heard in the last episode, is nearly certain to
Speaker 1: make the pain worse. The first difficulty people often have
Speaker 1: is that they turn against themselves without grieving, and they
Speaker 1: attack themselves for doing it wrong, or making it fast
Speaker 1: or taking too long. What I really believe, and I've
Speaker 1: witnessed thousands of times, is that we have a lot
Speaker 1: more agency when we engage with our grieving process, when
Speaker 1: we kind of recognize that we can't fight it, but
Speaker 1: we can support ourselves in it, that we can allow
Speaker 1: space for all of those different feelings, that we can
Speaker 1: find ways of expressing them. Today, we're going to talk
Speaker 1: about how to build those supports, the ones that can
Speaker 1: help us hold up the weight of our grief and
Speaker 1: helpless reconstruct everything after a loss. You're listening to the
Speaker 1: Happiness Lab with me, doctor Laurie Santos. The word Julia
Speaker 1: uses for this scaffolding is pillars. Think giant, soaring columns
Speaker 1: that can support super heavy loads. The most crucial of
Speaker 1: these supports are what she refers to is the eight
Speaker 1: pillars of strength. What I loved in that first pillar
Speaker 1: You're eight pillars for how we can better support ourselves
Speaker 1: is that you talk about the fact that we need
Speaker 1: to pay attention to relationships, not just the current relationships
Speaker 1: we have, but also finding ways to honor the relationship
Speaker 1: with the person that's died too. One of our misconceptions is,
Speaker 1: you know, to get over it, we gotta like draw
Speaker 1: away everybody's pictures, like you know, get rid of the stuff,
Speaker 1: like pretend it never happened. But to get over it,
Speaker 1: we really do need a relationship with the person completely.
Speaker 1: But when we agrieving someone that we really love that dies,
Speaker 1: we have a dual task. One is to face the
Speaker 1: reality of their death and find a way of living
Speaker 1: life without them and reizing that the love for that
Speaker 1: person never dies. The love continues in you and with
Speaker 1: you for the rest of your life. If you think
Speaker 1: you have to use all your psychological energy to kind
Speaker 1: of extricate them out of you, you're using your energy
Speaker 1: to suppress, which you need to be using for life.
Speaker 1: But the biggest predictor of outcomes when you are grieving
Speaker 1: and letting it do its work is the love and
Speaker 1: support of others. You know, your path to healing and
Speaker 1: grief should be paved with people, with people who care
Speaker 1: about you that you trust in all different areas of
Speaker 1: your life. That is the single most important thing that
Speaker 1: when love dies, it's the love of others that you
Speaker 1: can take inside you that gives you the strength to
Speaker 1: do the work of grief. The second of your pillars, though,
Speaker 1: is that we also need to focus on the relationship
Speaker 1: with ourselves in order to support ourselves, you know, so
Speaker 1: talk about what that means, in particular with relationship to denial.
Speaker 1: I mean, I think the first aspect of it is
Speaker 1: that in extremists, all of us will have a default
Speaker 1: mode of coping. You know, I tend to shut down.
Speaker 1: I tend to kind of freeze, and that you can't
Speaker 1: fight your natural way of coping. You learned it very young.
Speaker 1: It's in you, it's wide in you. So the kind
Speaker 1: of first thing is to recognize what you naturally do
Speaker 1: and recognize how useful that is. You know. I'm not
Speaker 1: against denile. I think we need denial, but if it's
Speaker 1: all you do, then it's very unhelpful because then you
Speaker 1: get complex grief. For me, I have denial, and I
Speaker 1: know I need to kind of create ways of allowing
Speaker 1: myself to feel the pain and support myself. And one
Speaker 1: of them is by turning to yourself, knowing yourself, not
Speaker 1: distracting yourself on your phone, and to go, oh, you know,
Speaker 1: what do I need and what do I need to
Speaker 1: get my needs met? And that idea of self compassion
Speaker 1: I think connects nicely to the third pillar that you
Speaker 1: talk about, which is this idea that we need to
Speaker 1: know an express our emotions. We need to be there
Speaker 1: with them and find good avenues to express them, you know,
Speaker 1: And so talk about how people can enact this pillar
Speaker 1: when they're experiencing grief. I mean, I think it links
Speaker 1: to the first sort of knowing yourself, so knowing what
Speaker 1: your emotions are and what your different signals are. So
Speaker 1: people often feel angry when they're grieving, but anger isn't
Speaker 1: a sort of socially allowed emotions, so they will allow
Speaker 1: themselves to feel sad, but somehow think that anger isn't okay.
Speaker 1: Once the more clarity you have on the different hues
Speaker 1: of your emotions, you may not exactly be able to
Speaker 1: name them, but I mean, you would know that naming
Speaker 1: them is supportive in itself. That if you can even
Speaker 1: do a kind of collage of I don't know, blue
Speaker 1: for sadness, read for rage, purple for confusion, all of
Speaker 1: those things, you begin to allow those emotions in you.
Speaker 1: And then once you allow them, then they naturally are
Speaker 1: free to express themselves, and then you incrementally adjust to
Speaker 1: the death. This idea that we need some time to
Speaker 1: kind of categorize and express our emotions gets to the
Speaker 1: fourth pillar, which is this idea of time maybe the
Speaker 1: hardest thing to allow ourselves. So talk about, you know,
Speaker 1: the kinds of ways that we might need to give
Speaker 1: ourselves more time. In the context of grief, there's a
Speaker 1: kind of social context of time, which is I think
Speaker 1: it's culturally. Maybe it's it's set by employees that we're
Speaker 1: allowed to grief for a certain amount of time. You know,
Speaker 1: a different loss, people allowed different legitimacy. So if it's
Speaker 1: your grandparent, you're probably given three months, If it's your partner,
Speaker 1: you're probably allowed a year. If it's a child that's died,
Speaker 1: it maybe two years. And of course human beings are
Speaker 1: not like that. The time it takes is always much
Speaker 1: longer than anyone wants or expects. Grief does not have
Speaker 1: a timeframe. It does not have you know, a calendar,
Speaker 1: And I think the much better way of thinking about
Speaker 1: it is the Greek two words for time. There's on
Speaker 1: us time, which is chronological time, and chiros time, which
Speaker 1: is felt time, the right time, the right time for you.
Speaker 1: And if we support ourselves in our grief in chiros time,
Speaker 1: like allowing ourselves the time that we have that we
Speaker 1: don't kind of push ourselves down to fit a kind
Speaker 1: of social calendar, then we are much more likely to farewell.
Speaker 1: In addition to not giving ourselves enough time, I think
Speaker 1: another thing we do a lot is to compare our
Speaker 1: time of recovery with other people you know, so talk
Speaker 1: about why this is sort of a problem too. I mean,
Speaker 1: in all things of life, comparing yourself to others is
Speaker 1: a route to misery. But also we want to know
Speaker 1: that we're normal. If you compare ourselves to others, you
Speaker 1: can feel like they're doing it better than you, they're
Speaker 1: ahead of you. If your partner died, they may be
Speaker 1: dating someone else and you kind of the idea of
Speaker 1: that appalls you. And I think what's really much more
Speaker 1: useful is to support yourself in your chiros time. However,
Speaker 1: that is you're much better, You're much volitely to farewell.
Speaker 1: So those are the first four pillars that Julia has
Speaker 1: argued can help us deal with grief. Our external relationships,
Speaker 1: our internal relationship with ourselves, expressing our emotions and time,
Speaker 1: but there are still four more pillars we can use
Speaker 1: to get through a loss. We'll hear about those remaining
Speaker 1: pillars when the Happiness Lab returns in a moment. I've
Speaker 1: been chatting with grief expert Julia Samuel about the different
Speaker 1: ways we can support ourselves through the pain of loss,
Speaker 1: strategies that she calls the eight pillars of strength. But
Speaker 1: one of my biggest takeaways from our conversation so far
Speaker 1: is that grief doesn't often work in the way we think. Now.
Speaker 1: You may have heard of the so called five stages
Speaker 1: of grief, think denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. But
Speaker 1: as we learn in the last episode, this framework, with
Speaker 1: one stage leading to the next, it isn't all that
Speaker 1: reflective of what happens in real life. Julia constantly warns
Speaker 1: her clients that grieving just doesn't work that way. I've
Speaker 1: in some ways made it sounds simple and straightforward. Just
Speaker 1: do the pillars. It's a bit like do the five stages.
Speaker 1: That isn't what I'm saying. I'm saying this is complicated
Speaker 1: and influenced by many things that you know, we haven't
Speaker 1: talked about that you need to kind of allow and
Speaker 1: include and acknowledge and name when you use those pillars
Speaker 1: to support you. Another thing I love about your pillars
Speaker 1: is that you really get us back to the physiology
Speaker 1: in a lot of ways. That's what we see in
Speaker 1: this fifth pillar, which is this idea of mind and body.
Speaker 1: You know, so talk a little bit about why we
Speaker 1: need to kind of do things to support our bodies
Speaker 1: in the context of grieving. Yeah, this comes from neuroscience,
Speaker 1: so that every thought that you have has a physiological component,
Speaker 1: and every feeling that you gives rise to a thought.
Speaker 1: And so when I'm working with people, I often want
Speaker 1: them to kind of recognize that those two systems operate
Speaker 1: very closely together. But when you allow them both to
Speaker 1: have a voice, your mind and your body, and that
Speaker 1: they both are valued and they've both need to be
Speaker 1: allowed and expressed, then there's a much sort of clearer
Speaker 1: sense of calm within your mind and your body. And
Speaker 1: I think that's true for all the aspects of grieving.
Speaker 1: And another thing you recommend is really that this is
Speaker 1: a spot where we really can take a lot more
Speaker 1: control in terms of how our body is reacting. Like
Speaker 1: I know you've recommended exercise a lot to help with
Speaker 1: the grieving process. You know, talk about why exercise can
Speaker 1: be so powerful, Because your body goes into fight flight
Speaker 1: or freeze, your autonomic system goes into kind of code
Speaker 1: red alert. Exercise tells your body in the most direct, simple,
Speaker 1: uncomplicated way, that you've flown, that you are not attacked
Speaker 1: by a tiger. You've raced away. Lows the levels of
Speaker 1: cortisol and increases your levels of dopamine, so you just
Speaker 1: feel calmer, and your capacity to think, to make decisions
Speaker 1: and to feel safe is vastly improved. And I think
Speaker 1: one of the biggest things that I've really learned about
Speaker 1: the mind and body is that we want to feel safe.
Speaker 1: We want to feel safe in our bodies, in our minds,
Speaker 1: and in our home, and we feel under threat when
Speaker 1: we're grieving. Also, when you're thinking about the mind and
Speaker 1: the body, think about everything that you're doing, who you're seeing,
Speaker 1: what you're watching, what you're eating, what you're drinking, whether
Speaker 1: you move your body or don't move your body, whether
Speaker 1: you're scrolling Instagram and looking at other people's perfect lives.
Speaker 1: All of those things will affect your mood and your
Speaker 1: relationship with yourself and your relationship with your grief and
Speaker 1: the person that's died. So my kind of message for
Speaker 1: when you're grieving is do things that balance you. Do
Speaker 1: think that help you feel safe in your mind and
Speaker 1: your body and your home, so that you have then
Speaker 1: much more robustness to deal with these storms of grief
Speaker 1: when they also come through your mind and your body.
Speaker 1: Because you're not on code red alert pre existing before
Speaker 1: the storm comes, you're kind of calmer, you're more robust,
Speaker 1: you're more grounded, and then when it comes, you can
Speaker 1: recognize it and go, Okay, here it comes. Breathe, I'm
Speaker 1: not going to fight it. Breathe in for seven and
Speaker 1: out for eleven. Let it break through me, let myself cry,
Speaker 1: and then you feel released. And this idea of finding
Speaker 1: more ways to get balance kind of connects with the
Speaker 1: sixth pillar, which is this idea of setting limits. You
Speaker 1: know it kind of it fits with this idea we
Speaker 1: talked about before about a self compassion, right, like, this
Speaker 1: is a time when we might need to say no
Speaker 1: more often, you know, So, any strategies for helping helping
Speaker 1: people who are grieving to set more limits, I mean
Speaker 1: I first of all, to sort of step back and
Speaker 1: use the mind body aspect is that when you're grieving,
Speaker 1: an image for grief is an iceberg where the third
Speaker 1: you see on top is only the third. The two
Speaker 1: thirds underneath is your grief and your feelings and the
Speaker 1: invisible response to grief. And when you're grieving physiologically, I
Speaker 1: don't know what percentage, but I would say to people,
Speaker 1: nine of you is used up with dealing with this
Speaker 1: big life event that this person has died, so that
Speaker 1: you have very little left over that third above the
Speaker 1: waterline to cope. So you cannot expect yourself to function
Speaker 1: and to have physically and emotionally and psychologically the strength
Speaker 1: and the capacity that you had before. So kind of
Speaker 1: recognize that a lot of you is already used up.
Speaker 1: And so part of that is one giving yourself permission
Speaker 1: to have limits sort of don't fight it. And because
Speaker 1: you don't want to be this person, I mean, one
Speaker 1: of the most difficult things of grieving is you become
Speaker 1: this person you never wanted to be. You didn't want
Speaker 1: to be this sad, exhausted, angry person that was about
Speaker 1: going to the supermarket. You want to be the one
Speaker 1: that you knew two years ago that could fight the
Speaker 1: world but if you can accept that this is you
Speaker 1: for now and learn what your limits are, learn that
Speaker 1: your energy and your capacity has changed, and so have
Speaker 1: a good no. And I think one of the kind
Speaker 1: of tips for having a good no is if someone
Speaker 1: asks you something, to say, let me get back to you,
Speaker 1: because we tend to want to please and say yes,
Speaker 1: but also to give yourself permission for a no and
Speaker 1: not beat yourself up that I'm a bad person, I'm useless.
Speaker 1: But also when you have a good no, then your
Speaker 1: yes is really good, so that you've decided to go
Speaker 1: and see a movie with a friend you really want to.
Speaker 1: If you've said a proper yes, that is a full yes,
Speaker 1: you're probably going to have a nice pizza before, You'll
Speaker 1: probably enjoy the movie, have a nice hug, feel comforted,
Speaker 1: and then you'll feel better when you go home. Another
Speaker 1: thing that comes with recognizing your limits is this idea
Speaker 1: of finding ways to give yourself some structure. And this
Speaker 1: gets to your kind of seventh pillar that you know,
Speaker 1: this is a time when we need to kind of
Speaker 1: give ourselves a bit more routine than usual, you know,
Speaker 1: So talking about why routine can be so helpful for
Speaker 1: the grieving process, I think often people experience and think
Speaker 1: about grief like this big black hole that they're terrified
Speaker 1: that they're going to fall into, and this silence and
Speaker 1: emptiness and loneliness and structure doesn't take away the hole.
Speaker 1: The idea of the pillars was that they give you
Speaker 1: kind of internal structures to manage the pain and the loss,
Speaker 1: and so structure helps you not have to make a decision.
Speaker 1: Often you can't make decisions when you're grieving. You procrastinate,
Speaker 1: you don't know what you want, you feel completely confused.
Speaker 1: You're in this new alien landscape that you don't like
Speaker 1: and you don't want. So having structure and saying to yourself, okay,
Speaker 1: on Thursdays, I'm going to take a bit of exercise
Speaker 1: before breakfast, I'm going to give myself a treat, which
Speaker 1: makes the X size develop into a good habit. By
Speaker 1: giving myself a treat, I can hab a delicious coffee
Speaker 1: and breakfast. I'm going to do tasks, whether that's work
Speaker 1: or emails, and so you go through the day and
Speaker 1: you set that structure. It's sort of set in place,
Speaker 1: so it holds you in the same way as the
Speaker 1: therapy fifty minute hour. It's containing and holding emotionally, having
Speaker 1: a structure that you can rely on and you know,
Speaker 1: as you will know, good habits build good lives. That
Speaker 1: when we can develop good habits that become ingrained and
Speaker 1: embodied in us, we have much more spare energy. But
Speaker 1: also those habits support our physiology because where if they're
Speaker 1: good habits, good eating habits, good sleep habits, all of
Speaker 1: those things, they really support our balance. I mean, I
Speaker 1: love this tip in particular because it gets something we've
Speaker 1: talked about a lot on the podcast, which is this
Speaker 1: idea of choice overload. Right, even in normal, none grieving times,
Speaker 1: having too much choice can kind of exhaust us. So
Speaker 1: giving yourself routine helps. But during this time when we're
Speaker 1: feeling incredibly under threat, incredibly fearful, when we just don't
Speaker 1: have the bandwidth to think, it makes so much sense
Speaker 1: to kind of limit our choices. Yeah, it does. And
Speaker 1: you can spend two hours choosing a movie. If you
Speaker 1: say to yourself, you know, I'm going to watch this
Speaker 1: film that I decide at five o'clock, and I'm gonna
Speaker 1: watch it at seven o'clock, there's a feeling of satisfaction
Speaker 1: because it's a task that you chose, You have a
Speaker 1: sense of agency. You did it, You completed the task,
Speaker 1: and then it's so, huh, you know, I've done it,
Speaker 1: and all of the things about structure help you in that.
Speaker 1: But also forgive yourself the bad day. You know, you
Speaker 1: may set up on a Thursday morning wanting to do
Speaker 1: the run and the good breakfast, and whatever happens, you
Speaker 1: stay in bed and you pull the duvet of your head.
Speaker 1: Don't catastrophize that. Forgive yourself. Friday's a new day, start again,
Speaker 1: and let that day go. Don't use it to beat
Speaker 1: yourself with this idea of kind of you know, forgiving
Speaker 1: yourself gets to our last point, which is this idea
Speaker 1: of focusing, right like taking real time to allow and
Speaker 1: experience whatever else is going on in you know. So
Speaker 1: talk about what you mean by focusing and why it
Speaker 1: can be such a powerful eighth step for kind of
Speaker 1: dealing with the sense of grief. I mean, I think
Speaker 1: that the idea of focusing for me is that it
Speaker 1: comes in at many different levels. So it can be
Speaker 1: a spiritual level where you kind of let yourself contemplate
Speaker 1: the mystery of life and death and your spiritual beliefs
Speaker 1: and allow that space within yourself. It can be focusing
Speaker 1: on the body's wisdoms. It can be ten minutes of
Speaker 1: space and time where you're not actually active, where you
Speaker 1: just sit and breathe and allow that. You're not fighting it,
Speaker 1: you're not squashing it, you're not in the terror of it,
Speaker 1: you're not expressing it, but just being mindful and allowing
Speaker 1: whatever emerges to emerge. And it can be mindful when
Speaker 1: you're walking in nature. It can be mindful when you're
Speaker 1: sitting in a yoga position and arming or light. It
Speaker 1: can be any of those things. It allows a kind
Speaker 1: of freedom of spirit and heart and mind that you
Speaker 1: give permission for that in your day, I think is
Speaker 1: incredibly balancing and incredibly supportive. I mean, the focusing idea
Speaker 1: gets so closely to what the science shows about the
Speaker 1: power of allowing and mindfulness, right where just the simple
Speaker 1: act of being there, you know, with whatever is going on,
Speaker 1: even if it doesn't feel good, can kind of allow
Speaker 1: you to get through it. And that ultimately seems to
Speaker 1: be the goal of so many of these pillars, right
Speaker 1: is that the paradox is that to get through grief,
Speaker 1: we have to get through grief, you know, we have
Speaker 1: to kind of allow ourselves to experience it in all
Speaker 1: of its fullness. Is your sense that with the right
Speaker 1: strategies we can kind of come to grief with a
Speaker 1: different kind of relationship, not running away from it or
Speaker 1: trying to control it, but really using it to become
Speaker 1: better selves Over time. I think the better selves different cells,
Speaker 1: and they may feel stronger and more like growth. I
Speaker 1: think you're completely right that it is the paradox that
Speaker 1: when we allowed and support ourselves in it and have
Speaker 1: the courage to endure it, we do let it change
Speaker 1: us and accommodate us. Now that Julia has walked us
Speaker 1: through all eight pillars of strength, what the science shows
Speaker 1: really works for helping us navigate grief, I wanted her
Speaker 1: to help us figure out how to use these pillars,
Speaker 1: how to remember we have these strategies when the going
Speaker 1: gets tough. After the break, Julia will walk us through
Speaker 1: some ways that her patients have taken these concepts to
Speaker 1: heart and put them into practice. The Happiness Lab will
Speaker 1: be back in a moment. As I listened to Julia
Speaker 1: explain each of her eight pillars for navigating grief, I
Speaker 1: had to admit that some of these sounded kind of daunting.
Speaker 1: I wanted to know how real people managed to put
Speaker 1: these strategies to practice, starting with the pillar that seemed
Speaker 1: most challenging to me personally, becoming a little bit more
Speaker 1: compassionate with myself. So a client who's giving me permission
Speaker 1: to talk about her Her mother died reasonably young. This
Speaker 1: young woman's twenty five and her mother was fifty, so
Speaker 1: sort of a life cut short. And she was a
Speaker 1: very successful young woman of twenty five. She worked as
Speaker 1: a lawyer, so she'd used her brain to get through life.
Speaker 1: It had really worked for her. That was her best
Speaker 1: coping mechanism. So when he came to griefing, she was
Speaker 1: completely flawed and she kept trying to think her way
Speaker 1: out of it. So she read tons of books. She
Speaker 1: could quote my book back at me, and she kind
Speaker 1: of looked at me with rage, like give me the recipe,
Speaker 1: sort me out. And we did a focusing where she
Speaker 1: used image of a dream of a kind of explosion.
Speaker 1: I kind of asked, you know, what the image looked
Speaker 1: like and what did it say to her? And she
Speaker 1: had this literally kind of epiphany moment when she said,
Speaker 1: I'm not in chart. This is an explosion. I can't
Speaker 1: have a recipe, and just that moment shifted her perception
Speaker 1: of what she expected of herself, what she expected of
Speaker 1: her feelings and expectations to have a huge predictor in
Speaker 1: your outcomes, what you expect and what you allow. And
Speaker 1: she suddenly like saw this gateway, and she actually a
Speaker 1: week later came back and she had this image of
Speaker 1: this new garden that she kind of described, so she'd
Speaker 1: go through the gate into this garden where she had
Speaker 1: a connection with her mom from the past. But also
Speaker 1: she said, like, I'm a startup. You know, I'm a
Speaker 1: new entrepreneur within myself as a being, and I can
Speaker 1: grow now because I can see myself as a startup.
Speaker 1: I didn't want to be this startup, but I can
Speaker 1: see what I need. And so she was gave herself
Speaker 1: permission to be close to her friends, to do the
Speaker 1: things that balanced her and supported her, to feel the pain,
Speaker 1: to allow pain to be the agent of change. And
Speaker 1: once she kind of got it, it liberated her and
Speaker 1: I literally I saw her for eight sessions. So sometimes
Speaker 1: it happens really quick. We talked about the importance of
Speaker 1: maintaining relationships, but are there strategies people can use to
Speaker 1: do that when they're grieving both with the living people
Speaker 1: who care about them, but then also the person who's died.
Speaker 1: I think cooking your mom or dad's favorite recipe and
Speaker 1: doing it on a particular day, so there may be
Speaker 1: anniversaries or Christmas, or you know, there are difficult days
Speaker 1: that making something that your mom made can be this
Speaker 1: bitter sweet chicken casserole that is never quite the same
Speaker 1: as your mum's, but abuse your mum and that kind
Speaker 1: of being passed down from their grandmothers. Say that your
Speaker 1: mum probably told you this was my grandmother's recipe, and
Speaker 1: she lived in Spain and now we live in New York,
Speaker 1: but there's a bit of Spain through my grandmother coming
Speaker 1: into my kitchen and she always put this particular herb
Speaker 1: in it, and that made it hers. You know, when
Speaker 1: we look at ourselves and our families, we also want
Speaker 1: to look at multigenerations. You know, where have we come
Speaker 1: from and what have we learned from them? And that
Speaker 1: makes who we are. And many of them are dead,
Speaker 1: but they influence us and shape us as we live
Speaker 1: our lives. And just to say one more thing is
Speaker 1: that within families, it may be the grandfather or the
Speaker 1: father that's died. Everyone in that family grieves differently. It's
Speaker 1: a systemic, big shift. So one of the images for
Speaker 1: when someone dies within a family is that you know,
Speaker 1: you have a mobile above a bed with a baby,
Speaker 1: and if you cut off one piece at the mobile,
Speaker 1: the whole mobile tips. So in a family system, the
Speaker 1: whole family system is tilted with whoever has died. So
Speaker 1: it takes a lot of work and and the key
Speaker 1: is communication between every family member to recalibrate this family system.
Speaker 1: And it may be allowing your brother to work really
Speaker 1: hard I'm saying, I mean it could be a sister.
Speaker 1: This is not gender oriented that you kind of look
Speaker 1: at him. How can you work like I can barely function?
Speaker 1: Does that mean you love mum less? Or you know
Speaker 1: another sibling or even the surviving parent is going out
Speaker 1: with friends or clubbing or But all of us have
Speaker 1: different ways of expressing our grief, and there isn't a
Speaker 1: right or a wrong way to do it. So it's
Speaker 1: by talking to each other, communicating with each other honestly
Speaker 1: and even saying look, I can't believe how you're working
Speaker 1: or why did you go clubbing? But being told I
Speaker 1: just really needed to dance because dance I feel close
Speaker 1: to my dad and he and I dance together and
Speaker 1: we always had fun. So music and dance is a
Speaker 1: lovely way of me remembering him. And then that goes
Speaker 1: So you're opening your window of understanding. When you open
Speaker 1: your window of understanding, you open your window of connection
Speaker 1: and compassion. So a death and a family can cause
Speaker 1: a crisis in a family when you use the old
Speaker 1: coping mechanisms of not talking, not connecting, kind of putting
Speaker 1: on a stiff upper lip. But when you find ways
Speaker 1: of connecting and talking, you can build bonds and actually
Speaker 1: grow stronger. And so if people want to learn more
Speaker 1: about these eight pillars, I know that you've created this
Speaker 1: new resource that they can go to. So tell us
Speaker 1: a little bit about your new app. So my app
Speaker 1: is like twenty eight day course, so it's a bit
Speaker 1: like being in a room with me, so it's very unrobotic.
Speaker 1: And then also if you wake up at four in
Speaker 1: the morning with a planting heart, there's a sleep meditation,
Speaker 1: there's a visualization to calm you down. There's exercise apps,
Speaker 1: there's yoga an hi t so it's all in one place.
Speaker 1: Because often when you're grieving you can't remember anything, you
Speaker 1: forget everything. And I've been so touched and tears by
Speaker 1: the reviews. People really love it. I read one yesterday
Speaker 1: where a man said, I've been struggling with my grief
Speaker 1: for three years and ten days I feel better from
Speaker 1: your app. And that's like, Oh, That's what I wanted
Speaker 1: it to do, and I'm seeing it actually work is
Speaker 1: an amazing, joyous thing. I know you've been very public
Speaker 1: in some of your writing about the fact that in
Speaker 1: your own grief sometimes you haven't used all these stages
Speaker 1: that you kin hasn't gone smoothly and stuff, and you know,
Speaker 1: so talk about as someone who kind of has to
Speaker 1: be so close to grief, you know, do you find
Speaker 1: yourself using these How do you give yourself self compassion
Speaker 1: when you get off track with how you're dealing with
Speaker 1: your own grief. My default is a critical voice, like
Speaker 1: you idiot, You've done something wrong, and then this awful
Speaker 1: kind of talk its sense of shame, and then I
Speaker 1: want to eat chocolate and drink coffee and not feel
Speaker 1: any of it. But that isn't where I stay. I
Speaker 1: know that that's happening. I know I hate it. So
Speaker 1: this morning at kickbox. So I kickbox every week, and
Speaker 1: so as a therapist, you know, I have to. I'm sitting,
Speaker 1: I'm compassionate. I hear lots of terrible, terrible stories. I
Speaker 1: often have bad dreams, that kind of thing. So the
Speaker 1: kickboxing kind of punches out my fury and my powerlessness.
Speaker 1: And so I have lots of habits that keep me balanced.
Speaker 1: And often I'm hijacked by what's happening in life and
Speaker 1: I don't do it, and then I do pick myself
Speaker 1: up the next day and start again. But this, I
Speaker 1: think is the perfect advice, right, is that we're not
Speaker 1: going to be perfect at all of these things, even
Speaker 1: a you know, multi decade grief expert isn't. But the
Speaker 1: key is to try to bring these things in when
Speaker 1: we have the bandwidth to do so. Yeah, and you
Speaker 1: know this idea of a I mean, I hate the
Speaker 1: idea of a therapist being a kind of cooky cut
Speaker 1: perfect person because it's rubbish. You know, it's completely rubbish.
Speaker 1: I have as many failings, furies, insecurities as everybody else,
Speaker 1: but I do put them down in the support of
Speaker 1: the client in front of me, and then they come
Speaker 1: back and pick me up when I'm back in my kitchen,
Speaker 1: you know. So it's kind of recognizing when you're working
Speaker 1: in the service of somebody else, or like talking to
Speaker 1: you today, where I you know, I hope I sign
Speaker 1: knowledgeable and confident, and I do feel knowledgeable and confident
Speaker 1: in this. But then I can be sat next to
Speaker 1: someone who's a brilliant scientist and I'm like, oh, I
Speaker 1: feel like a five year old in class who doesn't
Speaker 1: isn't good at maths. It's nice. Yet the vulnerability I
Speaker 1: think is important, right because I think people can get
Speaker 1: this sense that like there's a right way to do it.
Speaker 1: As soon as you know these strategies, it will be perfect, right.
Speaker 1: But that's kind of not how it works either. I
Speaker 1: don't think you win it life. You navigate life best
Speaker 1: you can, and you have moments, wonderful moments of wins,
Speaker 1: like being asked to come on this podcast was like, Wow,
Speaker 1: I'm so thrilled. I'm delighted, bit scared, but delighted, but
Speaker 1: that is a lovely moment. And then something else happens
Speaker 1: and you gearing the puzzle one come out again. If
Speaker 1: the science of loss has shown us anything, it's that
Speaker 1: grief is unpredictable. It can creep up and grab hold
Speaker 1: of you anytime, even when you're just trying to buy
Speaker 1: some yogurt at the store. But the research shows that
Speaker 1: if we choose not to avoid our grief, when we
Speaker 1: decide to face it head on, we can start to
Speaker 1: make some real progress. We can get to a place
Speaker 1: where those feelings aren't quite so overwhelming. I know firsthand
Speaker 1: that hiding from the feeling and reality of grief can
Speaker 1: be incredibly tempting, But Julia's work has taught me that
Speaker 1: it's worth it to find a path to the new
Speaker 1: life that, like it or not, lies ahead of us.
Speaker 1: Life after a loss is a lot like a tiny
Speaker 1: tender seedling. It might seem fragile at first, but it
Speaker 1: will grow and thrive if we put the work in
Speaker 1: to nurture it. I hope you'll join me next week
Speaker 1: to explore yet another yucky emotion, one that really clobbers
Speaker 1: me on a daily basis, times to a debilitating degree.
Speaker 1: Next week, the Happiness Lab will tackle anxiety, and we'll
Speaker 1: see that the secret to making anxiety less agonizing begins
Speaker 1: with listening to it. It's so easy to think that
Speaker 1: our problem is what's going on in the world or
Speaker 1: our bodies. But the problem is what we think about
Speaker 1: what's going on in the world or our bodies. Certainly
Speaker 1: there are real life issues, but when our thinking is
Speaker 1: clear and present, then the problems lesson and the anxiety
Speaker 1: really diminishes. We'll see that the science shows that we
Speaker 1: might want to commit to making anxiety our friend or
Speaker 1: at the very least are slightly annoying freenemy. You'll learn
Speaker 1: why on the next episode of The Happiness Lab with
Speaker 1: me Doctor Laurie Santos. If you like this show and
Speaker 1: others from Pushkin Industries, consider subscribing to Pushkin Plus. As
Speaker 1: a special gift to Pushkin Plus subscribers, I'll be sharing
Speaker 1: a series of six guided meditations to help you practice
Speaker 1: the lessons we've learned from our experts. To check them out,
Speaker 1: look for Pushkin Plus on Apple podcast subscriptions. The Happiness
Speaker 1: Lab is co written and produced by Ryan Dilley, Emily
Speaker 1: Anne Vaughan, and Courtney Guerino. Our original music was composed
Speaker 1: by Zachary Silver, with additional scoring, mixing, and mastering by
Speaker 1: Evan Viola. Special thanks to Milabelle, Heather Faine, John Schnars,
Speaker 1: Carlie Migliori, Christina Sullivan, Brant Haynes, Maggie Taylor, Eric Sandler,
Speaker 1: Nicole Morano, Royston Preserve, Jacob Weisberg, and my agent, Ben Davis.
Speaker 1: The Happiness Lab is brought to you by Pushkin Industries
Speaker 1: and me, doctor Laurie Santos. To find more Pushkin podcasts,
Speaker 1: listen on the iHeartRadio app, Apple Podcasts, or wherever you
Speaker 1: listen to your podcasts,