Podcast, Takeaways and Reflections |
Takeaways & Reflections | Grief & Missed Opportunities
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
The one thing I found that my guests Marty Cooper and Ken Ross have in common is that they both embody optimism.
Marty can’t imagine life without learning and without feeling hope for the future. While Ken, in all of his traveling and adventures, never worries about potential adverse outcomes.
Both are optimistic in their way, and both are wonderful examples of what it means to live a life that you’d do over again and not be bored.
This is why these two episodes fit perfectly to dig into the topic of grief as it relates to missed opportunities. Because, I bet neither Marty nor Ken can imagine what their life would be like, or would have been like all these years, had they not jumped feet first into opportunities and taken a chance (on themselves or others).
While deep in grief, we often can’t see the opportunities before us. Throughout various milestones or phases of our lives, we may not be open to opportunities due to timing or simply aren’t ready. And deep in grief, even if we recognize an opportunity when we see it, we’re so often feeling beaten down, we simply don’t have the energy, mental fortitude, or the tenacity to take a chance on ourselves and jump on those opportunities.
RESOURCES:
Hello, friends. Hello, grievers, and hello supporters of grievers. Thank you for listening, and thank you for being here today, and giving your time, energy, and attention to grieving voices. I am your host Victoria Volk of the Unleashed Heart. And today I’m going to talk about the recent episodes 67 with Marty Cooper, and 68 with Ken Ross. And I had already recorded about 25 minutes of this podcast when I went to close another program, and I accidentally close the one I used to record. And so, the whole recording just went, poof, gone. So, I don’t know if this is going to come out exactly the same. Actually, I know I won’t, but I hope I can get across what I was so happy to get across in the first recording.
Optimism is the Faith that Leads to Achievement
So anyway, such as life, Episode 67 with Marty Cooper, if you haven’t listened to it, I know I recommend it on every takeaway and reflection episode to listen to the episodes and talking about, but it is such a lighthearted episode. And what I loved about Marty Cooper, when I saw him on CBS Sunday morning, was his optimism. I could feel it through the TV, I just found myself so curious about him, and wanted to learn more really about the process of what it was like to invent the cell phone. I still cannot believe I had the inventor of the cell phone on my podcast. But what does that have to do about grief? Well, when I was thinking about asking him, it was his optimism that really drew me to him. And I also know that in creation, in ideation, and putting thoughts and ideas into action, and bringing them to reality, there’s often a lot of failure in that. And there’s often some grief that comes along with that as well. And the one thing that struck me about Marty is that it took 10 years for this idea. He had to improve what already somewhat existed in the bag phone that people had to be in their cars to use. And he just took that a step further. And he thought there has to be something better that you can use, not just when you’re in your car, and not just when you’re in your home with a corded phone that most people had in their homes at the time. And so, he developed the first model, and the rest is history. So, they say but it took 10 years until he actually made that first phone call with that first cell phone. And I just find his story fascinating. I find him fascinating. And I find his optimism infectious. And so, I just wanted to share him with my audience. And selfishly, I wanted to personally speak with him to the foundation of Marty’s life. And what he shared is in his episode is that learning has been the foundation of his life. And truth be told, I don’t think the cell phone would exist if that wasn’t the case for him. And I don’t think that would be the case, if for many inventions or new technology or new advances in the medical field.
Take Pride in How Far You’ve Come
If people wouldn’t take an idea and run with it and see where it leads them and be open to learning along the way. And with being open to learn also comes being open to fail, and won’t being open to fail also entails is maybe putting yourself outside of your comfort zone and taking some risks. And I have never been one that’s been afraid of taking risks or taking chances or putting myself out there some ways it’s harder for me than others. But I’ve learned so much of what I know today because I took chances, and I took risks. And I was open to learning along the way. And I was also open to failure. But the foundation of it, like Marty says is learning. I had asked him a question too, and I can’t remember exactly how I worded it or what it was. But he said that he was unable to put himself in the shoes of someone who was unable to envision a better future. And I think that’s probably the mindset of an inventor. But he said if people need to take pride in what they’re doing, people that can’t envision a better future. He sees that as someone who doesn’t take pride in what they’re doing, who has difficulty coming up with new ideas who don’t really have any ideas, or don’t do things that bring them pleasure. And so, if we look at that a little further, it’s the opposite of that enable to envision a better future, you have to take pride in what you’re doing. You should take pride in what you’re doing. Because if you’re not, perhaps, it’s not the thing you should be doing. Perhaps, it’s not something that’s aligned with who you are. And if you have trouble with that in your life right now, like you’re doing something that’s not aligned with who you are or you feel like you’re really struggling with your purpose or you really want to do meaningful work. But you’re not doing that, I recommend that you check out my website because there and look up under services under “You” map I will put a link in the show notes. But I think when we take pride in what we’re doing, it’s inspiring to us, we’re inspired by our own work, therefore we would have new ideas. We would be inspired with new ideas, and we would be doing something that brings us pleasure.
Learning Outside the Box
And by going and doing other things that bring you pleasure, even just going to the beach or being out in nature or trying something new, like an improv class to help you get out of your comfort zone and to help you to be more expressive. And maybe more easily communicate with others if you’re kind of on the shy side like like I am, which is why podcasting is perfect for me because I thrive more so in one-on-one conversation. But if you put me in a group, I kind of turn into a wallflower. In a way I’ll kind of just gravitate to one or two people. And that’s usually what I do. Actually, it was a recommendation of a guest I recently recorded with how to really kind of get yourself out of your comfort zone and and get more comfortable with those things is to take an improv class. And I thought that was perfect. It’s a wonderful solution to help you expand and grow and learn about yourself. It may not feel good or sound good the idea of it, but I think after you experience it and realize, “oh, that wasn’t so hard”, you might look at it like “oh, that was actually kind of fun”, maybe take that suggestion and go sign up for an improver people, or we can have for other people, or that exists in society of people who are unlike ourselves, and it comes back to that learning piece again, be class. What’s the worst that can happen? Right? So, I think all of that just embodies someone who is able to envision a better future, who is open to learning and growing. And I had asked him what breaks his heart, and he said, your rationality breaks his heart, this intolerance that we often have for other because he said, we all have something to teach someone else, therefore, we all have something to learn from one another.
Wisdom is the Reward of Experience
And I had an “aha” moment, the first time I was recording this, and I shared it in that recording that is now disappeared. But I’ll share it again. I’ve always been drawn to people older than me that my elders and it’s probably why I went to work as a CNA, certified nursing assistant, in a nursing home in high school. But I realize just in recording this, that I didn’t grow up with grandparents, my grandmother passed away a year before my dad, I was seven. My grandfather had passed away the year I was born, so, I didn’t know him. And my grandparents on my father’s side, the grandfather passed away when I was younger, and my grandmother passed away when I was in adulthood. But I didn’t know her because when my dad passed away, they weren’t in my life anymore. And that’s great, too, right? But anyway, so I didn’t grow up with grandparents. So, I did find myself drawn to what older people were talking about what they thought about certain things, and probably close too. I had to grow up kind of fast. And so, I’ve always been more interested in people who have experienced more than myself, who are further down the road, who have something to teach me. And I’ve just found that that’s been kind of a constant theme throughout my life.
And so just think for a moment about who you are drawn to who piques your interest. Is it elderly people? Is it inventors? Is it people who have had led really challenging lives or have a challenging story of triumph? like my podcast where I talk to people regularly that share their stories, and I learned from each and every one of them. And I absolutely love it. Perhaps, other Grievers, right? because grief is complex, and everyone’s story is different. And it doesn’t matter what your loss is, you can learn something from it. Let’s say, you lost a child, which I can’t even imagine. And no one else who hasn’t, can’t either. But even if I would have experienced the similar loss, a loss of a child and I was talking to someone else who had there might be some certain level of bonding there. But our relationships are very much unique. And so, was it a baby? Was it an older child? That really doesn’t matter, the relationship is always unique. And so, every grief story is very different. And I think that’s why if we box ourselves into only talking with those who have experienced a loss similar to ours, or we tend to judge analyze or criticize or have this thought that there’s a hierarchy of grief. We kind of pinch ourselves off from learning from other people who may have experienced another loss, who may have a wonderful tip to share with you, or may have an idea that might spark something in you, or may have something very helpful that like change their life to share with you, but you would never hear it because you weren’t open to having that conversation with that person, because simply because they experienced loss different from your own. And I think we make these assumptions that, well, they just won’t get it, they just won’t understand. And maybe if we just accepted that truth on both sides, like you’re not going to get my grief, you’re not going to understand my criticism, not because you don’t want to or it’s not because for lack of trying, it’s because again, every relationship is unique.
Now I didn’t say any of that in that first time I record it. So maybe this is exactly just what I needed to say and what someone needed to hear. So, I’m gonna go with that. But I just really loved that episode with Marty. It’s lighthearted, but yet it’s deep, and he just has so much wisdom to share. Marty is going to be 93 in December, and so I can say this, he is an elder. But I think we tend to under appreciate our elders, we tuck them away in our society when we put them together with each other. And you know, when we want to visit them, or we want to talk to them, then they’re there. But if not, then they’re there tucked away, right?, in society somewhere else. And I think how sad is that? Because they have so much wisdom to share. And that wisdom is fleeting, that wisdom is going away every single day. And I think what if we just took a few minutes when we encounter someone who is older and wiser than ourselves that we just ask , “hey, what’s a piece of advice you’d give me about life?”, and see what they say? I think I’m going to start doing that because I’m really curious what people would say, what the elders would say.
The Dice Theory
Onto the episode with Ken Ross, which I was nervous about. It took three takes for me to get through the intro in once I get his episode and all the others that are recorded and audio and video on to my YouTube channel, which is at the only start I think the only start once I get it on there, you will see how nervous I really was. We had a good laugh about it. But it was just ridiculous. But I was so nervous about it because if you don’t know Ken Ross, he is the son of Elisabeth Kubler Ross, who is I would say, the Trailblazer of hospice and palliative care and on the subject of grief and dying. The one thing that everybody talks about in her work is the five stages of grief, which Ken and I specifically address in his episodes. If you haven’t listened, I suggest you listen to it. But basically, her work was so much more than that. That’s just the one thing that society and everyone seems to latch on to and hold on to. But there’s so much more that she did. And I’ve been reading her memoir, the wheel of life, which is beautiful. Absolutely, her life is just fascinating to me, her stories are just unbelievable, and Ken actually share as quite a few of them in that episode as well. She took a lot of risks, talk about a risk taker, talk about someone who was tenacious and didn’t give up and continue to show up and believed in something so powerfully and so deeply. Just like Marty Cooper in the cell phone, she believed so deeply that everyone should have access to hospice and be able to have a good death. And she also wanted people at the end of life, to be able to express what it was they were going through an experience and help them work through that grief of what they were experiencing. Again, she’s a trailblazer, and she’s very much ingrained in our society. I mean, the last krewella movie, they mentioned the five stages of grief, which I mean, it’s everywhere. It’s all over our society, even the Simpsons have mentioned it in episode, it’s just everywhere, just Google it and you’ll just I mean pages and pages and pages of articles. There was more to her than that, as I said, but the one thing that she passed on to Ken was this idea of not boxing yourself in of living outside the box, of not living life with regrets.
And Ken shared about that and how that evolved for him and what that is and what that means to him now in what he calls the dice theory. And ever since he shared it with me, I haven’t forgotten it and I’ve actually implemented it a few days ago, when I found myself hesitating on taking a chance on something, on putting myself out there for something and I was like, “I’m not really sure but it was fear that was causing the resistance”, and then I remembered the dice theory, just roll the dice. What’s the worst thing that can happen? And so, I did the thing, I put myself out there, and we’re gonna see what happens. But just thinking life in general, if we look at everyday life, his philosophy is like every day, “I’m gonna roll the dice every single day, maybe one day, it’s reaching out to 10 random people, or maybe the next day, it’s a random phone call or an email that I send to someone who I affiliated with, but I haven’t checked in on in a while”. And so it’s this idea of paving the way for yourself for having experiences, because they’re not always just going to fall into your lap. Sometimes it takes action often for us to find ourselves in these serendipitous moments, it’s in repeatedly keeping on doing that, just repeatedly putting yourself out there and repeatedly taking chances repeatedly rolling the dice. So, I absolutely loved that theory that he shared. And just based on who his mother was, I’m not surprised that that’s how he lives his life, just based on how she lived hers. She led by example. It was a beautiful example of doing just that of not boxing yourself in of taking a chance on yourself, and probably on others too, right? Because by putting yourself out there, you’re opening yourself up to also to disappointment if people don’t meet your expectations, or they don’t respond in a certain way. And that’s where you have to let that go. You have to do those things without expectation, do it without attachment and just see what happens.
And that’s actually how Ken and I got together on for the podcast, I was one of the people he reached out to, and I took that as a handshake and sent him an invitation to be on my podcast. And he said yes, and we talked for over two hours. And it was just wonderful. It was a highlight of my podcasting career. So far, there’s been many people, many guests that I’ve had that, again, every single one I learned from and but it’s not every day that you talk to the son of Elisabeth Kubler Ross, who is carrying on her legacy, who is ensuring that her work is preserved, and it’s carried out in an authentic way, and with integrity. I do want to share this fun fact because it just speaks to who Elisabeth Kubler Ross was, and it is in the episode, but I just want to share it here because I didn’t focus on it at all when I shared the original episode. There’s one thing that Elizabeth asked for when she was in the middle of having a stroke, literally in the middle of having a stroke, she asked for a cigarette. Now, you just have to go and listen to that episode to get the full story. She was a hoot. From the sounds of it, and the stories that Ken shared, she was a real hoot. And she had this sense of humor about her, which when you deal in grief and dying and hospice and palliative care. I think those of us that work in the grief space probably do have some sort of strange sense of humor.
Give People an Opportunity to Share Something
I want to share a quote that I didn’t highlight from last from Ken’s episode. And I realize now, that was the one I wanted to use. There was something that he said that just really struck me too. He said, “I want to live a life that I wouldn’t mind doing 100 times over and not be bored ever.”. And I think if we really looked at our lives and asked ourselves “What can I do today to roll the dice to have an experience that might give me another experience? That is sweet surprise and delight? How can I learn today from someone may teach me something that will stick with me for the rest of my life, maybe even changed the trajectory of my life?” Because if I would have been talking with someone who experienced grief recovery, and they told me about it, so happen to go check it out. And I go to the program, and it changed my life, how one conversation has the potential to change our entire lives.
And I think if there’s anything I want to leave you with us today, it’s that I was talking to my husband recently. We’re talking about conversations with people and so often we stick to these superficial surface level topics with people we don’t know so well and people we actually do know well. But what if instead of asking about the weather or their job or or something that would be deemed as gossip, what if instead, we ask deeper questions to give us the opportunity to learn something new. And maybe one of those questions could be tell me something I don’t know. Tell me something I don’t know about you, teach me something new or why do you enjoy this?
If you’re talking about their job, instead of asking, well “How’s work going?” It’s like what do you enjoy about what you do. Give people an opportunity to share something more personal and maybe a little deeper than what they normally do or would because they’re not asked, they’re not given an opportunity to share. And I think maybe to start with you, there’s something more personal it kind of opens up the door for other people to share as well. It creates this opportunity for a richer conversation. It helps people feel more connected to one another So, that’s another thing I would leave you with today is when you’re going out and about in the world, just ask people what makes you curious what makes you curious about them and start there.
P.S. That’s today’s episode. I think I’ve shared everything that I needed to share wanted to share. Please reach out to me on social media. Find me on Instagram at theunleashedheart, send me an email [email protected] if you do share with me what your experiences are, I would love to hear it. I know there’s a lot that isn’t in this recording as there was in the first time I recorded it, but I hope it was helpful, nonetheless. And I hope you do listen to Episode 68 and 69 with Martin Ken Ross. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Podcast, Takeaways and Reflections |
Takeaways & Reflections | Leading Ourselves Through Grief
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Do you feel like the leader of your life?
Do you believe you are leading yourself through grief in a healthy way? You may be wondering what the “healthy way” looks like.
Take a moment to consider what leaders do at the start of their day. They don’t start their day dragging themselves out of bed, drinking a Mountain Dew, and grabbing a snicker bar for breakfast. Maybe some do, but I would wager to bet those leaders that do this are on the fast track to burnout.
How would you show up differently for yourself, and your grief, if you gave some deeper thought to how you’re treating yourself and not harnessing the grieving process as something to push you to your edges and show you what you’re capable of.
Grief pushed me to my edge until I was sick and tired of being sick and tired. It also pushed my guest, Scott Mann to his edges. And, Kristine learned how much expansion waited for her once grief entered the room.
We can lead ourselves or we can be led; one way is far more empowering than the other and helps you become the refined and evolved version of yourself after grief.
Which do you choose? I hope this episode inspires you to take your grief by the horns – not for anyone else but you.
RESOURCES:
Leadership In Our Own Life
Hey there. Thank you so much for tuning in today. I am your host Victoria Volk of the Unleashed heart and you are listening to a takeaways and reflections episode from episode number 70, with Scott man, retired Greenberet on leadership, Afghanistan and grief, and Episode 71, with Kristine Carlson, heartbroken, open a widow’s work of unmasking sorrow. And today, I want to start with Scott’s episode where we talked in large part about leadership. And after that episode, leadership was, on my mind quite a bit. And it still has been because I haven’t really felt like a leader in my own life in a lot of ways. I always feel like there’s maybe something I could be doing more or something I could be doing better. Or I just often wish that there was more time in the day where I could do so many things that I would still like to be doing, in addition to everything else that I am pursuing. And a lot of that would involve me stepping into leadership, and the leader who I believe I have the capability to be, just as I believe you have the capability to be. And I think whether we like it or not, if you’re a parent, we are leaders, in many ways, because it is up to us to raise a future generation. And that can feel like a lot of pressure. And I can feel like we’re failing a lot. I can speak for myself, I guess, in that regard. But you have your proud moments, and you have your moments where you feel like you could have done better.
And, you know, let’s face it, parenting does not come with a manual. And so we all are learning along the way. And we all are stepping into that leadership role along the way. And as our children grow and go through all the different phases of development that we too, went through. And there was something that Scott had said, and I just want to circle back to it. He said there is a path, there is a journey, where our scars that are below the surface can be repurposed. And I believe it with all my heart that I believe it’s actually rocket fuel for leadership. He says not who am I to do this? Who am I not to? Because if you don’t, what’s the cost of that? If there’s something that you really want to be doing? What is the cost of not doing that? And who are you not to try and step into the arena and do something bold, do something different? Try something new. Scott and I actually recorded at the end of September of 2021. And ever since then, like I said, I’ve been giving a lot of thought to leadership in my own life. And I’ve since signed up for to try out Toastmasters, which if you haven’t heard of it, it’s to help you develop skills and learn new skills for public speaking. And I’ve attended already one meeting and I’m kind of looking for a group or a club that I feel is a good fit for me. So that’s one way, I’ve also attended Women’s Business Summit, and also really looking and seeking mentors and teachers who are further along than me, who have a skill set or have an aspect of leadership that I am wanting to develop within myself.
Learning Leadership and Taking Opportunity
So I would ask you, what are you wanting to develop within yourself as a leader? What aspect of leadership? Do you feel like you could step into going into 2022? Do you want to learn parenting techniques? Do you want to learn how to start a business? Do you want to learn how to be comfortable talking with other people? I had an interview recently with a guest and he suggested that one of the best things people can do to become more comfortable speaking with in front of others is by taking an improv class. And I thought well, that’s brilliant. I never even thought of that. One of the other ways I’ve recently chosen to step into leadership is by taking a chance and putting myself out there to be on the news. The opportunity was presented to me from someone that works with entrepreneurs out the Women’s Business Center and shared that the local news station was doing a segment for the week of Veterans Day. on veterans voices, and I reached out to the reporter and asked for more information. And she sent a clip of a story they did, I believe last year. And I had this moment where I felt like I not qualified. I was very impressed with the story of the gentleman that they interviewed with the work that he’s doing. He has a nonprofit, really stepping into leadership in his own life. And I find myself comparing myself to him, and all the work that he is doing.
And I felt like I was not worthy. I felt like that. Although there’s so many things that I want to be doing in the veteran community and for veterans, and have been trying to do, which has not panned out in my favor. I found myself shying away from the opportunity. The reporter then replied with the, it’s just about featuring veterans, and if they have a business to talk about their business within the community, and what what they’re doing and to share their stories. And so that made me feel better about doing it. Because I also thought, you know, what this isn’t about me, or my deployment or my service or anything like that, I really wanted to, I’ve looked at this, like an opportunity to speak about the topics that veterans care about, and soldiers care about. And that’s mental health. And that’s the suicide rate, and things like that. And so, I have a service that I know changed my life. And I was looking at this, then like an opportunity to let soldiers and veterans and other people know that there is something out there that exists that can be life changing, that will change their life, if they are open to and willing to do the inner work. Because of travel and distance, we actually did the interview over zoom, and I sent her some images and things. And so the story will actually be on my local KX news on the evening. And I will actually put a link to the show notes for that if you care to check that out. But it’s again, just another example and why I share it as another example of how I’m really taking to heart this notion of I want to be a leader, I want to lead and I want to step into my potential in a bigger way. And I share this because I want to inspire you as a Griever. To reach for something that is a deep desire within yourself, and find a way, find the people find the resources, find the support you need to help you make that happen.
It’s so much harder to go it alone, it really is. And it does take support. So whether it’s going through Grief Recovery, and getting all those cobwebs and the icky stuff out of the way so that you feel more emotionally free to give yourself what you need to spend that time and energy putting it into meaningful work that you care to do. It’s much harder to do that when you are deep in grief when you are ruminating on the story of what happened, whether it’s three years out, or 30 years out, like it was for me, it’s never too late. It’s never too soon, you and I both know, we only have today, my daughter actually painted a watercolor and with a quote, and it says do it now sometimes later becomes never and I have that in my office. And it’s a reminder for me that I might not get a later. And that later may mean never. And so what better timing than now to step into my potential and I challenge you to do the same.
Heartbreak & Widowhood
Shifting gears from leadership to heartbreak and widowhood. I would like to talk a little bit about Kristine’s episode because what came about for me after talking with Kristine, was that although I’ve been doing this Grief Recovery work for almost a few years now, just thinking about my own situation, but thinking about it from my mother’s perspective, when my father passed away, she was a widow at 43 years old, almost the age that I am soon to be. And just in church this past weekend, the message was about widows and so it was so timely and I’ve found myself sitting in church. And I was listening to the passage and thinking about my mom and thinking about this episode with Kristine and thinking about all of the widows out there, who in that moment, we’re probably struggling, somewhere close to me, somewhere far away, it doesn’t matter. I just found myself feeling into my mother’s shoes, of what it would be like, if being the same age, almost as she was, what that would be like raising children, and grieving a spouse. And I can tell you like back in the late 80s, when my mom lost her husband, my dad, there wasn’t a lot of support. And there really weren’t any of her friends in her circle at the time that were widows themselves. So she really didn’t have anyone she could go to or talk to that had experienced the same thing. We didn’t have social media we didn’t have. We didn’t have a cell phone. Like, you know, there’s so many.
It was such a different time that there are so many blessings that we have today as grievers that didn’t exist back when right and resources also, and access to resources. I mean, there’s so much free content out there for people to access that can offer support and guidance and things like that, which by the way, I want to share a new resource that I came across recently. The app is called empathy. And it’s E m p a t h y just as empathy is spelled. And it’s based on artificial intelligence on the information that you input. So if you are a widow, and you were in charge of the estate, or bills, things like anything, I mean, it will pure rate, the app curates to your specific needs. I think it’s absolutely brilliant. I wish I would have thought of it myself. But I will put the link to that in the shownotes. I think that would be an amazing resource for not just widows, but any Griever. So if you’re listening to this, I greatly encourage you to check that out.
Empathy & Compassion
But, again, this episode this week was just so timely for the message I received in church. And just what I’ve been reflecting on in reading as also, like just in my personal life books, I’m reading things to help me think of that time from my in my mom’s eyes with a whole lot of compassion. Because it’s so easy as grievers to think about our own personal experience, like how we were affected and how we were impacted. But to be able to put ourselves in the shoes of someone else, which is really what empathy is. But to then shift that to compassion. I’m not owning that as not, like those feelings are not mine to own, of what she experienced or what any Griever experiences, right? In our lives. We’re not, we can’t save people. But what I can do now is I can think about that experience with more compassion, being the age that my mom almost, that I am, almost at the age my mom was understanding and listening to other widows who I have interviewed on this podcast, but for some reason, this conversation with Kristine just, I don’t know, it touched me in a different way and and I could have been to the message in church and maybe, you know I’m further along in my own healing my own inner work, things like that, which also shifts our perspective which also we grow, right, we grow or our beliefs may change as we grow. I hope they do. They should, but especially for challenging those beliefs. That’s a good sign. But again, I I can think about what my mom went through making nothing about myself. He goes gone, put aside and just send love and light to that situation and that experience that she had and light The load that I feel about my own suffering. And I think is Grievers.
If we can do that, especially as maybe adult children, where our parent lost their loved one, there’s their spouse, they’re the person, their life partner, the one that they thought they would spend the rest of their lives with. If you are an adult child, and that your situation was like mine, I would just encourage you to whether it was a less than loving relationship with that person or, or it was completely a loving relationship. Think about what that experience was like for your parent, and the surviving parent. And I don’t know, I’m just it’s a call for compassion, I guess is what I’m trying to get across here. And Kristine eloquently shared what her experience taught her but you know, and she had a lot of resources in a foundation of healing, and personal development work already in place when that when she lost her husband, but she still had children she was raising, right, she still had to learn to navigate a grief and the grief of her children, because she had she had shared in her episode, both their parents were still living when her husband passed away. And so this is truly her first real grief experience. And, you know, I can say, personally, I feel more prepared for any future losses that I have having Grief Recovery, having the tools in my toolbox that I’ve, you know, learned and and personally developed over the past few years. But when you haven’t addressed grief, specifically in your life before, and it happens to you, it’s new territory. And considering everything that her work has become in the last several years. It’s a parent that that was a catalyst for a lot of growth and a lot of the work that she’s doing today, and the books that she’s written, and that’s life, though, right? We go through life, we experienced loss, it changes us, we can grow from it, we can find the gifts in it, which, when you’re knee deep in it, you don’t want to hear about that. But there is another side that we can all get to. We just have to hold on to the hope that we can get there.
How Powerful Support Is
And again, I’m going to circle back to you can’t do it alone, it takes support, it takes a village of support around you to help you get up day after day. And, you know, she had said Kristine shared that, you know, her daughter’s helped her get up day after day. They were her reason to get up. But she also had a lot of great support around her. And I want to tie that into Scott’s episode as well. Because when he was to the point where he was ready to take his own life, he had to get really honest with himself and with his family. And again, he couldn’t walk through that darkness by himself, he needed the support. So that is the theme, I think for this takeaways episode is, is stepping into leadership in our lives, being the leader of our own lives, taking our lives by the horns, getting the support, finding the resources we need, finding that which will help us develop and grow and learn into the people we want to be the Griever that has learned from the challenges and the hardships, a Griever that has found the hope to continue and share their message in a meaningful way. And not everybody has to like use their grief and user challenges for good but there is a lot of empowerment when you find meaning in what you’ve endured, and you turn it for the good of others. There’s a lot of empowerment in that. There was a quote that Christine shared and I’m gonna really tie this up with a bow with that with that quote, but she said the circumstances of life don’t make or break you, but they will reveal you. So my question to you today is What do you want your grief to reveal about you? What do you Why your circumstances in life? To reveal about you? Do you want them to break you? Or do you want them to make you and a part of that is stepping into the leadership of your own life. Be the leader of you. You are the only one who can lead you and it is solely your responsibility. No one can do it for you. No one can take away the pain for you. It takes you to do the work to be open to doing the work to show up for yourself in a big way so that you can become the version of you that you want to be so that you can become version 2.0 That you after grief.
P.S. That’s it for today, my friends. I hope this episode was inspiring. And if you’d like to share your thoughts on this episode, I would love to hear it you can email me [email protected] find me on Instagram @theunleashedheart. If you love this episode, please share it. And again, don’t forget to check out the show notes for the link to the app that I mentioned. And remember, when you unleash your heart you unleash your life. Much love.
Cancer, Cancer Thriver, Chronic Illness, Grief Stories, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast |
Anne Jacobs | 17 Years +++ Metastatic Checkin 2
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Imagine being told you have cancer. But then imagine being told you have cancer for which there was no cure. At that moment, in an instant, life is forever changed. And, although many people hear the words “You have cancer” every single day, fewer hear that the type of cancer they have will, without a doubt, kill them. That is unless a cure is found.
Anne shares, in this follow-up, what hearing those words was like and the thoughts that raced through her mind. We talk about what life has been like since we last recorded, and how she’s doing now.
Anne also shares about what her first distance reiki session was like that she had with me.
I encourage you to listen to her first episode. We dig into different areas of her cancer journey in this episode and, as always, Anne brings lightness to her experience and wisdom to those listening.
If you could only plan your life 2 months at a time, how differently do you think you would plan your days?
RESOURCES:
CONNECT WITH ANNE:
Victoria Volk 0:08
This is Victoria of theunleashedheart.com, and you’re listening to grieving voices, a podcast for hurting hearts who desire to be heard. Or anyone who wants to learn how to better support loved ones experiencing loss. As a 30 plus year griever and advanced Grief Recovery Method specialist, I know how badly the conversation around grief needs to change. Through this podcast, I aim to educate gravers and non Grievers alike, spread hope and inspire compassion toward those hurting. Lastly, by providing my heart with yours and this platform, Grievers had the opportunity to share their wisdom and stories of loss and resiliency. How about we talk about grief, like we talked about the weather. Let’s get started. Hello, and welcome, again to grieving voices if you’ve been here before, and if this is your first time listening, thank you for being here. Today, my guest is and Jacobs. And this is actually a follow up episode to just check in and see how she is doing. We had originally recorded in early February of 2020, kind of at the start of COVID-19. And that episode actually didn’t air until April 6. And that episode is called The Road Less Traveled 17 years with triple positive metastatic breast cancer, which Anne has. And so Anne, thank you again for letting me follow up with you in sharing your follow up with my listeners. Thank you for being here.
Anne Jacobs 1:52
Oh, you’re welcome. Again, my honor. To be part of it.
Victoria Volk 1:58
So lots changed for a lot of people since we originally recorded and what I want to give you an opportunity to share really is how COVID impacted you on top of having cancer. And we’ll get into all sorts of good stuff, I’m sure but what is the update that you would like to share?
Anne Jacobs 2:26
Um, well, the the update, which is is good news is that the the current drug that I’m on, it’s called it’s a fairly new drug, it’s called an her to E n h e r t u is is working, which means it’s either keeping my cancer stable or best case scenario is what we call no evidence of disease or no evidence of active disease. And the last PET scan I had showed the cancer that’s in my right lung is stable, which I’m thrilled with because it’s a little bit currently is a little bit more active than my lower spine and my lower spine is is no evidence of active disease, which means the cancer is still there. But when the but the PET scan doesn’t pick up enough uptake to like if you if you went in had a PET scan and you got the same uptake as I did be normal. They you know, they wouldn’t consider anyone else having cancer so, so right now I’m I’m stable, which is wonderful. I always get nervous before my next PET scan, which I’m going to have in August. They call that scan scan xiety Because sometimes you have or sometimes I have a false sense of security that in between scans, oh everything’s okay. And then as you get closer to the next scan, you start to wonder, okay, well what is really going on? And what will the PET scan show? And is the cancer actually more active than than the prior scan? So that it can be a very extreme anxiety or it can be low level nervousness, but either way most I usually experience it so that so cancer wise I’m I’m doing well, I’ve been on treatment every three weeks for the cancer drug and then I also get immunotherapy to help boost my immune system about one to two weeks after my my cancer treatment. So that’s that’s a really good thing. And I’ll stay on in her two as long as it is keeping the cancer Bay. Thankfully, I’ve been here for 17 years doing this, but eventually the drug will stop working and then I’ll get on a new treatment. So that’s sort of another fear is that okay, well What’s next in the pipeline? I’ll probably ask my oncologist at my next appointment, if my next PET scan shows increase, you know, what do you it’s not, you know, a solid decision. But you know, what else is out there? What are my, my options? So, but for right now it’s it’s all it’s good.
Victoria Volk 5:23
It’s so good to hear. So glad for you and your family. I’m sure it’s like a party every time. Good results come back, I’m sure.
Anne Jacobs 5:33
Yeah, it’s, um, well, when I do get the PET scan results, I get them in my online health portal. And actually, I have my husband, read them, I can’t I don’t read them anymore. I used to just, you know, go can’t wait to get the results, read them. And let’s see what it is. But for I’d say for the past two years, I’ll just tell him, okay, the results are in you read them and tell me what they are. Because I’ve asked my oncologist to send them as soon as she gets them. And because I could ask her not to put them in my portal and just wait till my next appointment. But so he’ll read them. And if they’re good, it’s okay. You know, I physically feel myself relax. If they’re not then like, okay, you know, I usually I’ll have a physical reaction one way or the other. And then we’ll tell my kids, and they will react to them. And they’ve been doing it for 17 years as well. And they will be relieved and pumped up. If it’s good news. And if it’s not, then they say, Okay, well, Mom’s gonna go see your oncologist. And they’ll come up with a new plan. And, you know, we’ll go from their, I don’t know, probably someday, I hope it’s not for a long time, might have to have the conversation of well, we’ve done all we can, but I don’t think about that. And I am sure they have it in the back of their mind. But because who wouldn’t, but it’s not something that we we focus on. So it’s kind of like when the PET scan results. Give us like a wave like a wave. It’s not like a big high, high low, kind of in the middle of, okay, yes, it’s good, or no, it’s not. And then, you know, either path, you take either path to, okay, I’m going this way to the left, or going this way to the right.
Victoria Volk 7:33
So you get these wonderful results in the middle of a pandemic. And I’m curious how the pandemic has impacted, really probably your mindset in a lot of ways, I’m sure, or, yeah, I guess, in what ways has the pandemic affected you
Anne Jacobs 7:54
In the in the beginning, I’m not too much, because I have to be careful. Anyway, because my immune systems compromised. So I was wearing masks on airplanes. Before the pandemic, I was washing my hands like crazy. Before the pandemic, I was, you know, doing all that picking and choosing who I could be around when I could be around people, and that kind of thing. But as time went on, I kind of probably joined the rest of the world who wasn’t used to living like that, because I really resented having to wear a mask. I just like as soon as I would walk out of a store, I’d rip the thing off. I didn’t wear my mask outside. Because with my, I have half of a right lung that work. So if I had it on too long, it just affected my breathing. So as soon as I get outside, I just rip the thing off because I just resented another rule that I had to follow that I had no control over. So in that it was a balancing act. Things in our house kind of were the same. My husband is a he works for himself. So he and his assistant works out there their routine, you know, at work, but he got up every day and went to work. So it felt inside the house, it felt normal, but then when I’m home alone, I could I could go out and walk I’d be outside with the dogs, but if I wanted to go anywhere, you know, maybe I couldn’t the things that you know, if I wanted to go lose myself in TJ Maxx, you know, for an hour just looking at stuff. I couldn’t do that. I couldn’t do the things that I would normally use to escape to get back to doing things that maybe regular people do. So that that became pretty hard. And then I finally saw my mom laugh earlier this month and seen her body A year and a half, that was pretty hard. We talked every day, but not being able to know that she could fly out or I could go see her that was actually really hard. Because that was part of my life. She we would see each other 234 times a year, depending on my health and her health. So in some respects, I felt like I was holding my breath, probably like everybody else, and you hunker down and you do what you have to do in other respects. I’m sure. It was like another added layer two of constriction. And so I, I resented that end, I had to figure out, like another way, or a way to deal with another restriction, another thing that I had to conform to health wise, that became a little challenging for me.
Victoria Volk 10:51
Well, unfortunately, things have opened up a little bit. Yes. But it’s this time of recording. And towards the end of June here, it’s kind of sounding ominous, again, a little bit with this other variant. And, yeah, so I guess we’ll all see. Right?
Anne Jacobs 11:12
Yeah. Yeah. And I think, you know, if, you know, if you’ve been through something, you kind of know what, you know, what your experience was, and how you eventually made it, through it, that experience and so you can rely on that information to, you know, prepare you for hopefully, you know, we won’t go through this again. But if we have to, at some level, whether you’re working from home, or you have you know, little little kids at home, or retired or you’ve got parents in a nursing facility, you can lean back on the experience you had and hopefully not make or make life a little bit easier. I guess, you know, we’ll see. But yeah, for for right now. It was when I when I was back in Michigan, they I live in California was back in Michigan, they had lifted the requirement to wear a mask, if you were fully vaccinated. So as soon as I got out of the airport, you have to wear an airport, because it’s the federal regulations and all that and then was with my mom and a doctor’s appointment, you wear it in the common areas, and then in the exam room, you can take it off. But other than that, it was nobody really was wearing a mask, it was just this wonderful, like joyous feeling of awe. You know, we just felt normal again. And then I, when I got back here, just a couple days there to California, is just a couple days later, when they lifted the mask requirement that you know, you’re fully vaccinated. I’ve noticed there’s more people where I live, will wear the mask than than they were in Michigan. But either way, you have the choice, you can wear it or not, you don’t have to. So I don’t.
Victoria Volk 12:58
So what have you found that has been helpful to you living with cancer during a pandemic,
Anne Jacobs 13:05
The thing that kept popping up for me, which, or I should say, percolating to the surface, which means I’ve been thinking about it, or it’s been, I’ve been pushing it down and and then it kind of keeps coming up and up and up is and I felt this for a long time I have, I tend to minimize for myself. Like the smaller losses, which what I consider, I’ll explain in a minute, what I consider to be smaller losses in my life, have three friends whose their, their sons have died to way too early. And one from cancer, one by suicide and one by accidental overmedicating. And that to me, is just admire these women so much. I just don’t know how they go on. But you know, they do. And I look at them, and I say, Okay, well, and just because you, you, you know, your legs hurt today and you can’t walk or all you can do is brush your teeth and go back to bed. But your kids are here, you know, my three sons are here. And so I use that as a as a benchmark. But what I found is that the more that I don’t deal with sometimes I’m even embarrassed to say like, I consider them to be insignificant because the loss of a child I just can’t even imagine. So the rest of it I think, okay, I should be able to deal with this. Because I think God forbid what if I lost a child? Then I would say I would give anything back Yes, I will live with neuropathy in my like from my feet up to my You know, hip bone, I’ll live with that. No problem, I just want my son back, I will live with the fact that, you know, I’m in bed for five days, or, you know, I’m in the hospital for five days with double pneumonia. Like, I could do anything, or I would do anything. And I know they would, too. So it’s this. I don’t know, if you call a push pony, but I had to realize that it’s okay for me to grieve what I consider the smaller losses, like to pay attention to them, and recognize them, they all pile up, and then I become, I’m tired, because I’m not sleeping well. So I have low energy, but at the same time, I’m like, lethargic, I don’t feel like doing anything, I’ll, I can’t concentrate. And if I do concentrate, it takes I have to just pull everything out of me to sit, you know, to do a task, when I get anxious or nervous or depressed. I, I don’t, some people I know, eat my responses not eating. If I allow all these little, what I consider to be little things to pile up, then it becomes this big, huge mess. And then I don’t know where to start. It’s all this stuff in a pot, I pull it out, it’s stuck to everything else. So where do you start and it becomes a little overwhelming. And then I might, you know, react or to emotion when it doesn’t warrant it, like I might become too sad or too angry. And then I know, okay, something else is going on. I really, I have to allow myself to, to pay attention to these little things along the way recognize them into me knowing that they’re they’re not going to go away. And I’ll probably feel the same thing, you know, next month, but if I don’t allow myself that ability to, to touch them to feel them these and I’m talking about the losses, and that’s what it feels like to me. You know, pick it up, hold it right, again, because if they’re like unwanted houseguests, okay, I can’t, this is what I can’t do. But what can I do? That’s sort of been my motto, but sometimes that doesn’t work. And then I know I have to do a little bit more paid more attention to what’s actually happening with me. Instead of saying, Hi, energy, I’m going to do this today. And I’m going to be grateful, I’m going to focus on the joy, I’m going to do something one thing that makes me happy, whether it’s for myself or someone else, you know, I go through my checklist, but then if that doesn’t work, then I know, okay, I’ve really got to, I’ve got to dig a little deeper and allow myself to do that. And it’s my own. I don’t know, comparisons not the right word, but to allow myself to to feel sad or angry that I’m in this situation. And my kids are are okay, and my husband’s Okay. And you know, my family’s. Okay. So that actually has been popping up quite often for the last I would say six months.
Victoria Volk 18:01
I can’t remember when. But it was after we recorded. I offered you a Reiki session. Yeah, you took part in and it was a distance Reiki session, obviously, because you’re in California, and I’m in North Dakota. And what came of that is you had shared with me after that you feel like you need to well, actually what came up during the session, and I told you was that. You need to start painting? Yes. Not knowing that you were a painter. Well, one time you painted that.
Anne Jacobs 18:34
Yeah, yeah. Like today. You look around with it. Yeah.
Victoria Volk 18:37
So have you been painting?
Anne Jacobs 18:40
I did. Actually. I went out and I bought this little, some little watercolors. I just mess around with it. I am not a painter. But so I did. I went out and bought that. And I did for probably about a month and a half. And then life started happening. And yes, that was something that came from the Reiki session. And it felt right. You know, it feels good. I have my I have it all downstairs for I keep some of my craft things. And but I have not done it for the last. I think January maybe because it’s the new year. But I haven’t done it for the last few months. But that does. And I know I’m not saying anything new here because but just to have the brush and you know, stick in the paint, whatever. I don’t even think I just start. It can be just movements of my hand on the paper or, and that’s usually actually what it is. And then I’ll look at it and say okay, well, this looks kind of angry or this looks peaceful. Or I recognize exactly what’s going on. And it’s a way to get it out of my system.
Victoria Volk 19:47
That’s where I was going. Yeah, that’s exactly where I was going to get there. Yeah. No, but that’s where I was going that i You didn’t hadn’t told me that part, but that’s what I was suspecting in what you were saying to about what you were sharing about minimizing. And in just these other losses, these smaller losses that are not small, I’m not minimizing them at all those were your words, but when you’re feeling that way, that might be a wonderful thing to pull out when you’re feeling that way. And maybe even take them outside you know.
Anne Jacobs 20:21
Yeah, that that would be a, that, that would be a good thing. And I was actually I’m headed back to to Michigan for about three weeks. And I was thinking, well, I could, I could take it with me and just have them out, you know, and just walk by, but I can do that at home as well. But yeah, it’s, it’s a good way to, to just either consciously or subconsciously get the feelings out. And I used to, I used to do it a lot. So it was the Reiki session was very sort of eye opening, that you had picked up on that when we had never talked about it before.
Victoria Volk 21:05
Do you like to share more about your experience with that Reiki session?
Anne Jacobs 21:10
Sure. So I had thought about doing one here. Years ago, I had done some research, and I’d found someone and then probably, you know, cancer gotten away, and I couldn’t do it. And then I stopped thinking about so I thought, Okay, we’ll give it a try. And truthfully, like, about how’s this gonna work? Because you’re a nurse, Dakota, I’m here. And, you know, how does the energy you’re not here in the room with me? How does the energy flow? How does this even work? So I was not skeptical, but curious. That will, okay, we’ll just, we’ll see how it goes. But I found that listening to the music, and, you know, knowing you were on the other end, because we didn’t talk for what, like, an hour hour, that that sort of mindful connection, it made a difference. So I kind of in a way I picked I had my eyes closed, you know, as laying down, and I thought, well, Victoria is in North Dakota, but what if she was like right here, and I have my eyes closed, because it’s something you when I get MRI, seguela, when I get MRIs, I close my eyes in the machine, and I just picture okay, my eyes are closed, I’ll just pretend that you know, I’m by a lake or I’m in the river in, you know, near river, it’s usually water. So I do this visualization. So I thought well, alright, yeah, I’ll just pretend you’re here in the room and what how would I be feeling what would that you know, look like anyway. So doing that made for me made this the, I guess, the energy connection. And then afterwards, I was, I felt more focused or in tune to what was, you know, going on with me, I felt a little more, I felt more at peace, a little more energized. Because I felt at peace, I didn’t have the heavyweight of my anxiety or dread, do feel that like as a weight on me, so it felt freeing. So open, and I kept that feeling, probably for a month and a half. And then, you know, real life happens and just kind of piled on again. But I, I found it I thought, Okay, well, this would be a good tool to I have to consciously add this into and make time for this because it was it was more effective, honestly, than I thought it was going to be. But I also realized that the long distance, I had to, like I said, I had to maybe work a little bit harder to make that connection. Because when someone’s in the room with you, you know, you feel their energy, you feel their presence and all that. So I had to just coordinate that with what was happening. And after I did that it, you know, it wasn’t that hard. Because, again, you’re I’m laying down and listening to the music and I’m, I’m kind of doing my work and you were doing your work somewhere between North Dakota and California. They connect him.
Victoria Volk 24:14
Well, that just speaks to the power of the mind. Right. And our intention, and in a Reiki session, there is nothing that anyone needs to do the clients like you there was nothing you would have had to do. Right be open to receive. Right. So you just took it one step further for your own intention. Yeah, but your own intention into it. And that’s, again, I’m just saying like that speaks to the power of intention. And so we can bring that in all areas of our lives.
Anne Jacobs 24:47
Yes, yeah. Yeah, we can because for me to live with intention. It’s a gift because I can’t do it fully as I would like to, but I can do it and Little People So just because of, again, you know, my energy level how I’m feeling and, you know, the other living with this unwanted houseguest have to deal with. And so that I guess, also is part of, you know, when I call some of my smaller losses is to say, Oh, I’d love to do this, but I can’t, I like literally, I can’t physically finish something that I might want to pursue. So I have to do it in little bits and pieces, knowing that I’ll never get to the end result that I might, that I might be able to if I didn’t have cancer, again, it’s and that has actually, that’s, you know, popped up these last few months, because I’ll see people around me doing these wonderful things, you know, you with your, your podcast of the year amazing guests and other friends who are, or they are living with intention. And I know they have their bad days. And I mean, everybody does, but they’re seen through and I know that can’t see something all the way through, I can go partway and enjoy what I can, but then I have to recognize, okay, well, you know, if I can’t, I can’t even think, you know, if I can’t do what XYZ but I can pull up my watercolors and I can, you know just kind of mess around with that for you know, an hour, or I can I can write or I can sit down and write for 15 minutes, which is a participated in a podcast writing with a nonprofit, they help cancer patients and, and, and the woman said, you know, you just for 15 minutes, and you know, she gave us different prompts. And she told us the best way to do it. This is just take 15 minutes, just you know, sit down and write this and come back to it. So I can do these little things in pieces. Would I ever be able to write a book? Yeah, probably not. But I have a real, you know, paint, learn how to really paint, you know, probably not, but this is what I can do. So it’s that balance of recognizing the losses. And then also, I can’t do that, and allow myself the time to grieve it. But yes, I can do this. And so I can live with intention. Not the way I’d love to. But I still can live with intention.
Victoria Volk 27:20
I disagree on that. I disagree on the book writing part of very much disagree on that.
Anne Jacobs 27:25
I don’t know.
Victoria Volk 27:26
I very much disagree. Now speaking of writing, because when we last recorded, we had a came up about writing your children letters. Yeah. Have you gotten back into that? Because I You had said that you had started doing that?
Anne Jacobs 27:42
I did and so I have been I haven’t gotten to the point where I’m writing, you know, life time, you know, I should probably well anyway, I’m sorry. Yes, I’ve been, I’ve been sending them cards, I’ll find a card that I like and then I’ll, I’ll write a note in it. And in I’ll mail it and I don’t do it. Like I could probably do it every day. Maybe like mommy’s lost it so but I’ll even you know, our youngest is he’s in transition for he’s been home for the year for for COVID. Now he’s looking to go back to school. So he’s been loving this as well. I’ll put a letter in the mailbox for him. That just turns around and comes right back. But it’s always fun to get something in the mail. So I have I have been doing that. And then I’ve also been sending them, you know, little texts, here and there. They’re so busy, that the texts have to be super short. I love you or I think you’re amazing, those kinds of things. But I haven’t gotten down to actually do that writing that we’ve that we were talking about where it’s more of a
Victoria Volk 28:50
Lessons from mom.
Anne Jacobs 28:52
Yeah, thank you. Yeah, yeah.
Victoria Volk 28:56
So don’t say I never told you so.
Anne Jacobs 28:59
Yeah. Yeah.
Victoria Volk 29:04
What do you look forward to, for the rest of 2021?
Anne Jacobs 29:08
Well, I take it in, you know, little snapshots. So I leave mid July. And I’ll go back to Michigan for about three weeks. And we have a cottage in northern Michigan. And so Chris and the boys and, and one of my son’s girlfriends, they’re going to come out for the last the last week, I’ll, I’ll be there. They come out maybe four or five, four days after and they stay for a week and then I’ll stay for like another week or so. So I’m looking forward to that and then then we come back and and I get my pet scan. And then you know have the results of that. And that that’s sort of is a go that far out. But beyond that we’re hoping to either go have a family trip to Yosemite or the Grand Canyon. So that’s, you know, out there and then my one of my brothers Is, is doing the Half Ironman back in Michigan. So in September, so I would actually like to, if I can, I’d like to go back for that, again, everything beyond the PET scan is possibilities, I’ve lived with that. So that’s not, you know, for the, thankfully again for the last 17 years, so it’s, that’s not a new feeling. And that’s not a new way of living. For us, it’s like, well, if, you know, if I’m feeling good, then we’ll, we’ll do this, if I’m not, then you know, then we won’t. So we’ve either postponed or had to cross off, you know, many different things to do as a family, but I’m hoping, because I am, I mean, I am feeling pretty good. But um, I’m hoping that we can get those participate in those things. And then comes, you know, Thanksgiving, which is a big boy, you know, they love Thanksgiving, and then there’s Christmas, and, you know, everything in between. So, I always look forward to those times, because I know they’re going to be home, my mom might be able to, to come out. So I have the fissures, the possibilities, and then the maybes, you know, the dangling ones. So that kind of keeps me going. And as you get closer to each one, as soon as I get the PET scan results, then I’ll know what the rest of the year can look like, for me. So it’s like, living in two or three months chunks at a time. I don’t really have the luxury of I can plan, but I don’t know if it’s going to happen, you know, past August, but then again, it goes back to getting myself to the point where I’m okay, you know, focus on my, I know I have to deal with because they keep coming up these these losses, and then, okay, I feel like I’ve got my head above water a little bit and then get back on track with the things that, you know, I can find joy and things I find hopeful. And, and the things I have have gratitude for. So it’s a it’s a little slower process this time around.
Victoria Volk 32:06
Do you know of other women in your area that have that are living with metastatic breast cancer?
Anne Jacobs 32:12
No, not right now. I know women who are living with either currently going through treatment or have gone through treatment that they’re not staged for, they might be one, two or three, but I’m in a Facebook group with metastatic breast cancer Facebook group. And that that is that is, is pretty helpful. Because I can if I’m when I need to get on and read I can, I can comment I can interact, or I can just sit back and read other people’s comments, that seems to that helps a lot everyone posts on there, you know, good news, bad news and in between, and you will get so much support. And it’s you know, it’s heartfelt support that you can feel through, you know, the computer like you can with the Reiki, you feel that through the, you know, the headphones, and that. So that, to me is pretty helpful. And you’re talking with women who are going through the same thing, they might not have the same cancer characteristics, and they might be on different drugs, but the issues are usually the same.
Victoria Volk 33:20
Yeah, I was just wondering if there was anyone close to you? Maybe even in that group?
Anne Jacobs 33:26
Um, there probably is. In the past, I’ve said, Yeah, let’s meet for coffee or something that didn’t happen. So right now, I don’t feel a strong need. But it might be in the future. You know, I never never say never to make that connection. I know, it’s I know, it’s there course there’s gonna there’s going to be women, you know, around me or within like, an hour two hour drive, that, you know, you could go meet the Bay Area. There’s a gal I know, she’s, she’s been dealing with metastatic cancer, she lives in Southern California, she’s very active. And I used to see her more often, just because of different things would bring us together. Now. I you know, you interact through the Facebook group, but you know, if I needed to, I could pick up the phone and call or you know, and talk. So that’s always available.
Victoria Volk 34:20
And I think there’s just I mean, it’s a good thing to have people who really get what you’re going through. Right. And so just that you have that support there. Yeah, of people who really do get it. Yeah, he’s I can’t I still can’t wrap my head around 17 years like I When is your 18th anniversary
Anne Jacobs 34:44
Next year. So it was actually July of 2004. And my kids were little, my youngest was had just turned four. We were in at our cottage in Michigan and my back started hurting, I thought, oh, you know, I’m running around in the water and I’m picking kids up and moving and you know, all that. So I tweaked my back. So I got a massage. And it seemed to help but the pain didn’t really go away. And then it became pretty acute. So, you know, I ended up, I came back and I asked my oncologist, you know, told him what’s going on? And he said, Oh, it’s probably sciatic nerve. So he, we got an x ray system, like, right below, you know, my lower spine and off to the right. It came back clear. And then probably a month or so went by, and I called my primary care physician and said, you know, had this backache, it’s not going away. So he x rayed from my waist down, and you know, boom, that’s the cancer showed up in my lower spine and in my left hip, and so I didn’t get officially diagnosed, you know, for months, probably till October. And then I didn’t start treatment until maybe November, December. But I look back on I know, the cancer was there in July. It just, I hadn’t got it diagnosed yet. So I was used. July is my the month. So 18 years will be next year in July. Wow, that’s examinable. Maybe I can be I’ll come back and in July of next year, and we will see how it’s gone.
Victoria Volk 36:31
I would love to have you. That’d be great.
Anne Jacobs 36:36
Yeah, and it’s, you know, I wouldn’t, I would never expect anyone I would never expect you to, it’s too hard to wrap your head around, like, what does it look like to look to live with this? Or, you know, any sort of cancer? You know, what is the day? What do you do through the every day?
Victoria Volk 36:53
Ride the roller coaster?
Anne Jacobs 36:55
Yeah, yeah And it’s, um, it is pretty hard to understand. Unless you live through it. And I wouldn’t want anyone to have to understand it. But 1000s of women who are, you know, doing this every day, you know, you wake up one morning, just what you have, you know, you have cancer, okay. And it’s not never going away. Oh, okay. And, you know, depending on your life experiences and what you’ve how you’ve handled things in the past that will influence you moving forward. And when I got diagnosed, initially, I had this alright, let’s, you know, stage three, we’ll beat it, we’ll go through chemo, there’s a start, and there’s an end date, I’ve got this. And then you get the call. No, it spread, you know, I had no comprehension, I didn’t know where to put my feet down. This was something that I had never encountered before. So I had a friend help me sort of navigate and get get a second opinion. And you go from that to a third opinion. Go back to your oncologist, you make a plan. So it’s just like moving forward without a map doing the best you can. So that’s led me to here. I’ve learned a lot along the way. But pretty amazing. I’m pretty grateful, very humbled by the fact that I’m still here. Very, very grateful.
Victoria Volk 38:15
I love that you’re here. And I love that our paths have crossed, and we will continue to do these follow ups. As long as appreciate it long as my podcast exists.
Anne Jacobs 38:28
Well, you’ve had like, lived to earlier, you’ve had some pretty amazing guests. I was thinking, Why? Why is Victoria want to talk to me? These other people are just there. I haven’t gotten through all of your podcasts yet. Because I’ll sometimes I’ll go back and I’ll re listen to, you know, some of them. Oh, what did he or she say? But just you’ve had some really? Some really impactful conversations.
Victoria Volk 38:55
Oh, there’s so many more to come. I bet. Yeah. I bet. Is there anything else you’d like to share today?
Anne Jacobs 39:03
I can’t think of anything, except I guess to reiterate, what I’m I’m learning or I’m allowing myself to just deal with the, again, what I consider the smaller losses so that I can have a more peaceful existence to do find what works for you and allow yourself you know, if you have that should I should do this, or I should do that. When those shoulds come up too much. I need to really pay attention because then I’m not doing what is best for me to be the best version of myself and allow myself to push the shoulds away and the judgment therefore I have on myself and just focus on if I do this, I’m going to feel better. I’ll be a better version. I’ll be a better mom, wife, friend. I’ll be a better and be a better person for myself too.
Victoria Volk 39:54
That’s perfect. And we will end it there because I think that’s perfect.
Anne Jacobs 39:57
Thank you. Thank you again Victoria,
Victoria Volk 40:01
Thank you for being here and for being you and sharing all that you’re learning along the way. I appreciate you, folks. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love from my heart to yours. Thank you for listening. If you liked this episode, please share it because sharing is caring. And until next time, give and share compassion by being hurt with yours. And if you’re hurting, know that what you’re feeling is normal and natural. Much love my friend.
Grief Stories, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Suicide |
Emma G Rose | His Name Is Nicky
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
The ripples of loss reach far and wide within a family unit; often in ways, we don’t expect. Emma shares the impact the death of her cousin to suicide has had on her life and that of her family.
Emma has found solace in writing her grief in the thirteen years since her cousin Nicky’s death, publishing three books since that time.
Suicide leaves those left behind having to navigate the displaced anger this type of loss often leaves in its wake. Emma shares how her family grieved together and how this loss, which left a gaping hole in their lives, has somehow managed to bring them, as a whole, more together. They talk about the hard issues and what matters to them as if they’re talking about the weather. Which, as the creator of this podcast, is my hope for all of us – that, as a society, we can begin to talk about grief like we talk about the weather.
Reach out to someone you know or love today and, as Emma shares, if they need to, they will reach back. It often takes someone to extend the hand of compassion first. Will that be you?
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
Victoria Volk 0:08
This is Victoria of theunleashedheart.com, and you’re listening to grieving voices, a podcast for hurting hearts who desire to be heard. Or anyone who wants to learn how to better support loved ones experiencing loss. As a 30 plus year griever and advanced Grief Recovery methods specialist, I know how badly the conversation around grief needs to change. Through this podcast, I aim to educate gravers and non Grievers alike, spread hope and inspire compassion toward those hurting. Lastly, by providing my heart with yours and this platform, grievers had the opportunity to share their wisdom and stories of loss and resiliency. How about we talk about grief, like we talked about the weather? Let’s get started. Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today’s guest is Emma G Rose. She is an author, publisher and host of the indie book talk podcast, she started writing her first novel as a way to cope with her cousin’s death by suicide. Today, she’s getting ready to publish her third contemporary fantasy novel about people living through difficult situations, including near death experiences, suicide and grief. Thank you so much for being here. Happy to have you. Yeah, no problem. Let’s start with your grief writing journey. And where that begins,
Emma G Rose 1:34
I guess, to really tell this I have to go back to before the grief incident. So I’d always wanted to be a writer my whole life. As soon as I figured out that books were a thing that people wrote, they weren’t just magically created. I wanted to be a writer. And so I was that kid who was always scribbling in a notebook, I was reading all the time. And I started a bunch of different drafts of books as a as a kid in like middle school in high school age. But I’d never finished anything, to a degree that I felt like it was ready to be sent out into the world. And then I was 20. And I got a phone call that my 17 year old cousin, had died by suicide. And of all of the people I knew in my life, if I had had to list, the people who were at least likely for that to happen to, he would have been right at the top of that list. Like it just was completely out of the blue to in my,
Emma G Rose 2:34
in my experience of it, it just you know, it wasn’t like, we saw signs, you know, people talk about, Oh, I saw this and that. And of course, in retrospect, there were a few things. But it’s hard to tell, sometimes as a teenager, like the difference between normal teenage angst and like there’s something really wrong here. So as his cousin who lives in a different state, I didn’t see it. And it completely shocked me. And started kicked off probably the hardest week of my life, which was flying, to be with the family and be it the week and the funeral and all of that stuff. And that all of that process that ritual, helps to helps you to kind of cope in the short term. But it’s just the very beginning of this long journey of dealing with a situation. And my situation was a little complicated in that I this was this happened in March, in the fall, I was scheduled to move to Japan. So very quickly, after this loss, I moved to the literal other side of the planet, and was as far as I could possibly be and still be on planet Earth, away from my family. So I did kind of fell back on old habits and started writing a lot. And at one point this, this scene kind of popped into my head this, these two characters talking to each other, and they were teenagers. And this is where it gets it actually gets a little lighter. There’s these two teenagers and they’re arguing about whether or not they’re dead. And I don’t know where this came from. Exactly. It was just like one of those scenes that sort of falls into your head all at once. And I knew that they were that they were dead, but that they weren’t sure. And that they were arguing that’s what they were arguing about. And I got up from the book I was reading and I went and I wrote down this scene. And it sort of evolved from there into a story. I eventually wrote my cousin into the story, the whole that whole first novel deals with a journey through the afterlife. And so I was able to write him post suicide. And as a person dealing with this decision that he had made, he was both incredibly challenged. and comforting to write that because it was a way of saying he’s not gone forever, right? He’s just kind of in a different place. And for me and for my family, when I share the story with them, it was really comforting to know that like, there was another place, I made a home for him. And this is where he was. And we all knew where he was, he’s in this afterlife place. And he’s okay. And so when I wrote this, and it was, again, you know, very challenging, there were many drafts, I removed the scene, I put it back, you know, there was a lot of that happening. But when I shared it with family, people who have known Him, they kept saying, to me, this is really comforting, this made me feel better. This, you know, somehow changed the way I thought about this so that I could feel like, okay, I can move, I don’t want to say move on, because that’s never real, but to move forward in this feeling, and not just be kind of stuck in this place. So hearing that, I knew that this story needed a wider audience, because we weren’t the only one. Sadly, we’re not the only people who have dealt with this situation. We’re not the only people who have lost someone to young, we’re not the only people who have lost someone to suicide. We’re not the only people to be struggling months and years later with the ramifications of this act. So I wanted to put it out into the world. And even knowing that that was true, knowing there were people out there who needed it, I still sort of dragged my feet for years. Because first of all, there’s all the complication of getting something published, you know, it’s not a super simple process, always. And depending on which avenue you choose, I originally went with the traditional publishing route, I was querying agents I was sending out, you know, cover letters saying like, this is what the books about and do you think you can sell this? And most people said, No, we don’t think we can sell this. A few said, this is incredibly intriguing. But I don’t know where to put it. It was just it was it was a weird story. It bothered people that the whole thing happened in the afterlife. It bothered people that like it was funny. It’s a legitimately funny book, because they’re teenagers and teenagers are hilarious. But it was also dealing with these really heavy issues. So that was this weird balance. And I finally ended up independently publishing it, starting my own publishing imprint, putting the book out into the world. And it took me 10 years from the time of my cousin’s death to the publication of the book, but I think it was a well spent 10 years and learning how to deal with all of this. And the process of publishing the process of getting it out into the world has helped my grieving process. And as I continue to write, I continue to, to find layers of this grief. So the most recent novel, The one that’s coming out in July, is assembling Ella, and that is a story of somebody who 11 years later is dealing with the loss of her brother. So it was it enabled me to look at some of the things that people don’t understand about long term grief. And the times when, you know, I mentioned my cousin, and people go, and they kind of cringe, and they don’t know what to say next. And or they’re like, why are you still upset about that, which is my favorite response, because I’m still upset about that, because he’s still gone. And it’s still awful. But I found myself kind of telling myself the story that I should be better, where even it was a few months before the final draft of this book. So I had sent it out to beta readers, which is like the first readers who kind of give you feedback, and I had sent it out to them. And so I was kind of in this place where I didn’t have anything to do right this second. And it happened to fall during the anniversary of my cousin’s death. And I found myself thinking I should be I should feel better than this. I shouldn’t be so sad about this. Still, it’s been this many years. How am I still so upset? How am I How was it still await? You know, March, as soon as the month of March starts. It’s like I’m holding my breath. And I actually called my mother and I said, Why am I still so upset, and she said something that actually sort of it was true, but it was also kind of devastating to hear, which was, The anticipation is worse than the day because you know what’s going to happen, you know, that this awful thing is going to happen, and there’s nothing you can do about it. And so every year, like the week, the few days before, is really, really hard. And I’m learning to reach out to people, you know, to talk to my uncle, who has been amazing, you know, he lost his son, and he’s just, he’s found ways to turn that grief and that loss into connection. In many ways. He’s a role model, too. You know, we do different things. We do it in different ways. But ultimately, we’re both trying to say you are not alone. And this should never happen to anyone else ever again. And whatever we can do to save people from that or to You know, bring them forward just a little bit to know like, you’re not alone. You’re okay. And there’s all these people that be really upset if you left, that, that outreach that, you know, remembering that you’re not by yourself is like the biggest thing. It’s, it’s everything in this. And that’s why I write books, not only to remind other people that they’re not alone, but to remind me, because people come out of the woodwork. When I when I share these books, and I share these stories. I get emails, I get direct messages on Twitter, I get, you know, these log messages on Instagram saying, I read this book, it changed the way I think. I read this book, I realized someone else gets it. I heard you speak. They haven’t even read the book. I heard you speak. And I understood. You know, I felt something. That’s why I do it. I don’t think there will ever be a time when I’m over it. I don’t think you ever get over grief. You’ve lived with it and you live through it. And it’s okay to not be over it. It’s expected because you never don’t love that person. You never are happy they’re gone. So you’re always grieving in some way or another extend you a hug. Thank you.
Victoria Volk 11:06
Thank you for sharing. I think your mom had it right? Because it is it’s the anticipation that is almost worse. And all the work that I’ve been doing and podcast episodes I’ve recorded with Grievers. It is a similar story of the week of the month of the day before the day of even days after it’s it’s when self care is really superduper important, and especially in grief. That is that’s your hope, especially maybe early on. So what did help you? And when did this happen?
Emma G Rose 11:40
This was 2008. So it’s been 13 years.
Victoria Volk 11:46
Yeah. And it’s been 13 years, friends. Yeah, there’s no timeline, right? 30 plus years, my dad’s been gone. There’s no timeline, the chairs still empty. My son’s gonna graduate in two years, I’ll probably think about my dad and how I wish he would be there, right, like life events keep going on and that person is still gone. That doesn’t change. So the grief changes, but the missing doesn’t. Right. And I heard the same thing. Well, she you should be over by now. Yeah, well, I’m not a stuffer like you. Because the people who are saying that are stuffing their emotions, excuse me, they’re stuffers. They’re either turning to the bottle turning to relationships, turning to Facebook or reality TV or something that makes them feel better for a time. And they’re not really addressing what’s going on. And it catches up with people. Eventually, it does. So what helped you I’m circling back to the question now, what helped you and is continually helping you, other than writing because not everybody’s a writer, right? When the time gets closer, and when March because March is my month too. So
Emma G Rose 13:02
I mean, writing is like my primary coping mechanism for most things, but outside of that, reaching out to family members, and just saying like, I’m not okay, you know, sometimes I send my uncle just like a heart emoji. I did on my cousin’s birthday this year, like the day before his birthday, I just sent that. And it’s that little moment of connection. And when you’re grieving, it’s really hard to connect with people, because you want to sort of call yourself inward and protect, you know, you want to protect that thing that’s hurting, which is you. But it really does help to reach out and just say I’m not okay, and to acknowledge that out loud and not feel like you have to be smiley and fine when you’re not. That’s huge. For me, one of the kind of sweet things that my uncle did, he took some of Nikki’s old T shirts, and he cut them up, and he wrote his name and his birth and death dates on them. And Nick had always wanted to travel. So we took the t shirt of pieces of T shirts to just random places. I was in Japan. So he sent me one and I left it in a temple in Japan. And, you know, my my family went out to camp that a camp that they’ve been to several years in a row and they like tied onto a rock and dropped it into the lake. And it was all those things that remind you that the person is not here with you, but that they were and that they’re still part of what you’re doing. We still talk about him regularly. You know, it’s not there’s no taboo against bringing him up. My uncle will joyfully tell stories about the hilarious and ridiculous things that my cousin did. He was, you know, the class clown, the funny kid who was always getting up to something and those stories are told and that I think makes a huge difference to and not not avoiding because yes, it makes us sad, but it also makes us happy because my favorite author Terry Pratchett has a quote. Do you not know that a man is not dead? Well, his name is still spoken. And I think that continuing to speak someone’s name is not only a confirmation that your grief is valid, and that this, you know, it’s not like this bad feeling that came from nowhere it had an origin. And that origin was the love of someone, you don’t grieve someone that you didn’t have some sort of feeling for there. That’s just you know, a name on a paper somewhere, but somebody that you grieve as someone that you loved, or sometimes didn’t get along with really well and had complicated emotions around, or they evoke something in you. And so what you’re grieving is not just the person, but also everything around them, the you that you are, when they’re around and the way that they fit into your relationships in your world. We are eight cousins, a boy and a girl and each family. And Nikki is a part of that, even though he’s not present with us anymore. And so he comes up and we talk about him. And that makes a huge difference.
Victoria Volk 15:55
I think your uncle sounds like a really good mentor. And he’s leading by example. I love that story with the T shirts. It’s beautiful.
Emma G Rose 16:04
Yeah he’s done a lot to both remember Nikki as an individual person, but also to help other people who might be going through similar struggles. So he started in Nicky’s remembrance, he started the Nicholas wind Fernandez Scholarship Fund, which gives a scholarship it’s not a huge scholarship. You know, we’re not millionaires here, but it’s a scholarship to kids who went to the vocational school that Nicky was attending. So that exists. But we also did the out of the darkness walks, which are fundraising events for the American Foundation for Suicide Prevention. And my uncle got really involved in suicide prevention programs in the state of Massachusetts, which is where they’re from, he worked actually with the select the state legislature to get suicide awareness training into schools, which was interesting, because when he started, they asked him to talk at what would have been Nikki’s graduating class. And just before he went on stage, they said, Oh, don’t say the word suicide. And so that, don’t say that word that comes back to the same thing of don’t speak their name, because you’ll make someone’s that Don’t say that word, because you’ll put it in their heads. You’re not putting that idea into anyone’s head. They already have the idea. But when you bring something out into the open, you demystify it, you take away some of the some of that feeling of no one understands no one’s ever been where I am, no one gets what I’m feeling, all of that is connected, the grief, the suicide, all of that is something you have to talk about, and mental health as a stigma. Those are things we have to talk about, and we’re getting better now he can go into a school and give a talk specifically about suicide prevention. And no one thinks that’s weird, but 13 years ago, don’t mention the word.
Victoria Volk 17:49
Tell us about Nikki and the impact he had on you.
Emma G Rose 17:52
He was the the youngest of my cousins, and only my little brother is younger than him. So he’s the youngest of my cousins. And he always had sweaty hands. Some people just do and he always did. Oh, he always wanted to hug you. So get this, this stereotype that like a 1314 year old boy is not going to come hug his female cousin when she walked out the door. Nikki was not he you know, yeah, your hair, give you a big hug. He loved to play video games. He loved to play sports. He did baseball and football and all of that stuff. And he was very much that the life of the party, the class clown kid, the one who came up with the funny prank. He was also he takes after my uncle, he was a bit of a daredevil, you’d have to stop him from doing things like can I jump off the trampoline into the pool? You know, he was that kid? Yeah, to be on watch, because he would get into trouble. But he was just the sweetest person. You know, he was legitimately wanted people around him to be happy and joyful. And he he was that himself for the most part. And I associate the color green with him because he wore it a lot. And so we all wore green for a long time afterwards, their particular shade of green. Yeah, it was my baby cousin. And in some ways, you know, I don’t didn’t know him as well, as I wish I did. You don’t realize until somebody has gone that. Like all the things I wish I knew. I couldn’t tell you what his favorite song was, you know, or my uncle had to tell me some of the things he hoped and dreamed about? What did you want to be when he grew up? And you know, where did he want to travel? All of those things. Like I didn’t necessarily know that because I was 20 and he was 17. And you know, the younger you are the the more those ages matter. And he’s changed our lives since then. I think certain members of our family are much closer than they would have been otherwise. We make more of an effort to be present for things because we’re all very aware that you never know when the last time you’ll see someone will be so you know say I love you go to the event even if it’s boring. Don’t make the effort to do something even if it can only be, you can only go for 30 minutes before work. Okay? It’s better than nothing. Yeah, he was just a really happy kid. I’m so sorry. Thank you
Victoria Volk 20:16
Was the family I was so open and vocal with each other before this happened to?
Emma G Rose 20:23
We’re, we’re pretty good at talking about hard things. I think we got better about it. I think, again, it’s sometimes it’s hard, you know, I was 20. So, the world you live in when you’re a teenager or a young adult, isn’t always 100% reality. But I do think that we were pretty good at being open and vocal, you know, we always said, I love you, we took pictures together, you know, but I just think that we’re much more willing to talk about hard things now. You know, it’s not uncommon for someone to say, Oh, I went to my doctor, and I now want anxiety medicine, and I feel so much better, you know, those sorts of things that maybe we wouldn’t have necessarily shared with everyone, you know, with the whole family. And I think my, my nuclear family, my parents and my brother, we are exceptionally good at talking about things like death, you know, we’ve had very open and honest conversations about what do I want to happen when I die? What, you know, who Who do I want making decisions for me? What do I want to happen to my to my body after I die, all of those things, that, again, people sometimes really struggle to talk about our I don’t want to say comfortable, but they’re not uncomfortable topics. They’re the they’re just as likely to come up well, cooking dinner, as you know, oh, did you see that thing on TV? Or what I’m planning to do next weekend? It’s, it’s becomes a very normal thing to discuss.
Victoria Volk 21:56
That’s very important. Do you think that I mean, was Nikki privately struggling? Did Nikki not communicate some things? Was there any indication that he was,
Emma G Rose 22:06
I think he communicated better, or more, more openly with his father, my uncle, and maybe even to a certain extent, my grandparents who live very close by, I think that I was more removed from it because I was further away. You know, we live in Maine, and third, Massachusetts, we see each other at special events and things and he was definitely struggling. He, you know, he’d had some diagnosis of some sort of depression or something like that. And, you know, and I don’t know all of the details, I know that he was sort of struggling and in the end, and but I, again, it’s so hard. And I think I want to acknowledge this because people who are beating themselves up about this, it’s so hard to tell when you’re when you’re outside someone’s head. Whether this thing that they’re dealing with right now, is this a end of their world sort of thing? Or is this I just feel bad right now, it’s really hard to tell. And sometimes inside your own head, you can’t really tell. So we did that. We did that. Like, well, what if we done this? And what if we’d said this, and if only we’d come home sooner if only you know, this hadn’t happened if only somebody had said this, that or the other thing. But I mean, you could have only all the way back to my uncle never met, who Nicky’s mother, and therefore, Nikki was never born. But I don’t want that. I’ll take this over that.
Victoria Volk 23:28
I’m curious and you don’t have to share. But I’m, you know, just for the sake of those listening, what I know about grief, as a grief recovery specialist is that it’s not just one experience that happens to us. It’s usually accumulation of experiences that takes us over the edge or we either implode or explode. What was Nikki’s life prior to this? Like had he experienced a lot of grief in his life?
Emma G Rose 24:00
I don’t know that I’m qualified to say, I know that he had, in some ways a difficult relationship with his mother. My, my uncle and his mother were divorced. And there was, you know, there was some tension there that we all knew about again, I mean, I don’t know the inside of his head. So I don’t know what thing you know what? Something that can be life shattering for one person might be a Tuesday for someone else. So I can’t say for sure. I do know that. My uncle and my grandparents were always present and loving and supportive. And yeah, they thought about stuff because everybody does. But ultimately, we have always known that they were there for us. And I can’t imagine that Nikki didn’t know that. But sometimes what’s going on inside your head just doesn’t No amount of outside support is enough, you know, you got to find that inside yourself to some degree. So that’s really, I guess the best answer I can give to that.
Victoria Volk 25:09
I just wanted to just highlight though that exactly what you said is that an event can happen to one person, and it can feel like a Tuesday. And it can be an absolutely soul crushing thing to somebody else. And the divorce rate is quite high. And usually children are the collateral damage of that. And this is why too, I’m passionate about the helping children with loss program. It’s for the adults, especially with young children younger, even doesn’t matter the age really, but this is why I’m to I’m so passionate about the education of it, because when we as parents, Are you a parent, as a parent, and I have teenagers, I have three teenagers now it is I have learned the value of cleaning up my own shit. Really, I’m now gonna have to mark this explicit. But it’s the truth, it is the truth, because my junk impacts my parenting, therefore, will impact my children. And I don’t want my junk to interfere with their future. And so if you’re listening to this, and you are maybe getting a divorce, you already are divorced. And if that isn’t even your situation, maybe you’re estranged from the biological, other parent, whatever the situation is, maybe you’re adopt, you know, maybe you adopted children in your divorce, whatever, it doesn’t matter. This is why this is so important. Because when we start to clean up and sweep our doorstep, it ripples in our lives. Your uncle has started, he cleaned up his doorstep, he started, you know, and he’s making ripples in other people’s lives. Look at the influence he’s had on you and the impact and your grief, just by him leading by example, not just in the basics of life, but when it really matters. And when that when it comes to grief, because we don’t know what people are struggling with. But if you can’t allow yourself to ask the tough questions, because you’re afraid of the answer, where you can’t handle the answer. That’s your indicator that you’ve got some personal work to do. I’m getting off my soapbox now. I didn’t expect that. But it’s heartbreaking for me to hear these stories like this. And not just Nikki, it’s just one like it even you know that. We just never know what impact our actions have on others. Not that this is by any means your uncle’s fault. I am not saying that, or his mother’s fault. I’m not saying that. I’m just saying, what do you have to lose by addressing your stuff. And that potential is really high to be a lot, your future, your own future, your own potential, we sacrifice when you when you don’t address the stuff within you, you are sacrificing little bits of yourself. So what has your grief taught you? Because that’s that’s I mean, I’ve learned a lot. So what have you learned in your group?
Emma G Rose 28:29
How do I narrow this down? It has taught me that I am not alone have never been alone cannot be alone. Because there are there’s always another person in the world who has experienced something like what you’re experiencing. And if you reach out, they’ll reach back. That’s I mean, I’ve my whole writing career around that idea that if I reach out the people who need to, will reach back. And I don’t think I would have known that. If I hadn’t had this experience. I think it’s also taught me that life is more complicated than you think. So no single experience is like, Okay, this is everything or network, even something that feels like the ripples of an individual experience spread out through your life. When Nicky died, my brother, my brother’s much younger than me, my brother was 12 and a teacher at his school who also happened to have grief professional training, said that children will grieve as they grow. And I remember as a as a 20 year old I said, That’s stupid. He’s going to grieve and then he’ll just go on with his life, right? Because of course, I’d never had this level of experience. And I have learned that people do in fact grieve as they grow and sometimes they don’t realize that’s what’s happening. And so sometimes that and in some ways, this is what assembling Ella is about sometimes reaching a milestone. Everyone around you is like, Yay, we’re seniors. Isn’t that exciting? And you’re going my brother never got to be a senior. Why do I get To surpass him, my cousin never will get to be 21 years old, he’ll never get to have that ridiculous party that everybody has. And, you know, get into trouble. He missed that. And knowing that no single experience is all happier, all sad, nothing you experience in your life is all good, or all bad. It’s this balance of things. I don’t believe everything happens for a reason. I don’t believe that their fates out there making the world BS. But I do believe, and this has taught me that you can find lessons and and guiding principles out of even the worst things. And that if those terrible things happen, the best thing you can do is look for the lesson in them. Because you might as well learn something, if you have to go through this horrible thing, you might as well let it make you a better person, you might as well let let it connect you more to people, because the alternative is to let it break you down. And I don’t want to do that
Victoria Volk 30:58
I had a podcast guest once say I said in grief, and she had lost a child. And she said, when you lay you decay. Yeah. And I like to say that you’re already suffering, you might as well be suffering and moving your feet, taking action, baby steps, whatever you have to do to I had a podcast guest Yes, the who is living with metastatic breast cancer. And sometimes it’s just your goal is just to get out of bed. That’s it, just to get out of bed, and because when you lay you decay, I’ve just never forgotten it throughout your grief experience, which I totally identify with what you said, grieve as you grow, because I was eight. So that’s why I say I’m pretty much a lifelong Griever. But in your grief, experience, what has given you the most joy and hope for the future.
Emma G Rose 31:48
I mean, I’d have to say that the stories I get back from people, when I put when I share my grief experience, and people reach back and say, I understand I feel this, you made me feel better, you made me think about this differently like that, that’s the joy that comes out of this is that I experienced this. And it made us more empathetic people, it made us comfortable people for someone to reach out to if they’re hurting, because they know we’ve we’ve hurt they know that it’s safe to talk to us about these things. And as sad as it is when someone comes to you with a grief it, it’s also it’s also a relief to know that they have someone you know, they’re not having to navigate this, by themselves, sadly, have been there and have kind of blazed a trail and you can walk in those footsteps. So that’s been I don’t know what I would have done if I hadn’t written books like I don’t know how I would have dealt with it. This was my way. And I think other people are going to have other ways. You know, you could paint tour start a charity, or I don’t know, lay on the floor and cry. I mean, there there are lots of ways there are paths that aren’t this one. But for me, this was the only way forward. And if I had not written this the first book and not continued to write, I don’t know where I would be. It would not be here. Certainly, I don’t know where I would be
Victoria Volk 33:10
Writing gave you hope. It sounds like you’re not the first Griever to that found solace in writing. I’m sure to have one of them too. What else would you like to share today?
Emma G Rose 33:21
I think I just want people to know that I hope this has come across. But I will say it more explicitly. I want people to know that your grief is not wrong. And there’s nothing wrong with you. This is hard, it sucks. It’s sad. It’s feels meaningless and stupid. And why should anyone have to do this and whatever weird cocktail of emotions you get out of that, whether it’s anger or sadness, or any permutation of that, that’s okay. It’s okay, fighting those feelings saying I shouldn’t feel this way I should feel better, I should do this, that that is not going to help you. So it’s really okay to be sad. It’s really okay to not be okay. It’s really okay to block out three days of the month and say, I’m not working because I’m, I can’t because this is my observance. This is what I’m doing. That’s totally okay.
Victoria Volk 34:11
I like how you called it days day of observance, even like days of observance. It’s really observing how you’re feeling. It’s observing, you know, what would you have done with that person if they were here and maybe doing that thing? I like that, like I said that I did think of another question, because I know that the loss of your cousin wasn’t the only loss you had. But I’m also curious if you had grief yourself experiences prior to losing your cousin,
Emma G Rose 34:39
The only person I had ever lost before. Nikki was my great grandmother, which is a very different experience. She had been in a nursing home for many years, she’d had a stroke. She wasn’t herself and she knew she wasn’t herself. And so when when she died, it felt More of a relief almost to say like she’s not she had a full and beautiful life. And now she’s left us. And that’s very sad. And we were, of course, all very sad. But it wasn’t the same. There was no anger. With Nikki, there was a lot of anger. And it’s hard because it was a kind of displaced anger, like who am I mad at not really mad at him. I’m not I’m not mad at anyone. I’m just like mad that this is even a thing. I’m mad that this is possible in the world. I’m mad that somebody who had his his wake was like, there were people out in the driveway, waiting in line for like an hour to walk by the receiving line. His childhood orthodontist was there like that somebody who could have that big of an impact could choose to leave was very upsetting. And I was kind of angry at him. Let’s be honest. I was I remember sitting on the floor during the week with my little brother leaning against me and just being so angry at Nikki like, if he could see what’s happening right now. He would undo what he did. And so it’s very different. But the year Dickie died was actually really hard. Because it was the year everyone died, we lost Nikki and March, a close family friend a few months later, my aunt in law, I guess you’d call her died, complications related to her cancer, which she had fought breast cancer in one, but the treatments have weakened her heart and she died. So my last weekend before I moved to Japan, I went to a funeral. And then in December, my paternal grandfather who granted I wasn’t super close to he died as well. And it was just like that culmination. It was just saying after thing after thing, everyone died. And then I moved to the other side of the planet. And yeah, so Nikki is the he’s, he’s the focal point of my grief often. But there’s more than that, you know, it’s it spreads. And I don’t know, grief feeds on itself, right? You get into this like, like any other mental habit, when I’m sad, eventually, that’s where my thoughts go. And I think it was a very well ingrained mental habit by the end of that year, to grieve. To a certain extent, I think people are grieving now. I think everyone is grieving more or less right now, and may not be the loss of a person though. For some people, it absolutely is. But the loss of experience, the loss of a year or more of our lives in in the world that we thought we were going to have. Because ultimately, grief is about the experiences you miss. It’s the the relationships that didn’t happen. The the tribute didn’t go on. All of that is grief. And we’re all feeling that right now. So I think in some ways, this is the exact right time to be talking about grief. We need it really badly. We need these conversations. And we need them to be open and honest. And things we can talk about and acknowledge
Victoria Volk 37:42
I say too grief was our pandemic long before COVID was a pandemic. To be honest, grief has always been there in the fact is, is for example, two years ago, I attended a VA mental health summit, Veterans Administration mental health summit in I was in a room full of social workers. And I’m not dogging social workers, but I’m just stating a fact here and in aroma soldiers. And there was two soldiers that shared their experiences of coming really close to ending their lives and the social workers that spoke and in the breakout rooms where I attended other speakers not a once in the entire day was the word grief used not a once and that is the problem, because we’re not even addressing the elephant in the room. People I feel like yes, there are mental illnesses diagnosed, yes, that require medication that do require, you know, forms of psychosis, there’s all these things right, that medically can be legitimized on paper, and whatever. But where do these things begin? And how do they get to the point that they get to and knowing what I know about grief, trauma and Childhood Adulthood is childhood reenactments. I’ve said this several times on the podcast I’ll keep saying because when you’ve experienced trauma in childhood, and especially when you are a soldier and you go and deploy, that changes you trauma and childhood changes you It’s proven on a cellular level, it changes your brain chemistry completely. So grief is the pandemic and we just don’t want to talk about it. Like you said, talk about what you want with your body when you die. Like it’s like you’re talking about sweet potatoes for supper, right? Talk about how sad you’re feeling today because your loved ones birthdays coming up and they’re not here. Like it’s a recipe for mac and cheese. Like it’s the weather. Let’s talk about grief. Like we’re talking about the weather, make it normal conversation, because it’s normal and natural to grieve. Yeah. So thank you for the work that you’re putting out the conversations you’re having with people sharing your story, inspiring them and given them hope. Thank you for being here today.
Emma G Rose 39:58
Thank you for having me and giving me another place to connect with people
Victoria Volk 40:01
And where can people connect with you? If they want to find you.
Emma G Rose 40:04
You can find me at Emmagauthor.com. There’s all of my social media and everything there. So I am on a lot of the social media. And if you message me, send me a note. I will absolutely respond. So feel free to reach out. I love that. It’s why I do this work. Tell me your story. Just say hi. Hey, I heard you on the podcast, emmagauthor.com. And then, if you feel so inclined, and have any interest in publishing, you can check out the indie book talk podcast.
Victoria Volk 40:32
And I will put all of that stuff in the show notes. And thank you again for being here. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love. From my heart to yours. Thank you for listening. If you liked this episode, please share it because sharing is caring. And until next time, give and share compassion by being hurt with yours. And if you’re hurting know that what you’re feeling is normal and natural. Much love my friend
Grief Stories, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Widowhood |
Kristine Carlson | Heartbroken Open: A Widows’ Work of Unmasking Sorrow
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
When Kristine’s husband, Richard, suddenly died of a pulmonary embolism while descending on a flight, she had no idea how much she would rely on the tools and insights she had gained while writing several of the books contained in the “Don’t Sweat the Small Stuff” series.
It was the teachings, many years of personal development work, writing, and support of others that gave her the means to process the grief from, what had been at that point, the most profound loss of her life.
Kristine shares what those first years looked like, as well as takes us through what life has been like beyond, and how the loss of her late husband and most recently her soul-sister friend since age 14, Melanie.
Grief brings with it gaping wounds, but if we resolve, as Kristine says, to not allow ourselves to become a victim of our circumstances, a beautiful life with joy can unfold – if we only surrender.
Learn, through this episode, ways to cope that helped Kristine get through the darkest days and lean into joy again.
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
Victoria Volk 0:00
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. I’m your host Victoria of the Unleashed heart. And today my guest is Kristine Carlson. She is the co author with her late husband, Dr. Richard Carlson of The New York Times best selling, don’t sweat the small stuff books, she is featured this fall as the subject of a biopic Lifetime movie based on her book, heartbroken, open a true story of coming alive again, after profound loss. Thank you so much for being here.
Kristine Carlson 0:31
Hi, Victoria. It’s so good to be here with you. You have such a calming voice.
Victoria Volk 0:36
People say that. That’s good.
Kristine Carlson 0:38
Yeah that’s really good.
Victoria Volk 0:39
So I mean, I could start in a lot of places, but I really want to start with why you wanted to come on the podcast today and share your story. And really, it’s your grieving voice. Because all the work that you’re doing right now is as a result of a devastating loss. Right?
Kristine Carlson 1:01
Yeah, absolutely. I, you know, just want to be clear that I’m a long ways out, then most people from my loss, well, at least the the profound loss that I write about, and I speak about in heartbroken open. I’ve just recently gone through a very another profound loss with which is one of my soulmate, Sister friends that I grew up with, just passed from cancer about three weeks ago. So I’m reminded again, just about this grieving process, in such a, you know, raw sort of way, my loss happened 15 years ago, from the love of my life, he was only 45. And I was 43. And he was traveling to New York, buy a plane, and on the descent of the flight, have a pulmonary embolism, which took his life instantly. And, you know, it wasn’t something that we expected at all, Richard was an incredibly vibrant man doing his work in the world. And my kids were 14 and 17 at the time. So, you know, we were just really in what you would think of as the peak of our lives, not the end of life. And so it was southern loss, you know, very sudden catapulted us, of course, into deep grief and, and then you know, just how to traverse that territory at that age, without a lot of widows around or knowing you know, how to go through that process. From me about all four of our parents were still alive. You know, I just, I just didn’t really have any experience. But what I found really interesting about how I decided to do it, in a lot of ways I was very prepared in the sense of I have a lot of tools, like I had a lot of emotional tools from studying with Richard, the form of psychology that he wrote about in the don’t sweat, the small stuff, book series, living a very, very healthy and happy life, but not living a life that really knew how to encompass grief. So I began to just really put all those tools to work. And also I was really supported, had a lot of great friends. And I had a great community of of healers around me too. And one of the reasons why I write about loss and I have really used my story to help others is because I remember feeling so blessed that I had the support that I had and the encouragement and the community around me to help me and people like John Walsh Owens who wrote awakening from grief, or Richard’s best friends, I had great friends that knew a lot about how to grieve so they they really helped me and I thought, I don’t know how a normal average person goes through such a devastating loss without their heart just completely shutting down and stopping from heartbreak. And so I felt very compelled. As I witnessed myself go through this process of healing to journal which I find for every person is incredibly healing to journal, I started to realize I needed to empty out grief, that it was not too unlike what natural childbirth felt like to me, where those contractions of pain came in waves. But grief lasted a lot longer than, you know, six to 10 hours.
Kristine Carlson 4:49 Grief is a longer process, but very similar, very painful, but also there’s reprieves and, and there’s an opening that happens and I became very clear To me, that as I was going through this process, what I was really processing was that I was birthing a new life. And I think that’s the hardest thing, that people who lose their spouse or lose a child, which are the two most profound losses that we go through is that we realize we have to let go of the life that we have planned and let go of the life that we had, in order to step into the life that’s ahead of us and step into our future from the present moment. And that is the most difficult part is to, is to do that a lot of people understandably get stuck. Because they don’t want to do that they cannot reconcile this loss of a dream that they had for their lives, they cannot reconcile that they cannot go back. And that’s the hardest, I think that’s the hardest thing to do is in grief is allow grief to help you heal. And recognize that.
Victoria Volk 6:10
Yeah, I like to think of it as you become a version 2.0 You become a different version of yourself, and you really have a lot of choice and what that can look like. But when you’ve had a profound loss like that, which can be from a less than loving relationship to it’s the the secondary losses that often happen that kind of even impacted even more, you can lose friendships, and did you experience or can you reflect on any secondary losses that you experienced or, and then also being a parent and trying to navigate, help them navigate, especially the teen years? Helping them to try and navigate that loss for them as well, while still maintaining your own? Truth about how you are feeling? Can you speak to? There’s like three questions in there. I’m sorry.
Kristine Carlson 7:06
Yeah no no no, yeah. What What’s interesting is that, I felt like as a family, we did a dance with our grief. As a mother, I think my kids were what got me up every day, I was mostly concerned with them, that, you know, we got we were going through just incredibly painful time ourselves, but then to know our kids are longing and missing for the life they had with their father and the dreading the future moments that they won’t have him there in, in form with them. You know, not having the spiritual understanding that maybe I had to because I’ve always had this deep spiritual knowing that we don’t really die a That’s my belief is we don’t really die. And so I while I was super attached, and I wanted my husband in my bed and warming me up and the early morning hours and laughing with me and drinking coffee with me and going on hikes with me and doing all the things we did. I still knew that he was with me and my kids, though, you know, they, they felt certain times that he was with them, but they didn’t have that spiritual depth that I’d spent a lifetime building. And they were still building on that. And so I felt like sometimes I probably looked a little stoic for them. But I but I would grieve when they went to school because I didn’t want you know, for one thing, like as an adult, we have so much more control over our lives. When we have children. They’re going through very deep grief, but they they have this need for normalcy. And also they have this, they have to go back to school or they don’t have to I gave my kids the option. Right away, I immediately started to look into how I could lighten their load and give them space to grieve. I didn’t expect them to do anything that didn’t resonate with them. But my kids wanted normalcy. My daughter kind of wanted to keep playing soccer. My daughter jazz wanted to go back to school so I just did what I could to lighten their load. And then when they went to school, I fell apart and I allowed myself to fall apart. I allowed myself to go through you know deep moments of grief that was building in my body if I didn’t I could feel these feelings build in my body just this morning. You know, I woke up with a horrible stomach ache because I realized I’m having a difficult time processing. My friend Melanie, her her physical death because she doesn’t live near me and you know, we talked every couple of weeks and you know we’re close since the time are 14 years old, but I’m still having a difficult time processing it. And so I think, you know, the body has this innate intelligence. And the body will tell you, when you’re not grieving enough by how it feels, and all you have to do is tune in and say, Okay, how is my body feeling what’s going on in my body. And when I get a stomach ache, for example, I know, I’m not crying enough, I know, I’m not allowing myself to sit and really empty out tears, and be in that space. And so with kids, you know, I think it really was a dance as a family to figure out how to support them, and how to also take care of myself, because I realize now I’m the only parent, and there’s only one life vest in the sea for all three of us, and it’s me. So that’s, that’s the way I looked at it, the secondary losses, you know, I wasn’t as tuned into those I was, but I know they exist. For a lot of a lot of widows, I probably chose my friends more carefully after loss, it was interesting to the women that I spent the most time with were neat neonatal nurses in their early careers. And what that meant is they would spend a lot of time in the ICU holding babies that would potentially die. And so I found that very interesting that my friends that I felt most comfortable with, where those that could really hold me rather than trying to fix me, the ones that I felt least comfortable with, were the ones that were very uncomfortable with grief, you know, that they might come into my house and, and not be judgmental, but sort of like why why is, you know, why is kind of in her bedroom? Why don’t you get her up, you know, get her out of bed, like she needs to get out of out of bed, you know, and I’d be like, no, she needs to be where she feels safe and held and where she can comfort herself, if that’s what she wants, you know, so I was very acutely aware that as individuals, but my daughters and I, that we were there to support each other, but also to allow, you know, allow ourselves to go through our loss in our own way, because we’re very, all very unique that way. And, and so that there were times where I wouldn’t say I had a loss of a friendship because I didn’t, I really made it a point not to make definitive decisions during that first year. I just was going through
Kristine Carlson 12:45 intuitively, my process of what I felt I needed every moment. And, and again, I liken it to childbirth, especially national natural childbirth, because you’ve never, you see women in natural childbirth, and they know exactly what they need, like, there’s no doubt in their minds what they need the next. And it’s like that when you’re dealing with a loss and you’re in grief is if you’re tuned in, and you’re very present to what you need, you know what you need and, and I would just constantly do that for myself and give myself that gift, even if I had a dental appointment. And, and I you know, I remember one time I just called it i There’s just no way I could sit in the dental chair that day, I was in grief. And I just call this I’m very sorry, I cannot make it today I’m in grief. And, and I would just say that and, and it felt so good to take care of myself in those moments, where I would just know that this is what I needed to do with stay home,
Victoria Volk 13:49
You make a very clear distinction there in in what you prioritized was your what you needed. giving, giving yourself permission to do that. And I think so often in when we want to people, please we dishonor our own needs to please others. And so I’m curious how that sense of knowing or, you know, because so many, I think I mean, I can speak to me personally, it took me a very long time to really understand intuition and tap into my own intuition. Was that something that’s always been something you embraced? Or was that something that you grew into over time? Or?
Kristine Carlson 14:33
Well, I think you know, having been a writer and having been a leader in the personal growth world helped a lot because of course I’d evaluated what intuition was. And I mean, Richard and I started meditating when we were very young. I was 20 years old when I started meditating. So meditation is such an incredible tool for grounding for centering for knowing yourself for being able to witness and be mindful of so many things. And so when I, when I, when I say really did have tools, I really did have tools. I, you know, the other thing is, you know, I’m very attuned to fear to and what fear means. And so for me, I immediately noticed that without Richard present, I was afraid and because, you know, there’s this sense of protection that comes from your husband, and from having a man in the home. And, and I thought that was really wow, I’m like, I haven’t felt fear in like, 25 years. And now I feel fear. So it’s very tuned into that. What, what that felt like, and also, I would go to what I know about fear, and I would say, well, if it’s emotional fear, then, you know, I needed to breathe into it. And I just needed to allow it to, you know, dissipate in the moment, like, go to the present moment, breathe into it. And then also, fears of my future I would lean into, I would say, the fear of the future is something that indicates where you need to go, not where you need to back away from, which is also very unusual. So I remember, for example, Richards, Assistant, early assistant, was best assistant, Nicole had asked me, if I would marry she and her husband, and it was four months after Richard died. And I, because she would have asked Richard to marry them. And she said, then it suddenly occurred to me, I should ask you, Chris, and I mean, I really didn’t want to I mean, I can you imagine I was like, Oh, my God, how could I do that? It’s, I’m in such raw grief. I and I thought that’s just the worst thing in the whole world I could think of is setting a new couple out on their marriage, while mine is just ended, through loss, you know, and, but but because of that, I felt this push in a way to lean into that and say, Yes, because I knew that my ego, which was very low, was was telling me no, don’t go toward that. That’s scary. That’s, you know, putting yourself out there, you know, in a way that’s very vulnerable. And, but that there was something inside me that’s that pushed forward and said, Yes, I’ll do that. And so I did that. And I looked at it, like everything I did like that, because we had, of course, that first year is really, I mean, it’s brutal with all those firsts that you have. And then, you know, topple that with, I had jazz graduating from high school. I had, you know, can I was a freshman. I mean, so there was all the graduation there was like, you know, prom for jazz, there was, you know, all these things. Rich’s birthday, it all kind of came back to back and then that wedding came to and I just kind of have this time period where it was just I was being pounded in a way but I looked at that, like, I looked at that, like every trigger that happened, allowed me to empty more and more and more and, and then I just knew intuitively that as my grief emptied, I was opening myself up for something more joyful, and bigger. Of course, I didn’t know it in that moment, I was still very, very sad and very full of sorrow. But I kept going to that quote from Cahill Gebran, in the profit that says, Your greatest joy is your sorrow unmasked. And so I thought to myself, Wow, well, if that’s true, I’m gonna have a lot of joy. Love, joy is coming my way, because I have a great sorrow happening right now.
Kristine Carlson 19:05 I think that’s what it feels like you’re going through the dark night of the soul. And we and it’s a journey through and it feels really icky and feels like it’s never going to end. And then I tell people like something somebody told me, who was ahead of me by four years, she said, You know what, one day you’re gonna wake up and you’re just gonna feel different. And sure enough, one day about, you know, two years, two and a half, three years in, I woke up on Richard’s side of the bed. I come in and I’ve never slept on his side of the bed. And I don’t even remember getting my clothes off and getting into bed on his side, but I had when I woke up in the morning, I felt different. I wasn’t completely out of grief because I was still, you know, I would still cry still feel sad when big momentous occasions came like grandchildren that were born. and weddings that happen. Those kinds of things. I mean, Richard’s birthday, the anniversary time, there were times where I still was in grief. But it wasn’t the same. It wasn’t the dark night of the soul grief, it was manageable grief, it was, it was these times that would be triggers that I would just feel sad. And then I would be, I’d pop back out again, pretty quickly. So. And I think that’s the other thing, if we just don’t resist our feelings so much, you know, if we don’t resist those moments, as painful as they can be that they will pass and they will turn into something else, because that’s what our emotions do. We, our emotions are like the weather, it’s like, they go up and down and up and down. And I think the fear for everyone a great fear is that if they allow themselves, their emotion, if they allow themselves, their sadness, they’ll be like, sucked down underneath a whirlpool of sadness, and they’ll never come out. Whereas it’s really not like that, yeah, you’re sucked down for a moment that you come up just in time to get the next breath. And you always will. Because that’s what we do as human beings, we survive. And that’s what we do. And we are very, very knowledgeable about how to survive. You look at infants, they know how to survive. And as adults, we get in our own way, so much of the time, because of what we think we should do, or how we think we should do it, or what people tell us how to do it, you know, whereas if we just check in with ourselves and say, What do I need today? What is it that my body needs? What is it my spirit needs, what do I need today, and that is at the very core of mindfulness is to really acknowledge and with intent, acknowledge what it is you’re feeling on the inside. And then allow yourself to be in the present moment with that. That’s a very different kind of experience than what we’re taught about how to go through grief or how to busy ourselves, or let’s just get busy. So you don’t think about it. But that’s just not that’s not a possibility when you’re missing, and longing for somebody in your household.
Victoria Volk 22:18
That is one of the myths of grief is keep busy. Sure. Every recovery. Yeah, I have a few things I want to like, just reflect back because one, I just want to share again, reiterate that, did you intentionally give yourself a year to make no big decisions was that like something you consciously like a conscious decision, or that’s just how things unfolded?
Kristine Carlson 22:42
I did. I just sort of knew based on just talking to people like and feeling like I knew that the first year was going to be so raw, and that my mind, you know, I mean, you’ve got a lot of fog, like brain fog, and you’re just, you know, I just, you’re just not yourself in any capacity that first year or so I just didn’t think like, it was the time to make any decisions that didn’t need to be made. Now that said, I mean, there’s still decisions you have to make on daily basis, especially when you have children. And, and I of course, did those. So, you know, I did what I had to do, but not more than I had to do. And, you know, it’s just really trying to survive like anyone else. It’s, it’s really is just survival every time I would go in and change something or go in and write down on a social security document surviving spouse in my head, I’d be like, Jesus, you’re not kidding. surviving spouse. That’s that. And I never had thought about it like that. I just wouldn’t have known to think about it like that. But yeah, you know, you it’s just such a huge, you’re surviving for a while. And so you have to give yourself that space, just survive, and and to do to take care of yourself in a way, whatever way that is, without rules without shoulds and, and have tos and just be in a space of what do I need today? What do I need to survive this? How do I get through this day
Victoria Volk 24:10
So that eventually you can write thriving?
Kristine Carlson 24:14
Right, exactly.
Victoria Volk 24:16
So you mentioned how we’re not really taught how to grieve as kids and I would wholeheartedly agree unless it’s been emulated in a healthy way from our parents, right? Because those beliefs and those things are passed down to us. Can you touch on that a little bit? How grief was emulated for you growing up?
Kristine Carlson 24:34
Well, I I didn’t really have em grief emulated for me growing up because I mean, my parents had normal losses, you know, they had like their parents passed away when I was, you know, growing up and so forth. And, of course, they cried and, and they were sad and but I can’t say that’s really where I learned how to grieve. I mean, I come from a very, kind of a very stoic quick background actually, Swedish background you know, Swedes are very known for stiff upper lip. And German. Yeah. And also the German I have German me as well. So very German matriarch mother, and, you know, so I’m not sure that emotions were really like, well emulated for me, but again, I’ll I’ll say that my work with people like rich and avant Dutra St. John of challenge day, I was sat on their board for several years, and I went to all their workshops, you know, I did shadow process with Debbie Ford, I spent most of my adult life either writing about or doing personal growth workshops myself. So I mean, I knew how to sit on the ground and scream, you know, but this time, I really had something to cry about. So I remember, you know, I didn’t know how to cry when before I was in grief, I used to think in my head, wow, if I can’t be happy, nobody can because I had everything. And then after Richard died, I was like, Well, I know how to cry. I really, really know how to cry. Now. I think that’s a beautiful thing is to learn how to be in the emotions that you’re in without resistance, I do believe we have a choice and how we journey through our losses. And I certainly knew that I did not want to be a victim of my circumstances. I knew that wasn’t the way that said, did I feel some self pity? Of course, I felt self pity. Sometimes I missed my husband, I would say why did this happen to us all the questions that everyone asks, Why me? Why him? Why now? And then there are certain answers that will never come. And you have to just accept that those are the questions that you may always have, and they will not have complete answers to them. Because the life that we have is very mysterious. And that’s the mystery is, we don’t know when we’re gonna die, you know, we don’t know when our last moment will be. What I love so much about the way Richard lived was that he lived as if he could die at any moment. And he actually like left this column around our house, which is if tomorrow never comes, I published it in a little book called an hour to live in our to love. But he left this poem around the house. And, and it was really essentially, it’s it was it was in honor of 911 for those people that went out the door and went to work that day, and then never returned, you know, and that that could happen to any of us at any time. So, you know, I? Well, Richard wasn’t ill, I think he had a sense that his clock was shortening, that his time here on Earth was not going to be long, long time. Maybe he was being called to greater service from the other side. I don’t I don’t know, I sense that I sense that he’s not been in a rest in peace mission. I sense that he was called back home. And early, you know, early, you know, I think about like that there’s always a message in the mess, you know, that, you know, I would not necessarily have discovered my own message in the mass, nor that I was a leader in the personal transformational field, if my husband was alive. And that’s not to say that I wouldn’t have but I’m, I’m it was like a very direct conduit for me, because I am a writer to have this gift from him of expression, and to have this gift of understanding and compassion for other people and deep empathy for people who are going through loss. And I’m just one that I don’t know that I would have that sense of deep compassion. Of course, I felt compassion for people going through loss, but not to the point at which I know how devastating it is, you know, until you go through it yourself, I don’t think you really can know how truly devastating that kind of loss is,
Victoria Volk 29:13
Well we can’t know how it is for anyone really, regardless of the loss because every relationship is unique. Even people in the same household, you know, their, their relationship is unique to them, even with your daughters. Each one of them had a different relationship with their father. And that’s why we all grieve differently, because our relationships are different. So our process reflects that oftentimes, we can have one child that might be very angry and resentful, and all these things because maybe there was conflict in the relationship and maybe the other one was felt really loved and held and supported. And you know, I’m curious, have you felt signs or things that throughout the years that you know that he that You feel his presence?
Kristine Carlson 30:01
Oh, yeah, I mean, I have to say more. So in the very beginning and the first couple of years, I just felt like he was all around us. I mean, we had some pretty wild science actually, like he was, I was like, well, he really knows how to do a lot of light, a lot of light, leaving balls of light flashing around the house, like just a lot of lights flashing, even today, like all I know, is always around when the lights are flickering and flashing. And then as I have to send sometimes just walking across the street, that he’s with me, like, almost like he’s holding me as I walk across the street. Yeah, yeah. And I, you know, I, I’m one that has a lot of conversations with him daily. So I, I think that we can keep our love alive, and also keep that relationship alive the same way we would in life. But we have to be the ones to open the door and ask and to, and to just keep talking, you know, either via our thinking, or via our words to our loved one, and, and just saying, Good morning, and I love you and, and, you know, thank you for being present. And all of those things, you know that I’ve always said that we don’t move on. From those we love, we just move forward carrying them with us. And we don’t have to move on. And that’s one of the great other great myths of griefs, you tell people, they have to move on. And that’s like, you’re going to hit a wall, nobody wants to move on. Like, they don’t want to do that. So instead, just think of it like, you’re living for both of you, now you’re moving forward carrying that person with you. And that when you speak of them, you look at a sunset and you think of them, they’re with you and they’re feeling the same thing. They’re seeing the sunset with you, through your eyes, through your feelings through you’re bringing them into the present moment with you.
Victoria Volk 31:58
I’m a grief recovery specialist, but in Grief Recovery, it’s about moving on from the pain. Yeah, you know, like you’ve expressed it’s, it’s not like after two and a half years or so it was for you that you know that pain or those feelings you felt weren’t debilitating, like they were, you know, wouldn’t take you down for days or hours or, you know, like they used to or maybe even weeks.
Kristine Carlson 32:22
Yeah, maybe that’s what I’m experiencing now with Melanie’s I’m having a hard time going back to the pain. You know, like, because I moved, you know, I think that we do that we we want to be out of pain. And and then I think it’s, it’s, it’s hard to go back into that again.
Victoria Volk 32:42
So curious also to have you found love again. Do you want to find love again? If you haven’t,
Kristine Carlson 32:49
I found love again, for sure. Not in the same sense of the love of partnership that I had with my husband? Yeah, I think we’re like, you know, we’re creatures that are meant to explore love and explore relationship. And I’ve had many relationships since my husband say last about two to four, one last one lasted a long time as a different kind of relationship. Fact, I’m still in relationship with him. It’s just not a physical relationship. It’s a we’re very spiritually soul connected. But I dated him for many, many, many years. And then he was my transitional person. He was the person that helped me and the worst part of my grief. And yeah, but I you know, it’s weird because I have always had this sense that Richard was my person, like, my person to partner with. And in many ways, I’m still partnering with him today. So I look at it more like what is it that I need as a woman? And what are my emotional needs and then I if I need a man that I feel is a good man when that I’m attracted to one that I feel I can have a connection with and I’m willing to explore that I’m very open to exploring that but then a lot of times it just doesn’t something peters out or you know, I have a very fulfilling fulfilled life and very full life with my career with my five grandkids now I’ve got a couple houses that I maintain and visit and and I’ve got aging parents so I’m in that sandwich generation where I needed by my daughters and I needed by my parents so and then I have a lot of friends I have a lot of single women friends that I hang out with I lead retreats for women all over the world. I have, you know, I’m I’m with people a lot so my needs are lower, and if it doesn’t, it’s I start to realize that if I’m not really nourished in the relationship, or it’s just sort of like companionship, I Do you have to think well, would I rather be with my girlfriend on a Friday night? Or do I want to be with him? And then if it’s the girlfriend wins, I know I’m in the wrong relationship.
Victoria Volk 35:09
Hey, there you go, that’s a great tip.
Kristine Carlson 35:12
I’m like, okay, if I’m not missing him, he’s a great guy. He’s just not mine guy. You know? And, and so the answer to that is very loaded. It’s, I’m very open to meeting men and to exploring was a really, really high quality good man. And I’m very specific about that, what I how I define that for myself. And a lot of it is just, I’m looking for a man that has a wide range of emotion, who has a depth to him who’s passionate about his work, who has, you know, created a good, solid, complete life for himself. And that’s what I have. So I’m looking for somebody like that, you know, and I meet men like that, but then there might be a couple things that are off, you know, so over a period of two years, usually takes about two years. And I’m like, Okay, this is run its course. You know, what it’s done about life? You know, it’s kind of it’s really not about life. It’s, it’s, it’s a little bit hard on the heart, because you have to kind of, you know, I don’t like to hurt people, and I hate breakups. I hate going through. I’m terrible at breakups. I’m awful at them. And so I kind of always just hope, oh, hope this just fizzles out, you know. So there’s so that we can be friends without it, you know. So when it becomes very obvious to both people, then you usually can part with friendship, and, and it’s like, I really love you. I think you’re amazing. And we’re not moving forward. So let’s, you know, let’s put the brakes on where we’re at. And let’s regroup. You know, and that’s usually what happens for me, as I do that, with most of the men that I’ve dated, kind of on the more serious side,
Victoria Volk 36:57
Is this something that you address and kind of help women navigate with at your retreats and things like that?
Kristine Carlson 37:02
It is yeah, we do. We talk a lot about what it means to be single Love, the stories come out, it’s a lot more fun than my work. Like, I don’t go into that so much of my work. But yeah, just being single is it’s a great topic for women on retreat, especially women that most of the women that come on my retreats are either in a long marriage, and they’re just yearning for, you know, female company, or they’re single, widowed, divorced, you know, and in that place of wondering, like, how do I navigate this? And, yeah, I would love to write a book about that at some point, just because it is, it is such a, it’s murky water for most people. And, and it doesn’t have to be, you know, you can put some clear boundaries on how you do it as an adult woman, you know, and how, and move through it pretty, you know, it doesn’t have to be so difficult.
Victoria Volk 38:02
I know, society has a lot of opinions about women and remarriage and, and all of that, and, you know, too soon and not too soon, and why are you waiting, and you know, all these things on and out
Kristine Carlson 38:18
Really honest, they they take a lover pretty early, because it’s an alive experience, and they’re looking to live. So I especially, you know, kind of depends on I think when you’re widowed to like, if you’re younger or older, you know what I mean? Like, because if you’re younger, your hormones are raging, and then a lot of times grief and post traumatic stress can make your hormones rage even more. So you have to take that into consideration. You know, I mean, it’s, it’s so when you’re in your, you know, like where I’m at now I’m in my late 50s I don’t you know, I’m like sex. I’m like, I like it, it’s great, but I don’t have to have it like I did when I was in my early 40s. I mean, that was a horrible time for my husband to die. I was basically in the peak of my sexual hurrah, you know, and I’m like, I need to have sex. So the, but the other part about that is just learning as a woman how to be comfortable with your own body, you know, and, and taking care of yourself that way. And, you know, again, like, there are these society rules and expectations, but I think I think that people know, that we have needs, you know, I definitely felt my husband pushing on me to have a lover if that’s what I needed, because I needed to live and, and again, I’ll just reiterate, sex is a very alive, very engaging part of life and so it’s okay. If you’re a widow to find a safe, a safe companion lover if that’s what you need, you know, it’s okay. Hey, now that said, I mean you’re very raw and open, and you have to be careful because, you know, you don’t want to just, you don’t want to just fill that hole with something just to fill it. I mean, I would I mean, whole i That sounded really terrible. I mean, that way I read the whole of loss. So oh my god that’s really love this conversation. Whoa, sorry about that did not mean it like that. But anyways, you just don’t want to bring place the loss, yeah, replace a loss or try to replace that because that again is not going to allow for your grieving process to really happen. But Can somebody hold you in grief? Yes, absolutely. And then maybe you just don’t put expectation on that being the relationship that is gonna replace the one that you lost, you just you allow that to be the kind of relationship that it is, I think that’s the hard part for women is that we get very attached, and especially to those relationships where it has a sexual connection, we can’t help ourselves, it’s just what we do, because it’s a different experience having sex for a man and a woman. You know, he enters you and penetrates you, and then he leaves and you know, and he’s entered you and penetrated to so there’s a totally different experience for a woman that way. And that’s why the attachment is so much greater. So we have to be careful with our emotions and our feelings. And probably for a lot of women, the first year is probably not a good time to take on a lover for that reason, because you are so raw and open and vulnerable.
Victoria Volk 41:43
I’m glad you circled back to that, because I was actually going to say that I think there’s a lot that you could unpack there in your work with women because you didn’t have the tools like you did. And you weren’t as tapped into your own intuition and your own knowing and really did feel like I don’t know what I need. Because I didn’t, maybe perhaps they got into that relationship of the person they lost. Maybe they got into that relationship. And maybe that person was someone who was filling something up for them that they did not fill within themselves. Oh, yeah. So that piece is gone. And now they don’t even know who they are.
Kristine Carlson 42:20
Well, that is so true. And I don’t think we do know who we are after the loss of a long term. Partner. I mean, I knew I didn’t I was I kind of got dropped back to being that 19 year old girl that I was when I met him. And so a lot of the fears, the insecurities I felt, were masked. And I think that happens in our relationship, it masks a lot of the things that we may have thought up until that time. Now that said, you kind of go through an accelerated growth process pretty quick if you’re if you’re open to it. And you know that and you start to realize, Oh, these are old fears, these are these are old fears resurfacing, because he’s not here, he’s not masking them anymore. There’s like not there’s it was like the paper was just over it. And now the papers ripped off. And now those those qualities and attributes are present again. But I think if you realize that, then you can you can address them, acknowledge them. And, and look at that, for what it is. It’s just, it’s just fear, you know, it’s just emotional fear. I have a program called what now and I, I love this program, because I actually designed it for women and for women who are really trying to retrieve themselves because they don’t We don’t know who we are, after we go through any kind of loss of our identity. And let’s face it, I mean, loss of a spouse is loss of an identity, because you are no longer that married woman, and you’re no longer partnered. And that’s a huge identity crisis that women go through, of course, so they can happen the same. through divorce, it can happen. When women go through the empty nest, some women go through incredible loss when their kids are finally out of the house because they don’t know who they are anymore because they were a mom, and they were so identified with that. So so there is this whole process that you need to redefine what it is you value at this point in your life, you know, what is it that you value is a huge question. And then how can you align your actions with what it is you value because that’s what integrity is. That’s what self integrity is, is aligning our actions with what matters in our heart. And that just takes an inquiry, you know, that takes the sole work of really going inside and asking those questions of yourself because we do all have the answers. We all have the answers whether or not we’re honest with ourselves or not. That’s that’s another thing and that’s on each of us to be honest and in integrity with ourselves. And so, you know, my webinar program talks a lot about all of these things, intention, integrity, what we value, how to get back to what we value, how to align our actions with our values, and it’s so important for the whole journey of life, you know, if you want to get back to living a vibrant life, you’ve got to begin to see yourself in life and begin to visualize a new dream for your life. And that’s hard. It took me years to do that I could not ever dream of what my life would be like, without my husband in it. And then suddenly I started to, I was able to start to see things and create goals for myself and, and look at the things I wanted to do. And you know, and I filled my life up with meaningful things, you know, because I did value spending time with women I value travel as value helping others and serving others. So I write books, I do all these different things that honor my purpose here.
Victoria Volk 46:01
That’s huge. When we honor our own values. Yeah, there it is. So let’s talk about your work. The retreats, the book, the movie, lifetime movie that came out.
Kristine Carlson 46:12
Yeah, thank you. Um, well, my book heartbroken, open. A true story of coming alive again, after profound loss was actually my book, heartbroken open a memoir, through loss to self discovery that I wrote two years after my husband died. And it really came right out of my journal from those first two years. So I got the rights back a couple years after I published it, because they asked me to write a how to grieve book and I was like, well, this isn’t that this is a memoir. So I wasn’t ready to write a how to grieve book, my how to grieve book is called from heartbreak to wholeness, the hero’s journey to joy. And it has a lot of the things that we talked about just a moment ago about really going into the sole inquiry of who you are now, after this profound change that you’ve gone through whether it be a health crisis or a huge loss. And so those two books are my, my contribution, you know, to the grieving and the wholeness, you know, how to how to heal from grief. And then I have programs to 21 days of healing or grieving with grace with Christine Carlson. That’s a program I just designed so that you could get a video of me in your inbox every day talking about how to inspire yourself today and how to heal and grieve with grace that and then there’s a journal that goes with that. And that’s only $21 $1 a day for 21 days. So that’s on my website at Christine carlson.com. And then I have retreats, I have the wet now program on retreat, which is really my my favorite of all my work that I do. It’s, it’s what I call my great work, because I feel that’s where I make the most difference in women’s lives is really helping them in that rediscovery process, and how to inspire them to dream a new dream for their lives. And then the retreats are just a blast. I mean, they really are just a huge celebration of life. I mean, I do my retreat, my webinar retreat is at Sea Ranch, California. And I do an Italy retreat, and I do I’ve done Bali, and I probably do Morocco, but you know, I’m really like, love to travel and create amazing experiences for women to travel together and have a bit of a transformational personal growth process in that that deep connection, like very deep connection with women and circle together. So yeah, that’s my work.
Victoria Volk 48:48
Can I ask what your promises like when people come to your retreat, how they come and how they leave? What are some things that people have said,
Kristine Carlson 48:56
Yeah I mean, my promise is that I’m going to be present for them and I’m going to facilitate an amazing container for them to experience pretty much all of it you know, deep connection, joy, whatever emotions come up on that retreat, but they’re with a like minded group of women. I interview every woman that comes on a retreat. So I you know, I’ve definitely turned some women and said to them that I don’t think this is the right retreat for you when I feel like it’s just not the right fit. And my retreats are small, they’re intimate, they’re going to have a great time. I mean, honestly, like I travel in a lot of styles, so I only go to really cool places and really beautiful places. And so that’s my promise for my retreats. And then it was it was really exciting year because lifetime did come out with a movie based on heartbroken open and it’s the don’t sweat the small stuff story because again, like I really wrote books in that brand as well. I’ve don’t sweat the small stuff for women. Don’t sweat the small stuff in love. And don’t sweat the small stuff for mom. So I, I wrote three books in that series. And there’s nine books in the series. And it’s just it was beautiful. It was interesting. It’s, it happened at the 14th year of grief, that’s kind of a pivotal time for a lot of widows. I didn’t intend it for it to happen, then it just did. And I think that the story is really beautifully done so that it’s inspirational. It’s, it’s a sad story, but it’s inspirational for people and meant to be that during these times where we’ve gone through so much loss due to COVID. And due to the state of the world, really, I mean, I mean, the world is is a lot of turmoil right now. So I think stories like this are very powerful and and we have such an amazing love story where that is very present in that movie.
Victoria Volk 50:49
Can I ask what you why you think the 14 years? Is it just like the seven year cycle idea?
Kristine Carlson 50:55
Yeah, I just heard research, modern widows Club does a lot of research on widows. And they they say that there’s something something that happens for widow, she she enters into a different phase of her journey after 14 years, feels more complete. And I started to feel very completed 10. But now I’m in past that four years. So I’m really I’m living in a lot more service. Now. My work is getting more and more about serving others. And in that sense of in a in a bigger way. You know, I think that’s why the movie happened is I was ready for it. I was maybe my kids weren’t but they were like kind of like, wow, really okay. But they were very supportive. But it was it was a little hard, harder for them than I thought it would be. They’re grown women now. They’re, they’re 30 and 32. But it still was a difficult time in our lives for them to revisit that the movie is beautiful. And they acknowledge that it’s a beautiful movie. And they were both portrayed very beautifully. So they you know, it wasn’t as messy in the movie as it actually it was in life. Somebody asked me, they said, Well, was it hard to watch and go? No, it was really hard to live through. It wasn’t as hard to watch.
Victoria Volk 52:09
Yeah, that’s, that would be a good point to make.
Kristine Carlson 52:13
Really hard to live for, though.
Victoria Volk 52:16
Well, thank you so much for sharing all that you’ve shared today. I do want to be mindful of your time. But is there anything you would like to leave the listeners with today, a tip or piece of advice, or what grief has taught you maybe kind of a little bit of all of that. I mean, you’ve shared a lot of great advice and tips. But
Kristine Carlson 52:32
I would just say that when you’re in grief, I know it’s so hard, and it’s so painful. But I also remind you that you’re in very fertile ground, for the ground for your growth, and who you become and how you become after your loss. And just to be aware that this is a time where everything is going to be in a heightened awareness if you’re open, and you have the opportunity in grief to become a better person than you were before grief. And I always say like when we’re in grief and loss, and we’re living the big stuff, we’re definitely not sweating, the small stuff. You know, small stuff isn’t even on our radar, and you have an opportunity to really know yourself, to really know yourself that one of the things my husband said a lot was that the circumstances of life, don’t make or break you, but they will reveal you. And so how you are in this process is being revealed to you is who you really are. And that’s a person that’s growing. And so be compassionate, be gentle. Be kind to yourself during this process. It’s a hard process, but you will if you take your steps forward, every day, you will heal, and you will move into a feeling of wholeness and joy again, I promise you that. But you do have to allow yourself to heal. That’s the main, the main thing.
Victoria Volk 54:07
And you believe that is possible healing is possible.
Kristine Carlson 54:10
Absolutely. I believe that it absolutely we are geared toward healing that we can get in our own way. But if we surrender to the process, we’re going to receive all that we need and we’re going to receive it with grace. But the surrender piece is huge. You have to surrender to the process.
Victoria Volk 54:29
So it gives you the most hope for the future. Your future.
Kristine Carlson 54:33
I think just when I wake up and I’m just feeling so full of joy, for the most part, except for like this morning when I woke up was that was super joyful, but I feel joy now so you know, I just do my best to stay grounded and peaceful and in my own lane and help others and I think what what I love so much about life is that there’s A sense of community that you can draw on for support and that you can offer yourself to. And. And yeah, I think that’s what gives me hope is that there’s a lot of really good people in this world. And it doesn’t really matter. Like, if you’re Democrat or Republican, you know, you’re a good person, if you’re a good person, you’re entitled to your belief, whatever they are. And I think that people, we need to hold on to, you know, the values that make us good people. And that’s kindness, that’s compassion. It’s doing random acts of kindness every day for somebody else without receiving anything. It’s that kind of stuff. And I think there’s a lot of people like that still left in the world. And I and I hope to inspire more people to be like that.
Victoria Volk 55:46
I do want to give you an opportunity, if you do have a little bit of time, like, yeah, so you shared a lot about Richard and, and really just the essence of who he was. And I want to give you an opportunity to to share the essence of your friend, and what maybe she has taught you.
Kristine Carlson 56:01
Oh, well, it’s gonna make me cry. Oh, my God. No, me was an is the sweetest human, just a wonderful, wonderful woman, you know, add courage and grace and beauty and kindness. And she was really, somebody I always admired and looked up to, she was just a year, year and a half, two years older than me, but I always looked up to her. And what I’m gonna miss so much about her is that just having her in my corner here, knowing that she was, you know, like a godmother to my children and in my corner, and somebody that I would also grow old with beautiful, beautiful soul. And I know she’s, well I know, she’s at peace. I feel it. But I’m just gonna miss growing old with her and laughing with her. We were very much alike in a lot of ways. We both would laugh when we get together because we like looking at each other and, and even our laugh was very similar. And we just, we just, we would just melt into each other. And I’m going to miss that beautiful reflection that that she was of a real soul sister.
Victoria Volk 57:16
Thank you for sharing it.
Kristine Carlson 57:19
That’s great. You helped me access my pain. Thank you very. Thank you for that. No, I’m glad I needed to. I needed to go there. So it’s good. Maybe it can stay there a little while longer today.
Victoria Volk 57:31
You’re welcome. I have some soul sister friends and I, you never imagined that you would grow old with them. So my heart goes out to you.
Kristine Carlson 57:40
Thank you. She’s with Richard. I’m a little jealous about. Love her. Thank you very much for asking.
Victoria Volk 57:53
You’re welcome. We have a lot of love around you. I imagine some. Thank you. Thank you. That’ll get you through anything else you’d like to share?
Kristine Carlson 58:01
No, I feel very complete. Thank you so much for doing this podcast. I can see it’s going to be a great service to others. I can’t wait to share it with my community as well. So thank you, Victoria. You have a wonderful demeanor and presence. And now I’m sure you’re doing beautiful work with people. So lucky to have you.
Victoria Volk 58:18
Thank you. Thank you for that. And thank you for your time today and for sharing. Also, of course. And remember when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love
Grief Stories, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast |
Scott Mann | Retired Green Beret on Leadership, Afghanistan, and Grief
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
- What do Green Beret special forces do and how do they differ from other special forces?
- What qualities make a leader?
- How can everyday people become a leader in their own life?
- What, in leadership, breaks his heart?
- How does Scott feel about the pullout in Afghanistan, having worked directly with the Afghans for several years?
- What is Scott’s take on grief and suicide prevention in the military?
Scott and I address these questions and more. He also opens up about the moment he planned to take his own life.
Grief has shaped Scott into a leader that is not only one of skill and mastery but also one of emotional intelligence. Grief has so much to teach us, as Scott Shares, and it is possible to find a path to leading a life of purpose through the pain.
Listen to Scott’s journey of leaving tracks and hear the possibilities that could also be there for you in your life.
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
Victoria Volk 0:00
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today my guest is Scott man. He spent 23 years in the United States Army 18 of that as a Greenbrae, where he specialized in unconventional, high impact missions where he forged bonds and solve problems using values and leadership skills that moved people around the world to stand up for themselves. Since retiring Scott now teaches the same skills and communities and businesses where trusted leadership is more valuable and more vulnerable than ever, empowering local leaders to restore trust and create human connections in places where it doesn’t seem possible. He has appeared on CNN, Bloomberg, Fox and Friends Fox Business News, Newsmax and dozens of syndicated radio shows including National Public Radio, Wall Street Journal radio, Fox News Radio and the Jim Bohannan show. His op eds have appeared in the Tampa Tribune, Washington Post and small worlds journal. And he is a high performance breath coach, also certified by Dr. Belissa. Branchenet
Victoria Volk 1:05 Did I say that right?
Victoria Volk 1:06 Got it right. All right. Thank you so much. That’s quite the quite the resume
Scott Mann 1:12
That 50 Cent’s will get me a cup of coffee.
Victoria Volk 1:14
Thank you for bringing your wisdom to my listeners. I’m been really excited about this conversation, especially in light of what’s obviously been happening in Afghanistan. And I know that’s a lot of your experience. But I do want to start at the beginning. Because I’m really curious about you as a person. Did you always feel like a leader?
Scott Mann 1:39
Oh I feel I didn’t always feel like a leader. In fact, I often don’t including right now, I often felt like I should be leading. You know, I felt like I should be playing a bigger game like there that I should did, I should try and lead. And that was there was always kind of a, an urge for that or a drive for that. But then it was quickly followed by the reluctance of should I actually be doing this? Am I the right person, all of those negative head chatter things that we feel when we do step into the arena and actually try to do it?
Victoria Volk 2:13
Did you have leadership emulated for you as a child as you did?
Scott Mann 2:17
I did. Yeah. That’s one thing that I was truly blessed with. I was surrounded by by leaders. My father would worked in the US Forest Service for 42 years. He he fought big, wildland fires and very humble man from Appalachia, but yet great leader. And same with my mom, you know, she was a civil servant. She was a public school teacher, her entire life. And you know, she emulated leadership for me every day at my school. I mean, she was one of my teachers in a very, very small school. So and and, frankly, in that small school, in that small town in that little logging town in Arkansas, great leaders in my school system and in my community. So I had the opportunities to just see a lot of really, really fine leadership on display all the time. Didn’t have to look far to get examples of what it looked like.
Victoria Volk 3:07
Did you always know you wanted to be in the military?
Scott Mann 3:11
From a very early age. Yes, I wanted 14 years old was when I started to really move that direction. I happen to meet a Green Beret named Mark who came into our soda shop when I was sitting in there one day and it was a transfer transformative event. It really he sat down with me and talk to me about special forces or the Green Berets and what how they work by with and through other people how they work with indigenous cultures. And that’s very different than the seals and the Rangers in that Green Berets are relationship based connectors. There. There’s a degree of lethality in what they do. But it’s it’s typically to work by with and through indigenous people and help them stand up and fight back. And and that really appealed to me. I think it was because I was such a runt as a kid. I was very, you know, I was very small kid. Even though I felt like I should lead I seldom felt like I had what it took always on the outside looking in. So that was a very appealing thing to me. You know the whole do oppressor live bear slogan of the Special Forces forces which means to free the oppressed. I just I obsessed over it. And from that point at 14, I just that’s all I ever wanted to do.
Victoria Volk 4:26
And you did it.
Scott Mann 4:27
Yeah Yeah In fact, I told him I have three sons, Cody Cooper and Braden. And they were at my retirement sitting next to my wife after almost 23 years and I told them I said, you know, the one of the best things is that I get to look at you guys and say that I actually did what I dreamed of since I was a kid and it was better than I thought I would be. It would be when I was a kid and and that’s, that’s a great thing to be able to tell your children.
Victoria Volk 4:51
I just got goose bumps. That is that is I love that. Have any of your children I don’t know if they’re older they can enlist Are they about it or have it?
Scott Mann 5:02
So we have three like I said three boys. We just became empty nesters a couple of weeks ago, right as the whole Afghanistan crisis developed, so we haven’t really had the opportunity to chase each other around the house fully yet, but we, that’s on the docket. But you know our boys, Cody is the oldest and he’s an infantry lieutenant in the army. Now he’s a platoon leader. My middle son Cooper is a junior in college and is pursuing an FBI internship. And my youngest son Brayden is a recently graduated senior, and he wants to play for the Yankees. So we’ll, we’ll see how.
Victoria Volk 5:36
Wow that’s awesome Um, so in your mind, what makes a leader
Scott Mann 5:47
I think a leader, you know that my vision of leadership is what I call rooftop leadership. And it’s a rooftop leaders, rooftop leader, that’s the type of leader that I saw on display in Afghanistan, all the time, in my final tour, where these Green Berets would go into these villages, these little teams of 12, in villages that had been through severe, persistent fear, uncertain uncertainty and prolonged isolation, 40 years of conflict and escapable shock. And they would work with these local communities. And whenever an attack on the village, they would live right there, they live locally, whenever an attack would come, they would go up on the rooftop, the team would have the house they were staying, and then they would fight back in the village would do nothing, they would stay below and just hide. And you know, so when risk was high, they would go up to that rooftop and they would make a stand. And then when when it was over, they would come back down. And they would spend the next day out in the fields working alongside the Afghans. They would sit with them and tribal churros drink tea, build relationships. And so they were building trust when risk was low until eventually, you know, one by one, those farmers went up on their houses and fought back. And that approach to roof leadership that I call rooftop leadership, that ability to inspire people to stand up on their own. You know, that’s what a leader is, to me, a rooftop leader is someone who has like a crystal clear vision of a better world. And even if it doesn’t exist yet, and they have these dynamic interpersonal skills that inspire other people to help them build that world. And when things get hard, that leader goes to the rooftop, even when nobody follows them, and stands up for it. And that’s to me in this day and age. That’s what we need more than ever.
Victoria Volk 7:32
And you have a TED talk about this, right?
Scott Mann 7:35
I do. Yeah, I did. I’ve done a couple of TED Talks. The first one I did was in Santa Barbara. I believe it was I want to say it was like 2017. I’m not certain but it is on rooftop leadership. And and that approach, it’s evolved a lot for me since then, and I think as it should for everybody. But yeah, yeah, it’s I encourage people to watch it, because I think it gives a perspective on it. Because the good news about that kind of leadership, Victoria is that it’s for everybody, like you don’t have to have a title to lead. In fact, I think the leaders with titles these days are not exactly doing the best job in the world.
Victoria Volk 8:09
Perfect segue into what I was gonna, where I was gonna go and that I just read a Forbes article talking about empathy as being the top skill for leaders, how research is showing that empathy is one of the skills that is required of leaders. And actually, it said that empathy is the most important leadership skill, according to research. And there’s two ways to approach that. And you can either with cognitive empathy, like what would I be thinking if I was in that person’s shoes? Or how would I feel if I was in that person’s shoes? Do you feel like empathy is something that’s lacking? Especially maybe in the military?
Scott Mann 8:53
I think it’s lacking across the board. In fact, I would even go as far to say, maybe lacking in the civilian world more than it is in the military. You know, I’ve spent a decade now working in corporate America, nonprofits, small businesses, you know, so I’ve gotten a good look. And I’ve stayed with the military and law enforcement. I think, if you look at the military, let me give you an example. Okay, when Afghanistan fell, and those at risk Afghans were left in the lurch, who ran into the breech and got on their phones and started to try to help them. Veterans, right veterans who understood the moral injury of abandoning someone or leaving them behind when you promised you wouldn’t? Right. The civilian population, you know, did not run into the breach. Some did a few did. And that’s not a that’s not you know, that’s not lambasting the civilian population. I’m simply saying that the the preponderance of the response came from combat veterans who you would think based on the Movies and everything else, right? lack empathy and or, you know, the Door Kickers. And that’s true. But the reality is, that’s why I wrote my play. Last out, most people have no clue what the demand signal is on a combat veteran that they are men and women who are family individuals, they, they have a very, very soft spot in their heart for the for the, for the people who suffer through those wars. Anyway, I think that empathy isn’t short supply. I think that empathy is in short supply. And I think I agree with that article. In fact, if you wouldn’t mind sending me that article, I’d love to see it. Because I talked about this a lot. Dr. Benjamin Hardy talks about this in his book, personality as a permanent, he talks about the importance of being an empathetic witness of bearing witness to people, you know, as we come out of this, as I love the title of your podcast, and as we come out of this pandemic, you know, the longest pandemic in our history, we don’t know the journey that people have been through, we don’t know what they’ve endured, we don’t know where the grief lies below the surface, and where the where the healing still needs to occur. And I believe that one of the most important things that leaders can do and you don’t need a title for it is to be an empathetic witness to simply bear witness to the journey to the person in front of you don’t judge it, criticize it, listen to them, as if your life depended on it, you know, try to see the pictures in their head, the pain, the goals, the dreams, and really get an understanding of it before you even open your mouth. You know, I think if more of us did that, we wouldn’t be in a much different place these days. And that’s not a Republican or a Democrat thing. That’s a leadership thing.
Victoria Volk 11:37
Goose bumps again, absolutely, wholeheartedly, I will send you that article actually came someone. I had thought someone had liked it on LinkedIn. And I definitely when I send it to you read through the comments, as well, because there was actually a leader in there that mentioned how I think he means sympathy. Like he kind of changed the it’s not empathy, it’s sympathy. And I had to put in a comment, and I said, You know what, though, a lot of the times when people offer sympathy, it’s not sympathy, it’s pity,
Scott Mann 12:07
It’s pity, and it’s actually it’s actually for the person who offers it. Exactly. It’s a way to make them feel better to put 10 cents in the jar. And that’s not empathy. Let me break you. Can I can I riff on that for just a second? Yes, absolutely.
Victoria Volk 12:22
I’d love to.
Scott Mann 12:22
So one of the things you know, one of the things that we do at rooftop leadership is we really focus on you, we take the Green Berets skills that we learned to read Human Terrain, to read human nature. And one of the problems that we that I see in society today is we’ve lost connection with our nature, we’ve lost connection with what I say is below the surface, if human nature is an iceberg, you know, 80% of our humanity is below the waterline, it’s but it’s what you can’t see. It’s that 250,000 year old, meaning seeking emotional, social story animal who struggles in other words, we’re a mess. And you know, we are we are story creatures, we are emotional creatures. A lot of people think we’re thinking creatures who happen to feel. But the reality is humans are feeling creatures who just happen to think. And so when you talk about cognitive versus emotional empathy, it to me, it’s hands down emotional empathy. Because that’s how we navigate the world. We navigate the world through emotional responses. Cognitive responses are secondary to that, and they are important. But if we don’t have access to our own emotions, and if we can’t, to some degree, feel what the other party feels. Not only is that unhelpful. I think it spells disaster for our species. Because it’s actually how we’ve evolved socially, to the top of the food chain. It’s actually what got us to where we are. And I think that we are now on a path with these machines, with the blue screens with mass technology, that we’re actually going into almost a mechanistic state where we are we are trying to become machinelike. And we’re losing our relationship with the natural world with each other. And we’re disconnecting. And I think that if we start to, if we tell ourselves, that it’s actually about cognitive empathy, instead of emotional empathy, we’re going off the side of a cliff.
Victoria Volk 14:20
I 100%. Agree. And to your point about the iceberg, what’s under the surface is our grief, at the at the root of all of the issues in our lives and every repetitive problem that we see in our lives reoccurring. It’s, it’s grief. And I think grief is what causes us to disconnect from ourselves. And if we’re disconnected from ourselves, how do we connect with others? You know, because we’re always thinking about what’s going on with us, rather than being able to, I think, do you think this is something that can be taught like you’ve been doing this a while now can this truly be taught or do you think when you when you come and you do a presentation you speak to these organizations, the follow up. Are they implementing what you’re what you’re saying? Or is it just kind of? Yeah. Okay, there you go there.
Scott Mann 15:08
Yeah, yeah, I think it can be taught, I 100% believe it can be taught. The problem is we’re navigating the world right now and a lot of instinct. And it’s instinct that’s informed by the tip of the iceberg, which is the modern transactional world. And it’s only a couple of 100 years old, you know, what we’ve created in the modern world for ourselves, it is punctuated with abundance, and, you know, freedom of thought and individuality. And that’s great. But it needs to be rightly understood. You know, there needs to be a connection to our communal past, there needs to be an under a connection to, as you said, you know, our grief, the fact that we struggle, the fact that we, we navigate the world telling ourselves a story, the fact that empathy and reciprocity are a biological inheritance that actually allow us to build groups that overcomes obstacles in life, like all of that stuff, those are a biological imperative. You know, we have to understand that those are innate human needs and traits that are for us to use. So they can be in first we have to recognize them, we have to recognize what’s below the surface, we have to recognize that 80% of our human nature, we don’t even see it, it but it’s it’s in our tribal past. And we need to tap back into that we need to understand that without purpose, we die, we need to understand that the emotional temperature in the room is one of the most important things to pay attention to as a leader, both in yourself and in others, we need to understand that we are social, that we if we socially distance from each other fine, if that’s the way we’re going to handle the pandemic fine. But we also need to understand that there’s a level of collective madness that will settle upon us for two years of being apart from each other. And it’s going to manifest in certain ways when we come back into the sunlight. It’s not bad or good, we just, we don’t need to politicize it, we just need to understand it, we need to understand that. If you don’t if you use PowerPoint to communicate an idea with 70 slides, they’re going to forget 90% of it in 30 seconds, because it’s working memory. If you tell them a story, they’ll remember it six years later, right? I mean, and then finally, like you said, the grief part, we are creatures of struggle, we are a community of suffers, it’s how we, it’s how we’ve made it through the world. If you understand that, and you tap into that, then you can actually leverage grief and struggle and you can repurpose your scars in the service of other people, you can actually find a way out, that brings not just you into the light, but everybody around you. And so Absolutely, it can be taught I’ve been teaching it for a decade. And I’ve seen people in the darkest of places move into a different position based on purpose based human connection. It’s authentic, it’s what we should be doing. But it requires cognitive awareness, and a change in mindset away from this transactional mass technology world that we’re in, and an embracing of, you know, basically a foot above and a foot below the waterline.
Victoria Volk 18:06
You see, in the veteran community especially, I often see a lot of stories coming out of that where people are making something out of a mess that they experienced the grief that they experienced. And I know, grief is what do you think is the difference between a soldier who is a Griever? And a civilian? Who is a Griever? Can you make a distinction between that?
Scott Mann 18:31
maybe the only distinction would be that loss to a warrior is by design. In other words, you know, you’re going to lose people. And not only are you going to lose people, in certain lines of work, like the line of work I was in, you’re going to take people’s life. I mean, let’s not sugarcoat it, you know, you’re going to take people’s life, and people are going to your people are going to die who are not intended to die. I mean, there’s just a whole you know, war is a horribly, ugly, caustic, corrosive thing, and anyone who glorifies it or makes it otherwise, to me is disingenuous. No one hates war, more than a warrior, if they are in it for the right reasons, and if they are in it with their heart. All that said, when it comes to the grief when it comes to the loss when it comes to the pain, there’s no difference. I mean, there’s no difference at all. And, you know, people have come up to me and they’re like, Well, you know, I lost my mom, but that’s nothing like what you’ve went through. I’m like, what? It’s exactly it’s, it’s your it’s your journey. It’s your pain. Don’t Don’t equivocate it like it you know, just because I chose to go into the professional arms doesn’t make my loss more or less than yours. It’s just it’s just a path I chose to walk. And unfortunately, there is a level of loss that is by design. We can debate the morality of that all day long, but the loss of the loss and You know, that would that would be the main difference, I would point out, but But I will say, and I did another TED talk on this that I hope you’ll check out. It’s called the generosity of scars. And it really speaks exactly to what you’re talking about. Because for me, you know, when I got out of the military after a couple of years, that’s when it really came home to roost. For me, I didn’t do a good job of grieving, I didn’t grieve at all, I just pushed it down and went back into the fight for another deployment. I, you know, I didn’t want that stigma to be attached to me, I didn’t want to have to stop doing what I was doing, because then I’d have to face it, you know, and so I just pushed it down, and I just pushed it down, and then finally, got to the point after my, my retirement, that my kids would, if I walked in the room, they would just get up and leave, they didn’t want to be around me, my wife and I didn’t speak, you know, my life was crap. And it was because I had just denied myself, all of that grieving until finally, you know, I found myself standing in a closet holding a 45. And, you know, had my son Cooper not come home, and he did, I wouldn’t be here, there’s no doubt about it. And, you know, that’s not an easy thing to talk about, even to this day. But what what I’ve learned from that is that, you know, I can’t deny myself that, that struggle or that grief, and there’s a process that has to be that you have to go through and I still go through, I’m going through it now with the Afghan situation. And you know, it is a, that there is a path. I mean, there is a journey, where our scars that are below the surface can be repurposed. And I believe that with all my heart, I believe it with all my heart, I believe it’s actually rocket fuel for leadership. I believe some of the most phenomenal leaders in the world are the ones that have been scuffed up the most.
Victoria Volk 21:48
Thank you for sharing that personal story. Do you feel like the military is doing better in supportive? Soldiers? I think because here’s the thing. Two years ago, I was at a VA mental health summit. I’m a veteran myself and I went to this and I had a booth Grief Recovery. I’m a grief recovery specialist. I had a booth there. And I was listening to the breakout speakers and there was about suicide. And there’s two soldiers that had shared their personal stories. And then they had social there was a room full of social workers, lots of social workers. And there was one speaker and but over time, like even the breakout rooms, I never the whole entire day. I never once heard the word grief. They never said the word grief. Yeah. And it just blew my mind. It blew my mind. I mean, I was surprised, but I wasn’t surprised, you know, but it was I was I was really disheartened and sad when I left there, too.
Scott Mann 22:45
Right. I think you met you bring a great point. I don’t think in that context, that there is a lot of forward movement. I will, here’s what I will say. I do think that, you know, unfortunately, 20 years in Afghanistan and Iraq, you know, we got pretty good at, you know, how we honored our fallen and, you know, the memorial ceremonies and the team would would take time to grieve together. And, you know, there was some of that, but I don’t think to your point, you know, the the more deep dive kind of work that you take, you go through this thing and the right way to process it to metabolize it. No, I don’t think that there. I think that the chaplaincy does the best it can. I don’t think the VA is anywhere near where it needs to be on that. I mean, even just dealing with trauma or survivor’s guilt, or all those things. I mean, I think the preponderance of the work is being done by people like you on the outside, and my nonprofit hero’s journey, which teaches warriors to tell their story. And you know, what part of me says that’s okay. I think that the private public relationship, I think the government’s overwhelmed. I think the military is overwhelmed. You know, and I don’t think they’re going to catch up in our lifetime. And now my son’s a soldier, and he’s had a friend who’s committed suicide. And so, you know, there’s no time for a roof top leader doesn’t wait for someone to give them permission to step into the arena. That’s, that’s what I always tell people, like everybody was with Operation pineapple. They’re like, Wow, man. How did you guys do it? I’m like, What are you talking about? Like, we just, we just, we saw, we saw a gap, and we ran to the gap. I mean, that’s what I do. I didn’t have a plan. I still don’t have a plan. In many ways. I’m so far out over my skis. All I can do is look at the ground and go man, that’s gonna suck when wildland, you know, and a lot of times, that’s where leadership lives. We’re so far out over our skis, and we’re just like, yep, that’s gonna hurt. But you don’t that doesn’t stop you from doing it. And I think to your question here, it’s going to be you. It’s going to be me. Nobody else is coming. Right. If we’re waiting for the government to fix our problems, we are going to be woefully disappointed. regardless of political party, we are going to be woefully disappointed. The only way that things like this are going to get addressed is if you and I do it.
Victoria Volk 25:09
I’ve been trying, I’ve been trying and trying to get federal and government contracts. It’s, it’s not a, I’m not a licensed social worker. So I kind of got door slammed in my face and
Scott Mann 25:19
Don’t quit try, no, don’t quit try, because you know that the victories occur at a much smaller level, you know, and again, this is just a 53 year old dude talking here on metrics, right. And I think the metrics that we tend, we tend to assign to ourselves are these vast metrics of lives saved? And I mean, the reality is, you know, it’s it’s incremental, the impact, you’re already making a huge impact, you’re making a huge impact. Listen to me giving you advice, but like, you’re making a huge impact with this podcast with what you’re doing. And you know, it’s oftentimes, that it’s the it’s the impacts that we don’t even see that are really making a difference. And it turns out, you’re, you’re you’re, you know, you’re you’re making big bass hits the whole time. But, but I hear you on those on those working with the government and getting the doors open. It is maddening. It is maddening. But just don’t quit. You know, I mean, because we need you in the game. Because if you don’t, like my dad says, then who will? You know? And that’s the larger question we need to be asking ourselves is not not who am I to do this? But who are you not? Because if you don’t, you know, what’s the cost of that?
Victoria Volk 26:26
Oh, one of the ideas I proposed or one of the thoughts I proposed, one of the psychologist at this health summit was, why is there not like some in a study screening? Are you familiar with the ACE study, I’m not adverse childhood experiences. So the more basically what the ACE study has, comes out, like it’s research over time, right. And so they have found though, that the more aces or the more adverse childhood experiences that you’ve had throughout your childhood, the more likely you are, the more likely and the more susceptible you are, to suicidal thoughts, to depression, to addiction to mental health issues, all of these things. So let’s say you were an orphan, as a child, or sexually abused or, or neglected, or like all these horrible things that many children experienced. But often I have found and I’ve seen, and maybe you can agree to this or test to this to who joins the military. Often it is young men and women who are looking for a way out who are looking for a way out of their life experience, who are looking for discipline guide structure and escape. Yes. What are they escaping? Probably really tough circumstances and situations that they just don’t know what else to do. And so you’re putting a weapon in the arms of someone who probably is very much a Griever, who has trauma, who you know what I mean? So then you go on deployments and several deployments, trauma after trauma after trauma after trauma. And so I feel like in my bones, in a study evaluation for someone who wants to enlist would be a very good thing. That’s fascinating. You know, cuz she’s a psychologist, she knows about the ACE study. It’s a roomful of social workers. But none of this stuff is talked about, it just drives me crazy.
Scott Mann 28:28
Yeah, well, you’re in the right place. You know, I mean, that’s, that’s, that’s, that’s leadership. And, you know, that’s what I try to rail on is that’s, that’s what a rooftop leader does a rooftop leader is going to put herself squarely in the place where she’s unreasonable.
Victoria Volk 28:45
I listened to it was your you had a podcast episode? Navigating the toxic churn of life in business? I really liked that one. But also your TED talk. And I was just I’ve been thinking a lot about before we were actually getting on here to talk that I don’t feel like a leader. And just what you spoke to in the beginning, how you you never felt like a leader either. But you felt like you know, you had like this urn inside of you. But I’m curious. What, as a leader today breaks your heart today.
Scott Mann 29:24
Oh, my god. Um, I would say at home, what breaks my heart is what I call division ism. You know, it really is the veterans dilemma is that, you know, Sebastian Junger writes in his book tribe that, you know, warriors, American warriors, are more than prepared to give their life. They’re prepared to die for their country. They just don’t know how to live for it. And he goes on to say, how do you live for a country that’s tearing itself apart at every possible level, politically, religiously, socio economically, you know, I mean, literally ripping itself apart. So everything that you go off to defend and keep abroad is here, right? I mean, you have people bashing themselves over the head with axe handles, because their guy won or their guy lost. Forget the fact that their guy’s an amateur, you know, forget the fact that their guy, as far as leadership goes, is nowhere near the caliber of a leader in combat in my assessment, right? We assign agency and power to these leaders who are vibe designed, dividing us. I mean, when’s the last time you saw a formal leader literally embody the bridging trust that wants to find this nation, right, that bridges beyond in groups and out groups and ethnicity and religion and finds a way forward to bridge and connect? I mean, that is how highperformance cultures stay intact. You know, and, and in my assessment, that division ism, that dividing that conscious division of people in order to attain one’s agenda, one’s limited agenda is the saddest thing happening in the country today. And the fact that we’re giving our agency and our power away to leaders at every level, who by design practice division ism is is immensely saddening to me. The second thing that makes me sad as a leader is the what’s happening in Afghanistan right now is the fact that we are you we are moving toward a level of moral injury that we don’t even understand that is going to follow us home and is going to sit on our collective soul for many, many years to come. It’s very, very hard for me to to watch that. And it makes me sad,
Victoria Volk 31:49
I would gather that you’re against the pull out of Afghanistan.
Scott Mann 31:53
I am not necessarily against the pull out of Afghanistan, I think it was poorly planned, poorly executed. I think that we could have had a much different outcome in Afghanistan, had we been more forward thinking. And had we been really focused on what our goals were there, I wrote a book called game changers, going local to defeat violent extremist, I wrote it in I think, 2013, it was about a mission that we did in 2010. And it was all about working locally, it was all about working with local Afghans to help them stand up on their own, and kind of what we talked about at the beginning of the podcast. And it was all about the local approach. And and not trying to, you know, Project, a liberal democracy on a primarily tribal culture, there’s a way to go about this, that we didn’t have to do that. We didn’t need 100,000 people on the ground, we probably needed 10,000. And all most of them Green Berets, there was a different way that we could have prosecuted this effort much more like Colombia or the Philippines, that was a lower signature. So anyway, probably not the point you wanted to get into. But my point is that there was a way that we could have done this, it would have required a long term commitment, but it would have been more around capacity building, because that country has been decimated, you know, their their ability to resolve disputes to farm. It’s been decimated by four decades of war, and they need some help at a local level. So if we’re not going to help them, look at what’s happening now, people are hanging from street lamps. They they’re being hung from street lamps, they’re being executed in front of their children. Like, how does that not make the news? How is that not genocide? You know, and that’s the alternatives. You know, that’s the alternative to what we were doing. So I don’t know, I just think that was the wrong answer.
Victoria Volk 33:45
And here’s the thing, too, we have military bases all over the world. What is the difference? If we have a presence there? Yeah, we can say it was peaceful. Yeah, for the most part.
Scott Mann 33:56
I mean, if you look at the number of people who were hanging on to jet on the wheels of jet aircraft falling off, rather than stay in a country, they knew what they were staying with. It’s terrible. And now, you know, we’re trying to make some kind of sense out of it. We’re trying to help people get out trying to get help people get settled here in the United States. And it’s a hot mess, because the government is frankly not that involved. They’re just not that involved. So it’s mostly a private sector effort in a country that is completely taken over by the Taliban. So you know, is the options are very limited, winter is coming. And, you know, there’s going to be a point where this is no longer a tenable solution, we’re gonna we’re gonna end up leaving people behind and it’s not going to end well. And that’s it. That’s that is a very saddening thought for me to think that we leave people behind in the 10s of 1000s that we promised we wouldn’t.
Victoria Volk 34:51
As of today, you have a GoFundMe to raise funds. Correct? Still,
Scott Mann 34:57
We no we’re actually working now and we never intended to be this, we are now we’re a 50123. And that was not going to be, that was not the intent. We are now because we want to, we want to help as many Afghans as we can. We can’t We can’t you know the deal. Like when you first become a 501 C three, you can’t solicit funds for a while, so we can’t can’t take donations right now. However, if people want to help, and I appreciate you asking that the the 501 C three that I was operating, and still afraid before all this happened, I was telling you about helping warriors tell their story. It’s called the hero’s journey. Th e H E R O E S, the hero’s journey.org. And it’s a cool little nonprofit, and it helps with warrior storytelling. We’re putting a film out on Afghanistan, this Veterans Day. And right now that little nonprofit is actually covering the cost of pineapple. So if you wanted to make a donation, and you wanted to help us help Afghans, and you want to help us honor a promise as veterans, you could go there and make a donation. And you can know that you’re, you know, almost all of those proceeds are going to go towards the either the Afghan resettlement Afghan safe passage, we’re helping our veterans cope with this very, very difficult situation.
Victoria Volk 36:18
Thank you, thank you for leading, for leading the way in this. It’s amazing.
Scott Mann 36:24
Well, it’s to your point when you talked about and I appreciate you saying that you talked about like not feeling like a leader, I feel that all the time. I feel it right now. I woke up this morning feeling and I told my wife I said, you know, to be in this game, as long as I’ve been in this game, I don’t feel like I’m leading very well, right now I don’t feel like I’m doing what I need to be doing. And I think that’s, you know, that’s the reality of leadership, I think when we’re in the game, and the stakes are high, and we’re trying to make an impact bigger than ourselves, it is it is not going to feel like an endzone dance. And if it does, we’re probably deluded, we’re probably believing our own press our own hype, and it’s about us, you know, it’s not going to feel that way, it’s going to feel clunky, we’re going to feel like we’re out over our skis, we’re going to feel like, you know, we’re gonna feel somewhat frustrated. Like we’re ill prepared. I mean, that’s actually what leadership feels like. And if you talk to anybody that plays at that level, they’ll tell you, that’s, that’s what it feels like. And it doesn’t mean that it has to suck, it just means that we have to make peace with that, that that discomfort in our belly, that we feel when we’re leading, it just means that it matters. And and and that that resistance is always going to be there chirping in our ear telling us we’re not good enough. And every day it has to be fought in new, it’s a new battle every day.
Victoria Volk 37:39
I agree with that. Just to for me personally, kind of feels like Mount Everest, like I’m climbing Mount Everest.
Scott Mann 37:45
Yeah, yeah, one step at a time.
Victoria Volk 37:48
So can you go a little deep into your personal story of, of what was your, what have been your grieving experiences that have really impacted your life and shaped you to be the leader you are.
Scott Mann 38:04
Um, I would say the grieving experiences that have probably shaped me the most have been the loss of friends who died doing what I asked them to do. You know, losing friends sucks, losing soldiers sucks. But when you lose them, you know, in a way that where they just, you know, they gave you a smile and said, roger that, sir. And ran off to do what you asked them to do, you know, willingly and, you know, enthusiastically. And then they don’t come back, you know, and the next thing you do is, you know, you detail their mom, or their their wife, that to the best degree that you can, you know, how they died. And then you have to own it. You know, you have to own that you have to and you never really, I just don’t think you ever really get over that. And for me, that was a just a ton of guilt that I had to I had to find a way to make peace with I had to find a way to repurpose, I had to find a way to metabolize. For me, it was writing my play. Last out elegy of the Greenbrae that’s going to be a film on Veterans Day. At last out film calm. And again, all the proceeds go to help Afghans but that that process for me Victoria was was cathartic. It was it was using story to tap into that deepest level of grief that I had. I mean, there there were some levels of grief, just you know, in in loss of time with my children and loss of time with my wife and you don’t get that back. But you know, the profound grief or profound loss was at the level of, you know, asking someone to do something and then willingly doing it voluntarily doing it and then they don’t come back, you know, and that for me in the process that followed that was life changing, almost life ending?
Victoria Volk 40:04
And did you feel like that? Because I know there’s so many resources now, like today in the Veterans Administration, there’s many resources there that actually I just had my yearly checkup not that long ago. And the questions have changed very much in the last year. But one thing that struck me was when she was asking me these questions, the first thing she said was, now these are really uncomfortable questions. So if you don’t want to answer, don’t feel like you have to answer. And I’ve been stewing on that since I left. Because as a grief recovery specialist, I’m sitting here thinking, now this is me. And I’m not saying yes to these things, because they don’t apply to me. But if I’m sitting in this chair, and I’m being asked these things, and the answer is yes. I’m not telling you because you’re not a safe person, because you just told me you’re uncomfortable with how I might answer. And so I recognize that I think one of the shifts to that needs to happen is just this grief education in the VA. Because at that level of where they come in, just to the for a yearly checkup, because people lie will lie through their teeth, because they have a promotion coming up, or they. I mean, maybe you even personally did that. Just so you know what I mean? I don’t know. But surely, you know, people who have,
Scott Mann 41:31
Oh, sure I did whatever I had to do to stay in the deployment. You know, and I even talked about that, in my film last out, like I, I did whatever I had to do, to stay in the fight. You know, that was the first priority. And if that meant, deceiving, you know, the psychiatrist so that I could keep going. And that’s what I would do. And I was very good at it. And then in even deceiving my family, upon my return home, you know, trying to hold everything together trying to be whatever it was, I was supposed to be in this new world. Yeah, and there was not, I mean, there wasn’t a lot to choose from in terms of resources, at least that I was aware of. And I don’t think that I would have anyway, I you know, I think now hopefully, that people like you who are getting the word out Eric and others, and hopefully my TED talk, the generosity scars, the play the film, you know, we’re really trying to not just make a case that mental health is part of the journey, but also that, you know, for for veterans, and anyone who endures trauma, that like there’s a certain there’s a certain level to that, that should be expected. And, and and that loss is profound, and and that we all, all of us are holding on to something that we need to let go of. Thank you. Yes, all of us, it doesn’t matter whether you served or not. And that’s the actually the under the overarching message in the in the in the film, is to let go. You know, it even says it on our little green bracelets that we wear, because because that is, you know, at its core, that’s the thing is we’re just holding on to stuff this residue, you know, that that we need to let go of. So I think it’s great that you’re taking this on the way that you are and you know, just keep going.
Victoria Volk 43:25
There was an article recently because I get the VA newsletters and things and there was an article by the Senior Enlisted Advisor to the Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff. He’s the most senior enlisted service member by position in the United States Armed Forces and the principal Military Adviser to the Chairman, on all matters involving joint and combined total force integration utilization, basically, the top dog S E AC Ramon. Yeah, I know. You know, he wrote have has this article about soldiers, four part series about Afghanistan veterans and how they can get through how they can get through what’s what’s going on, and how to feel like how to address what’s happening. And his overarching message is that be proud of what you have what you did mattered. And, but he talks about his own experience with PTSD and seeking treatment and help and I think that’s, that’s what needs to be scream from the rooftops, right of the leaders in leadership is I’m getting help. It’s okay to get help.
Scott Mann 44:33
No. Yeah. And it’s not happening. For the most part, I mean, for the most part, and and, and honestly, a lot of these general officers and senior enlisted advisors are jacked up, like they’re hurt and, you know, and they’re not getting help and, you know, that’s a big that’s a big that’s something important that I think the more leaders can demonstrate and just live into it again. I hate to keep harping on the film, but we hit this so hard in the film, it’s like This is a reality of the longest war in our nation’s history. It’s a reality of combat, it’s a reality of leadership. Like if you’re in the business of, you know, soldiering or being a Marine, like, this is part of it. And we’ve got to talk openly about it. And right now we’re not
Victoria Volk 45:15
What is one message you would like to say to those listening who may or may not be a veteran, about how to become the leader in their own lives, in their own communities in their own homes? Like, where do they where do you start,
Scott Mann 45:30
Nobody’s coming. It starts with that is recognized, nobody else is coming. Right? If you’re waiting for somebody to come down and fix it, or handle it, they’re not coming. And you know, that for me when I when I learned that in combat, when I recognized that, okay, whatever we’ve got right here, this is it, this is how we’re going to get it done. The men and women to my left and right right now the resources that are at hand right now, that’s what we’re going to get it done with. And I’m not going to sit here and wait for someone to come rescue me or, or wait for someone to give me permission to lead my family or to lead my community or to lead my school or to lead my business. Right, we have agency and that is a biological inheritance, that is a gift from the higher power the universe, however you’d like to think about it, we have agency in our lives that we have all of the innate resources and skills and gifts that we need to lead, we do not need a title, people follow the person who is relatable to their pain, and relevant to their goals. That’s who we follow, we don’t follow the person with the title we don’t follow when the chips are down, we follow the person who is relatable to our pain, and relevant to our goals. Right. And as long as we’re working to try to make people feel safe, and connected, and that they have a shared future with us, they’re gonna follow, they’re gonna go and you just got to be you know, and so I would just that first recognition, and then nobody’s coming, just just let breathe into that, accept it, and then just focus on being relatable to people’s pain and relevant to their goals. And you’ll be surprised what you can build.
Victoria Volk 47:06
What gives you the most hope for the future?
Scott Mann 47:10
My kids I mean, I always talk about leaving tracks in the world. You know, my dad always says that he says, We should leave our tracks, which to me are those indelible impressions that, you know, don’t serve the people around us. They’re the they serve the people who follow us. It’s our legacy. It’s the it’s the, it’s the it’s the it’s the tracks that we leave in the earth by building capacity in our business or, you know, deep relationships with friends that that last long beyond our time. But it’s also the young people and not just necessarily our children, but but how we how we hand off the world to our kids. And, you know, I that gives me the greatest hope people talking trash about this generation. I think we’re in great hands. I think that the kids, the young folks that are going to lead us into the next ridge line, I look at my own boys I and I have nothing but confidence in them. You know, I have nothing but but but hope for for us, because I think they’re the ones that are going to fix it. I think they’re the ones that are going to take it on. And so the question is, how do we do the best handoff possible to our children, and make sure that we set them up for success, because we’re not the ones our generation is not going to fix it. And we just need to accept that. And but we can do a lot. But how do we responsibly handed off to our children so that they can take it to the next mile?
Victoria Volk 48:34
I think they’ve seen enough contrast to recognize what they don’t want for their future. And there’s been plenty of it.
Scott Mann 48:43
Yeah, I think they know exactly what to do.
Victoria Volk 48:46
What is your message to soldiers? Like on how to find their voice? I know you have, you know, that’s a big part of your work. But yeah, just for this podcast for the purpose, what would you say?
Scott Mann 48:57
I would say for any warrior, you know, your voice is everything. You know, your voice is your point of view, that your purpose, it’s your outlook on the world. And you know, when you leave the military, they don’t get to keep that. But that doesn’t get turned in with your ta 50. You know, your voice and your purpose and your story. You brought those into the military, they were forged and developed further in the military. But you get to take those with you. You know, your voice, your point of view, your purpose, your outlook on life, your story, that’s yours, and that those are the greatest attributes of what you build for your next journey, the next chapter in your journey, and that’s all it is. It’s just another chapter your identity is far deeper than marine Navy, Army or Air Force or Coast Guard, or law enforcement or EMT, your identity is far deeper than that and that and the development and the refinement of your of your purpose and what you’re building and your story. It continues and you have to give yourself permission that it’s going to change Can you even if you’re a Vietnam veteran, if you’re a Korean War veteran, the moment you allow yourself to believe that way, the next chapter in your story starts, and that the next outcome of your purpose will be felt by the people around you. And I really believe that
Victoria Volk 50:18
How do you maintain an equilibrium? Like, because I imagine as a leader, it’s, there’s a lot of stress, it’s high pressure, things like that. But what would be your like? How are you managing stress? I imagine it looks different than what it used to. Or maybe it isn’t, I don’t know, how do you manage stress and maintain that? What does self care look like for you? That’s a better question.
Scott Mann 50:43
I have this acronym that I use for self care, that’s called R four. And it is regimen, ritual, rigor, and recovery. You know, I think that regimen is you know, and what that gives you is it gives you resilience over resistance and it has to be done every day resilience being the ability to just stay in the fight and be happy resistance being that self sabotage that will take you out if you allow it to it’s the negative forces in our body. So you know, I believe that going back to the our four so the first being read Benjamin you know, having a rhythm for your life where you know, Jocko Willink is right, discipline equals freedom. So what what are what are the things that you do to address mind body, spirit and craft every single day with regimen, those should be, that should be a rhythm that is populated by rituals. And those rituals should address mind, body, spirit, and craft. So for me, I get up in the morning, I do 25 Push ups, I hit my knees, I pray I do my cat cow breathing exercises, I drink 20 ounces of room temperature water, like I have rituals throughout my day that I do not change whether I’m at the Marriott in Texas, given a talk or whether I’m at home with my wife money, I’m going to do those rituals every single day that discipline equals freedom. And then I do them with rigor, I don’t do them casual, I don’t do them, like, you know half assed if I’m going to go work out in the gym at 10am, because that’s in my rhythm, then I’m going to give it everything I’ve got found gets put up, I apply myself to it the same way I did when I was a Greenbrae. And then finally, recovery. You know, I have to build time in micro recoveries every day where I’m doing, you know, deep breathing, turning the lights off in my office just being present, sitting on the dock with my wife, those are all micro recoveries. And then macro recoveries, you know, long weekends, vacations, these are the things that are scheduled in our planner, you know, where we actually sharpen the saw and get off grid allow ourselves to do you know, two to three, seven day recoveries? I think all of those, that’s that’s been the rhythm. That’s been the process I’ve used for, gosh, three decades, it’s what I teach high performers in my mastermind. And it works. It’s allowed me to play at a very high level, with a lot of pressure, and a lot of loss and a lot of guilt and all these other things and still be happy.
Victoria Volk 53:06
I love that great tips. Yes, thank you. Thank you for sharing that. And what is one thing that grief has taught you?
Scott Mann 53:14
Oh I think probably that there is purpose in pain, you know, that there’s, there’s there’s actually, you know, there’s there’s something on the other side of grief that will serve other people. You know, and and that will give you a level of self actualization that will make you better than when you went in. And if you just trust that process. That’s exactly how it will come out every time.
Victoria Volk 53:43
I absolutely agree. Is there anything else you would like to share?
Scott Mann 53:47
No, I would just say I love what you’re doing. And wherever you are, in that period of grief, just know that there is you’re not alone. And that there are a lot of people out there that care about you and need you around in this world, and that there’s a lot of value and good that will come from your pain and your struggle. Should you choose to apply it in the service of others, and that time will come it’s not right now maybe, but that time will come and when it does. There’s a higher place for you in the world. And I just you know, that’s how I’ve stayed alive. It’s how I’ve navigate the world. And I think the world needs it. People need they need your leadership. Through the grief. They need grief, informing what you do and say, because it’s authentic, it’s relatable. And that’s what people are hanging on to right now. They’re looking for leaders they can relate to. And so your grief brings with it a level of authenticity and safety that will serve others and it may not feel like it right now. But it will when the time comes.
Victoria Volk 54:47
Yes family would rather suffer with you than without you.
Scott Mann 54:50
Absolutely
Victoria Volk 54:50
Yeah absolutely. Well, where can people reach you where where do you hang out on social or where can they best find your well
Scott Mann 54:59
I mean We’re on you know, anything rooftop leader, we’re on Facebook, Instagram, I think the place where people could really get some stuff that might build on what you’re doing is rooftop leadership, calm. You know, there’s a lot of information, there are podcasts, the rooftop podcast is weekly, and we dive into a lot of the stuff you’re talking about, I think it’s a good supplement to what you’re doing. So those would be the areas that I would recommend. And finally, last out, film.com. Go check it out. I mean, it’s gonna be an amazing film. It’s all combat veterans. It really gets after a lot of the stuff that we talked about today. I’m in it. My acting debut at 50 years old. So check it out.
Victoria Volk 55:38
I look forward to it. And thank you so much for your time today and your wisdom and your experience that you’ve brought to my listeners. And just thank you for your time.
Scott Mann 55:50
It’s my honor. I appreciate it. Thank you so much.
Victoria Volk 55:53
And remember, when you unleash your hearts, you unleash your life. Much love.
Death/Dying, Grief Stories, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Pespective, Podcast |
Ken Ross | Rolling the Dice & Preserving the Legacy of Elisabeth Kubler-Ross
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Ken Ross has a theory for the way he lives his life and, it didn’t come to be without the influence of his mother, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross.
Ken and I dig deeper into his life experience growing up in a home where grief, death, and dying were a daily part of life and the topic of conversation. His mother, Elisabeth Kubler-Ross’s first book, On Death and Dying, was the conversation starter for society to take a deeper look into the dying process and all of the feelings one goes through. She started a hospice movement and became known as the founder of The Five Stages of Grief™️, which we also talked about in this episode. Aside from his mother being the pioneer of grief and dying education, his father was a neuropathologist. It wasn’t unusual to have a human brain sitting at the kitchen table while his mother brought terminally ill children his age to the house for a visit.
Growing up around death, dying, and grief set the stage for Ken to understand the fragility of life and not live with regrets. His mother, Elisabeth, was also a huge proponent of living life outside of the box, as she very much expressed in her own life. One of her several final books, The Wheel of Life: A Memoir of Living and Dying, is the story of her extraordinary life as she prepares for death, in her words.
We also discuss Ken’s mission to preserve his mother’s work and legacy so future generations can learn, too.
RESOURCES:
CONTACT:
Victoria Volk 0:08
This is Victoria of the unleashed heart calm, and you’re listening to grieving voices, a podcast for hurting hearts who desire to be heard. Or anyone who wants to learn how to better support loved ones experiencing loss as a 30 plus year griever. In advanced grief recovery methods specialist, I know how badly the conversation around grief needs to change. Through this podcast, I aim to educate gravers and non gravers alike, spread hope and inspire compassion towards those hurting. Lastly, by providing my heart with yours and this platform, Grievers had the opportunity to share their wisdom and stories of loss and resiliency. How about we talk about grief, like we talked about the weather? Let’s get started. Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. today. I’m very excited to have my special guest can Ross. He is the son of Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross, the founder of the ek AR foundation in 2006. And President and he’s also served on the board of the Elisabeth Kubler Ross center from 1989 to 2005. Ken was the principal care provider for his mother in the last nine years of her life until her passing in 2004. His responsibilities include handling over 80, publishers of Dr. Kubler-Ross’s work in 43 languages, public relations, copyright and trademark issues website maintenance, developing international Kubler Ross chapters, developing strategic partnerships as well as preserving her archives. While growing up he traveled with her extensively while on her numerous foreign trips witnessing her lectures and workshops. Ken has lectured on his mother’s legacy for hospices and various conferences in South America, Asia and Europe. There are several film projects that Ken is currently a consultant on including a major motion picture, a television vision series and various documentaries both foreign and domestic. He is a professional photographer by trade and he has photographed 102 countries. He is also the author of real taste of life, a journal by Ken Ross and Elisabeth Kubler Ross from 2002. And tea with Elizabeth, thank you so much for gracing me with your presence in fireside today. It wasn’t awful, but it you’ve led a very interesting and fascinating life, as has your mother, I started to dig into her book, the wheel of life and a memoir of living and dying. I felt drawn to that one of all of all the choices that are there out there. I think just because I have had recently gone through end of life doula certification, I think the the dying process and just the end of life experiences is kind of fascinating me at the moment. And I’ve picked some stuff out of the book that I would like to talk about at some point. But Sure, thank you, thank you so much for being
Ken Ross 3:03
my pleasure. That’s what I’m here for.
Victoria Volk 3:06
So let’s start with you. As I kind of mentioned at the beginning, before we started recording, we could make this whole podcast episode about your mom, there’s lots of content out there available about your mom, but I am curious and interested in learning about how having Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross, as a mom has shaped you into the person you are today. And the impact that Her work has had on your life.
Ken Ross 3:32
You know, you don’t see things as are happening, right? You never realized what’s happening as it’s happening. You have to go back and go, Oh my God, that’s why I did this. That’s why I did that. So, you know, at the time, I had two parents growing up who are doctors, and they both worked with dying people or dead people. My father was a pathologist. So my father was bringing home human brains into the kitchen, leaving them you know, because I had to go to new hospital next day. And my mom’s bring home day and people who are my age, sometimes younger, sometimes older, but you know, dying people coming through the house. human brains are sitting in the kitchen, it was very unusual childhood. And so you know, death was something we heard about, if not every week, every day, and we heard at the dinner table. And I met people who are my age who are dying, so certainly made a big impression. And every time I went on a trip with my mother, you know we’re meeting dying people backstage after our conferences and at the workshops and you know, people stopping over in the airports and so forth. So it was death death death made me quite paranoid neurotic about like every little bumping, no, no, I had on my body. But so at the time, you know, it kind of freaked me out because I heard about it too much. But it did impress upon me that life is short and precarious for many people. And even for people who live a full long life. It still seems short because I’m meeting people in their 70s and 80s who are dying in their Like Ken My God, like you know just a few minutes ago I was a kid like what happened like, life went by in a blip and so they’re like yo really go out and really think about life just don’t take it for granted. You know really seize this opportunity you have and you have beautiful opportunity with your mother to do things that a lot of people don’t get to do and kids don’t get to do so anyway, my dad had his National Geographics, and I thought Wow, well if life is short and precarious You know, this would be an amazing way to spend your life these photographers go out and see all these tribes and hang out you know of helicopters and climb mountains, they meet movie stars, that seems like an amazing way if life is so short to go out really live it big. And I was very shy very quiet. And so I thought oh well with a camera I don’t really have to talk I can still be in my shy comfortable space. But I can go out and photograph landscapes nature and meet tribal people and and that would be amazing way just to see the world which is kind of a mysterious place. So I set out to go to 101 countries and that’s what I did. But I studied banking just as a backup because my father was a traditional family guy. And he didn’t want me going off on some flaky concept of being a National Geographic photographer. So state of banking like a good Swiss boy my mom was Swiss. So I thought well that’s my backup you know I can be a good Swiss banker but what I really wanted to do was travel and take photographs and my mom really pushed me to be like a gypsy basically and live my life outside the box. Whereas my father wanted me in the box so constant struggle between the parents right and my father did not believe in life after death my mother did so a lot of conflicts growing up between the parents because you respect them both. They’re both geniuses know their stuff, but you know, you’re kind of pulled in two directions at the same time. And that was a little challenging.
Victoria Volk 6:55
I want to circle back to that the opposite belief system but first I just want to say that I like just when I was a kid, I wanted to be a National Geographic photographer. Oh, and I was my dad was diagnosed when I was six with cancer and I watched him you know slowly decline over the next two years and he died when I was eight and so I had that first early exposure and people my grandma had died too in that time of cancer and so I had been exposed to death and dying and you know, maybe not really not necessarily understanding the the fragility of life how fragile it is, but are really grasping that idea but I grew into that wanting to this urge to travel was in me if it wasn’t a National Geographic photographer, I wanted to be an airline stewardess. I mean, you know, like the idea was to get out and get away and traveling. Yeah, yeah, participate in like yeah, see what else is out there beyond my own four walls? No, did you actually shoot for National Geographic or that was just something that sparked your
Ken Ross 8:03
I wanted to be a National Geographic, you know, kind of photographer I wanted to go out and travel like hardcore. Yeah, get into, you know, remote villages in Africa and South America and, and so I didn’t shoot for them. But I have sold them a number of photographs over the years as stock photography.
Victoria Volk 8:19
Can I ask then how that experience because when you started doing that, and you were on this excursion of 101 now 102 countries, how did that morph into the work that you’re doing with death and dying? And how did that actually in being exposed to those different cultures? What have you taken away from what you’ve learned,
Ken Ross 8:40
so I was doing photography as a hobby as a kid, I was shooting concerts and, and things like that, and traveled with my mother. And when she was given a workshop, I would go take pictures, right? So because she is working for 810 12 hours a day, so I go shoot and at the end of the day, I’d hook up with my mom and then we’d be meeting you know, shamans and Eskimos and fortune tellers and Zulu witch doctors and you name it because my mother loved indigenous people he thought these people really get life and death and are not like hung up on death and they really see it everything as a circle. So she really wanted me to meet all these people, you know, and I saw tables floating in the air and everything you can imagine that’s all building up inside of me. And I’m traveling with mom and going off to college and I didn’t know what I wanted to do. And I was like, Well, you know, bankers realistic but photography is really fun, so and getting exposed to death more and more. And I’m still traveling with my mom even after I got out of school and trying to figure out which way I was going to go. So anyway, I did become a professional photographer. I moved to Australia and then moved to New York and I ended up living in like 13 cities and poor countries. No, because my mom was never like go out and be a gypsy and be crazy and you know, not only live outside the box, but just realize there is no box right? Let’s do it all. And, you know, being a photographer, I’m climbing mountains, I’m going To discos in Beirut, I’m hitchhiking in Zimbabwe, and really living what I think is a fantasy life for most people, even with no training as a photographer, I just did it. So that was great. So as as all about counting your fears, right? And having the perspective that life is short, you know, don’t live your life with regrets. So most people, I think 90% plus of their regrets are things they didn’t do versus things they did do, right. So we have to remember like, all these regrets are things we didn’t do. We lived our lives fear based, we were afraid to tell these people we love them. Embrace people we had fights with you name it, you know, the time to make amends is now the time to take chances. Now, you know, I just went to Iraq for a vacation, right? I mean, that’s a little unusual, but I’m challenging my fears. I’m challenging the preconceived notions of Iraq is a dangerous place. You know, I’ve read about it. I’ve embraced different cultures. I love diversity. And, you know, I just found my rhythm and just I went there, I had a great time, I had no hassles. And so just, you know, and also seeing my mom and the press, I just see how much the press kind of misrepresents things, they focus on the negative, you know, and when I go out, yeah, I’d have an amazing time when I travel, like, I’ve rarely had any problems in 102 countries, I’ve been to nine countries, the Middle East, and done all sorts of crazy things, and met strangers and ended up sleeping in their house in Africa and Asia in different places. And I never had a problem, really. So you know, I just don’t focus on that negativity that we’re fed so much, like, we’re just fed all this fear. I hate that. Because I just find like, a very positive experience. It’s not meant to be perfect. But you know, you can take any experience, and you can find a positive outcome from it, even from death and grief, it can help you grow and learn and embrace love. Even more and more, I did that for, I don’t know, maybe 2530 years. And then, as you may know, my mom’s house was burnt down when she was trying to start a hospice for abandoned babies. And so I brought her down to Arizona, and I ended up taking care of her for nine years, that was crazy, difficult experience. And then after she died, we had people writing us everyday from around the world. So again, it wasn’t my plan. But, you know, after taking care of my mother, I was handling all our business affairs, realizing how complicated it was, and how a lot of people are, you know, misrepresenting her work and abusing her and cheating her and, you know, all the stuff that goes along with the theme and having a brand. So as a son, it really bothered me. And so I began working with all our publishers, and all the press and all the stuff that I wasn’t used to and had no experience with. And then I started the foundation, thinking the foundation would do all the work and get to be a photographer. So now it’s been 16 years or so. And I realized that’s not how foundations work. still kind of figuring out how foundations work after 16 years. But yeah, I’m slowly getting better at it. And last three years been great time for the foundation. We’ve grown a lot internationally as been some nice big press articles on mom, they’ve named a couple of streets after mom and hpcl just had a nice memorial to mom, they have a whole exhibit on her and their headquarters in Washington. And then American Journal bioethics just devoted his entire issue to her that’s donated all my mom’s papers to Stanford are going to develop a digital library. So very exciting. And mom’s legacy, even though she’s not around. Yeah,
Victoria Volk 13:29
I, like I mentioned before we started recording, it’s like you hear all the time on TV and the news and different things, it’ll save five stages of grief, you know, and that’s what people seem to latch on to. And in all of her amazing work that she is accomplished and did in her life. And I was just listening to something this morning that talked about, was talking about, it was about mindfulness. And the one thing that in mindfulness at the end of life, it was like research that was done, and they interviewed people at the end of life. And all these people, every single person had said that their greatest regret was that they had not lived true to themselves, right? And
Ken Ross 14:09
you’re not driving the right car, you’re not the right neighborhood, or the right friends or whatever I like, you know, it’s like society imposes all these guilts and fears and expectations on you, which are so artificial.
Victoria Volk 14:21
And there’s this part in her book, where in the wheel of life where she had talked about where she quit her job because she had decided to work with dying children. Someone had just asked her the question, why don’t you work with dying children? She’s like, you know, good question. Why don’t I you know, but she had quit her job. And then that’s what really led her because they wouldn’t allow her to kind of counsel people who couldn’t pay. And she says, I was not about to stop that practice. If you hired me, you also get what I stood for. There’s like conviction that I you know, I feel that sense of conviction and what she said there and that’s what led to her doing the lectures. But that’s what I also hear what she’s kind of passed down to you and that nope this is what I’m going to do I don’t want to live put myself in a box I don’t want to limit myself and that’s a beautiful gift she gave you I think
Ken Ross 15:11
yeah it’s been amazing it’s been exactly my fantasy when I was a kid I like did everything just about he could possibly do that’s you know the cause it reasonable what’s up so yeah I feel like you know I want to live a life that I wouldn’t mind doing 100 times over and not be bored ever you know you want to live that dream life right and it’s never going to be a dream there’s going to be heartache and sorrow and betrayal and everything else but you know you embrace it and just move past it
Victoria Volk 15:42
so what do you think do other cultures have a one up on us when it comes to death and dying then than we do here in Western society?
Ken Ross 15:50
I think it’s kind of like 50 years ago my mom you know began our official work with death and dying is that we hide death in a closet right now old age homes so we can like not see people get old because we don’t want to deal with it just stick them in a home and hide them away so you know we don’t have to face it you know and funerals you know used to be at home dying people used to bring your uncle home and leave them in the living room for a couple days so that you could see him and have that death be a part of your life and now you know it’s like oh we’re gonna hide them in the hospital we’re gonna hide them in old age home we’re gonna hide them in a whatever a hospice whatever so that’s the problems that we hide death right?
Victoria Volk 16:30
Yeah they would even take pictures with those deceased loved ones
Ken Ross 16:34
you know and they and they make a body so look like they’re artificially they had the rouge and pretty up to here and you know make death look like it’s they’re just sleeping You know? So that’s the problem I was problem 50 years ago and it’s still the problem 50 years later like in other countries, you know, death is a part of life you see it, you know, in front of you. They don’t really hide it the way they do in Western culture,
Victoria Volk 16:58
other cultures Do they have their own rituals and their ways of doing things and I think that’s like with our rituals in the West here with funerals we’ve kind of gotten away from being participants as family members right in the process and you know, we we hire a funeral home to basically handle everything for us and handle the details
Ken Ross 17:19
that made my mother critic closed casket like come on, you got to like say goodbye to the person who can’t say goodbye to a box. Think right? Saying goodbye.
Victoria Volk 17:28
Right? What is your most favorite part of of all the work that your mom had done and accomplished in her life? What is been your favorite piece of it?
Ken Ross 17:38
That’s a tough one. So I’ve got my cat here is going to be pushing against the screen here. Um, you know, I love the way my mom brought in humor to you know, her work, you know, everyone thought, oh, Kubler Ross must have been really serious, right? You know, you look at Radio labs Instagram page right now. And their last photograph they published was my mom wearing an ETL fit, right? She’s in a wheelchair, but she’s still an ETL fit. Like, given people call it the finger because she had chronic pain syndrome. So she didn’t like being hugged. So she’d given the finger like, 80. But yeah, she brought a lot of humor into her work and lightheartedness. And, you know, even though it’s you’re working with dying children all week long, she was totally funny and totally full of life. And, you know, just give you energy, right? So she just showed that it doesn’t have to be depressing and sad, you know, I mean, it is to some degree, of course, but, you know, you can also refocus your energy on life. Two,
Victoria Volk 18:39
so you mentioned that there was this difference in opinion of life after death between your mother and your father. And how did that play out? Ultimately,
Ken Ross 18:52
it was challenging because my father had, I don’t know how he had like, 200 brains in his office, like in a room, right? And he’s, you know, he changes director of his department at Loyola in Chicago. He’s writing all these papers and doing lectures and you know, he was you know, they’re gonna name NEMA library after him, right? The guy was a smart guy he studied. You know, he went to medical school in German, he didn’t speak German. So imagine going to medical school, the language you don’t speak. I mean, that is a driven, intelligent person, right? So, you know, he knew what he’s talking about. And so to my mother, all right, she’s the world’s leading expert on death and dying here talking to those genius neuropathologists you know, it’s hard for the kids. Why do we say like, nothing we can say it contribute to that conversation. But you know, they, they didn’t fight. they disagreed, but they disagree. politely. No, no, Elizabeth, it’s this chemical and that chemical in this and that and this was like, No, we had a blind person come in, and they could tell you how many people were in the room and what color they were wearing, and And so, you know, as like, as like a no win this agreement, so they just agreed to disagree. And that was fine. It was just like that a father had a great sense of humor, and they both kind of laughed about it. So it wasn’t a big deal. But you know, it left us both going home, I went went to a kinesiologist. And they did their little, you know, kind of Hocus Pocus thing and they said you are conflicted between your parents because you respect them both. You love them both. But they were in different energies. I’m like, wow, this person is really good. Pick that up.
Victoria Volk 20:34
So your dad’s opinion of that never changed. never wavered
Ken Ross 20:37
didn’t waver. But of course, there’s this famous rose story that goes along with my mother, that when my sister was like six or seven years old, he said he’s gonna send her flowers on the first snowfall after he died. And that’s basically what he did. He sent flowers, and he died that afternoon. And then next day, my sister got flowers on her front doorstep in the snow. You know, 2530 years later. So what did that mean? Right? So my mother’s like, I told him. My mother think she’d won that argument. Did she? I don’t know. We’ll find out.
Victoria Volk 21:13
There was a beautiful story about a boy named jeffie. And in her book, The Wheel of Life really, like, moved me. But jeffie was a boy that she had worked with and he was had leukemia much of his life. Are you familiar? Do you remember the story?
Ken Ross 21:30
I remember the name, but I can’t remember that particular story. Because I’ve heard like, 10,000 structure.
Victoria Volk 21:35
He had the tricycle or the bicycle. He had gotten a bicycle for his birthday. And he told his dad or
Ken Ross 21:41
one with a brother. Yeah, yeah. Right. Right. The beautiful thing
Victoria Volk 21:45
about her work is that she helped families. I mean, she gave the family a beautiful gift in that in this boy too, because he wanted to go home. And he helped him he helped him communicate that to his parents. And so they took him home, because there was nothing more he didn’t want to do. And he didn’t want to do any more chemo, he was done. So they took him home. And then he said to his dad, because he had gotten this brand new bicycle, but he never got to ride it. He told his dad take this bike down. And he said in you, Dr. Ross, you’re gonna hold my mom back. Right? Because he knew that she could not not, you know, ride with him and hold him and make sure it doesn’t fall and or something. Yeah, he ended up giving the bike to his brother for his birthday because he knew that he was going to pass away. But even before they left the hospital, he told Dr. Ross he had said to her, you know, cuz she said, Well, I don’t have time to go home with all my patients or, you know, all the all the children I help. And he’s like, Don’t worry, it’ll be 10 minutes, like he knew he was going to go home and die. But it was just a beautiful story. It truly truly touched me. But I just think that that’s the beautiful thing about her work is that she assisted so many people in having good deaths.
Ken Ross 22:54
My mother was a master at kind of pulling out symbolic, nonverbal language. So what she called it and said, like a very important part of our work is that my mother, she had like antenna and she could just pick up things that were not said verbally, but she could pick up things and she has new like, she’s like head Oh, radar station on her head, she was picking up all the stuff, nonverbal communication, and she could just find out stuff about patients in seconds, and go Okay, all we got to talk here because this person’s about to go. Or this person needs to say something that’s gonna be a big breakthrough. And she was just a master at that. And she did it to me too, which made me crazy, couldn’t keep any secrets from my mom, cuz she just pick up stuff.
Victoria Volk 23:40
very intuitive and empathic, likely to
Ken Ross 23:44
incredibly, like just the stories that, you know, I heard about my mom picking up stuff or just out of this world.
Victoria Volk 23:50
I mean, that’s just one little blip of her work of what she did
Ken Ross 23:54
hundreds and hundreds of stories I’ve heard just on that particular topic. And I have my favorites. But I mean, you know, everyone I talked to, oh my God. He said, assuming your mother did, I’m like, Oh, yeah, she does that all the time every week.
Victoria Volk 24:06
Give me one of your favorites. my very
Ken Ross 24:09
favorite I heard after she died. I heard it from her best friend in the late 60s was this the hospitals are really mad at her or doing this work with dying patients. So they assigned her this big, like six foot three African American priest, who turns out was also a Black Panther. Right? So here’s my mom, five foot tall Swiss accent with a six foot three African American Black Panther priest come down the hallway. It’s quite the scene, right? In the 60s, that was pretty heavy duty. Yeah, so anyway, within a few weeks, the priests like like fell in love, not romantically but with my mom and her work and said, Okay, I’m not going to stop her. I’m going to protect her. So if any doctor got my mom’s face, this, you know, six foot three guy said, you get out of here or else it’s going to be trouble. And so they weren’t about to get in a fight with a priest so they’d head out and Elizabeth would do her work. But anyway, he said, like one time we came into a room and this woman had cancer of the jaw and throat and had her mouth wired shut. And we sat down. And he said, Your mother seemed to have an entire conversation with her, even though she could only grunt and you could not understand a single word. The woman said, Your mother understood her and was answering her. And a woman would grant your mother would talk the woman grant. And this went back and forth for a few minutes. And then your mother turned to me and said, Get this woman an apple and walked out of the room with no explanation. He said, Well, why would I get a woman whose mouth is wired shut, and Apple didn’t make sense. They said, Your mother’s very famous. And he didn’t say no, your mother. So I went down to the cafeteria, got swollen and apple and she started crying. And so I said to her, can you please explain what transpired between you and Elizabeth? If I get a piece of paper and a pen? Can you write down what happened? And she wrote that she had been school teacher, and she wanted to get one more Apple like our students used to give her before she died. And and disguise like, she did not say a word like you cannot. How did Elizabeth come up with this? That’s just unbelievable. But your mother does this? Did this like every day? It’s incredible.
Victoria Volk 26:10
Wow. Wow. That’s a good story. Yeah. That’s a good story.
Ken Ross 26:15
Yeah. I mean, he has lots of and she did it in our workshops every week to just craziness. Like, there was 100 people sitting around in a workshop, and one person wouldn’t participate. And my mother wouldn’t allow that. So I brought the guy into the circle, and said, Look, I’m homeless, I only came for the food. Somebody gave me this as a gift. I appreciate what you’re doing. But you know, there’s nothing you can do or say, to get me to participate. I am dead inside. So my mother sat there for like, 15 minutes, not a word. And the staffs like, Oh, this guy is stumped Elizabeth finally. And so she said, Let’s sing a song. And my mother picked a song. They also 100 people started singing it and this guy broke down crying uncontrollably. And when he composed himself, he said, that’s a song. I used to sing to my son before he died. He was 16. How did Elizabeth pick that song? Right? I mean, unbelievable.
Victoria Volk 27:06
Yeah, I literally have goosebumps.
Ken Ross 27:10
It’s like, you know, she had the hotline to the big guy upstairs.
Victoria Volk 27:15
Wow. I wonder someday she’ll be a saint and be a sainthood.
Ken Ross 27:21
Saint and devil. She was naughty, but nice.
Victoria Volk 27:26
So what is it? You know, that’s the thing like she seems like this feisty, like, don’t you’re no one’s gonna stop me. Oh, yeah. You know, like, very driven. And where does that come from? Where did that come from?
Ken Ross 27:38
From her father. Her father was incredibly stubborn. And she was constantly butting heads with her father, because she was stubborn, too, naturally. But I think her father was like the thing like, who was going to be more stubborn? And so yeah, my mother’s is driven from day one. She was doing things which were totally ridiculous. And no one was going to stop, right? I mean, when she was a kid, she had a pet monkey. Nobody in rural Switzerland in 1930s had a pet monkey. My mother had a pet monkey had African dolls. Swiss girls didn’t play with African dolls. Where did that come from? You know, my mother went to one of the neighbors who was dying and asked him what it was like to be dying, which was like seven years old. Swiss girls didn’t do that. No, but my mother did. Right? I mean, just everything was always focused on like, inquiring want to know what life’s about what’s death, about what you know, I want to know, I want this. Don’t get my wife. She would beat up the school bully if you picked on like her sister. Yeah. And she was tiny. So she was just driven from day one.
Victoria Volk 28:44
Do you have any doubts that when we come into this world, that the path is kind of laid out in front of us? And yes, it’s our freewill to choose and follow those insights or follow those intuitive things that Barker interest or our curiosity. But do you believe that that is just something that like she knew her path? Like she just followed the her curiosity wherever it led her?
Ken Ross 29:09
Yeah, absolutely. I think she said, You know, we’re all here to figure out what our path is. And most people don’t really find it, or they find pieces of it, but they don’t really find the center of the river. And my mom was like, you know, in the center of the river from day one. She just knew what she had to do. And she was always striving for more and more and didn’t matter if it was realistic or possible. She just did it.
Victoria Volk 29:32
Well, and she didn’t listen to the naysayers even as a young child, right? she just, she could have felt like when someone said to her well, who has a pet monkey? Well, oh, yeah, that’s kind of weird, you know, and, you know, but she didn’t she continued on like, she marched to the beat of her own drum. Oh, yeah, I mean,
Ken Ross 29:50
her stubbornness is like legendary during her one of her last Tia strokes after the fire, like I’m sitting with her, and she’s In the middle of having a stroke, right, and I’m trying to get her to go to the hospital and she’s like, no, get me a cigarette, you know. You’re having a stroke. Yeah. Okay, get me a cigarette like him have a stroke who asked for a cigarette in the middle of a stroke? I mean, you don’t take me to the hospital, they’ll kill me. You know, I mean, just insane.
Victoria Volk 30:22
Do you mind sharing what her last words for you were?
Ken Ross 30:25
Well, it’s really interesting. It wasn’t her like very last word. But you know, for nine years, I took care of her. And you know, she was angry to some degree, and then she gets bashed for that too. It’s like, Okay, well, let’s say your house has burned down. All your research labs research has burned down. Your favorite animal shot, the police declare an accident. You know, you have paralyzing stroke. He can’t garden you can’t do your work. You can’t do anything. You sit in a chair. Why would you be angry? Like, oh, she’s a human being. So she was expected to be like, you know, Buddha or something. But, so for nine years, he’s like, you know, if he was angry, he can see on the Oprah interview. It’s on YouTube, but her version of angry is like, you know, she’s so like laughing and smiling too. So it’s not like he’s like wow, with a knife. But anyway, she said, Oh, I want to die. I want to die. Shot suicide. Oh, she’s like, okay, I’ve done all my work. I’m ready to check out it’s no big deal. Let’s just go so after nine years of saying she wants to die, she’s ready to die. Like out of the blue. I’m in a room as Kennet. I’m not ready to die. I don’t want to die right now. I’m like, What? So I’m like, What did you say? And then to change the subject, like, go get me talk or something, or just totally like, oh, give me some flowers? Or I’m like, wait, no, what did you say? She would not go back to it. And I’m like, What did that what was that after nine years. And then a few weeks later, she died. And it took me like two, three years to realize that, oh, my mom learned her final lesson. That’s what she’s always saying, when we learn our lessons, we’re allowed to graduate, which means die, make our transition. And so when my mom like over all of her anger, and learned her final lesson to let people love her and take care of her, not being the one in charge, and she was allowed to graduate, right away is like, Wow, it was totally right. That’s exactly what she said her whole life. And she learned her final lesson, she was allowed to make her departure
Victoria Volk 32:30
that reminds me of I did a podcast interview with a medium who mentioned one of her most memorable clients was mother who had lost a son to suicide. And the mother was so concerned that the son was not in heaven, because like he was really being his soul was tormented or whatever. And the medium told her, Well, the son told the medium and the medium communicated that. No, he’s in school, because he didn’t learn his lessons in the physical plane that he had to learn it. You know, his soul had to learn it after. And so that he was in school, learning his lessons. So it made me think of that. And so what I’m curious then to like, what the lessons that your mom has passed on to you about the afterlife, what has stuck with you, mostly?
Ken Ross 33:22
in that department, I have to say, I’m torn between my parents because my father did not leave life after death. Mm, smart guy, genius. Great guy, mother? Absolutely. You know, I saw any number of things that have no rational explanation. So I guess I kind of take a hybrid view of both my parents. And my only concern is like, what’s now today? I have no interest. Like if you had a fortune teller medium, who could? Who was absolutely you knew was like the real thing and tell you everything. I would have zero interest because I love the surprise. I don’t want to know. And I don’t think pragmatism is the right word. I don’t know what the word is. But I’m just like mother taught me is that whatever happens is, what happens is fine, it’s like, everything’s fine. That’s what’s gonna happen. You know, my only fear, I guess, is, I have no fear of death. I only fear like, the things that I can control. So I can’t control death, but I can control how I live. My fear, I guess would be like wasting my life or not living to the max, right? So that’s my only fear is like, oh, I’ve got to use every opportunity, I’ve got to look for the clues. Because that’s what I can control. I can control if you know, a meteor falls on my head. I’m not worried about that. I’m not worried the planes gonna crash or, you know, I’m gonna die or whatever, because I have no control over that. So I only fear the things I can control the things that are in my power. I have no interest in life after death, in that, whatever happens can happen and that Nature and I totally embrace whatever, whatever is real. You know, in the afterlife. That’s great. If there’s no life after death, that’d be great. There’s life after that great if there’s reincarnation, that’s great. I just, I just totally maybe as Buddhist I don’t know, I just whatever happens, I accept, because that’s what, that’s the nature of the universe. And so I accepted 1,000%. So I’m not, I don’t care what happens. Does that make sense? Yeah, yeah. Like I just like, at peace with the reality of what is
Victoria Volk 35:35
very much you’re in the present. And that’s a lot. That’s a very big problem for a lot of people. And so I congratulate you for that. Because, I mean, like, either a lot of people are stuck in the past, or they’re stuck in the future, they’re always thinking ahead. And they’re always, you know, planning for the, for tomorrow or next week in the next year, but yet, they can’t like just be still in the moment, you know? Yeah, it was a good wake
Ken Ross 35:58
up. And I have this thing called the dice theory, like, every day, I want to like roll the dice, meaning, I want to make something happen. Right? I don’t know what it is. Sometimes, you know, I feel like Oh, you know what I should call 10. People today, call 10 people and see what they’re doing. Maybe they’ll give me an idea. Or maybe I’ll give them an idea. Maybe call 10 strangers go on LinkedIn and just contact 10 people and see what happens. It’s like I’m just rolling the dice of life going, Hey, let’s make something happen. Well, let’s let’s go and take a drive and move on discover new restaurant or new thing. Or maybe I’ll meet somebody or so it’s my dice theory, like everyday, make something happen just by chance, or by feeling the groove like, you know, today, I think I should work on my mom’s tapes are my mom’s books or call some publishers and just make something happen. So I have a everyday I want to throw that dice to like make things happen, because a dice will bump into other dice, and start something you wouldn’t have expected had you not throw the dice, or create a chain reaction. I’m going to call my group and prove and see, hey, maybe we can come up with an idea just by having a talk. So I’ve worked my dice theory every day.
Victoria Volk 37:12
I absolutely love that. Is that how you connected with me on LinkedIn? Yeah, rolled the dice.
Ken Ross 37:19
Part of the dice theory,
Victoria Volk 37:20
and I rolled the dice right back at you. Well, I’ll take that as a handshake, leave you my podcast. Yeah. Here we sit, right?
Ken Ross 37:27
That’s totally the dice theory, right? Like if I didn’t like reach out, then we wouldn’t be here today. And maybe you’ll meet somebody else from my mom’s family. And you’ll have something that’s not only for me, it’s for other people, I
Victoria Volk 37:39
impact roll it for,
Ken Ross 37:41
for the universe and for everybody and to make things happen for everybody. Also, for other people,
Victoria Volk 37:48
I love that.
Ken Ross 37:49
I have the dice series as my
Victoria Volk 37:52
maybe that’s a book title.
Ken Ross 37:54
That isn’t dicey living your life.
Victoria Volk 37:57
Yeah, you better not chop that down. I get the first copy.
Ken Ross 38:02
Okay, you’re part of a dice theory. So right, it works. You’re here. I’m here. And this is like, you know, but every day I want to roll the dice and like, I still want to sit back and wait, you know, if you sit back, and maybe it’ll happen, but if you throw the dice, then you’re participating. It’s like, and you know, it’s like, I walk down the street and I talk to people in countries where I go and things happen. Oh, here’s the dice theory. I had two weeks off, and I bought a one way ticket to Chile. I got the first night hotel and and I had no plans. I didn’t study a book. I didn’t make no idea what’s happening in Chile or Santiago. I just flew down there one way. That’s it, I’m walking down the street first hour, nice doorway, I take a selfie. An hour later, somebody on Facebook says, oh, I’ve been writing you from Colombia for three years. I wanted to meet you. Can we have dinner tonight? I’m now in Santiago with my boyfriend. I’m like, yeah, cuz I have no plans. I’m just throwing the dice. So she said I’m going to bring a translator on speak English. So we met for dinner. And she had my mom’s beliefs tattooed on her arm, right? So like a hardcore mom fan. He said, I want to start a foundation in Chile. I go great. Well, I mean, you got these tattoos you’re like, seem like you’re really a lovely person. You’re really like enthusiastic. I said, if the board doesn’t agree within the next 90 days, I will just give you permission to do it. Because I feel this is right as part of my dice theory. Right? So within 90 days, the board said yes, she started a chapter. And her dream was to start the first pediatric hospice in Chile and Santiago. So he kr initiated the first pediatric hospice in Chile, because of the
Victoria Volk 39:38
dice theory, because he took a selfie in front of a picture that someone
Ken Ross 39:41
because I just bought a one way ticket to Chile, I thought, Oh, I just feel like I want to do this. I need to do this. So this is a nice theory. Like there’s a pediatric hospice being built out in San Diego because of the dice theory, right? It’s like,
Victoria Volk 39:52
Ah, yes. Amazing. Yeah, it’s following the intuitive hits. Like you get this intuitive thought like Oh, just book it. It’s One thing to have a thought it’s another thing to follow up and take action on that thought. And how many thoughts in a day do we let just slip by us? You know, just picking up the phone and telling someone, Hey, how are you doing? I’ve been thinking about you. I do that a lot.
Ken Ross 40:14
You know, maybe next week, they died in a car accident, something but at least you reached out and like, you didn’t have unfinished business. So I’m saying like, Don’t die with unfinished business.
Victoria Volk 40:24
So we stay in grief recovery, too. Yeah, so that was a thing
Ken Ross 40:27
I like in the 70s. Her workshops. Were all about dealing with your unfinished business. Right? Oh, so you can have a good death? Yeah, yeah. So I just went to Kurdistan in northern Iraq, right? And I’m like, Well, okay. It’s as nice as for me, but it’s kind of, not maybe not hedonistic, but it’s like, okay, I want to give back to. So I reached out to a board member who travels a lot. And I said, Do you have any contacts in Iraq? He said, Oh, yeah, I know, an oncologist in the eastern part of Kurdistan. So I wrote her. I didn’t hear back. And when I got there, I thought, I’m gonna try one more time. I reached out. She said, Oh, yeah, well, can we have a meeting tomorrow morning? I’m like, Yeah, great. So I went there. And we had an hour long talk, I tour the hospital, it was very depressing. It was the best hospitals, supposedly in Iraq. And so should we really need help? So I said, Oh, well, we’ll give you our palliative care trainings from the foundation, if that would help, right. And so then I reached out to the board member who connected us, I said, we need to help this woman. So he’s connected her to this worldwide palliative care group. So I’m hoping that will lead to things too. But it’s because of like, Oh, I should, like, do something for mom and the foundation while I’m in Kurdistan, right. So it’s also part of the theory of just like, I was like, you know, it’s great for me having a nice trip and my photography, but let’s like, it works better with karma, if it goes both ways, and I do something for other people. So, so that was a nice example, too. It’s like, we’ve just given them 11 classes, and we’re gonna be sending them to more classes. And I tried to connect them some people to get some more trainings, and they have a lot of problems there with money and lack of pain medication, and so forth. And that I can’t do anything about but at least we can help train their doctors,
Victoria Volk 42:19
which will be huge. So the ripples impact? Yeah. Oh, I love that. The dice theory, I want to kind of come back to something, you know, that I asked earlier about your mom, and at the end of her life? Have you had any moments of where you felt like, Oh, that’s my mom, like, tapping me on the shoulder. Oh, after she passed,
Ken Ross 42:43
Oh, yes. I have a drum set. I’m part time drummer. Because I don’t do enough. And my mom had sense of humor. So three or four times, within the first year after she died. Every time I bend over to tie my shoe, the snare drum would hit just once. I mean really loud. And it would scare the bejesus out of me. Only when I’m bending over, like, you know ones, like maximum freakout effect in the house by myself and bang,
Victoria Volk 43:16
undeniable, right? Yeah, that’s like,
Ken Ross 43:19
mommy gonna give me a heart attack. And then once I was in my bedroom closet, my cat had kittens sitting on the floor with my girlfriend at the time. And I clearly heard my mom’s voice say hello with her Swiss accent. I’m like, wow, I totally projected mom’s voice that time. I was like, I was the loudest I’ve ever heard my mom’s voice. And I look up and my girlfriend’s like, what was that? There’s a woman in here. Like you heard that? She’s like, yeah, there’s is a housekeeper in here. I’m like, is Sunday night at 11? What would a housekeeper be? Like? Like, know that? I think that was mom. Because Yeah, she had an accent. I’m like, yeah, that was mom.
Victoria Volk 43:59
Wow, that was weird. So that still hasn’t swayed your her thoughts on afterlife? Oh, no,
Ken Ross 44:05
I totally not saying it’s not. But if it is, I don’t know what form it is. You know, is it the Buddhist idea is that the Christian idea is, you know, I mean,
Victoria Volk 44:17
yeah, beautiful mystery, right?
Ken Ross 44:19
It’s not like, saying I don’t care sounds too irreverent. But it’s like, whatever it is, is like, you know, I certainly I’m not saying there’s not I’m saying, I don’t know, 100% maybe I know 99%. But the only thing I know 100% is I’m here today and and that’s great. And I just work on today and what I know and what I have and throw those dice and when I get to that point, then I’ll know that for sure. Yeah,
Victoria Volk 44:45
do we ever really know like till battle. It doesn’t matter.
Ken Ross 44:48
To me if there’s life after death, or it’s not or it’s in this form or I come back 100 more times. You know, I just accept it because that’s what it is. You
Victoria Volk 45:00
brings to mind a thought I have just in bringing that up. It’s because for a lot of Grievers, or people who are bereaved and had to say goodbye, and maybe it was a traumatic death or whatever they have, you know, unfinished business with that person or whatever it is, to feel that connection with someone to know that there’s a connection or that there is something after can bring people a lot of comfort. But But I can imagine, though, and just in knowing who your mom was in the work that she did, like, you feel connection with her and everything that you do, I imagine.
Ken Ross 45:38
Oh, yeah, I mean, you know, I mean with especially with my mom, because I’m totally spoiled because I have, you know, her two dozen books and I have 100 audio tapes. And I have 100 videotapes, and I have her on YouTube and I have an everywhere I go, like on the planet, people like Oh, I know your mother, I make our mother like, you know, like, everywhere, it’s like, and I hear these, I keep hearing new stories, like how many stories can there be how many people have met on this planet? Like, Everywhere I go, it’s like wow, like is is like she lived 10 lifetimes or something because it’s not possible that one person did so much in such a short amount of time. You know, I mean, she basically started when she was 40 years old, and retired in her 60s and she wrote two dozen books and hundreds of chapters and did hundreds of workshops around the world and started the hospice movement to some degree and started the belif Kermode son degree and she you know, I mean she was seeing patients she had a working farm she was a mother she was answering hundreds of 1000s of letters she was you know cooking for the workshops she didn’t have enough to do and you know is just insane how much he did as I say impossible that one person did all this but she did
Victoria Volk 46:55
do you think she had any regrets or did she ever voice any regrets?
Ken Ross 46:59
She was just pissed off about her paralysis at the end but I was out of her control yeah was out of our control so other than that pin boys any
Victoria Volk 47:10
you know like wishing that she would have started sooner like oh if I just started my 20s I would have had you know this many more years to
Ken Ross 47:19
you know, at the end she said yeah, Kenneth is Do whatever you want if you want to do my work great if you don’t want to do my work great. Do whatever feels right. And destroy no guilt. No expectations. No. pressure.
Victoria Volk 47:31
I was a gift to Yeah. So Kim, if you if you were to summarize her life in five minutes or less sure. What what has I mean, just do a rundown list of like, over life over work.
Ken Ross 47:53
Um, so I think the the main overview, the umbrellas fabric, would say that she was trying to fight the depersonalization of the dying, the the dehumanization of the death process and of patients, you know, because she said, patients are just like, numbers in a bed is disgusting, like, treat these people as individuals, right? You know, and, and respect them and at least give them a few minutes of personal dignity. Just don’t treat them like okay, this is the cancer patient, this leukemia patient, that’s the whatever, you know, so she was fighting the dehumanization, and a medicalization of, of dying, right? So that’s her big thing was treating people as human beings not as patients and in numbers of beds and things. Right. And, and fighting for hospice because she really wanted people to die at home with their families with proper care and pain medication. She said, No one should ever die in pain. It’s ridiculous that, you know, in the late 19th century and 20th century and 21st century, we haven’t made more progress with this. said there’s pain medications, why are people dying in pain in Africa? Why did I go this hospital in Kurdistan? There’s no pain medication in the 21st century. It’s just outrageous. It’s about her talking about the the four quadrants was really big for her. Nobody talks about but everyone uses but think they don’t realize I think it came from my mother is that imperative care, we have, you know, the balance of the emotional, intellectual, physical and spiritual. I think this idea came from my mom, which she got it I think, from young but not used in palliative care. But in early 70s, my mother was saying you need to treat patients with the four quadrants. If you just treat the physical you’re not healing a person you need to deal with the emotional and intellectual and the spiritual, as well as the physical right so the four quadrants was huge for my mother, I was part of everything in my mom’s world was a circle a wheel right. So The four quadrants of of health is the basis of palliative care, but I think no one realizes it came from most of this work. And then what else externalizing our emotions. Learning to everything in life is perspective. Her work is very much like logotherapy she was friends with Viktor Frankl you know, they really do their work was very tied together. challenging your fears, embrace embracing unconditional love. bioethics, listening hope. I think these are the wheel that makes up Elizabeth work.
Victoria Volk 50:35
Yeah, I actually had Dr. Chris Kerr, who was he’s been studying end of life experiences in the surviving death series on Netflix, I had him on the podcast and, and that, and again, like that just comes back to the end of life training that I had, we that’s what we talk about is the whole person. Because when you when you die, you come into this world, a whole person, and you go out a whole person spiritually, physically, emotionally, mentally, like all of those things, right? So yeah, it’s very important that the all the whole person is addressed. Right? So they can have a good death is really what it comes down to.
Ken Ross 51:15
What else that’s and learning, of course, to listen to symbolic verbal language and symbolic nonverbal language is also extremely important. When you’re a death doula or end of life worker doctor working with dying patients, really learning about the symbolic, non non verbal language of people is hugely important because a lot of people don’t have the words children don’t have the words they don’t have the vocabulary. Older people are beginning to lose over vocabulary. But they give you science, like look for the science.
Victoria Volk 51:45
Absolutely. What is, I mean, can you just kind of quickly go over like, because I know her life has been it? You just you kind of touched on it at the very beginning. Like just the all the stuff that she did? What’s the highlight reel?
Ken Ross 52:05
highlight reel? another tough question. For me, it’s like, you know, the day World War Two ended, she joined a peace group. And you know, living in Switzerland, comfortable food, no dangerous, no, nothing, you know, she could have just easily stayed there and lived a happy, comfortable life. But she she needed to go out and always help the underdog. And so she joined a peace group. And her father said, If you leave the house, you’re never going to come back. And my mother said, I don’t care. Like, this is the right thing to do. People are suffering, and we’re so comfortable. How can we sit here and not just be horrified how, you know, we have all the stuff and everyone else is suffering around us in Europe. So she hitchhiked you know, through France and rebuilt the village. Right. And you know, she was starving. I mean, she was like, you know, looking for scraps of bread on on the ground when she could have been comfortable at home. And then she went up into Denmark, she almost died. And then she went to Germany, and she almost died there from burns from a pot that broken boiling oil spilled on her legs, you know, and then she went to Denmark, Sweden, went into Poland, she worked in a camp, she lived with the gypsies, she went to the concentration camps. I mean, those two years alone are just, you know, beyond belief, what she did, and so brave, and risking her life over and over and over just to help, you know, dying people and people who are just barely hanging on with nothing. And so that was amazing by itself. And then she, she snuck in a German convoy. They put her in a box of vegetables, and locked it up. And she snuck through the Russian lines, and went back to Berlin where she caught a train back to Switzerland. So it was crazy. And then, you know, she went to medical school when women were not going to medical school. And she didn’t have the money she needed to have the proper accreditation. But because of her relief work during World War Two, after World War Two, I kind of let her slide in Wow. You know, went to America and then you know, the whole story with the University of Chicago and fighting the establishment and having doctors spit on her in the hallway and people leaving nasty notes. How do you talk to dying patients, you know, your vulture should be ashamed of yourself. I’m going to try to take your license away horrible, you know, just for trying to lead dying patients have a chance to say goodbye to the families.
Victoria Volk 54:45
so incredible. And that wasn’t even that long ago. And I think about this grand scheme of things.
Ken Ross 54:51
Yeah. And she has so many stories that, you know, patients dying and their families literally 10 footer in the hallway and because it’s not visiting hours, they don’t let the family To say goodbye and the patient dies alone in a room because of the hospital rules. And also, she was also fighting against the hospital rules and the rules that they can’t bring in children and all these ridiculous things that were going on around this kind of sick death culture in America,
Victoria Volk 55:14
what do you think, helped change that the most? I mean, just because what was there something a part of her work that really changed that aspect of the dyeing process,
Ken Ross 55:25
you know, she shined the light on it, between her book and that article in Life magazine, you know, a millions of people read about it. And here’s this woman willing to talk about death in an open and honest way. And no one was doing that, I mean, almost no one that was doing that anyway. And my mother had a capacity to kind of use a simple language, in part because she was a foreigner, and didn’t have a big command of the English language. But she had this way of just communicating way that people could understand whether it was a doctor or a patient or anybody. And, you know, this Life magazine article is shine so much light that they could no longer deny that there was this huge problem happening in America. And you know, in Western culture, Europe, and elsewhere. So, so much light shined on it, that they could no longer like, hide it. So they had to face it.
Victoria Volk 56:17
So in the midst of COVID, in the process of ways that people have not been able to be with their loved ones, and the impact that has on the bereaved and those dying, and what do you think your mom would have said to that? And do you think that that has actually highlighted how far behind we are?
Ken Ross 56:42
I think it has, because there’s been a lot of articles talking about Elizabeth and, and the stages of grief and all that more than usual. But I think my mother would compare COVID to the AIDS crisis, because she said it was just like a crisis, and that there was so much misinformation, so much fear, there’s so much anger that was being mis directed at things which had nothing to do with the conversation. But people were angry, fearful, there was like, a lot of attacks, all these things going on, which is very similar to COVID. Right? You know, people’s fear, you know, death and a brings out their fear of death, right? And that comes out in various ways and hostility and all this air rage and all these things going on now is misdirected anger over their fear of COVID and death. So, you know, she was a great parallels because, you know, the whole age crisis was a big thing for my mom and demonstrating how the society had so much further to go with the conversation about death and dying. And grief and facing an honestly and, and dealing with our unfinished business. Right. So just, you know, COVID, again, demonstrates we haven’t dealt with our unfinished business.
Victoria Volk 57:55
Now, many of us. And you since you brought it up the five stages. Can we go there? Can we talk about that a little bit?
Ken Ross 58:05
Speaking of anger,
Victoria Volk 58:08
yeah. Tell me what, tell me really lay the truth out today.
Ken Ross 58:14
Talk to 10 people get 10 versions of the truth.
Victoria Volk 58:17
Yeah, yeah. Get it from the horse’s mouth, like I guess. Yeah.
Ken Ross 58:21
My version of the truth. So we have on death and dying of the real book, right? Yes, my my dummy copy. If we go to page 251, I believe Yes. Sophie, look in the actual book, right? So we look here, we see that Elizabeth clearly writes about 10 stages, right? It says 12345. And yet those 10 boxes. So I think to some degree, the publisher, kind of when they were putting together the manuscript kind of focused it into five stages. I’m guessing it’s a guess, because my mom did an entire chapter on hope. But why isn’t hope, a chapter big? You know, a sage because she does a whole chapter on anger or chapter on bargaining. denial. There’s a whole chapter on hope, but they didn’t consider that a stage or why not? I don’t know. It doesn’t make sense. But anyway, basically, Elizabeth was trying to say that grief is complex. And back in the 60s, grief was this monolithic thing. And Elizabeth was trying to say that grief is made up of different components, right? So it’s very ironic that people say to me, oh, you know, Elizabeth didn’t get it right. Because grief is complex, and it’s not made up of five stages. I’m like, Well, okay. The point is that she was saying that grief is made up of individual emotions. That you know, it’s not one thing you can add anxiety you can add, you know, my mom talked about preparatory grief which is the same as anticipatory grief, right, which became Kind of trendy to talk about, I think the last two years, because that’s part of COVID this anticipatory grief, but Elizabeth mentioned it in on death and dying 50 years ago, and some people are acting like, you know, it was just like discovered or, or identified just recently, but you know, Elizabeth, not a half a century ago. And she talked about shock. And she talked about hope. And she talked about, you know, Claire Bidwell Smith, I think, did a book on the missing stage of anxiety. Elizabeth mentioned anxiety, 14 times in on death and dying, right? So But no, she didn’t identify it as a stage. But he identified it as an element of the process that we sometimes go through. So the stages are not meant to be like a ladder, or some way to graduate to acceptance, it’s just meant to be a way to have a conversation is a models, not the only model is this one model that you want to contribute, to have a conversation about grief, which people weren’t having, and still don’t really have in healthy ways, quite often. So again, it’s a model, it’s not meant to be the only model is meant to be a flexible model. And if you look on our website, AK ar foundation.org, you’ll see there’s various demonstrations of how she talked about the stages, as circles, you know, as as one line going back and forth. She talks about dreams as being part of the stages, talks about a lot of things which are not generally talked about in society that will fix fixate on the five stages. But Elizabeth talked about many more things. And after 1975, she rarely talked about stages at all. She those, I think she was on a show with O’Brien’s 7475. And she goes, Oh, let’s not talk about the stages are so old, right in 75. And then they bash Elizabeth, because that’s all she talked about. I’m like, No, that’s all you guys are talking about. She talked about 50 other things in society and popular media that just can’t let go of it. Right? They say it doesn’t exist. And yet it is the most popular grief theory on the planet. It is like, you know, not making it up. Because it’s my mother. It’s like, it’s been used in over 100 TV shows and movies. Right? It. There’s, like plays about the five stages, there’s novels, there’s cartoons, there’s games, there’s, you know, I’m teen doesn’t plays about the five stages, right? So I mean, you know, I’m sorry, but it is popular, like what does that mean? Does that mean it doesn’t exist? I don’t know, it must trigger something. To some people. There’s 10s of 1000s of articles by people who experience the five stages. So you can’t say it doesn’t exist because 10s of 1000s of articles by people said I experienced it or it helps me so you can say it’s not appropriate to everybody. You can say it’s good for some people, but it hurts other people because they think they need to go through it. You know, I would accept that. But you can’t say it doesn’t exist or it’s been disproven. That’s just you know, denial. That’s a model period.
Victoria Volk 1:03:18
Do you think Can I ask Can you clarify is is how the media and how her work has been interpreted around that has that is that not what she is? Is that what she intended? Did she you don’t I mean,
Ken Ross 1:03:36
I was with her sometimes, you know, she’d see like the Simpsons episode where something goes through the five stages. You’re like, What? Why does that bullshit love to say that word with her Swiss accent? That’s bullshit.
Victoria Volk 1:03:53
Oh, that wasn’t her intention like and in the book was in the book was written in that context, in the work of working with the dine correct.
Ken Ross 1:04:03
But I mean, I would say like, even though like the BBC just did a story saying the rise and fall of the five stages. PS we use it to train our workers. I mean that that doesn’t make sense. Like, how can you say, the fall of the five stages? pS we’re using it to train our entire staff. That’s like,
Victoria Volk 1:04:23
I think it’s one of those things that people love to hate and they love to just sink their teeth teeth into I’ve even said that it’s like of all her amazing work that she’s accomplished and done. That’s the one thing that like you said, just the people can’t let it go.
Ken Ross 1:04:39
Right? And then they blame Elizabeth because she couldn’t let it go and like she let it go. Like in 75. Yeah, that
Victoria Volk 1:04:44
wasn’t even her focus. Like that wasn’t such a small part of her work.
Ken Ross 1:04:49
So we just said the five stages used in the first was the Marvel Comics, as in Deadpool two and then Disney just use it as Their central focus of their movie krewella. And the is an actual advertising for the movie, they talk about the five stages. Yeah, and I really think it’s more popular than ever. I mean, it’s just everywhere I look. It’s used. There’s been over 60 musicians I’ve identified, who’ve done songs or albums based on the five stages or Elizabeth. I mean, how many grief theories have 60 songs written about it, or albums written about it, or like EP is like, every song is one of the stages. There’s even two bands named Kubler Ross. You know, she’s like part of popular media, like not only her stages, but she is part of it. Her voice is used in rock songs. It’s so bizarre to me sometimes.
Victoria Volk 1:05:46
Wow. She’s embedded in our culture, very much. so
Ken Ross 1:05:50
bizarre, though. It’s like, wow, where’s this gonna continue going? Like one’s gonna stop.
Victoria Volk 1:05:55
So did she clarify more of that in her later work in books.
Ken Ross 1:06:03
She really tried not to talk about it. She was like, fed up with the conversation. But right before her death, were contacted by another grief worker, David Kessler. And you know, we were contacted literally every week, can I write a book with your mother? Can I do this. And finally, I was kind of sick of it, too. So I said, you know, maybe it’s a good idea. Maybe we should talk about this way, agreed to let David work with my mom. And they did a book which just happened out here on grief, and grieving in which she further clarified and David helped clarify the five stages of grief. And again, this book is like in the top 20 or so sellers, you know, of all grief books, even now, you know, 1617 years after mom died. And sometimes it sells better than on death and dying. is still 17 years after she does. So the book came out in 2005, I think. But it’s still selling extremely well. And we’re still selling it. I think just in the last few months, we sold it in Vietnamese, Cantonese, in Mongolian. In Thai, I mean, it’s just like, it has a life of its own. It’s just unbelievable.
Victoria Volk 1:07:29
Now it’s almost it’s as if her work has a life of its own. Now it’s
Ken Ross 1:07:33
your soul to work in Farsi for the first time. And it just wow me just keeps on spreading out.
Victoria Volk 1:07:42
And you can you share quickly too on the death and die on death and dying her that first book you had mentioned to me before we started recording where how many languages and I just found it very fascinating. The fact that you shared about
Ken Ross 1:07:57
Yeah, love about this book is that is both in Hebrew and Arabic. We sold Arabic for the first time about six months ago in Saudi Arabia. So they have a psychology book in Arabic and Hebrew at the same time is just incredible. It’s really unusual. And it just speaks to the university ality of the language and message of what’s held in this book, which is not just about the stages, of course, it’s about the experiences that Diane go through, and find this language that we can have between the doctors and the patients, and make it easy to have a conversation where there’s not normally a common language between medical staff and and laymen who are dying or their families. So the new edition, the 50th anniversary edition also includes her testimony before Congress in 1972. she testified before the Committee on aging, that the way people die in this country was disgusting, and unacceptable, and we had to do something about it. So it’s just amazing to have this little Swiss hillbilly lecture in the Senate. how people should die in this country. The whole whole testimony is now in the 50th anniversary edition, which has the blue cover.
Victoria Volk 1:09:12
And I’m not sure anything has really changed. You know, I mean,
Ken Ross 1:09:16
it’s happened slowly. We have the death doulas now we didn’t have Yes, that’s true. That’s true years ago. So that is a sign of progress. Yeah, it’s so slow, but it’s, you know, it’s kind of glacier. Like,
Victoria Volk 1:09:28
is that what gives you the most hope for her work?
Ken Ross 1:09:31
Well, the fact that you know, we have four new languages in one year that we never had in 50 years is just incredible. Like, you know, I think after 50 years, the thing will have died a peaceful death. But, you know, the fact that in this last year for the first time we published in Albanian, Arabic, Farsi and Mongolian You know, that’s amazing for a book that’s half a century old. And that, you know, we keep having new foundations pop up around the world. And have this beautiful honor. So Elizabeth, and people wanting to, you know, start like book clubs in Mongolia. And we just got contacted by a group in Kenya that wants to do something with the foundation. And, you know, I really see her legacy is very much alive and appreciated, and some people are stuck on the five stages, there’s realize that, you know, Elizabeth work is very broad spectrum, and universal, you know, culturally and religiously and everything wise, it just speaks to people. And something, the way Elizabeth lived, her life just inspires people, because so many people write about the wheel of life and say, just radically transformed our life and they were suicidal. But after they read the book, they want to devote their life to hospice, or the dying, or they want to live again, it’s just, you know, amazing that letters just keep on coming in for decades and decades.
Victoria Volk 1:10:55
That’s amazing. I know, as a grief recovery specialist, and we kind of talked about this briefly before, but because there are people that poopoo, the five stages, and, and there might be some grief recovery specialists out there listening to this, that maybe were taught that I don’t know, but I personally wasn’t my training, what I was taught was that the five stages were about people who are going through terminal illness. And that’s when, you know, that’s when she was conducting that work, and that it was misinterpreted to be about,
Ken Ross 1:11:25
right, that’s a common thing people say, but
Victoria Volk 1:11:28
but I would add, it’s not, I would not deny that all of those things that she mentions don’t happen, like I absolutely full heartedly. And I think any grief recovery specialist would agree that there are emotions and feelings that someone goes through sometimes in the same moment, you know, you just, you’re angry, and you’re sad, and you’re all the things. You know, it’s that’s the complexity of grief.
Ken Ross 1:11:56
Right? So here 1974. In our second book, she said, I hope I’m making it clear that patients do not necessarily follow a classical pattern from the stage of denial to the stage of anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance. Most of my patients have exhibited multiple stages simultaneously, right? So here’s the saying is not linear. So right. Now, if you look up the Google critiques complaints about the five stages there, many of them are, they’re not linear. Well, she said this herself in black and white in a book. And then here in the same book, she says, Please tie in the stages of dying with loss of sight, meaning that they apply to other loss and change events. Right. And this later became the Kubler Ross change, which is used, you know, by 1000s of companies, and nobody complains about that. Identify, you know, a reaction to loss and change, which could be applied to grief. And yet, maybe not, but it seems to be applied to everything.
Victoria Volk 1:12:58
I think it’s just the context in which people refer to it. And how people interpret it think people put their phone filler words in, you know, like, instead of really looking at, like what you just read, people hear what they want, right? I think that’s really what it comes down to people are going to hear what they want. And
Ken Ross 1:13:17
yes, it was like, while she’s writing at the stages of dying, but I think within months, she changed it to the stages of grief or stages of loss. So I mean, she was also learning about it as she was writing about it. And I think, I mean, I think within 12 months, she was saying, okay, it’s not just that I’ve realized it’s applies to other people on things. So technically, yes, but I mean, by a few months. So I mean, are you going to hold her? Like you’re inventing the light bulb? Like, well, a light bulb was only meant to be a light bulb? And then six months later, it’s used for something else does that mean, they were wrong? It’s like, no, they were still learning. Right? Yes, originally, in a six month period of mean, but over the last 50 years, you can hold her to that six month period, like, you know, you want to be a technocrat, yes. set up for that. But for a very brief moment, and even though boxes already beginning to identify, you know that the families are going through it, if you look on page 162, you’ll see she’s already beginning to refer to other people from through the stages.
Victoria Volk 1:14:26
Right? And they’re not stages, right, though? That’s not Yeah, that’s, I think that’s that word,
Ken Ross 1:14:33
inverted comments to say, Hey, I’m using this word, but I mean, don’t hang me on this word, right? And that’s what they’re doing, or phases or periods or whatever. It’s, it’s just a way to describe something. It’s not, you know, a I’m from Switzerland, and I don’t have a great command of the English language. And be you know, I’ve never written a book before. So don’t hang me on like, every nuance of every word, right? I’m trying to have, you know, give you a tool. To build a conversation around this thing that no one’s talking
Victoria Volk 1:15:03
about, so which she did, yeah, ultimately, we’re still debating it.
Ken Ross 1:15:07
50 years. Like that there’s 10s of 1000s. People said, I went through the five stages says, hey, there’s something to it. The fact that it’s the most popular brief theory in the world 50 years later says, hey, there’s got to be something to it. So it’s not the only one. It’s not right. It’s not wrong. It’s just a tool, you can use it, don’t use it, just don’t get hooked into it being like this, like written in stone is just a tool to begin framing a conversation. So that’s all it is.
Victoria Volk 1:15:40
You know, when we don’t ask like, Oh, well, what stage are you in? You’re asking, How are you feeling? Right? You know,
Ken Ross 1:15:47
people do say that. Really? Well.
Victoria Volk 1:15:50
Yeah. I guess I haven’t had people on my podcast to talk about grief, their grief. They haven’t been asked that like, Oh, well, what stage are you in? But do people probably say behind their back? Or what stage? Do you think she’s in? You know, probably.
Ken Ross 1:16:05
Yeah. I mean, if you look at any number of dozens TV shows,
Victoria Volk 1:16:08
like, Oh, for sure. like
Ken Ross 1:16:11
Michael Douglas, Alan Watts, or like, what was it the bucket list? Right. Morgan Friedman. Yeah. having a conversation. What stage are you in? denial?
Victoria Volk 1:16:22
Yeah, certainly, and TV and things like that. But I would hope in like real conversation. I don’t know that that is necessarily that
Ken Ross 1:16:29
within that projects, like, Oh, well, maybe I should know what stage I’m in. Right? Yes, there. Yeah. Morgan Freeman talking about it, you know?
Victoria Volk 1:16:37
Yeah, well, oh, I shouldn’t be I should be out of anger by now. And on to, you know, denial or
Ken Ross 1:16:45
at all whatever. Nicholson said he’s in denial. What stage Am I in? Yeah.
Victoria Volk 1:16:49
Crazy how that has just evolved over time. And I imagine where we could probably sit and have the same conversation, maybe 510 years from now?
Ken Ross 1:16:59
Yes, for sure.
Victoria Volk 1:17:01
What has your grief taught you? I mean, because you’ve lost obviously, you lost your mom and your dad, and you’ve lost people and throughout your life, and what has your grief taught you?
Ken Ross 1:17:14
Yeah, it’s just a reminder that, you know, time is finite, everything is finite. Every living thing is finite. And everything you’re doing is finite. So enjoy it, love it, absorb it, appreciate it, but just realize that
Victoria Volk 1:17:27
he got let go and roll the
Ken Ross 1:17:28
dice over everything, including yourself. So yeah, just realize that everything is transitory in life. And don’t get you know, it’s one thing my father said to me when I was young This is the people who succeed the best are the people realize that everything in life is transitory, right? You know, whatever you’re comfortable with. Don’t get too comfortable with it. Because people succeed when they learn to roll with changes and everything changes everything. You know, the love of your life, your pets, your whatever, your your health, your youth, your job, everything is transitory. So you know that people succeed who realize that, you know, he can’t hang on to it too tightly.
Victoria Volk 1:18:08
Sorry, good advice. So where do you see yourself 510 years from now? Where would you like to see yourself? 510 years from now? Where would you like to see the foundation? I have like three questions in there.
Ken Ross 1:18:22
Um, I’d like to see us have a bigger staff. So I get some help, of course. And, you know, I’d love to have like 30 chapters around the world, and the staff to support it, not just me. And I’d like to see Stanford continued to evolve that digital library, because I gave them 64 boxes of material. So there’s tons of tapes that have never been transcribed really made public. So I just released a few on our YouTube channel. But there’s a lot of stuff they said they want to go what they say they call it they want to go gold mining in my mom’s paperwork and and find amazing things and they are they want to devote just a person does full time to kind of mine through Elizabeth’s archives.
Victoria Volk 1:19:08
Wow. That’d be a cool job.
Ken Ross 1:19:11
Yeah.
Victoria Volk 1:19:12
Is there anything else you would like to share? Either about your life, your mom’s work? Anything else? What do you want people to know the most?
Ken Ross 1:19:23
Well, I feel like I’m doing what I want like five years. Like I’m doing it now. Like there’s no like I’m aiming towards like, like I said, I want to do everything now. So I’m trying to grow the foundation. I’m trying to preserve our work for future generations, trying to kind of fight them Miss information about the five stages. try and do this feature movie on mom because that will help younger generations get to know her who didn’t grow up with her in the press so much and in honestly my mom’s legacy in a way that’s realistic and describes what she really did. And that kind of wide breadth of her Work not just the silly five stages. Yeah. So and you know, I, I went to 101 countries so now maybe like 125 135. So, but there’s no particular number I’m in competition with my cousin. He’s at 104. So the competitions on Oh funny. Want to keep doing it until my back goes out
Victoria Volk 1:20:22
well where can people find you if they want to either your personal work and also your mom’s work?
Ken Ross 1:20:29
Well, we have numerous websites and numerous languages we have websites in English, French, Flemish, Spanish, Portuguese, Japanese, we have maybe a dozen Facebook pages again in various languages. We have aka Dr. Elisabeth Kubler Ross foundation in Chile, in Argentina, or Uruguay and Peru, Guatemala, Mexico, Japan, Belgium, French, hopefully starting Colombia soon and so numerous websites just type in Elisabeth Kubler Ross Foundation, and pick your language. We’re on Instagram Of course, and we have that in three languages. We’re unlinked in we are on Pinterest, and I am on Instagram Kinross, photography, and Ken rose photography calm, and I’m on LinkedIn. And I think we do everything except tik tok so far. We draw the line Snapchat, yeah, Snapchat. We don’t do that either. And then we you know, we’re working with other groups. We’re working with, like Colin Perry, you know, her American fan apologist. She does some really interesting work. We’re doing a conference with her called the nature of grief. Talking about our nature and grief combines like how our flowers used in Santa otology. You know, or trying to not, you know, not just do old school, but do new school too. And kozun some great work we’re doing. Yeah, I know more interesting things with different universities around the world. We’re trying to some project with Stanford with St. Christopher’s the press hospice in England. Oh, and a number of different people. Yeah, when US, Canada, Mexico, I think we’ve got over 50 collaborations going. So it’s a wide world out there. So trying to get the word out there and be part of the conversation. You know, there’s other great groups like reimagine and Michael hubbs group is great. You know, the death cafe’s the death over dinner. A lot of great groups doing interesting work out there. The green burial council trying to bury people in a more ecologically sound manner. So we’re beginning to work with them. Leaving a lot of stuff happening. We’re doing our education series in the fall. We have people usually from about 30 different countries attend that. We’ve had interesting speakers like William Warden IRA Byock, some my mom’s workshop staff, Joanne cacciatore. Do you know about her and the Miss foundation? She does amazing work, you should have her on your on your call. She has a grief farm up near Sedona. And she rescues animals and she finds there’s this beautiful bond between rescued animals and people going through grief especially when they’ve lost children. And somehow they really attach on to rescued animals. There’s like a shared grief and pain. So she does amazing work and she is a Brainiac. I love chatting with her. She is so wicked smart. She did a book called bearing the unbearable, beautiful book, got great reviews. I definitely recommend that book to anybody. And she was principally with parents who have lost children meaning a lot of great people out there. I’m doing a project with open to hope next week or shooting a video in Los Angeles. Okay, so Gloria and Heidi Horsley and they’ve they opened hope channel on YouTube.
Victoria Volk 1:24:12
It’s just amazing to me that I pinned you down for this conversation. So again, thank you again so much for your time and sharing about your mom’s work and about your life and your amazing insights into what you’ve learned from her from your mom and what you’ve applied from that in your own life.
Ken Ross 1:24:36
Right?
Victoria Volk 1:24:37
Yeah, the dice theory. I love it. Yeah. I will put I guess I can’t put all of those links to everything in the show notes but I will definitely put where to contact you. station
Ken Ross 1:24:51
with them and Facebook and the website. Yeah. Oh, and if you can also if people want to learn more about mom radio lab, just did a piece National Public Radio’s radio lab. Yes, I’ve been radiolab Kubler Ross, they have an hour long piece that just came out last week. That’s a great piece. That’s kind of young hip, and I know how to drive it. This is very different.
Victoria Volk 1:25:15
I think you mentioned earlier, it’s about 91%. accurate.
Ken Ross 1:25:18
Yeah, it’s like, you know, the MTV version of Elizabeth has been trendy and irreverent. But they get pretty close. Right? You know,
Victoria Volk 1:25:27
okay. I will link to that one in the show notes
Ken Ross 1:25:29
and argue with a few odds and ends. But what they say the Mick Jagger of death, had trouble dying herself. I’m like, well, she had no trouble, you know, dying. It’s like the stroke part was hard. It’s hard for anybody, but she had no trouble of death. It’s just being in pain for nine years, and not being able to work or have fun. You’re going to be a little angry.
Victoria Volk 1:25:50
Right, especially living the life she had led, right? I mean,
Ken Ross 1:25:53
wild overachiever. So to go from 10,000% you know, 1% is hard. Yeah. And, but I really like the you know, Rachel did a great a great PSA, I have no issues with it. I really like it a lot.
Victoria Volk 1:26:09
It just makes you wonder like just being a human being. It just makes you wonder someone who has sparked such an amazing conversation to have about grief and opened up the conversation in the first place. And all the work that she’s done, and then that’s what her last nine years were like, it’s disheartening. Even for me, you know, to know that that’s what that was like for her.
Ken Ross 1:26:34
Take a look at that Oprah interview on YouTube. And you’ll see she still has a lot of spark left. And even though she was retired and paralyzed, she still had like four books. Yeah, that’s true. couldn’t quite Stop, stop.
Victoria Volk 1:26:45
Well, that’s true. And that’s again, that’s speaks to don’t put yourself in a box. Like don’t limit yourself. And I think that’s one of the greatest messages today on this podcast from you and from her life is it can’t teach wrote the only limitations you have are the ones that you put on yourself.
Ken Ross 1:27:02
Absolutely. I mean, I didn’t study photography, but I went out and shot 101 country isn’t. And I did endless number of wacky things.
Victoria Volk 1:27:11
Do you think though that grief, in part was her teacher in that like, really, too, because what I believe is that grief is the the illuminator like it really shows us the contrast of what we don’t want that we really see what we do want
Ken Ross 1:27:29
the equalizer and how much how much money or fame or whatever we have, we’re all gonna die. Exactly. You know, we all end up at the same base their range, what do we do with this little short time we have, you know, make it seem like 100 lifetimes, you know, if you live it, right, you can make Yeah, I feel like I’ve lived 100 lifetimes already with all the stuff I’ve done. So yeah, I’m just a wee while Wow, that was amazing. Like, I have no complaints like, lucky me.
Victoria Volk 1:27:56
I’m a I’m just a wee bit jealous. But again, it’s accepting where we are, in our lives like exactly where we are. And this is where I’m meant to be as a mom of three kids. And National Geographic just wasn’t my calling. I guess, when I was a kid.
Ken Ross 1:28:15
I didn’t get married, because I knew I wanted to travel. And I didn’t want to be an absentee parent, like my mother was not that I have an issue with my mother. But I knew like, you know, I was different. I didn’t mind it. But I didn’t want to assume that my kids wouldn’t mind me not being home, because I really had to do that. So I said, I’m going to go photograph 101 countries, so and they have all the experiences with golf.
Victoria Volk 1:28:40
Since you went there, and since you mentioned that, can I ask them if that lies last nine years was really kind of a gift for you, in that you had nothing but time with your mom to kind of connect in a deeper way.
Ken Ross 1:28:53
It was ironic because you know, for the first nine years, she was regular mom, and then she left to do our stuff. And for the last nine years, I was her parent, right? So it’s kind of ironic that nine years here and nine years there, and in between were like weaved in and out and hung out in you know, funky places around the world. So but last night, he was Yeah, I got to spend, you know, all the time with her even though she complains I was never around much. But her ideas like not much is like, you know, three, four times a week. I’m like mom, I you know, I have a huge pile of your mail that I’m working on at home. It’s like, I don’t care about that I want some tea or I want to go shopping or I want to go somebody has to do this stuff and
Victoria Volk 1:29:42
the problems with leaving a legacy right?
Ken Ross 1:29:44
Yes. So like I’m gonna inherit it one day, my sister and I so you know, I’d like to inherit something that’s kind of his structure and I can digest not a chaos. Wow. So I mean, I have like 7000 emails right now. And hundreds of messages. And this is you know, 17 years after she died, so.
Victoria Volk 1:30:06
And I’m so grateful you answered mine. So again,
Ken Ross 1:30:11
oh, my pleasure. It’s nice to hear and smell the roses. Yeah.
Victoria Volk 1:30:16
Well, thank you again so much. I could just hang out all day. I really could. Would you? Sure? Oh, yay. Okay. I’m holding you to it. Sounds good. All right. Thank you again. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love. From my heart to yours. Thank you for listening. If you liked this episode, please share it because Sharing is caring. And until next time, give and share compassion by being hurt with yours. And if you’re hurting, know that what you’re feeling is normal and natural. Much love my friend.
Grief Stories, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Pespective, Podcast |
Marty Cooper | Behind the Curtain of the Inventor of the Mobile Phone
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
What does the wizard behind the one invention that has transformed society around the globe have to say about optimism, failure, and learning?
Marty Cooper has been coined the name the “Father of the Cell Phone” but, there’s more to him than being an inventor of one of the most societal-altering devices.
It took ten years to see his dream come to fruition, and it nearly didn’t happen. In our conversation, we explore optimism, failure, the importance of learning, and so much more.
We get a peek behind the curtain in this episode where Marty shares his thoughts about technological advances, his prediction for the future of how we will power our lives, advice for all of us regarding privacy (in terms of how we use our cell phones), and what he believes is the threat to our civilization.
What does Marty have to say about kids and cell phone safety, the body being a complete system (at 92 years old, he’s learned a thing or two), learning from others, thoughts about grief, what breaks his heart and what gives him hope for the future? You’ll just have to listen!
This is a lighthearted conversation, filled with optimism and wisdom from someone who had a dream and never gave up. Perhaps how he lives his life today is an indicator of why Marty Cooper became the “Father of the Cell Phone?”
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
Victoria Volk 00:00
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today I’m very excited to share this conversation with my guest, Marty Cooper. He is the father of the mobile, cellular phone. Marty, thank you so much for being here. My great pleasure. At the time of this recording, it’s been a few weeks since I’ve seen you on CBS Sunday morning. And I was just very struck by your story. And found myself very just very curious about you interested in your story, your personal story, what led you to become an inventor, and just I really selfishly, just wanted to learn more about you. So thank you so much for agreeing to I emailed you and you answered, and you agreed, and I was just tick, I’m tickled pink. Thank you so much.
Marty Cooper 00:55
What a nice guy I am. It’s my pleasure. I like to share my story with everybody in the and, if you’re interested, it’s an ego trip for me, so thank you.
Victoria Volk 01:09
Thank you so much. So I’m going to actually read, I’m gonna start with the description of your book, which is cutting the cord, the cell phone has transformed humanity, which is about the obstacles you had to overcome, inventing the cell phone. And it says that you’re one of Time magazine’s top 100 inventors in history, and that you share your inside story of the cell phone, and how it changed the world and a view of where it’s headed, which I’m very interested in hearing. So while at Motorola in the 1970s, you invented the first handheld mobile phone, but the cell phone as we know it today almost didn’t happen. And that’s really what kind of your book is about. Maybe let’s start there. And then we’ll kind of even go further back.
Marty Cooper 02:02
Sure. Well, we’re talking about the late 1960s, which doesn’t seem like it’s so long ago, because I, I was a, an executive at Motorola at the time. So it’s, it’s not as though I was a child. And yet, those are really primitive times, we didn’t have personal computers, we didn’t have digital cameras. And the internet had not been invented yet, believe it or not, they didn’t have integrated circuits like we have in our cell phones today. But they did have car phones. And the only problem was, the car phones are terrible. You have a view on the car phone, and you wanted to make a phone call during the day, there were so many people competing with you for this radio channel that we run, that sometimes you’d have to wait a half hour just to get a line, if you’ve got one at all. So really, Bell System, you’re much too young to remember the bell system does this used to be the monopoly, if you wanted a telephone, practically anywhere in the world out on the states, you have to go to the phone company. And sometimes they won’t even sell you a phone, you have to read it through. And and there was one color black. And the definitely at that time. Most of the homes have just a single phone, you had a phone in the kitchen. So we’re really talking about ancient times. But the Bell System came up with a way of using the radio channels over and over again. So you can have more capacity in a city, you can have more than just 100 people getting service in the city. And so the reason that we’re promoting this wonderful service, except they didn’t believe was going to be very big. And they have a study done. And their study said they were only going to be a billion people ever using a cell phone. Well, it turns out they were right. That’s about the maximum number of people that ever use cell phone in the car. Because we knew at that time that people are basically fundamentally naturally mobile. And now you know that because you you’re on board at the airport tomorrow, you get the feeling like nobody’s where they want to be going somewhere else, though. And here are the after being trapped in our homes by that copper wire for 100 years. The Bell System is telling us well, we’re going to solve your problem. We’re going to free you and crappy winter car didn’t make any sense to us. And we got a radio made two way radios that you could hold in your hand. We had watched how companies revolutionized how they ran their business. He says because they don’t talk to people moving around. So we were not a very big company at the time, at&t was $22 billion in revenues, we were just a billion dollars. And so we took the Bell System on, we went to our, the FCC who managed these radio channels, so God gave up and told them that we have a better way to do it. And by 1973, it looks like the FCC is about to make a decision. And we’re scared that they’re gonna do the wrong thing. And and if they made the wrong decision, we would be stuck with cartel bones for at least 10 or 20 years. So at that time, is when I decided, you know, the only way you can convince people of something is to demonstrate the real thing. And so I pulled the team together, and we made a cell phone. And the guys actually built a cell phone in three months, we had enough technology around our company. And I had to bend a lot of people that are behind their backs, they got to stop what they were doing, and working on this crazy idea. And April 3 1973, in front of the New York Hilton on Sixth Avenue, I was interviewed by somebody just like you’re doing to the now. And I was talking on a cell phone. So that 10 years later, believe it or not, that’s how long it took to get the government agency to make up their minds. And they did decide in favor of competition. So it wasn’t going to be just a bell system. And the industry was going to decide what the right technology was. And of course, we picked personal phones, handheld phones. And you know what the result is, there are more portable phones in the world today, than there are people that have an amazing thing. It’s also true in the United States were cell phones in the USA, there are people in the US. And the number of wired phones, believe it or not, is going down, down, down. And there are only a little over 50 million wired phones in the United States today, compared to by 350 million cell phones.
Victoria Volk 07:44
It’s such an incredible story to me and I I just I love inventors, the story of inventors anyway, but what you did, though, has, do you ever just like sit back and pinch yourself? Like, did I really do that? Do you feel like you’re living a dream sometimes?Marty Cooper 08:07
I do what except I said, I feel like I’ve agree most of my life. So you know, I’ve always I like to think of myself as being a futurist. I’m not a very good executive, we prove that at Motorola, he was over at a multi billion dollar division by the time that I left Motorola, but I like to think about new things. I love to take things apart and put them back together. And the reason I know so much about the future is sky sun, I spend so much time there. I love fantasy, I read science fiction. I have grown since I was a as long as I could remember since I was a little boy, five years old. I was just desperately interested in everything technical, I want to know how things worked. I could take anything apart, I couldn’t always put it back together again. But I always knew I was gonna be some kind of a technical person engineer, or a scientist and, and I guess I pretty much baited but the But I have to tell you that, you know, inventing is not the only thing. It’s great fun to come up with new ideas. And it’s a little harder to come up with ideas that are really work. And it’s even harder to actually make some work. Yeah. So there were many, many people that are involved in creating the cell phone, the cell phone, the the equipment that it takes to make a cell phone works, leaks, cell sites all over the city. So I would guess to build today’s multi trillion dollar industry took 10s of 1000s of people.
Victoria Volk 09:53
I just have to tell you to the day that I got that email from you that you would be on my podcast. was the day that I got my kids their first cell phone plans. Ironically, that same day.
Marty Cooper 10:07
Always separates. How old are your children?
Victoria Volk 10:11
Seven? Well, 16, almost 15 and 12.
Marty Cooper 10:16
Wow, boy, are you at the split mother. My granddaughter, of course, it was a special case she, she was going to school at a school bus when she was seven years old. And we were afraid she could get stuck waiting for the bus. And nobody showed up together. So we got our cell phone just for that purpose when he was seven years old. But your children will very quickly know more about cell phones than either of us.
Victoria Volk 10:50
Oh, my gosh. And, you know, I find that it’s really made my my life a lot easier too and there’s, you know, but I do have a question that kind of leads into that part of the conversation is that? Did you anticipate it? Because I imagine while you’re obviously a very strategic person, too, did you anticipate that with the cell phone that we would have so much? Because there’s a lot of negative too, you know, and parents would share that frustration that sometimes the cell phone is like a, you know, a sore spot for some families and homes and with their kids and stuff? Yeah, what do you say to that?
Marty Cooper 11:34
Well certainly there are negatives to every technology that comes along. And the only thing I say about that is I looked enough in the US. And of these developed countries, I look at places like Africa, India, Mexico, where people really struggle, just to live. A cell phone is revolutionizing those countries. It’s reducing poverty significantly. It’s bringing health care to villages that have never had a doctor before. It’s for allowing collaboration so they can build up their entire economies. So some of these things that we’re going through now. And I observe the same thing that you do, you. You go into a restaurant or you look here, some kids having lunch, and they’re all sitting there looking at their photos and stuff. But I have ultimate confidence that you will be in it with a cell phone. So no, really, it’s only been about 20 years since it was widely. And since everybody out there, maybe less than that for teenagers. It takes time to figure these things out. Sometimes it takes a generation to do that. But the advantages, the things that the cell phone allows us to do, that we couldn’t do before way overwhelm the disadvantages, at least in my viewpoint. So hang on, have conference with people, we’re gonna work it out, work it out.
Victoria Volk 13:12
I love that. And I think part of the thing too, when I was watching you on CBS Sunday morning is I just I loved your energy and your optimism. You were just so optimistic. And so what do you see for the future? With the cell phone? I mean, because it’s changing our clothes, versus like, everything is adapting kind of to the cell phone. So what do you what do you see next? What do you envision?
Marty Cooper 13:39
Start off with your comment about optimism. You’re right, I do have a very positive outlook. A lot of people laugh with me a lot about that. But I look at the facts. And the reality is that society, all of us are getting better. And we are better now than we ever have been in every respect. We live longer, we are healthier, we are richer, than any time in history, all the curves are going up. There are bumps up and down. We have disasters, like the pandemics and other things that come along. But on the average, we are better off now than we ever have been. And there’s no reason to believe why that can happen. And the cell phone, not by itself, but it’s going to be an important contributor to this. And that’s why I emphasize so much not to how much fun we’re having in the developed countries with social media, and all these other things. What the social media and the games that the kids are playing is doing is making us familiar with an extraordinary valuable tool. So when these kids that are sitting around the room, not talking to each other, and by the way, they do end up talking to each other when they grow They are going to be so good at using these tools, they’re put us to shame. And they’re going to do everything more efficiently. And when you do things more efficiently everybody benefits. And that has been demonstrated, as I mentioned before, in Africa, the There are, of course, the your cell phone has as the LeapFrog the wireless phone, or the anybody ever had, where were wired phones in Africa. And one thing that they did, they introduced a way of managing money. Now, that doesn’t sound very important to us, we have banks. And it turns out that poor people in Africa can’t do that. They can’t move money around the country, they can’t save money. And somebody introduced a system called m pesa. That allows them to do all of those things to save to transfer money. And to do that just with their cell phone. And so they ask, and other things that have happened to make things more efficient, have at least according to the United Nations, Sonny, and moved over a billion people out of power, severe poverty in the last 20 years. So definitely, that kind of thing is what it really is, the basis of my optimism, is the fact that there are villages in Mexico, where they have never had a doctor or never will have a doctor. And they now have the ability, because they’ve got somebody in the village that’s got a cell phone, that will route the cell phone out by a bed, and a doctor in Mexico City, and fried somebody’s eyes, in this little village, and bring them medical treatment they could never have imagined before. So it’s those kinds of things that are the basis of optimism. And you can make all the fun of the work but I stand by it.
Victoria Volk 16:55
I wouldn’t make fun of you. And actually, it makes me think of where you put your attention and focus. That’s what you’ll see. Right? So if you are focused and have your attention on all the negative things, cell phones have brought to us, that’s all you’ll see. Right?
Marty Cooper 17:15
That’s a very, that’s a very wise thing. You just said it, I absolutely agree with you. I want to tell you, I know it’s slightly off the subject, but the most important drive in my life. And what I think that should be the drive that everybody else’s life is learning. And the reason is kind of obvious if you think about it. Because most kids as an example, when they get out of school, the only thing they think about is getting a job making money, there’s a lot to be said to having a lot of money and being able to do all the things you want. But it turns out that after you’ve accumulated enough money to do the basic things, and maybe a few steps beyond that, it turns out that the gratification you get from more money kind of starts waiting. For time, money is not the only thing in life. And the only thing you can keep doing the rest of your life that brings you satisfaction is to learn to have you ideas, to generate new ideas all by yourself. Now, you know, that’s the biggest thrill of my life is to think about something in a way that I have never thought of before. It might not be original, because somebody else probably thought about, but maybe they didn’t. So and you’ll never, ever get tired of having new ideas, and about learning new things. So I put a great deal of emphasis on practicing learning. Why you ask, you didn’t ask, but I’m presuming. Why do you have to practice. But it turns out, they’ve done some studies, scientific studies. They are what they call wrath psychologists who determined that the act of learning is something that has to be practiced. If you stop learning, just like with your muscles, you lose the ability to learn your ability to learn after five. So I can’t think of anything more scary than that you get so self satisfied. So happy with your position in life. If you don’t think you need to know anything more than what you know now. And you do that for a few years. And it turns out when you want to learn something or you don’t have the ability, is that scary? Or what?
Victoria Volk 19:41
absolutely, I think that, like our greatest asset is is our minds and where are we? again it comes back to where we put our attention to. So do you want to focus on growth and learning and advancing yourself in your life or do you want to focus on that one, the sad, depressing things that are going wrong, either in your life or in the world around you. Yeah. And so where does your optimism come from? Have you always since a child just had the sense of wonder and optimism?
Marty Cooper 20:24
Well, I suppose the hardest thing to do is to be objective about yourself.
Victoria Volk 20:30
That’s true.
Marty Cooper 20:31
I have absolutely no idea. I was blessed with a wonderful parents. And my parents struggled, they started out in, in what is now the Ukraine, at that time, it was Russia, they were suppressed, because the most awful ways, they managed to work their way to Canada, and ultimately to the US. They worked hard all their lives, but managed to, to come up with a comfortable life. For all of us. My mother was a dynamo, she never stopped moving. She was a charmer, she could talk to anybody. So I say some great advantages. And I, I would hope that the only thing that I could do useful in life is, is to inspire other people to be like my mother was.
Victoria Volk 21:27
I take it, then all of your ideas were nurtured. And that aspect of yourself was something that was nurtured.
Marty Cooper 21:38
I put it all down to what should i do is I’m not smart enough to figure out why I am what I am. But people have asked me to get off even to your life over again, what we do different. And I have to tell you, I can’t think of anything, you change one thing. In the past, there are unintended consequences. So I just think I’m very lucky. And I think as a matter of fact that almost all of us are lucky to be around today, and to enjoy all these wonderful things that our society has to do, including you and I talking to each other virtually as though we were right next to each other, isn’t it? Oh, it is just enough, less than a half hour ago, and you could say that we’re friends, we’ve exchanged emotions and ideas. So I think oh, that’s fantastic. And all these kids take all their for granted. They don’t know how lucky they are.
Victoria Volk 22:49
I love that. And I made me think of to how even even today’s I was thinking about our conversation coming up, I just thought, you know, I because I would always I would, as a kid, like I, I wanted to invent something like if I could just invent something. But I would call myself a creator. I’m a creative person. And people that’s how people most people describe me as is as creative. And what is invention, but creativity in action, right? And so even just this podcast, it was an idea. I created it, I invented it, I invented greevey voices. And so what struck me today, I am an inventor, I may not have invented the cell phone. But I’ve invented other things. And I think that’s where so many of us kind of forget that as creators are people who create things or bring about ideas into fruition and into their world and into their life, for others to enjoy. For others to participate like this podcast. The microphone, I’m using the computer like all of it, like creativity is invention, you know, in inaction. And so I would just my my thing I just message I would like to share with people is that even though you may not be coined and inventor of something like yourself, I think if you created anything, you are an inventor. So what do you say to that?
Marty Cooper 24:25
I say that you’re exactly right. Although I after to put some boundaries on them. Every crazy idea that I might have is not an invention.
Victoria Volk 24:37
That’s true.
Marty Cooper 24:38
In order to be an invention, there it needs a couple of other attributes. It has to be buildable to be an invention and has to be useful. So when you talk about what you achieved with your Is this what is it? Are we doing what’s called a podcast Have you gone one step further, because you know that your podcast useful, somebody is getting some benefit, at least I am, because you ask creative questions, but, but you have to also execute it. And that’s a whole step further from the inventing. So I would not only compliment yourself on bigger and better which you are, but you’re also a builder. And we need both kinds. And it’s very nice when one person could do both of them. In my case, I was the creative guy. And my guys, we’re all creative as well at a different level. But some of the things that my team did, I couldn’t imagine doing, I could have done them 20 years earlier, when I was sitting on a bench working, but it takes all kinds of skills, to do modern kinds of things. And everybody, at least at a technical field has to be not only creative, they have to be able to put these things to work to actually do things with their hands.
Victoria Volk 26:08
So what was the pivotal moment in your life? Where really, everything changed? Or was this like just a natural progression of what how your life took shape?
Marty Cooper 26:21
While you know you, you know, you were gonna talk about my book, at some point. So I’ll bring this up, because I tried. That’s one of the points that I made in my book is there is no eureka moment, there is no one sudden, flash of light and the wisdom of the ages suddenly ensures a lifetime that just builds experience one experience after another, that Sorry, I believe before you’re born, you start experiencing things and you’re learning. And that’s why I keep bringing that word up all the time about about learning. I couldn’t, there was no way that I could have thought about something as important as a cell phone. Early in my career, I didn’t have a background, I didn’t have the technology, understanding. So I expressed in my book and severally beginning chapters about how it takes a progression of increasingly complex thoughts as to build up the capability to do something more important. The other thing that I don’t just say advice for other people, I’ve never had a plan for my life. All I knew is that I was going to be an engineer, but I had no idea what kind of work I was going to do, what fields I was going to go into. And somehow the world has taken care of me and I am so grateful for that but I can’t express it. Which is why I say I’m so so lucky. I have there have been things in my life that have been drivers, but we are never capable of doing total planning for the future. You just have to build up all the capabilities you can and become the person who want to be and hope that you’ll be lucky to and I hope you are there’s no doubt in my mind that you’re going to do great well you’re you’re just have to do this podcast. I don’t know you certainly are not making a fortune I’m doing podcasts for most of them. 100 of them. Say sir I in fact, I was surprised to find out how many podcasts there are in the world today. Whether it is hundreds of 1000s right?
Victoria Volk 28:49
I don’t even know maybe even millions.
Marty Cooper 28:53
Yeah. So somebody must be better than you do get feedback from people that watch your podcast to tell you that they’ve learned something new or that they’ve been entertained or
Victoria Volk 29:08
occasionally occasionally sometimes I feel like it’s crickets you know, but it comes I just I think that’s a good point here to say or good spot to say that it’s how you constantly consistently just had just showed up for yourself to not give up like how like you didn’t give up yeah 10 years it took and I imagine that had some grief in it thinking like did you ever have this thought in the back your mind like if this doesn’t if this doesn’t happen like all this blood sweat and tears you know you put cuz I know what that’s like, not to your extent of course but to put your heart and soul into something and it bust or it not Come through the way you hoped, right? What do you say to that?
Marty Cooper 30:05
Well, you know, like my parents went through that they have failures in their lifetime. And they actually had a grocery store and wood effective failed and the other one and Thunder Bay that failed at a water business in Chicago that failed, before they finally found something that they could do. with sheer luck, I think that they fell into this. So it was a remarkable coincidence that when I was in the Navy, US Navy for four years, when I got a Navy job, and then I was approached by Motorola. And amazingly enough, the founder of Motorola had gone through that same experience. He had started his three different businesses and have two of them totally failed. disastrously. And so he was like, put up a plaque in the lobby of this fantastic building. At the time that I was there. Many years after the founding. of Aflac, they put out something that you said, Do not fear failure, reach out. And I took that seriously a Motorola sometimes to fault. Sometimes I reach out a little too far. And I have my share of failures. Sometimes I will emphasize it in the future, much more than the president when you’re running a business. That’s not a very healthy thing to do. people depend on your prophecy keep going. But that was one of the lucky things in my life to find a place that would tolerate me for 29 years. That’s how long I spent it though, right? And I am not a corporate type. If you go back to corporate type. And I shouldn’t say that there are people in the corporate world that are very creative. But Motorola tolerated me for all those years that I’m very grateful for that.
Victoria Volk 32:19
I am too. Sure, I should really and some people are as well. So I have a couple questions that I jotted down. So I would I would actually probably say that your answer to this will be Yes, but I’ll and I think you may be kinda answered it. In your opinion, are tech advances, always a good thing? This is actually a question from a friend of mine,
Marty Cooper 32:45
Nikolas ANSYS, who was at the I have a rule about that. In fact, I have a number of rules of life that I wrote down in my book, by the way, my book is called cutting the cord. The cell phone is transformed humanity. I don’t find people. One of the pages I have in the book is that what I called the party’s vaccines. And one of them is a definition of what technology is. My definition is technology is the application of science, to create products and services that make people’s lives better. And if it doesn’t make somebody’s life better, it’s not technology, it could be a curiosity. It could be a technological phenomenon. But if it’s technology, by definition, it has to make people’s lives better. Having said that, there are things that come along, that make your lives better, but also have drawbacks. And that’s true of almost every technology. It’s absolutely true of things like nuclear technology. You know, you look at the idea that we have countries trying to compete and how many missiles, nuclear missiles they can make. That’s a really depressing thought. But at some point in our history, our cities will be run by perfectly safe nuclear technology that is going to be so inexpensive. The power is not going to be to think to us, we’re going to be driving our cars for practically nothing. Heating and Cooling our homes, all these things that are so costly today. So sometimes it takes time, and there are drawbacks to technologies. But as I say before, if it doesn’t make people’s lives better, it’s not technology.
Victoria Volk 34:53
I love that answer. Let’s see what else do I have?
Marty Cooper 34:59
What else have you got?
Victoria Volk 35:01
Well, okay, so I did have this one thought too. And I wish whoever’s, like anyone who’s listening to this and in any inventors, you know how the, when you’re driving down the highway or interstate or even in the city or whatever, on the street lights, they’ll have like that thing. So if you’re running a red light, it can capture your license plate. Oh, yeah. Okay, great technology, right? saves the police officers time, you get a ticket in the mail. It’s, you know, so I’m just I, like, can’t we apply that to the cell phone. So like, situations where people are doing like, really awful things, you know, especially in in, I’m talking, I was going to go dark a little bit, but you know, like, with teenagers, and sending pictures, or, you know, sex offenders sending pornography, like just things like that, like, to be able to track those people. Like when something is, you know, just like when you get a ticket in the mail, when you run a red light, if you do something like that, on a cell phone, there’s like some sort of data capture. And I mean, I don’t know, that’s maybe way, way far off thought. But I just thought, Gosh, to help make it safer, right to help utilize it for good, right?
Marty Cooper 36:31
Well, that’s a you what you just have touched upon, is one of the biggest problems in society today. And I’m really serious about that. Because the answer your comments, is absolutely. If all you have to do to be perfectly safe is to give up all your privacy. You got to make a decision. That’s true. Are you willing to let somebody somebody else know exactly what you’re doing 24 hours a day, every day of your life, wherever you are? Are you willing to let somebody examine what you do? record at all? And and knowing that annoying, that’s true of everybody, we’d all be perfectly safe, right? There could be no crime, because we would catch people isn’t Miller doing? Well, you know that.
Victoria Volk 37:28
Except that happening? And it’s not happening, right? Yeah,
Marty Cooper 37:31
well, it can’t happen. Because we just treasure our privacy. And we also know what happens when you give up your privacy. In total, you go and look at what’s happened to totalitarian states. Because what happens is that the bad guys do get control of that information. And when they control your information, they control you. And they control your ideas. And they control your minds. They control what you can and cannot do. So somehow we have to achieve the right balance, I would suggest that we have gotten anywhere close to that now. People have been enchanted by this idea of getting stuff for nothing. And I bet you do too. You know, you go to Google, and they give you a search engine. Well, the most powerful educational tools that’s ever existed, and you kind of forgotten. No, you don’t. You are giving up your privacy every time you do a transaction. on Google, they get information about you, they know more and more about you. And they use that information for their benefit. Very often, it’s for your benefit, too, but you have no control over it. You get that free service, that you are giving up an awful lot. And the same thing is true. with Facebook. The same thing is true with Twitter, you’re getting some satisfaction, you’re getting some improvement in your life, but you’re giving up your privacy for that. So we haven’t figured that out yet. And I think there are a lot of people working on including my wife, who is a an entrepreneur, and inventor herself. And one of her latest endeavors is kind of a side issue. She has created an organization at least what is the tour, it will be able to put a Good Housekeeping Seal on a company with regard to privacy. Oh, they have come up with standards of privacy. What does a company have to do to preserve the privacy of their customers and a company achieves those objectives then they will have a seat It says that this organization, and I asked to prove this company from the standpoint of privacy, because somehow or other we have to face this, this issue of privacy and nepotism the bug, if we keep if everybody keeps going in chat and shattered with free services, and gives up all their privacy, I think that’s a super threat to our civilization. And I think people are too scared to do this.
Victoria Volk 40:30
This is a I’m glad that conversation went here, because actually just recently well with my kids getting their cell phone, right. So a part of it is that part of the caveat was that well, the ones with jobs have to help pay for those cell phones, the plans, and the one and a part of it too is that I want to be able to find you if you’re not home, when you say you’re going to get home. So iPhone, they all have iPhones, I have an iPhone, you can use the find my app right to find it’ll actually locate their phone, wherever their phones at. Typically, Yes, I understand that their phone can be somewhere where they’re not. But as teenagers will, they’re going to have their cell phone with them. But it’s But there is another app that I had heard about, and I downloaded it. And just to kind of test run it. And my daughter, I get home that night. And she’s like, so I saw your driving a little fast today. And I’m like, What? She’s like, yeah, it tells me how fast you were going. Whoa. And it does. And like it tells me how fast the school bus went. The fastest speed of the school bus tells me when she left home when she got to school, like, if you want to be like, helicopter parent on top of your kids by that’s the app to have. But I just found it. Like you said, I want to give my kids the sense of privacy too. And I, I appreciate privacy as well. So thank you for bringing that up. I think it’s this artificial intelligence that’s maybe possibly even taking things a little further than maybe need be. I just want to be able to find my kids if you know, yeah, home when they say they’re going to be home,
Marty Cooper 42:29
well, you do have an obligation somehow or other you have to make sure that your kids know, for sure they’re not getting something for nothing. Secondly, that there are people that have access to them that they don’t want to have access, there are predators out there that are taking advantage of children, pretending that they are something that they’re not. So your kids do have to be careful, and they have to be educated. And I fear that a lot of them are enough. being educated in that regard. Our schools, spend a lot of time teaching kids things that they may or may not need to know. And they forget about other things that are practical things about living life, like what you eat, and how much exercise is important, and how to use your cell phone.
Victoria Volk 43:24
great segue to you being taught 92 going to be 93 soon.
Marty Cooper 43:33
You don’t have to remind me of that. On the other hand, reaching 93 has to be an important objective. So go ahead, please go ahead.
Victoria Volk 43:43
No, I want to, I want you to speak to your vitality, and to what you just said about eating and exercise and all of that, because obviously that’s a huge contributor to your life and to your capability to continue to learn right?
Marty Cooper 44:01
Well, let me tell you, this gonna be a little hard to do in a couple of minutes. But your body is a complete system. It is not muscles, blood vessels, a brain skeleton. It is a system where everything is connected to everything else, and everything affects everything else. So you can ask progressive life unless you create the system as a complete system. So you have to exercise your brain. We’ve already covered that, haven’t we? But you’ve got to exercise your body as well and every part of your body. So so you need to not only do aerobic, to anaerobic exercise, your upper body has got to be everything. And do your digestive system is extraordinarily important in that, because that’s how you know, that’s what your body is you, your body is nothing like a big battery, where you take this food in. And this got this wonderful thing called the digestive system that turns the food into energy. So that whole system has to be exercised in an intelligent way. And we don’t learn how to do that in school. They depend upon us to go out into the real world and solve their problem ourselves. So I was lucky enough. And it took until I was almost 50 years old, before I started, I became a runner I took on for, for about 15 or 20 years, I never touched a bit of refined sugar or refined flour. Because I read, I think it was correct at that time. And I still try to do this. And you get an imbalance of sugar in your body, and it causes inflammation and do reduces your lifetime and makes your lifetime less effective. So there are a whole bunch of rules that people ought to practice. And then we don’t we grew, we, as a society, eat too much sugar. And we eat too much in general. And the and I’m on discipline. So the only way I could get rid of all this food that I eat is to just exercise a lot. Which I which I try to do, it gets harder and harder as you get older, as you might imagine. So discipline is important. I haven’t learned that yet, but I’ve worked.
Victoria Volk 46:53
So what has been one of the greatest lessons that you’ve learned in your life. Aside from that, you know, the body and maintaining all of that, like just what’s some wisdom that you would share with others that you’ve learned in your life?
Marty Cooper 47:11
Well, I wouldn’t call it wisdom, but important part of my life is interaction with people, if I presumption would I be somebody, including you is that I’m going to pursue this relationship and learn what I can, because everybody has something to teach me. And I have found that to be true, even people that I, in your case, I don’t have any problem, I think you’re charming. I’ve met people that are offensive. And yet when I engage with them, I find out they have skills or the knowledge that I don’t have. And I try to be as open minded as I can. The other side of that coin, however, is that when I do find people that have things to contribute, I treasure that I’ve had I’m so fortunate to live in a in a city like San Diego, where we have a number of universities. And when I get to meet people in these universities, and exchange ideas with them, that is a cornerstone in my life. And I can do that every day with my wife and a great deal smarter than I am. So all of those things are so important. You cannot live live a life by yourself, that we live in a society and the exciting things about life. do involve collaboration, and appreciate each other.
Victoria Volk 48:47
I love that answer.
Victoria Volk 48:49
It seems like connection connection, you know? Yeah, it’s about connection. And just like we can grow through connection, we grow through grief, too, which is what my podcast is all about. And so what has grief taught you in your life? And what are some of your grieving experiences that have helped you push through some difficult challenges in your life?
Marty Cooper 49:17
Well, I always try to think about the issues that cause grief in the context of what was positive before the grief happened. So I never talked about the difficulties but my mother had she, her mother lived in until almost from the 90s and I talked about how wonderful she was and how much he contributed and how she even my mother was selling dresses when she was in her late 80s in a in a dress shop but not because she needed the money but she wanted to keep them to other people. So I, I think that understanding of how important it is to help people in your life is probably one of the most important things in my life.
Victoria Volk 50:18
I love that. And I saw too, that you, you were thank you for your service as well. I’m a veteran. And I am and I saw that you were in the Korean War. And can you share anything about that experience?
Marty Cooper 50:34
No, I, you know, I was in active duty in the sense that we were trying to flow up North Korean railroads and things of that nature, I was in the submarine forces. And we did an awful lot of practicing to be ready for something but I was never at a shooting war. Nobody ever shouted at me. And I’m very grateful for that. I, I appreciated the service for a number of reasons. One is they put me through school. And I’m not sure I would have able to go to university without, without the navies, and help. And the second thing is a, I’ve always been somewhat immature, I’m still working on growing up. But they didn’t help me grow up, they taught me about discipline, about responsibility, about keeping your word about things. So I learned a great deal in the in the Navy. And I would recommend that to everyone. I think what they do in Israel, where everybody else is served for some period of time, is a very useful and productive thing. And ladies says For most people, some people grow up sooner than others. But it’s an experience that everybody loves to have. The other side of that coin, however, is that I wish we didn’t need armies, or weapons, I find that if so, you know, if you’re a builder, or if you’re a creator, and you want things to get better, we certainly do better cooperating with each other than we do. Fighting. We’re more efficient, we’ll take all the money, we spend all these weapons when we could be working on tools for improving productivity. So So I wish we didn’t have to have armies, and people would learn how to talk to each other. And I’m afraid we are some generations away from last. But if education keeps getting better, at least in the youth, free societies, I think that that we are going to learn how to get by without a roof. And I only hope that we can make all the societies in the world free like we are before we should be glory at our independence. You know, we’ve got a lot of problems. I don’t suggest that the fall of better roses, but but it’s all fixable. I think I think we’re lucky to have a society where we could complain about things. We could argue with other people. And yet everybody could speak their minds, don’t you?
Victoria Volk 53:34
Absolutely. Would you say that is one thing that maybe breaks your heart?
Marty Cooper 53:41
I’m sure. One thing
Victoria Volk 53:44
would you say that that’s maybe one thing that breaks your heart?
Marty Cooper 53:48
Oh, yeah. irrationality breaks. When I when people have ideas that just don’t make any sense at all. And they deeply believe that that is heartbreaking to me. And that is the basis of intolerance. If the basis of warfare. The people are just not sticking it out. If you stick it out and work things out, right? There’s always a solution that is more efficient, and better than fighting or big intolerance.
Victoria Volk 54:29
comes back to what you said earlier and being willing to learn from others who’ve been open to learning.
Marty Cooper 54:37
You’ve got it. No wonder you make the big bucks.
Victoria Volk 54:44
Yeah, maybe someday. I get a feeling though. Like the crux of your message. Like the main part of your message is that learning is learning is everything.
Marty Cooper 54:56
It’s the foundation. It’s you know, you have to execute. So having all that information is not worthwhile unless you actually put it to use. But without that, there are no uses that you can do. There’s nothing you could accomplish with it. But I have a basis for doing good things. So I’m gonna feel that I got for this thing that I use that term before, but learning is the foundation of life.
Victoria Volk 55:27
That is your codable for this episode, what is one thing that you would like to share with someone listening that maybe has a dream, or lost a dream, or maybe hasn’t allowed themselves to dream just because of their circumstances in life? And you’ve kind of touched on a lot of different points, but kind of put it in a nutshell, what you would say to them how to get out of that space, that headspace and get back to dreaming again, and believing? I think it comes back down to faith too, right?
Marty Cooper 56:07
Yeah. You know, first question to ask that I can’t respond to because I can’t envision I can’t put myself in somebody’s shoes. Totally negative and doesn’t have a vision of the future of how things could get better. And there’s really no reason to do that. Because I know people at all levels of life, that does have an optimistic viewpoint, whatever they do, they want to do it well. And sometimes they’re menial tasks, but they somehow take pride in what they’re doing. And if somebody doesn’t take pride in what they’re doing, if they don’t have ideas, if they don’t think about things that bring them pleasure, I feel so sorry for them. And I tell people, if you’ve got a job where you never get any satisfaction, go to something else, you’re entitled to be able to have your own ideas, to get satisfaction out of it, get a thrill out of it, who idea. And if you don’t do that, shame on you, you can go find somebody else to do and and live as much more productive life.
Victoria Volk 57:27
What I hear and you say and that is that look at who you’re surrounding yourself with.
Marty Cooper 57:33
I suppose you’re right. Well, your your sounds like you’re more selective. And I like my wife, he’s telling me No, I don’t like so and so. And I say, well, they’re not so bad. I had learned such a tro. So as I say, I’m just very lucky. I just I just run into more interesting and fun. And people that teach me things so. So I don’t want to make rules about how selective I should be. You’re allowed me to be a snob or an elitist or, you know
Victoria Volk 58:08
but no, but I think it comes down to two it’s been if, if what you’re focusing on is wanting to learn from people, you’re going to learn from all kinds of people, you’re gonna look for those people to learn from right? You got, you got it? What is the one one thing that brings you the most joy and hope for the future?
Marty Cooper 58:27
Whoa, whoa, that’s another really hard question, I’m gonna have to duck that one. Only by talking about my, I now have a great granddaughter. And I have other family that’s got a baby segway guess I have three, three babies in my life have very close people. And when I see them growing up, and how fast they’re learning, and, and how much I admire their parents, and how they’re raising these kids, because they’ve got advantages. I never had, my children never had, I guess that’s my biggest tell for the future. There they are going to get educated better than I was like children and even my grandchildren. And they that’s our hope for society. And society doesn’t get control out of some of these things that are on the verge of getting out of control of our society that civilization second to last much longer. That would be a shame with all the we’ve accomplished though for so it’s the coming generations that I think are great, and we should be doing everything we can to make their world a better world than our world was
Victoria Volk 59:56
about. I’m gonna put you on the spot for one more question. So being the futuristic thinker that you are, and being 92, going and 93, often living in the future, what do you think about for the rest of your days? What do you want that to look like? Just in mind, when you think about that,
Marty Cooper 1:00:22
obviously, you’re not paying attention. Like I told you at the beginning, I have never been able to plan out my life. I am struggling at the moment, trying to figure out what my next career is. And I haven’t quite worked it out, you know, I spent a lot of effort writing my book. And I was focused on it for a number of years. And that’s over. And I’m very satisfied with the book, I wish another million people would have bought the book that when I told my story, and that was my objective, and I’m trying to figure out what to do next. And not entirely clear, I’ve got topicals, I’ve tried to look at things I’ve been studying how the human brain works. You know, we’re hearing aids, which are totally unsatisfactory. And I am working with people in the universities to try to improve this industry. So I haven’t totally figured it out yet. But I am going to come up with another career. And it will be focused on the things that I know how to do, how do you put things, existing things together in different ways to make people’s lives better. That’s how we started a conversation. And it’s a good way for us to bond
Victoria Volk 1:01:50
I’m going to put a bug in here on that one, forgive the pun. But actually, there was an incident where someone I know had lost their hearing aid at a campground. And we were looking through the grass to try and find this hearing aid. And it’s like, you know, they have apps and things where you can find your keys and ways to do that. How come there isn’t this artificial intelligence in your hearing aids that you can pair to your phone? So if you lose your hearing aid, you can find it especially something that costs like a small car, like you can they’re very expensive, right? So
Marty Cooper 1:02:27
Yeah, I think that’s an invention. By the way, if you did just go do it and vetted, it is possible to do find my hearing aid. A much better solution would be to make the hearing aid so inexpensive, that if you lost if you could just get another one, it would be. And that really is what we’re working on. Now. If you look at a pair of Apple earbuds, the technology in these earbuds they cost about two or $300 is not very different than this $6,000 pair of earrings that irrigates that where something’s wrong. And I’m really working very hard on this. Because not only are they too costly, they don’t work Oh, that will. But I’ll keep in mind your comment to me when we get to the stage of actually doing something even losing if a hearing aid class out or dollars, you ought to be able to find it. And there is no technical reason why you couldn’t do that. If you can find your cell phone good find to hear again. So I’ll try to remember to put your name on a patent if we ever internet stuff. You know, a multiple is better.
Victoria Volk 1:03:49
Oh, that would be amazing. I yeah. And you know, thank you so much. I know you have to go thank you so much for your time today for your wisdom. I’m going to put everything in the show notes.
Marty Cooper 1:04:01
My pleasure, great to talk to her a great interviewer and a very good question. Good luck to you.
Victoria Volk 1:04:08
thank you.
Marty Cooper 1:04:10
Good to see you. Bye Bye now.
Victoria Volk 1:04:11
Bye bye. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love
Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Takeaways and Reflections |
Takeaways & Reflections | We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
When you find yourself the observer of a situation that brings up some emotional dis-ease for you, it may be helpful to say the following to yourself: “I don’t know what I don’t know.”
This helps me to feel better when I have felt wronged in some way or when I find myself raising an eyebrow at a situation that may or may not involve me.
Society isn’t short of judgment and criticism these days. I think there’s plenty of it to go around the world a few times. However, each of us can help change that and intentionally, instead, pause and take a moment to reflect and attempt to be empathetic, even if it doesn’t come naturally to you.
Some may say we need to be more sympathetic, but even that can come across as pity. Maybe it’s just easier to say that sometimes, our opinions are best kept to ourselves.
Whether you believe in the afterlife or don’t, or think every mother should fight tooth and nail to keep their children with them, I hope this episode leads you to listen to both Episode 64 with Kristjana and 65 with Sirry because, they couldn’t be any more different but yet, the common theme comes down to how we don’t know what we don’t know.
RESOURCES:
Today, it’s a takeaways and reflections episode, about Episode 64: A Mother’s Heartache and Sacrifice with Kristjana Hillberg, and Episode 65: The Spirit World Walks Among Us with Sirry Berndsen. A perfect example of grief that hadn’t yet been represented on this podcast, which I do like to share all different types of losses, just to give people a different perspective. Because you may know somebody who has been in the situation, or you may know someone who is going through something similar, and maybe you want to support them. But you’re not sure how, or maybe it’s you, and you find yourself in that Griever’s story. Regardless of the loss, regardless of the story that comes to this podcast, we can all find a little bit of ourselves in the stories, especially if we’ve experienced a lot of loss in our lives. And through that stories, and the different perspectives that I bring to you is an opportunity for you to reflect on. Well, what would I do in that situation? How would I respond? What do I think about that? What do I believe about that? Those questions that help us really grow into who we want to be, who we desire to be, and maybe even have some more compassion towards those who have a different life experience that we may have judged, or had some criticism around. Because those are often too a result of our upbringings and our experiences. And we see other people’s situations through the lens of our own experience. So I do appreciate when people give me their time to share their stories with my listeners, because it is a service to us all, we can all learn something from each and every one of them.
A Mother’s Choice for What’s Best for Her Child
When I first heard about Kristjana’s story, I knew I wanted her on the podcast because she shares a very different perspective of divorce and child custody. As a mom, it’s natural for us to feel like we want our children to be with us. But for Kristjana, it wasn’t as simple as that. She was living five hours away from her husband, so that she could be with her daughter that she shared custody with from a previous relationship. And this worked fine for quite some time, over a year, until she found herself expecting with her new husband. And she knew that this decision was going to have to be made to either go be with her new husband, or in the same town or area as her daughter. And just think about that. What would you do? Now with that natural instinct of wanting your child to be with you? Kristjana had the emotional awareness and really tried to put herself in her daughter’s shoes and knew that there was so much love there for her in this large extended family with her father. And she felt tormented on pulling her away from that. But she also felt tormented or not having her daughter with her. So what would you do? I’ve never known anyone in the situation before Kristjana. Probably three to five years ago, if I would have heard of this situation, I probably would have passed along some judgment or criticism because that is a natural thing for us when we don’t find ourselves in that similar situation. For really, what would you do? When you know what’s best for your child, it’s not always the easy decision to make. And Kristjana by no means has an easy decision to make. And so she really put it off for quite some time. Until one day, the answer came to her, almost like a lightning bolt and washed over her in a moment of peace, She’s described it as she had realized what was best for her daughter. And in that moment, she felt peace with that decision. And she knew what she needed to do. And that was to leave her daughter behind and work on us shared custody arrangement that would be in the best interest for their daughter. And that would also serve and nurture her marriage as well, and new family to be, and not not necessarily a new family, because their daughter was very much going to be a part of that. It just would look different than what she imagined.
We Don’t Know What We Don’t Know
And so I really encourage you to listen to Kristjana’s episode, because aside from the difficult decision, and all the thought process that went into making that, and the unhelpful and hurtful things that people said to her. The helpful things that she learned along the way of what she needed for herself. We talked about boundaries, we talked about values, we talked about how she came into her own knowing of what was best for her and her family, regardless of what anybody thought of her or their situation. And here’s the thing, because no one knows your situation as well as you do. People hear stories, or they make assumptions, but no one really knows. Unless they ask. And so I think I’ve mentioned during the episode, and I try to remind myself of this is, I don’t know what I don’t know. And that is the message that applies to both the episodes that I’m talking about today, because whether we’re looking at someone else’s situation from the outside, or were trying to wrap our heads around, something like the afterlife, we don’t know what we don’t know. And we can have these thoughts and feelings about the afterlife, which become our beliefs, or which are our beliefs. But if we can be open to what we don’t know, we can allow ourselves to receive new information, we can allow ourselves to receive messages.
There Are Things That Death Cannot Touch: Love
And that’s what I loved about the episode with Sirry, in that she shared so many tips and ways that people who have lost a loved one can keep that relationship going in a positive way. Because regardless of what you believe, when someone dies, the relationship doesn’t end. There, you may have an unfinished business with that person. So even if that person is no longer on the physical plane, you still have a relationship with them in your heart, you still may have emotional residue from maybe an argument that you had right before that person passed, or maybe the relationship was less than loving throughout your life. And there were things that you could never communicate or never share, because you didn’t feel safe to. Or perhaps it was something that you knew was coming or the person was going through a terminal illness, and you knew it was coming and you had the time, the luxury of time. And you took advantage of that time to make it an impactful learning and deep experience with that person to help you gain insight into what they were feeling, what they were experiencing at the end of their life. But so many people too are afraid to ask those questions, those deep questions. They’re really thinking about that person, leaving them of no longer being there. And that gets in the way of this opportunity to have that deep connection with that person.
Those We Love Never Truly Leave Us
And Sirry had shared how helpful working with a medium has been for so many Grievers in her practice. And she’s also a certified grief recovery specialist as well, which really adds to her professionalism and to her ability to really help a griever have the best experience possible for connecting with their loved ones. I personally had a session with Sirry it was unexpectedly amazing. It was the only session I’ve ever had with a medium or of any kind. I learned a lot about with my children because not only was it a spiritual connection session, it was also intuitive guidance as well. And so I learned some things about my I practice as a Reiki professional. But her professionalism and her strong desire to help me as a griever, who had only recently in the last couple of years really addressed the relationships that have left me feeling conflicted in my life. It’s really hard, I think for many of us to wrap our heads around the idea that we are supported in ways that we can’t even imagine that our loved ones are truly watching over us, guiding us bringing things to our attention, if we only would pay attention. I remember as a kid, I’d be walking down the street in the winter, the snow would be falling and it was my favorite time to go for a walk. I hate the cold but there was something about it when you hear the church bells in the night, and you could hear him across town dead silent. I’d hear the church bells and the snow would be falling and I’d walk under the streetlight and I would go out, and that’s happened to me many, many times, or the light would just go out, it would happen when I’d be driving, a light would just go out a streetlight, and I don’t know, he could say I made it up in my mind, but I felt like that was my dad, he was watching out for me just making sure I knew getting my attention. Because the light coin out is going to get your attention, a street light at that will get your attention. And it did, it did many times.
We Are Not Immune To Grief
Talking with Sirry, I recognize that is something I can ask for. I can ask for that as a sign. I just really encourage you to listen to Sirry’s episode with an open mind and an open heart as you listen, even if you feel like that isn’t something that’s for you. I hope you listen to her tips to help you personally connect with someone who has your heart, but they’re not here. Both episodes offer so much wisdom through their stories. And I’m just really floored at the quality of people who I have drawn to this podcast, everyone has a story. And I don’t care if you’re a celebrity, or I just I don’t care who you are, we all put our pants on the same way, right? We all grieve someone or something and we are not immune to grief. Regardless of who we are, we will all meet death at some point. And stories like Kristjana’s and Sirry’s help bring another perspective that we all can learn from, as I mentioned before, and there’s so much more I could probably say, but honestly, it’s beautiful outside.
We’re having some unusually warm weather here in the Dakotas and my spirit is calling me to the outdoors. And so I will leave this episode there. All the goodness is in those two episodes. I just don’t know that I have anything else to add to the conversations because the tips were that good. It’s important for us to always remember that we don’t know what someone is going through the depth of it. We don’t know what we don’t know.
P.S. If you want to listen to more takeaways and reflections episodes you can click here. And if you find this helpful please share it because sharing is caring. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Death/Dying, Grief Stories, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Podcast, Spirituality |
Sirry Berndsen | The Spirit World Walks Among Us
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
There are psychics and then there are psychic mediums. Do you know the difference?
Sirry shares the difference between the two in this week’s episode. And, there’s so much more that we cover in this conversation including:
- Her grief growing up, things she’s experienced as an adult, and what her grief is today.
- What her thoughts are on the afterlife.
- Her thoughts on religion and mysticism of life as it relates to mediumship.
- Cultural differences in self-care when it comes to grief.
- What happens to people who do bad things after they die?
- Her experience being a Certified Medium and a Certified Grief Recovery Specialist
- Tips for those who are in preparation for a loved one dying.
- Tips for those who are grieving the loss of a loved one.
- Learn how to connect with the spirit of deceased loved ones.
So much goodness packed into this episode! Listen with an open mind and open heart, and see what comes up for you. See if you can feel the spirit within you stirring your heart to learn more. And, if you feel called to have your mind blown, I can’t recommend a session with Sirry enough! She’s highly professional and has a heart full of love and light.
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Victoria Volk 00:08
This is Victoria of the unleashedheart.com, and you’re listening to grieving voices, a podcast for hurting hearts who desire to be heard. Or anyone who wants to learn how to better support loved ones experiencing loss. As a 30-plus-year griever in advanced grief recovery methods specialist, I know how badly the conversation around grief needs to change. Through this podcast, I aim to educate gravers and non gravers alike, spread hope and inspire compassion towards those hurting. Lastly, by providing my heart with the ears in this platform, Grievers had the opportunity to share their wisdom and stories of loss and resiliency. How about we talk about grief, like we talked about the weather. Let’s get started. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. I am super excited for today’s guest. Siri bernsen holds a BFA and MFA in Visual Arts and as a certified medium by the forever family foundation. She’s a grief recovery methods specialist and a master teacher. She’s also studied as suey, reiki, and received master life regression therapy training from the Weiss Institute. Thank you, thank you for blessing me with your presence. And I am just super excited to have you on as a guest today. I personally have had a session with you blew my mind. My very first one, too. And I just I’m so thrilled to have you here. So, thank you.
Sirry Berndsen 01:42
Well, thank you for inviting me. And thank you for being relentless.
Victoria Volk 01:45
I am relentless when I had I pestered to, to you know, send in the email sending the emails and yes, if I if there’s something I feel like would be a great service to my audience. And that just really, I’m just so curious to learn more. Yeah, like, it gets me excited. So, yes.
Sirry Berndsen 02:07
It’s enthusiasm, and we all love and enthusiasm and passion, and I think that more of us could use it.
Victoria Volk 02:13
Yes. So let’s talk about, let’s start there with your work. And really what brought you to do this work.
Sirry Berndsen 02:24
So what brought me to do this work? About 20 years ago, I went through a really quite a horrific experience where somebody was violated me. And it was a turning point in my life. Because before this, so I’m gonna start from the beginning, as a child, I just had sort of this childhood faith. I think I went to church, maybe two or three times I was not a church person, none of my family members were so not raised with any religion. But my grandmother had a tiny, tiny, tiny bit of religion in her and but that was it. And so in my childhoods, I was very much the child of nature, which is very common like for people in Iceland, we are very connected to nature. And we thrive on anything and everything that has to do with the blue sky and the like the earth and everything that is our religion, that is our faith. And so when I was 12 years old, I changed and the reason why I changed my whole sort of this childhood religion or this childhood faith, at the age of 12, I had been bullied because I read here and says, this is a podcast, people don’t see me, but I have red hair and blue eyes, very, very fair, and have been bullied for probably like two or three years in school. And it was just absolutely horrendous. And I was getting to a point of feeling extremely depressed. And I was the youngest child of most of my parents. And my brother was also redheads. And my sister too. As I don’t know, my mom and dad, I didn’t really pay attention to it as like, oh, it is what it is. But I remember that the like I was about 12 years old when I started praying to God and I said to God, please make a stop. And this was, this was like, every single day I’ll be praying to God make this bullying stop, and it wouldn’t stop and then it just said one day, okay, God, I made a deal. If it doesn’t stop, I will no longer believe in you and I will no longer pray to and so that that just it just came to a complete standstill. So at this point, I’m 12 years old. And then life just continues and I had this deep faith that when you die, you go on the ground or your primitive. And that’s it done was such a simple way of thinking. And I’ll be honest now today because of the work that I do. It is the extreme simplification of everything.
Sirry Berndsen 04:43
Then you get to the point of you don’t need to worry about the afterlife is like you die on you. That’s it. So then fast forward, and then I moved to America and I had this horrible experience and I was going through a really really rough time and then something in my heart said Oh, look for Have some sort of a spiritual gathering. And a friend of mine had gone to see a psychic medium some years prior and she was off the motorway but and I remember myself think like, Oh, this is BS. And I actually changed the subject and I said to her like, oh, when would you like to go skiing next time. And so and I remember this so vividly because I just thought it was like she was Cuckoo. And so so after that horrible experience, I was, my heart was or spirit I should say, spirit was nudging me to go and seek something else. And I went to spiritualist church. And this isn’t a matter of moments of like within minutes, but my whole life changed. So in the spiritualist church, there was a young lady she is now my friend, Jacqueline, she was the medium of the day, close to main age and, and she was giving a message to a woman who was most likely Thai or Filipino because I was sitting all the way in the back of the church. And, and I could only see the back of her head on sort of a little bit of a cheek. And then Jackie says, Well, I have your mother here. And she gave a really good description of the mother and how she passed and all those things. And then Jackie said this, she said something in a different language. As he said to the lady, she said, I’m hearing this thing, and I have no idea what it means I have no idea. Like, I just hear this sound I need to give this to you. And so she gave it to the young lady in the congregation. And the young lady says oh my god, that’s my mother’s saying I love you in her own native language. That transformed my life in a in a second. And because I every one of the chairs that day, it was like 80 people there. And everyone just gasped. And there are other mediums. There were other people that were there that day, though, also were young mediums, and they remember this moment so vividly. Now Jackie did not go to college, she did not study Thai or Filipino, she says like really down to earth. And so when she said this in a different language in an Asian language that no one else in the church understood except the young lady. That was it for me. And I said to myself, well, if I was to try to do this work, I would like to be as good as Jackie. And so the Reverend in the church that day, she said, Well, we’re going to start classes in the fall, if you’d like to attend those classes, come and see me. I was unemployed, I had just graduated with my MFA, you know, who’s going to hire somebody with an art degree. And so I started attending these classes, and everything happened just really quickly. So what I thought was always my imagination. I just thought it was my imagination. When I was talking to the class, or when I was talking to nothingness, I just thought it was like makeup stuff. But it wasn’t. And so in these classes, within weeks, I just excelled. Because as time progressed, I was able to decipher what was my imagination, and then what was coming through from spirits. And I think that I would have to say that I studied also I studied journalism, and I knew how to interview so I knew how to do these interviews with people. And I knew how to be on the radio on all of those things. And so when I got to the point of with my art background, there was this great imagination. And then with my skills of interviewing, I found myself having the ability to interview spirits. And I would sit with them, and I would just ask them questions, who are you and I would break everything down to male female and then I would break it down into a family or friend and then I was a family that would break down to are you like the age and what relationship and our math everything out in my mind or it was almost like a 3d thing. And like how we have the tablets for the iPad today. And I was able to map everything out in my mind, okay, is the dad coming through and then it could feel like if he had other siblings if there were other siblings in the spirit world, I’m so in line things up like this farewelled was always behind me on the living people in front of me. So, it just started this whole journey of talking to spirits, it was communication with spirit on. And now so this was in the beginning years. And now I actually teach this and I teach the method that I use back in the day. But now it just seems to flow because I had this 100% trust that when I am connected and this is usually with the person that comes to see me, they know that I’m connected. If I’m not connected, then it’s just it is what it is. And I apologize, but I would say 80 90% of the time I am connected, and my hope is always that at least 90% is understood or people can connect to it if I’m not hitting the mark on a at 90% I don’t do a session that day. But because sometimes some things are left to interpretation or get into debate about like whether somebody something was teal, or sort of is bluish green tone, and I won’t do that anyway. So um, so yeah, so now I know that there’s an afterlife I know not even with a 99 it’s not even 99.99 I know that with 100% no doubt in my mind that there’s an afterlife Absolutely. And I think that it sort of gives us it’s an interesting idea because knowing that there’s an afterlife and you think just like well what happens on the other side? What happens in the afterlife? Where is the absolute there’s so many questions that come up. But then what I think is more important is that how are we living our lives here today, connecting to other people? Are we living our best lives? And are we living our kindness lives? Because when we pass away we have this review. And, and the question is, then could we have done something better?
Sirry Berndsen 10:41
And that’s the thing that I want to always sort of how I live my life and like I always make sure that I’m doing the best that I can. I’m a living my kindness life. Do I have compassion from a neighbor even when I find myself being a little bit annoyed with someone, I do a self reflection what is it that is in me that is causing this annoyance it’s an everyday thing because the other thing also like I live in silence, I love not listening to I like I never watched TV, if I do have a little bit of TV watching us like a movie or something, or TV show The lifts my spirits, I never watched my loves on TV, I just don’t see the point in it, watching the news don’t see the point in it. And it’s really about keeping my spirit light, with a capital L. and uplifted and, and even with when it comes to the music. If I listen to music, it usually is some sort of a curtain soft music in the music. Like, if I’m getting ready for a session, I may listen to meditative music. But otherwise, I’m in silence because I love a lot to be present in my own thoughts.
Victoria Volk 11:45
I love that. Thank you for sharing your progression and how you got into the work. And I’m curious as a child, did you recognize that you had kind of this?
Sirry Berndsen 11:58
Yes, so looking back, absolutely. When I was a child, so when I was growing up, we lived in a kind of a small apartments. The fire was in like two bedrooms. And it was really cramped. And so, we only had one bathroom. And I remember myself was a childhood. So, I’m really young at this time, probably from the age of like two up to like 678, I would go into the bathroom and I would lock the door. And I will just sit there on the bathroom floor. And I will talk to my imaginary friends. And I’ve heard later on that is very, very common with a lot of mediums. They talk to their Imaginary Friends; I would have full conversation with them for an hour or even longer until like somebody would start knocking on the door. He was just childhood conversations. But it was like full blown conversations. I remember as a kid I had like, there were two children. Oh, come and play with me. It was a boy and a girl.
Victoria Volk 12:51
Do you feel like most children the innocence of children? Do you feel like most children do because of their innocence of this gift? kind of you know of?
Sirry Berndsen 13:03
Yes. So, this is this is an I think a lot of people say the same people that are worked in my field, we can tell when a child is really connected. And I will say we are all psychic; we are born with a psychic gift. And if people are questioning there’s people that may be religious, you may want to look into Corinthian letters one through 14. It says there that people are born with gifts, that we’re all born with gifts. And so, then the question is what is the gift and children? They’re so receptive, they’re so innocent. And I would say about options up until the age of like maybe seven or eight when they start going to first or second grade when other kids may start making fun of them. The childhood innocence but also there’s this purity with the children that they don’t question like, they don’t question the silliness of things such as like, Oh, yeah, this is what it is. And I also think a lot of times infants are very, very young babies like when they’re just like not naturally verbal yet, when they’re like pointing into thin air. They have. So it’s really interesting that the infant’s retina, the eyes, they develop at a later stage. And I heard an interview on NPR about this. And I thought it was fascinating. So, they have a different sights up until a certain point in the lives and because I’m not a scientist, I don’t know until one disease, but they see spirits, they see them. And I think that every parent, they should allow them to just see them and be normal around it. When they sound like going bah bah bah and like pointing into thin air, pay attention to it, engage in a conversation. Oftentimes also children, they will speak to photographs, you know, and they will like babble. And they will say things, and nobody understands nicely what they’re saying. But they’ll have bah bah, bah, bah, photographs. So, Mike’s measures that use the children, they’re talking to someone because there’s so receptive.
Victoria Volk 14:56
Was that something that you hid then? I mean if you went to the bathroom to lock the door. And you know, it’s it’s something you felt like you couldn’t share?
Sirry Berndsen 15:06
Yes, because I was the youngest. And so, I was the youngest of my siblings, and let’s just put it this way, then they needed a punching bag. You know how that goes like when, because my brother at the time he was, he’s not much older than I he was a teenager. And then my sister is a year and a half older than I am. But it’s sort of like a yes, I hit the I hit it from them just to have peace and quiet around it so that they wouldn’t call me insane or crazy. I mean, they already did. You’re crazy. I just didn’t want to have that in my head all the time. So yes, I get it.
Victoria Volk 15:39
And the youngest too, so I get you.
Sirry Berndsen 15:42
Oh, you can get it, okay, you get is like, make them stop doing that. Make them stop poking me make them stop, you’ll know exactly what I’m talking about.
Victoria Volk 15:50
So, in the work that you do, you know, because people and you’re a grief recovery specialist. And so, I am too. And so, you bring a different aspect to your work, I think because of that. And so, in the in sessions with people, I’m just curious, is there one session that really stands out to you?
Sirry Berndsen 16:13
I’m not sure if there’s one session. I mean, there’s several sessions that stand out for me for different reasons. But I can say this. Before I did the grief recovery method, I was able to pinpoint pretty precisely things, events in people’s lives, that were in some ways, traumatizing, that caused grief that caused pain. But after I did the grief recovery methods, training, I was able to line things up in more in more of a clear fashion, if I can say that. And and you know how I would do the grief chart? The What is it called? The loss? Yes. Grant? The Yes, the loss graph. Yes. So now that that has been sort of embedded into my mind from the training, is, you know, the spirits, they just bring it up in my mind. And like yesterday, I did a session yesterday that I was able to use that their last chart really precisely, you know, so like, her parents divorced when she was about, like, everything started going downhill when her parents were like, when she was eight- or nine-years old things that are going downhill. And then they divorced when she was about 1112 years old. And then I was able to in my mind using the loss last year, I knew that when she was 14, her mom passed away so I’m able to line things up more more precisely than I used to. And so my I think that my personal grief is obviously I’ve gone through my own grief as a child, we all do. We all go through grief, we open our eyes to the world. I was like, okay, there’s grief. But I think because of the work that I that I’ve done in the past 20 years, I’m able to process things a little bit differently. And to share with you just really briefly, for instance, both my parents passed away, and I had a very complicated religion with my dad. And so when we, when I did the training, I did the last chart on my dad, of course, and I wrote the letter to my dad. And then when my mom passed away was interesting, my siblings, they thought it would be the one like lutens really kind of like sort of having a hard time with it. But I knew I wouldn’t. And the reason is because because of the work that I’ve done and because of the reef recovery, I knew how to treat myself really well. And when my mom passed away, I actually took two weeks off from work and when it came to her birthday, I took the day off from work but I took probably good six five to six weeks to Greece in the kindest most gentle way possible. Of course I saw and you know after she passed away a shard but it was interesting I would see her appear so what happened after a passage I was staying in her home and I actually ended up going into her bedroom and I slept in her bed and I’ll see her appear in the door you know I’m just talking to me and that was really comforting but at the same time it was really hard like heart wrenching but I kind of knew because of the work that I do that okay, I can always talk to her and um, she was just like walking around the home and I was like and then I would hear her say to miss you know, let’s see, call my name Siri. Now Siri and sort of in a very loving and daring way, or she would call me honey Siri, just to try to get my attention that I would just spend time with her. This after our passing. So I after took time off from work, because I knew that that was grief that I wanted to really heal. I’m not going to my work in sort of all patterning in pieces it was important for me to put the pieces back together
Victoria Volk 20:07
I think that’s what so many people do is they just quickly try to they don’t take that time and a lot for many people I don’t want to minimize it that that isn’t that is a luxury to be able to have that time to be able to do that can be a feel like a luxury for people especially with kids and you know if you have all kinds of things in your life so go ahead.
Sirry Berndsen 20:30
You see, I think is a cultural thing also though, because I remember when my grandma passed away my my mother’s mother when she passed away my mom took some days off from work and I remember this vividly that she would spend time just grieving and it’s a cultural thing because in my culture you are given a chance to grieve I mean for instance we get for some occasion we get five maybe six weeks summer vacation depending on who you work for minimum five and for maternity leave you get six months minimum of up to a year. Wow Hey, we’re tight about maternity leave. And so the culture that I come from it’s it’s Iceland it’s a very Scandinavian culture you’re allowed to be human you’re allowed to be with your family and even like I know in Denmark and Sweden or Norway they really encourage you to spend time with family and I think that in one of the Scandinavian countries they gave you I think up to two years of maternity leave of full pay you know and that is something that absolutely blows Americans away and so I’m coming from that culture one of my mom because the way yes, it is a luxury that I was able to take time off work but I also live my life in such a way that I don’t spend a lot of money I am kind of simple in my lifestyle like I don’t spend money on silly things. I’m frugal. First of all I buy secondhand clothing and I’m proud of it you know and I recycle a lot and so when I take time off I know that I will not be making any money at the time but I’ve prepared for those days and then I just live really sparingly during the time off
Victoria Volk 22:12
And I love those tips and I think to like you said it’s it’s setting your life up for what you value
Sirry Berndsen 22:19
Yes
Victoria Volk 22:20
and if you are wondering what people value just look where they spend their money, right?
Sirry Berndsen 22:27
Oh absolutely I’m like I don’t need I’m not I do not need to measure up to anyone I don’t care what like my neighbors to if they get a new car if they get a new book I just don’t care about those things those material things I don’t care about but yes my value is in family and being in the space that I need to be in emotional well being it is and you know what it is it’s self love. It is self love and I had this I had this thinking I used to be a flight attendant for a short while and they would always say that you know put dogs and mask on yourself first before you put on your anyone else around you. Especially the children because they you know they will survive you just have to take care of yourself first and so these days when I when I can like a point my point of myself when I say me and myself and I but I say this as a loving way because with me being fully there. I can be there for you. It really comes down to that
Victoria Volk 23:25
and that’s what I hear a lot to like the remote that makes me think of how people say when I say I’m you know a grief recovery specialist I tend to have a grief podcast you know, it’s depressing that sounds depressing. It Oh, and don’t look at it that way. You know I grief is a teacher. It is such a wonderful teacher. For us. It highlights in all the ways that what it shows up for us. It highlights illuminates what needs healing. Yes. in all aspects of our lives. Every cause grief touches every aspect of our lives, our money, relationships, our relationship to ourself. How we show up in the world, everything.
Sirry Berndsen 24:13
Absolutely. And what you just said how we show up in the world. Grief touches everything. And I recently heard Rene brown Susan’s ecologist and she said, Unless pain is transformed, pain will always be transmitted. is so true. And we are responsible for ourselves and not anyone else. Yes, our children, their well being. But again, it goes back to this. We take care of ourselves and then we take care of our children. It always goes this way. Number one is you and your essence and then everything else will fall into place.
Victoria Volk 24:57
Absolutely 100% Can you speak a little Little bit to how in some religions that mediums psychics Well, first of all, you’re not are you a psychic, you’re a medium.
Sirry Berndsen 25:13
So everyone is born psychic. So that is the first given we’re all born psychic is the sixth sense, you know how like animals, all animals, they have the sixth sense. versus if there’s an earthquake, the animals, they know how to run to the higher areas or regions, like when there’s a tsunami, they knew how to run up to the mountains. And so this is the sixth sense, it is born, it’s, it’s we have it. So everyone is psychic, but there are those people that dive into it, and are those people that choose not to dive into it. And I think though the more people begin to study science, they leave the intuition behind, although Einstein was really quite spiritual, because he has says things like he said things about the sort of the mysteriousness of the universe, and all of those things that you have to sort of when you have a scientist that is able to be also spiritual, you’ve got a really nice combination. So my take on so when it comes to the psychic and mediumistic, there are some people that are born with them mediumistic ability, so what it is, is a frequency, it is not just a frequency, but it’s also a source of frequency, it’s a vibration. And I used to say it’s, it’s in your brain. And they’ve also now they’ve done studies on the god gene. And I’m beginning to believe that there’s no such thing as a god gene. Because if you’ve looked at it this way, who would ever surrender the life to live in a monastery for like, a whole entire life or back in the day was none raised. And you know how, like, there’s some people that will sit in meditation, and they will just really thrive in meditation. So there’s, there’s a thing I believe, as a god gene. And so when it comes to the mediumistic things, I have been teaching these now for many years. Even people that say that, Oh, I’m not getting it, I have this intuition about how to get them to the point of being able to say what they are perceiving in their mind, because when it comes to spirits, it is reception and perception, reception and perception. And so if we begin to open up either the hearing or the seeing and allowing us, like if we allow ourselves to really sort of fall into this path of feeling spirit around us, if we feel them, we can see them, we can hear them. And that is just sort of simply blending and merging with them so that you can process what they’re bringing to you. And I think that the more of us that can come closer to the connection to spirits, the kinder, more wonderful Earth on planet we will have. And so there are people that are born mediums, but everyone is born psychic. So there’s this difference in those two. So, every medium is a psychic, because we’re all born psychic, but not every psychic is a medium.
Victoria Volk 28:03
Gotcha. And I you know, I personally have recognized that well, and you can speak share your perspective of this, but I feel like grief really kind of shuts off the valve of our intuition in a lot of ways. It did for me anyway, like I was very closed up in like us so similar. I was I wouldn’t have called myself atheist, but I really blamed God for everything that happened in my life and was like, nope, ain’t gonna do you know, by not going to have it and I believe to like, you go on the ground and that you that’s what happens, you die and there was no feeling a connection at all. There was no I didn’t feel it. And it wasn’t until probably in my early 20s when I heard something that shifted everything for me and really sparked a curiosity back in my heart. And that led me down a different path and changed my life really, which led to later grief recovery, which opened the floodgates like grief recovery for me my personal work opened the floodgates I became a Reiki Master that like just like put the valve on overflow, you know, so I feel connection now. I feel something I never did before. So can you speak to that? So bit more to
Sirry Berndsen 29:40
Yeah, so when you were talking I was just thinking like prisoners. They say about every seven years we go through these cycles and those people that are really into into astrology that know about the seven year cycle, I think it has to do with I’m not an astrologer. If I remember correctly, though, I think it it has to do with Saturn return There’s a term that I like I understand the basics of it, but I don’t understand the full extent of it. So every seven years so most likely when you went through your epiphany probably was around the age of 21 give or take, right?
Victoria Volk 30:12
22, yeah?
Sirry Berndsen 30:13
Yeah, it’s the same thing you know, I mean my case I think I was about maybe, I think it was maybe 29 or so do you know like, it’s really close to the 28th year and so it’s like every seven years you go through these shifts and changes and so it’s a seven year cycle. And it’s like they also talk about if you go into the ocean, they talk about the seventh wave is the big wave. It’s really interesting and also if you do numerology and you look at the the essence of numbers the light the number seven is considered to be the most spiritual number four, if it’s a life number, like if you calculate your date of birth, you can see what you llife path is. Numbers are fascinating
Victoria Volk 30:58
They are, I’ve always been fascinated with numbers I was an as a kid, it’s interesting because as a kid I, I was into, like, I was the kid that got like the poem book from scholastic palm reading book and, and the astrology books. And, you know, so I was that kid, but I really wasn’t like, I really hid those interests. I didn’t share those interests with, with others, you know, but it’s interesting how life comes full circle doesn’t, isn’t it? Like, yeah, full circle, like I’m coming back to all that stuff. And, and my faith, though, and that’s what I would like you to speak to, too, because I am Catholic. And I’m a convert, actually. And for anyone who’s listening who did not know that, and so can you speak to maybe that piece?
Sirry Berndsen 31:49
So yeah, so this is interesting because I’m, I’m getting close to becoming a minister. I’m doing a training. Yes, I’m doing a training under Reverend john and havik. She’s up the journey within and becoming a spiritualists minister. Because I love to study I love to learn, like if there’s anything that I can study, I’ll take it on. I even applied for a Ph. D. program a few years ago, and I got accepted, but at the time, I didn’t really have the time or the money. So I decided not to do it. But so yes, when it comes to religion, I think that theology and religion is an interesting thing. It’s such an interesting, fascinating thing. And I think because from my perspective, because I’m so open to different religions, I have people come to my office or have zoom sessions with me that are of all faiths. Granted, I come from a Protestant Lutheran background was just going to navy and but at the same time, never practice any of it. But we’re also pagan, because we believe in the old gods, you know, the Odin and Thor and Tiede and all of those Freya and, and then I lived in Saudi Arabia, with with a Muslim prayers, and it was really divine. My roommates at the time, most of them are Catholic. They were Indian, but some of them also were Hindus. And then, surely while after that, I lived in Israel. And so I went from the Muslim culture to the very Jewish culture. Then I have my office in Boston, or in Brookline, Massachusetts is very Jewish, they call it little Israel. And I seem to be able to flow into almost any religion there is because I don’t judge. There’s like, whatever you’re raised with, that is what you raised with. But this has been my perception, many religions, they say to you that Oh, you should not be connecting with the dead. And my heart has always been questioning that. And I think it has to do with back in the day, especially I’m going to only speak about Catholicism from what I have perceived in the last 20 years, because a lot of the people in Massachusetts are Catholic, Irish Italian Catholics. And so been there in the Catholic Church. People back in the Middle Ages, they could not read. And so they started putting pictures into everything. And so and that everything was in latson, to keep people away from the mysticism of the faith. And so they would have the services and lots and and so it was really with Martin Luther, that the Protestants that he was translated into a language that they understood. And so when it comes to religion, if people have the ability to separate themselves from their childhood religions have the do’s and the don’ts or you should do this or you should not do that with very rigid ideas. If people have the ability to separate themselves from that, and then dive into the mysticism of life, or mysticism of that religion, then they really see a lot of doors. Open up. And and I think that not just religion but it’s also cultural practices, you know how like when we think about just for instance, if we think about Indonesia, most of Indonesia is Muslim. And but then when you go over to Bali, it is mostly Hindu. And they have a totally different way of living, but it’s just an island of Indonesia, it’s the same.
Sirry Berndsen 35:28
It’s the same governments, but the big island is Muslim, and the small island of Bali is Hindu. If I remember correctly, I think there were also some Buddhists that I can’t remember. But there are some faiths that keep it really simple. And they really preach about living in compassion, which is a Buddhism, Hinduism, they helped many, many different gods. And then there are those that question like, Well, why are you worshiping all these different statues? My thing is, let them do whatever they want to do, like whatever brings them joy. And I also do know that there’s a lot of people that sort of frown upon the Islamic religion. And people that also again, they have to separate the ancient religion of Islam. And they have to separate that from what later on became, what governments were trying to dictate to the women, for instance. And why is that? Because they would have the women cover up on all of those things, like I questioned everything. But I do think that it really comes down to this, that God, or goddess, whatever you want to believe in, did not create religion, religion is manmade. And for that reason, if you can remove the sort of the history or the, the rigidness, of religion, you set aside, and then you go into the aspects of prayer. And what is this essence of God? Now I also have this thing that I think that god or goddess, I don’t see, God has a gender, God has an essence lives within each and every one of you are God, I am God. And when we see the godliness within one another, we then are able to see the kindness in one another. And I do believe that we all have God within us. And I find it kind of interesting sometimes I get into this conversation about people that are obviously like race with race within a very strict religion. Doesn’t matter which religion is they they believe that’s how, and early on in my work as a medium. It was a kind of an interesting this. This says you asked earlier you asked if there was one session that stands out from another. There are so many that stand out like I had, I’ve done sessions with people that pass 911 or their witnesses. And I’ve done sessions where there was murder suicides. And I remember this is years ago, there was a there’s a woman, her name is Beth. And she had three girls, and she was dating a guy. And the religion was not going really well. And one of the oldest girls and she decided to go to Florida with some friends. So she had flown out of Boston. Meanwhile, Beth was at home with a two young girls and the dog and the boyfriend was upset and he comes to the house and he shoots the youngest girl in the hallway. And then it comes into the bedroom where Beth is with her middle daughter and he shoots the middle daughter and sister her lights out. And then she was the mom. Mind you. He also showed the dog. And then what he did, he walked on to train tracks and he committed suicide. So now we toiled over a murder suicide with one of the girls was away. Thank god the girl was away because that kind of like saved the lives of the two sisters. And so when she had London in Florida, she was trying to call she was trying to call mom, but mom didn’t pick up and so then she frantically started to call her dad, her mom and dad were separated. divorced. So she started calling dad and dad Okay, he’d go over to the house and he’ll check out check up on mom when he entered into the house where he saw that the youngest daughter was shot in the head in the hallway and the middle daughter was in her mother’s arm shot in the head to what is interesting is that the two girls survived. But mom passed away. And so there was a there was somebody that came in for a session with me and I brought everything through and then at one point they said well, so he committed suicide. Where is he? So this is what was a huge learning lesson for me. So I was connected to Beth the mom and I was able to see everything through her eyes. Like I saw the whole entire thing unfold and I saw everything through her eyes. I remember that I asked her like well where are you see since he He shot you all, and he killed you on the bog. Where is he? So when bad people commit crimes,
Sirry Berndsen 40:10
they go to heaven, but they go to what I call special ed. And so there’s no such thing as hell on people, they need to sort of wrap their heads around, there’s no such thing as hell. This is one place that we all go to, but we go to different levels, it’s like going to a classroom or go to a school. And those that have done amazing work kind work, compassion work, they go into the higher grades is sort of like going to ninth 10th 11th grade. So what happened with him, he was put in isolation. And so in my mind, I could see her, she was able to see him through sort of, in my mind, it looked as though she was looking through like a one sided glass, but he did not see her. And so he was there in isolation. And, and then he had these spiritual beings, sit with him, and teach him about the lessons. But he had done. And so there’s no time in this world. And this is something that a lot of people have a hard time grasping, there’s no time in the spirit world. Now, would he be there for a one year and like in the perception of the humans on earth plane? Or would he be the mugger nobody knows. But it’s very clear to me that he would be in this isolation, and he was, is kind of an infant learning how to walk again. So he’s shown how to learn the impact of what he had done. And his soul also had to really work through the atrocities that he had committed. And with the spiritual beings, and they were guides and angels that we’re trying to sort of bring the lessons to him. Now, there’s another aspect of this also, which is Michael Newton, Michael nooner, he was a psychology PhD in psychology. And he wrote a couple of books, and one of them is destiny, or souls. And it’s a great book, and I recommend it to everyone. And it’s one of these books that you kind of had to read it. And then if you don’t quite grasp it quite yet, you have to sort of go back to it and read it again. Or you can also get an audio book. So he talks about and also Brian Weiss talks about life between lives. And so for instance, we could then also perceive it this way that perhaps this guy, he was put into this base of life, he lives and we all come to this earth plane with lessons that we need to learn, and the soul, how we work through those lessons, it is up to the soul to grow. And some things are already decided upon before we come to Earth. Francis, before you came, Victoria, it was already decided that you would meet your husband, and you would have the kids to know like, there are specific things that are decided. But also there are things in our lives that come into our pads that depending on how we cope with it, how do we cope with it well, or do we not cope with it really well, that can really, sometimes interfere or veer off of the road a little bit. But for the most part, we have specific lessons we have to go through. So I’m going to share this one thing that I’ve been going through this last year, it’s been sort of in the background, quite a bit in the past few years. But this past year really, really pushed me as a medium and grief person a little bit over the edge. And this is what it is when young people in this in this climate in this day and age when young people in America growing up, they are faced with so many drugs. And it is absolutely devastating to see in this past year 2020 I saw more suicides and overdoses in my practice that in any previous year.
Sirry Berndsen 43:59
And it made me think I reflect on this. Why? And it comes down to this and what like my philosophy today it comes down to this. I do not think it is the parents fault. But I think it is the I don’t know if it’s the government’s fault, if it is the society how it is built up if it’s the school system. I’m not here to play like I’m not here to blame or point the finger but I think people need to be aware of what is going on. When does it start on where does it start? And so recently, a friend of mine, she said she’s got a couple of teenage girls, and she said to me that Oh yeah, like one of our daughters is on Prozac. And I thought to myself like was his only like 14 like, that’s really young, isn’t it? And she’s all well it’s considered to be normal like the, the nurse will call it call them up to the nurse’s office. I’m like okay, here’s your medication for the week or for the month. And I think it was like this is absolutely insane. But it started making sense to me. And so I’m even in America, I think it’s probably America is one of the most medicated countries on the planet. And where does it all starts? is Big Pharma? What does that lead into? Like if a child is overactive is a child is just really hyper that is immediate, like there’s a label on it, it has add, or it has ADHD. My thing is, Well, how about fixing the child’s diet? How about taking out all of the ingredients in the food that are not supposed to be there? If you cannot, like if you reading a label on a food product, and you cannot understand it, why are you feeling that way? Child child references, Pop Tarts? What’s in it? All these ingredients that are just nobody can pronounce toxins? What does the toxins do to the gut bacteria? We talked about children that like three or four or five years old, this is where it starts. And so the responsibility really goes down on that aspect, it goes down to the government, because the government says, Oh, yeah, you can put these things on the food, and that’s okay. And so the children becoming sick, the microbiome is becoming sick. And then they begin to develop these behaviors that are not considered to be rational. And then they roll up in a system that Oh, yeah, let’s suppress this symptom. And then if that doesn’t work, let’s try another one. Instead of instead of getting to the root cause of the issue, because the parent may be the most loving, caring parents, but they may not know what they’re putting the child’s bodies. And so as children are growing up, and then they like they’re put on Prozac, or they put on Xanax or they put like they put on medication for different things that should be treated, it’s not suppressed. And so this past year, I’ve noticed that children I mean, to me that children from the age of like, 16 1718, up to like 20 456, the amount of young people passing because they cannot cope, suicides, overdoses, that has really touched me on a grief level in this past year to put up like, I’m going through this whole ups, I’m upset about it, I’m angry about it. And but I’m turning that anger and frustration on sudden as I’m trying to turn it into more education. And so when people come to my office, I, when I intuitively I know, I know that like this little tiny little tweaks that they could do to get it better. You know, I point out to them, I’m looking to the microbiome, because the tummy is the second brain. And I tend to think of it this and we have the brain, we have the heart and we are the tummy. We have to love a three to work together in unity, to have a healthy family. I went off a little bit but yeah, that’s this is in the past year where my grief has been sort of absorbing this young people of America, exceptionally talented people with such great hearts. You know, it’s just my heart goes out to the children, to the parents, to the mothers to the fathers to the siblings.
Victoria Volk 48:13
And it’s, I think to it comes down to the lack of support within a family unit, whether it be support from the community or support from the healthcare system, which is overloaded already, you know, there. And I think, when I hear my bandwidth again, is we talk about mental health. Yes, I wish we would take the word mental out of it, which would be emotional health. Yes. What is what will serve us in our emotional health? And you don’t work through emotions by popping a pill.
Sirry Berndsen 48:55
Exactly. That is likely that is exactly what I’m talking about.
Victoria Volk 48:59
I’m reminded of a podcast interview I did a while back with Jordan Brody. And he was he’s an openly gay man, and really struggled as a child with bullying and things like that, despite having a really supportive, loving, you know, father figure in his life, he, you know, just had other challenges, and really embracing right being a child that recognizes that they’re different. And where he obviously said he felt different, but he was put on medication as an eight year old, an eight year old. That’s an anxiety you know, and depression and add, I think ADHD, one of those, but he was brilliant. He was really smart. He was in a, like a gifted program. And he found himself pretending to be dumbing himself down for others and has created so much grief, like he couldn’t even authentically live who he was his, his essence, his soul of what was his soul was wanting him to be and live into. He really suppressed all of it. And it started with, you know that medication didn’t help. Right? Right. And as an adult, you know, when I interviewed him for the podcast, he has been off medication, he’s not on medication anymore. He’s living his best life, you know, but he dealt with addiction, then, I mean, that set him on the stage of going down a path of addiction. And within a week, I believe of our podcast interview, his brother passed away of an overdose. And he came on the podcast, actually to talk about a loss of his best friend to addiction. Yeah, and you know, so it’s obviously was really it’s prevalent in his family. But why? Why?
Sirry Berndsen 51:03
Why? Well, I’ve been like this last few month I’ve been digging into the why and I think that um, and you’re so right, this should be this should be called emotional health or emotional well being. And, and I think that if you really get into the depth of things, because I actually studied journalism, I studied must mean media. And within that, it was also the the quote, unquote, the propaganda how to sell like there’s not marketing, but how to sell an idea. And if you really think about it this way, when you have large companies, like pharmaceutical companies, putting money towards doctors or hospitals, and paying them, it starts from an early age, it starts from a well with visits with an infant, and well visits to the to the pediatrician now includes years, not just the weight and everything, but it also includes vaccination and large nations. I question those two today, simply because we do not need to put what is it 72 vaccinations and in an infant, and within the first two years in America, it is absolutely insane. And so I think that it comes down to this, the big pharma, they have way too much power. And from the moment a child is born, they have way too much power in a child’s life. From a well visits to the first few years, the more that can give like the more that can give pills to the children. And that’s where it starts. So in other words, I think that in so many ways, the big pharma, they are sort of the they’re the drug dealers with the license with a golden license. I think the other thing also, I thought about this a lot, I don’t think that a lot of doctors, pediatricians are educated about the side effects on the long term effects of these things. They are, I think a lot of them are just going by faith. Somebody a rep comes from a rogue company, and they say, Oh, we have these these these is seen as sort of like a shopping cart. Would you like some of these so you can give to patients? And I think this is where it all starts. And I really my heart goes out to the American youth because of this. Young people, like you just said with him. He himself was like he was put on these medications from an early age. And then he was on the podcast to talk about his best friend and then his brother passes away. When is enough enough? Because it all starts somewhere. Yeah, you know, and instead of instead of putting them on drugs, why not then create a group gathering we have these young children coming into someone’s a wellness center, and they learn to sit in meditation or they learn to sit in the quiet and they learn about nutrition, and they learn about the blueberries and raspberries and they love like they learn about the herbal, herbal remedies and they learn about the wonderful things that nature gives us. Like I said, I started listening to audiobooks by Rudolf Steiner. And he was the one that sort of started the whole Waldorf. Are they the Waldorf School is that based on his ideology, and there’s actually a website some guy, he’s read all of his books, it’s on Rudolf Steiner audio.com I highly recommended is sort of an old fashioned way of writing, reading and listening to it, but it’s well worth it. But I picked that up. The closer we can come to nature with our children, the brighter future we will have with the children and the more we move away from the Big Pharma on the popping the pills, the healthier youth we will have, it’s the future of America lives in the arms and the hearts and the hands of the youth and the parents, but it’s the youth of America that will be able to build up the country to its greatest glory that I want was.
Victoria Volk 55:11
It makes me think of when you mentioned about like, you know, a center, like a youth center where they can learn these different things. It’s like mentioned meditation, it’s learning coping skills. Like, here’s the thing, like, as adults, we don’t necessarily cope very well, either. You know, it’s like, because I feel like, and I’ve said this so many times, and you can, I think you’ll agree, but adulthood is childhood reenactments,
Sirry Berndsen 55:36
adulthood is childhood via likeness, I can see that.
Victoria Volk 55:39
Every belief, thought idea, like everything that we are taught as children are our personal experiences that we internalize. And we project all of that, as adults, like we. It’s like, like that cycle, that seven year cycle like these. It’s like, you mentioned that the soul has this lesson it needs to learn. And it was actually mentioned by Dr. Chris Kerr, who is on the surviving death, he talked about end of life experience and has a book death is by the dream and he was on the podcast and talked about one particular experience of an old man who was a war World War Two veteran who, at the end of his life, the deepest pain that he was carrying all his life was came back to heal him, like his comrades came back to heal him. Of all the because he his job was to transport the dead on the ships, and his comrades came back at the end of his life. Oh, wow. And it was, you know, so I think of that and how, like what you said how the soul has this lesson, these I, I feel like after learning about end of life, going through end of life doula training and talking to Dr. Kerr, our soul has this experience at the end of life, probably beyond based on what you what you shared, right?
Sirry Berndsen 57:11
Right. Because I mean, then we have other lifetimes. When it comes to presses with the past life, past life regression. We have lifetimes before this lifetime and our minds. We think of everything as being a timeline. And it is in that light, like on the earth plane, it is a timeline. Everything has a minute, everything has a second, everything has an hour to it, everything has a calendar to it. But in the afterlife, there’s no light, like there’s no timeline, with a set of certain concepts. It’s hard to grasp. And going back to what you just said about touch, both occur. I love his work, I think you also want to was a despot vision. So it’s not like half remember, death has been a dream, or death. Okay. But that was about a dream. Yes. So I was actually talking to a friend of mine in the UK this morning, who’s a doctor who is about to be transferred from the end of life care, being a physician at the end of life care to the ER doctor and, and I said to him, you know, you’re meant to go there. And I think you’re going to be entering the space of prayer. And he’s like, What do you mean, he was pausing. And I said, Well, it was going to be the place of prayer. And, and I talked to him about Christopher curve, thoughts occur. And his TED Talk. And I said, years ago, it did, especially for a woman, this is a long time ago, I did a session that I never forget it. Most sessions I collect, they close my mind for the glimpses of a few sessions that stick in my head. So there was a young lady that came into my office and, and I knew nothing about her. Like, I never know anything about other people. Like when people come to my office, I just look at the first name on what type of session that booking. That’s all I want. I just want the true first name, I don’t care about the last name, they have to have an email so that I can actually email them information. But the rest of it are just first name and what excuse me what type of session and so I knew nothing about her as she comes to my office. And before I was going into my office, I felt there was this amazing light around her and I didn’t understand what it was. But it was almost as if there was this huge choir of light beings that were like following me to this appointment. And in my mind’s eye, I saw her as if she was she the the person in my office, she was done in front and central like the soloist, and this big choir of lights of beings behind her. And then in the session, I said to her, like I see that you work with people in a healing in a setting with the hospital in a healing setting. But there’s a lot of people in the office life I want to come forward and thank you and there was this immense It was like a way was a tsunami of this light. And there was a tsunami of prayers and gratitude towards this woman. And I was able to bring through, like from that big choir, it was like 1000 people more, I was able to bring forth like a couple of them on a gave a really good description of them. And then she said, Well, this was one of my last patients. And so this woman, she was an emergency care physician for many years in the ER, and helping people, you know, survive or die. She was a very prayerful person. And so, and it was interesting to me to see it from the mediums perspective, that she is interesting also, because she was a scientist, so she didn’t see it. But I saw it, and I saw this, it was sort of like the massive amount of it was like the wave of lights behind her was just immense, because she was working in the medical field and helping people die or alive, bring life or bring them into the afterlife.
Victoria Volk 1:01:06
I think the whole theme of this conversation really just comes down to it boils down to just connection, this spiritual, spiritual connection. Yes, of the essence of who we are our own spirit, and how we’re all connected to each other.
Sirry Berndsen 1:01:28
Absolutely. And I think also the other thing also is how close we are to the spirit world. But I always say they walk, they walk with us, they walk among us. And the closer we bring them into our lives, the closer we bring in the angelic energy, the easier the Kinder, the more loving we become, the easier life will become like when things when we surrender. But instead of going against the instead of going against life, but when we surrender to the gentleness or the wave of life, we then create an easier path. And I see, I think it’s the closest on the spirit world.
Victoria Volk 1:02:14
I see this parallel of we medicalize death and dying, but we also medicalized life.
Sirry Berndsen 1:02:23
We do. That is such a good point.
Victoria Volk 1:02:24
Right? both ends of the spectrum. There is no there’s no, where’s the balance?
Sirry Berndsen 1:02:30
Well, where is the Yes. And it has become so scientific. That we have lost sight of the spiritual.
Victoria Volk 1:02:40
Detached?
Sirry Berndsen 1:02:42
Yes. Because we are spiritual beings having human experiences.
Victoria Volk 1:02:50
In a nutshell, yes.
Sirry Berndsen 1:02:53
Yes, we are. We are divine light beings. Having human experiences and grief.
Victoria Volk 1:03:04
Yeah, its a part of it. A healthy part of it.
Sirry Berndsen 1:03:08
It is a healthy part of it. I also, I also do believe that the power of prayer can be so immense, because prayer is such a simple thing. And I’m not talking about prayers in heavenly Father, I’m not talking about those types of prayer, but I’m just talking about the simple voice within your heart, the simple chants the simple. Oh, God helped me get through this day, or like, it couldn’t be very, you know, or God, protect my children. Or if even if we want to call on our ancestors, like mom or dad or grandma, please protect my child today. Those are in my mind in my heart. Those are prayers. And I do and I know that prayers work. I know the power of prayer is immense. And I do feel and I know that for sure that if we went back to the basics with children, and we brought in more meditation, the power of prayer on the essence of spiritual living on the earth plane. We would then have, have a future that is so much easier. And prayer doesn’t need to be rigid. Prayer can be so simple. bring light to this person. bring light to this person. That is it.
Victoria Volk 1:04:24
It’s really letting your heart live in intention. And yes, that energy out with intention.
Sirry Berndsen 1:04:27
Yes.
Victoria Volk 1:04:31
And I can say personally, prayer did change my life because I prayed for my husband. I didn’t pray for him. I prayed for someone.
Sirry Berndsen 1:04:43
Yes.
Victoria Volk 1:04:43
Now this was me not going to church ever right?
Sirry Berndsen 1:04:46
Yep.
Victoria Volk 1:04:47
Please bring me someone who is good for me. That was it was a very simple prayer, bring someone into my life who was good for me. And I knew my husband. For seven years. We were friends. Yeah, but we had, you know, when he went his way I went mine, we met a junior year in high school, when he moved to my town, but we did not date we did not, there was no like love connection at any point during that time. And with that prayer, all of a sudden, he was like, front and center, relentless in wanting to be in a relationship with me, to this day, it’s like, you know, like, we didn’t look at each other, like, Oh, I’m gonna marry you someday, in high school, or I want to date you know, seven years later, seven years later, right? And I still, like, there is no explanation. Like, he really didn’t can even give me an answer. Really, like, yeah, prayer changed my life. And that, that set me on finding a relationship and discovering a relationship with God again, and my spirituality and faith and all of that, like it just Yeah, a very defining moment in my life.
Sirry Berndsen 1:06:11
But I think also this goes back to those that prayer does not need to be a religious prayer. It can be if people want to, like if people want to go to the church, or the temple or the you know, wherever they want to go, and they want to do their prayers in front of their statues. They can do that, like messes with me, I pray all the time, my family, or I go out in nature, I sit on the beach, I will pray. For me, prayer is a part of breathing. You know, it’s just a part of being and it’s a part of breathing. And I pray for the strangers. And I think that when we find ourselves being aggravated or annoyed, but someone needs to pray, we need to send them even more lights, so that we can heal ourselves from that frustration, from that annoyance.
Victoria Volk 1:06:58
It makes me think of whole oponopono the four steps of it’s actually just mentioned it with a client yesterday. It’s I’m sorry, please forgive me. Thank you. And I love you. I think before I’m not even sure if it’s in that order. I I’ve have a couple posts coming up about it. But you because really, it’s it is what is within us that feels provoked, you know, what does this person provoking in me, what is it about me that needs to heal that feels provoked by this person? or you know.
Sirry Berndsen 1:07:37
It also goes back to the grief.
Victoria Volk 1:07:39
It does!
Sirry Berndsen 1:07:40
because what happened in our lives that causes grief, though, we then have to reflect on.
Victoria Volk 1:07:49
And that’s what grief recovery does, right? The method itself does. It brings to the forefront exactly what needs to be healed. And what to work through in a guided supported evidence-based way, right? It’s Yeah, yeah. I’m partial, I’m partial.
Sirry Berndsen 1:08:11
But I was interesting, because you also mentioned earlier that, um, when someone has such you that, like you said, some of you were grief, grief recovery person, and they said, Oh, that is depressing. That was their perception. But I think that we, when we, when we that understand grief on a deeper level, when we come out on the other end, we see all of the gifts coming to us what a gift it is. You know what a gift it is, but I met you on what a gift it is that I met a couple of your friends. It’s a gift, and it all starts with one person.
Victoria Volk 1:08:48
Yeah. Because we’re all connected.
Sirry Berndsen 1:08:52
We’re all connected. And we’re all gifted and we are all a gift to one another.
Victoria Volk 1:08:56
So I want to really give something this has been amazing so far, but for Grievers listening, what is one tip that you would give are hurting heart listening today.
Sirry Berndsen 1:09:09
So this is coming from me as the medium. I think with grieving with grieving people, and I think especially this is the thing I often reflect on what is hardest grief. I, um, there are two rooms that I have perceived to be the hardest ones, and that is the loss of a child. For both mom and dad. Oftentimes fathers have a hard time expressing it mothers that seem to have a little bit of an easier time expressing grief when they lose a child. And it doesn’t matter how old the child is. It could be 3 million old it could be three years old, but the loss of a child is probably one of the hardest. And then also when people have been together like life partners, and when a woman becomes a widow where our mom becomes A winter and they’re so in love with their soul partner. Those are two of the hardest ones it is more. But I think also went out when a young child loses a mother. That’s another that’s probably the third one that is the hardest one to sort of, cope with I think but even loss of a pets can be really hard for a child, but when people um, so for me as the medium when people lose someone, I say, take time for you. Sit with them, sit with them memories, listen to the music you both enjoy and look at the photographs when you feel ready to do so. If you know and here’s a big deal if you know that someone is dying. If you have an older parent or grandmother who was dying, sit down with them and record their stories. videotape them. If you can take pictures, get your phone out, record them and say, Hey, Grandma, tell me about when you Grandpa, when you met, those stories become absolutely precious, more pressures on any stuff. Having someone’s voice on a voicemail is precious, having someone’s having someone telling a story on a video is precious, prepare for those types of things. Because once they’re gone, their voice is gone. So in prep, so in preparation for loss, I think that do everything that you can to cherish each and every moment. Now we don’t always have the time to prepare. But after someone passes away, take time for yourself. take time off from work. And if there are people in your life that are not being helpful, supportive, or conducive to your grief, let them go, someone else will replace them or they will come back into your life if it’s really worth it. But take time to grieve, be kind and be gentle. And let yourself cry. Like just let the tears out. Go into nature, hug a tree, sit in the grass, go on the beach, do anything and everything that really brings you joy. And do it over and over and over again until it gets a little bit easier. One thing that I did want to say is after someone has passed and and you really feel like you want to connect with them. There’s one thing that I’ve said to people make time for the spirits.
Sirry Berndsen 1:12:39
Write them letters, but doing this as a way that if you were to For instance, if you sit down every single time at the same time, let’s say it’s a Sunday evening at 7pm. Or you know that you’re going to have some time during the middle of the week. And let’s say Wednesday evening at 6pm. Make an appointment with your loved one it was pretty well and sit with them. Listen to your favorite music together, have the photograph on your lap have the photo of Next you have a piece of paper and a pad and write them a letter and tell them how much you miss them. And, and if you feel they are coming close, listening, take time, and just write down what they would say to you. Because that is true spirit communication, because that’s when you have the flow. Going back and forth, you say one thing, I miss you so much. And then you may hear this very subtle voice in your head. And it’s there as if they’re back. And they may say the same to you, I miss you so much. It may be a child in the spirit world. And let’s say a mother sits down. And let’s say a mother lost a child unless the child’s name is Rachel, I’m just making up, you know, Rachel, or Amanda. And let’s go with Rachel. So let’s say a mother sits down and she said Rachel, I miss you so much. And then the mom may then begin to feel the voice of Rachel in her mind. And if she brings her closer, if she brings her daughter closer, she made them feel her in her heart. And then she may feel as though her daughter’s speaking to her, write it down, write letters to your child, write letters to not want to miss farewelled make the connection and hold on to those letters and you can always read them back. The more you do this, the more you deepen the connection and the one thing that I would also highlight if you can if people are sitting inside, light a candle praying, pray that they come to you pray that they merge with you, and they will come because they hear your thoughts. So I think that after someone passes away, I think that um, when we feel that our spirit is ready, bring them close so that we can merge with them and we can really, truly communicate.
Victoria Volk 1:15:02
Beautiful. I love that. What gives you the most joy and hope?
Sirry Berndsen 1:15:07
I knew you’re gonna asked that because when I was I was thinking um I would say nature nature because it’s interesting nature and animals. Nature is always there for me, nature never feels me. I can walk outside I can walk to the park I can walk to the beach, I can sit there and I can be one with nature. And it never ever fails me. Even in a snowstorm nature’s there. I would say nature. Next up to that is the animals that eat terian I was a vegan for a little while. When I go home to Iceland. I will have fish shrimp, but that’s as far as I go. So animals is the next thing and when I get a chance to sit with dogs or cats even the other day I’ve got a chance to talk to a duck than Shelby and I got a chance to sit with a goats and the god fell asleep in my arms you know I have this connection with animals kind of like St. Francis of Assisi I have because we can also communicate with animals just like we can do with people is the same vibration is just same energy. So I would say nature and animals so that brings me joy nature. And the I think also the mystery of the cosmos the mystery of the universe the mystery of all there is the mystery that lies beyond that brings me joy.
Victoria Volk 1:16:43
I love that because it sparks curiosity for me those things yeah, that brings me joy curiosity brings me joy.
Sirry Berndsen 1:16:51
You look at the stars and you wonder what is there.
Victoria Volk 1:16:55
I have a little follow up to our session that I had with you. And you had share during our session about my youngest and her connection with nature and and that she will Sunday understand the the importance of bees and just nature itself and herbs and in animals just she has a deep connection with animals and things like that two things. I mean, I want to share with you to follow up from our session. And one thing was we just very recently, this is a family from California came to our area and they brought their bees brand new company, they wanted to expand bought a place in our area. So they plan to come back year after year. And they put bees on our land. So we can have honey, we will get some honey and so interesting so that I thought oh my gosh, like that’s crazy. Because the this we’ve you know, we’ve been here for like 1112 years, you know, never had the opportunity to have bees on our land or anything you know, so that’s I found that fascinating. The second thing is a baby pheasant had just walked into my husband’s work all by itself all by itself, like the mother I don’t know if it got you know, yeah. Wouldn’t lost his mother whatever, we bring it home. And my youngest was tried nursing that thing and not nursing, you know, like, yeah, making sure that it got what it needed. And she we had some birdseed and stuffers, some feet like stuff and she was crushing that up and feeding it by hand and putting water in a syringe and, and just really nurturing this baby pheasant just a little chick just at bay thing. And she tapped her foot and it would come to her outside and just really connected to this little baby pheasant Well, after three days, it did die. And she was crushed. Tears. We ended up burying her it was a female. But I just thought back to what you had shared. And the words that came to my mind was because she wants to be a veterinarian. And I know I’d share that in our you know, after you had shared all that I said, Well she wants to be a vet. And why came from for me after that happened was she needs to be a vet for an animal sanctuary. Yes. A sanctuary. Yeah, that’s what kind of came up for me I guess, after that experience.
Sirry Berndsen 1:19:32
So you know, when I when I do my work they flow through because like I put my I put my ego
aside. And I was describing this a couple of days ago to someone I would say that 10 20% of my left brain is in full action asking questions. But then I will say at present our brain is in full flow with spirit communication. So the whole life review is really coming from spirit. It is your story and not even from Got the young kids you know I even forgot the you like not talking to you I forgotten the session I find it isn’t that interesting is that I don’t know you and I don’t know your family I’ve never met your daughter um isn’t it interesting how this spirits and I don’t remember like if anyone came through for us it’s like my memory is none like his nail but I find it interesting how this spirits how they know these things this this timelessness that is just absolutely divine and Bs you know it just is bs Isn’t that interesting? Yeah. So I just had to show follow up was wonderful and I do hope as it becomes that for and also I hope that he becomes a holistic that because holistic dice they may I mean they make miracles happen holistic buts and I really hope it’s going to be for a sidetrack but you know what is interesting when I was seven years old I there I remember this vividly To this day I buried my first bird and I remember the lights the light around me and my friend when we hold held a little bird, I think it was a robin or something and we held it on we were so just devastated by the death of a bird and then we put in a little hole and I still remember this like was yesterday the light around us and I was seven years old again seven. How old is your daughter?
Victoria Volk 1:21:30
12
Sirry Berndsen 1:21:32
Oh so she’s going to be a vet?
Victoria Volk 1:21:36
I don’t know we’ll see. I guess she wants to, that hasn’t changed it’s been few several years but she’s said that
Sirry Berndsen 1:21:46
you can even if she even if she ends up not going down the road of being a vet then she can always be a farmer. And she can nurture love the animals and the plants around her.
Victoria Volk 1:21:59
Yeah, she’s very much Let’s get her hands dirty playing the dirt.
Sirry Berndsen 1:22:05
So she’s probably incredibly healthy.
Victoria Volk 1:22:09
Yeah, she is, yeah.
Sirry Berndsen 1:22:11
Most kids they get to play on the dirt. They’re the healthiest ones of all.
Victoria Volk 1:22:16
Yeah, and we’ve gotten so far away from that to like I remember playing with old tractors and cards and making roads in the dirt and you know now it was outside all day, every day.
Sirry Berndsen 1:22:29
Yeah. I was just a way I was away from my playground was the beach and and it was like walking around to the seaweed I’m playing with the seaweed and also digging in the dirt and it was a childhood. It was a magical childhood. Outside all the time and I remember when I was 10 years old in the summertime we could stay outside until 10pm when I was 11 years old, we only were talking about like June July August, we could sell 10 until like 11pm and then when we hit like 13 we’re able to stay on till midnight. Keep in mind the summers in Iceland. The sun doesn’t set so it’s daylight all night long. So there’s no difference of daylight.
Victoria Volk 1:23:14
I saw a video actually of a woman I made on Instagram are some things from Iceland and she documented like documented that and I’m just like Wow, I can’t imagine I can’t like you know, it’s just something you can’t wrap your head around.
Sirry Berndsen 1:23:31
Have you know, like for instance, when we talk about nature and magic. So now we have a we have in Iceland we have volcano that is erupting. And there’s not one of these big plumes that is coming that is coming up but it’s one of these with a lava field growing and growing and growing and I was in Iceland the other day and and I had been asking people around like you know how difficult is the track to get up there and there’s a well it’s gonna be like an hour and a half walk and whatnot and I’m not in a good shape. Because I live in this city and I don’t get into nature much but I was in a car accident a couple of years ago until my like I’m still paying the price of that, like my walking and everything. But I thought it was like you need to be there. And I walked for probably about an hour and a half up this hill and sort of up this hill and Donna Valley and up another Hill to sit on top of another mountain and I was just watching this lava just sort of spewing up out of this tiny little tidal mountains a mountain that is beginning to be created. I saw this lava coming up and I saw the lava flow and the magic of the earth I mean just thinking about the force of nature that is below our feet coming up through the cross and just flowing like with the black and with a red fire and and it was just absolute Magical to observe because I was sitting on top of this mountain it started raining and that is it started like then it was sleet and then there was hail. And it was freezing cold. But I loved every minute of it. We just observing nature coming to creation.
Victoria Volk 1:25:23
When we think we’re in control, right?
Sirry Berndsen 1:25:25
Oh, yeah.
Victoria Volk 1:25:26
Nature reminds us. No, no, you’re not.
Sirry Berndsen 1:25:30
Yeah. Anyway,
Victoria Volk 1:25:31
oh, this was so wonderful. I feel like I could have talked I could talk for another hour easily. But is there anything else, any guided message you feel like you would like to share
Sirry Berndsen 1:25:43
When it comes to refund laws, I would like for people to go within and tap into the depth of love and the depth of love loss. Mercy doot doot. Together, love them love to come to the surface when you’re ready. And when love comes to the surface, you know that you will have this wisdom all around you and you will conquer anything and everything around you. And know the spirit is always in your hearts just so far away. The spirit is always around you. And spirits through the power of prayer will help you work through grief.
Victoria Volk 1:26:23
Thank you. Thank you for being here.
Sirry Berndsen 1:26:27
Thank you so much, Victoria. You’re awesome.
Victoria Volk 1:26:30
Aww, right back at you. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love. From my heart to yours. Thank you for listening. If you liked this episode, please share it because Sharing is caring. And until next time, give and share compassion by being hurt with yours. And if you’re hurting know that what you’re feeling is normal and natural. Much love my friend.
