Childhood Grief, Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Pespective, Podcast, Sibling Loss |
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz | Finding Peace Amidst the Ashes
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
When Kimberley was a child, a house fire would change her life as she knew it forever. Both her older and younger sisters both perished in the fire. However, Kimberley wouldn’t learn the truth of how that life-altering moment came to be until her 30’s.
Growing up, Kimberley’s father also worked a job that kept the family on the road. As a result, Kimberley found it challenging (and heartbreaking) to forge deep connections with others because they were constantly on the go.
Kimberley found her voice through writing after experiencing a two-year “loss limbo” after the death of her dear neighbor and her mother’s death years ago. She’s since written a field guide for living with loss without losing yourself. Additionally, on top of Covid-19, she remains at her husband’s side as his health declines as well.
Remnants of the sadness continue to ebb and flow throughout her life. However, Kimberley has learned tools that have enabled her to find peace amidst the ashes of her grief.
RESOURCES:
- Ep. 40 Dr. Chris Kerr | Death Is But a Dream: End-of-Life Experiences
- Book | Grieving Us: A Field Guide for Living with Loss Without Losing Yourself
CONNECT:
Victoria Volk 0:08
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 and advanced Grief Recovery methods specialist, I know how badly the conversation around grief needs to change. Through this podcast, I aim to educate grievers and non Grievers alike, spread hope and inspire compassion toward those hurting. Lastly, by providing my heart with ears 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. It’s another episode of grieving voices. And today, my guest is Kimberly Pittman Schultz, she is an award winning poet and author who writes teaches and speaks about death, living mindfully, and being a force for change in the world. With 25 years plus, as a philanthropy leader, and charitable and end of life planning advisor, Kimberly has worked with incredibly diverse people looking for meaning after the loss of a spouse, partner, child, sibling, parent, grandparent, or beloved animal. Her focus is helping people cultivate joy every day, so they can be so they can more deeply experience the meaning and beauty of their one. And only fives, thank you for being here.
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 1:43
Thank you, great to be here. With you and your listeners.
Victoria Volk 1:47
Just looking at your website. I felt like I like to look at people’s website and to get a feel for you know, the vibe survive. And so I actually heard something not that long ago that you can really understand someone by the written word, like what they write. And it’s like, when you meet your favorite author, like you’ve been reading all their books, and then you meet them in person. But you’re always gonna have like the some sort of judgment, right? When you first meet them? Well, they’re not really what I thought they’d be, but you fell in love with the writing, right? So you but you feel like you know them because of the writing. And so just, that’s where I really look at people’s websites. And I feel either either I feel that connection, or I don’t, and I felt it with you. And that’s why I had asked, you know, I wanted to have you on. So please share what brings you to grieving voices?
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 2:45
Well, besides your lovely invitation, I really listened to some episodes, I think you do something different with this with this podcast, with your guests with your audience, than anyone else is doing. Because you really do allow people to spend some time with their loss story. So often, we’re so focused on how do we heal and move forward, which is a big part of what I’m about, right? You know, I don’t, you know, there is a degree to which you need to spend time in that story and really experience that story. And one of the things I start out with in my book, and it’s one of the first practices is telling yourself your own loss story, because so often, we’re telling our stories to other people. And we’re always tweaking them because we have a different audience, right. So you might say one thing, they’ll coworker, something else to a friend, something else to your pastor or your rabbi. But so often we don’t pause and really just sit with our own loss and process it. And it’s hard. I’m not saying that’s an easy thing to do. And you don’t necessarily want to do it at certain points of your process. But that’s one of the things I feel like listening to how you interact with your guests, is that people have a chance to sit with their story a little bit and then to move forward with what has come out of that experience. And it’s still coming out. Because you know it I like to say last comes along. And then it comes along with us for the rest of our lives. So it’s a it’s an ongoing process. So I’m really excited and honored to be here talking with you.
Victoria Volk 4:15
Thank you. I love that last part when you said it comes along and along and along and along write it because wherever you, you take your past with you wherever you go, right? Yeah, I had one guest. She’s actually a mentor for me through the Grief Recovery Institute and she said your past becomes your present until it’s healed or your past is your present until it is healed. So that was definitely true for me. So thank you for listening to my podcast and for your kind words. I really appreciate it. What are the losses that have been most impactful for you?
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 4:57
Oh, you know, one of the advantages and disadvantages, I suppose and being on the planet for a while as there are over time, you’re going to have loss and you’re going to have multiple losses. I think, obviously, for me, there were two sets of losses that really have impacted my life the most. When I was about three and a half years old, I lost two sisters in a house fire, we were all in the same room. And I won’t go into the details except to say that I was the one that was able to rescued and my other two sisters could not. And so obviously, that was a big, a big impact for me and my, my mother could not ever talk about it. And so as a kid, I really, ever no one was supposed to talk about it. And so there was that whole trying to process it as a little kid and then moving through your life. So that was at age three, at age 43. My mother was dealing with small cell lung cancer terminal, and two weeks before she died. So we knew at some point that this was going to come to an end, that was not a big surprise, although it’s still a surprise when you’re actually there. But you’re kind of grieving that anticipatory grief, then of a friend and my next door neighbor, two weeks before my mother died, killed herself, shot herself in the heart, and happened to do it under the tree that my kitchen window looks out on. And so So I have these series of losses, there been many other losses. You know, I have companion animals that I’ve grieved deeply over and still missed. Even I have other cats in my life. Those two sets, losing my sister and then losing Ruth was my was my friend and neighbor and my mother, within two weeks of each other, that were really kind of big events and pivotal for me, and in shaping who I am.
Victoria Volk 6:44
Wow, I can’t imagine. Can I ask were you the one that found your neighbor?
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 6:50
No, she did it at night, Memorial Day weekend. And it’s interesting, because I had this practice. Every evening and I still have this practice. I stopped it for about two years after she died. But when we go out, I go out every night and say good night of the night. And I just kind of take in the night and I feel moments of gratitude. And I said good attention that to people and that night. For whatever reason. I was tired. I don’t remember why. But I did not do that. And I was woken up at one o’clock in the morning, my husband and I by knock by the sheriff on the door telling us just acid we’ve heard anything seen anything. And I just immediate it’s a weirdest thing. I just the weirdest thing. But I just knew immediately something was wrong with Ruth. And Eva said that to my husband. He goes, Oh, you know, I’m sure it’s nothing. And of course, it was very much something we learned the next day.
Victoria Volk 7:42
I asked that because you’d said your window faces. So I just Yeah,
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 7:47
Well, fortunately, I did not witness that. And by the next morning, she they had removed her. I mean, she was no longer there. But I could never, I mean, Victoria could just never look at that tree again, the same way. I mean, I just could never, you know, to me, I’m very nature oriented person. So the tree instead of being the symbol of growth in life became you know, the tree of life, right? That’s the ultimate archetype was just really a great tree of sadness for me to look at every day, and just think about her being there. And, you know, and anyone who’s and I know many of your listeners have dealt with all that goes through your head in a suicide all the should have could have if I’d only and then what was going through that you’re just trying to put yourself in that person’s place trying to imagine how you your life is so broken that you get to the point that you’ve made that choice for yourself, you know, so So Now fortunately, I didn’t witness that. But it did become every morning every night. Every time I looked out that window it was really tough because we just a reminder that roof wasn’t Ruth, Ruth wasn’t there anymore.
Victoria Volk 8:51
You still live there?
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 8:53
No, no, I was became very difficult to live there. And then after my mother passed away, we were living in Pennsylvania then and my my husband’s originally from California, we lived much of my adult life in California. We knew at some point we wanted to get back west. And that moving to Washington State before returning back to California. But I will say that Korea became very hard to live there to live in Pennsylvania just because my father was still there and siblings were still there. And I I didn’t grow up there. But I had lived there for seven years and moved there to be closer to my family. Ironically, when I left California, I would say to people, people say you don’t move from California to Pennsylvania, you move from Pennsylvania to California, you’re doing it backwards. And I’m like, Well, I just want to get to know get to know my family before we all leave the planet. And I kind of said that off the cuff and how true it turned out to be in terms of really developing, you know, getting close, not living to my parents and 20 over 20 years. So I’m so glad I made that move, but it became really difficult to stay there particularly to stay in that house. After Ruth’s left.
Victoria Volk 9:58
That’s even more great too, right?
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 10:01
Yeah, that was probably one of the big mistakes I made. Because not long after that I was offered a position. I had been leading a CEO of a community foundation in Pennsylvania, and I’ve been offered a comparable position in the West. We knew we wanted to get back west, I had this feeling of just you want to flee, which sometimes happens with loss, right? You have this feeling if you just want to run away. And so in the midst of all this, and then my father is in his ended lifetime, he he continued another two and a half years. But you know, so you then move across country and you start a new job, and we didn’t move back to California back move to Washington State, which was, I loved making I loved about living there. But that’s a lot of change at one time. And looking back, it’s like that, that would not be one of my recommendations. To anyone at that point. Anyway, I think it was too soon, but I’m human.
Victoria Volk 10:55
Right? We learn as we go. But yeah, that’s a great tip, though, to give Grievers it’s, you’re not thinking necessarily clearly right? You can’t really tune into your own intuition and your own guidance system, because you’re so filled with emotional stuff. So I think before you make any life changing decision like that, like a move across the country, or a job or anything, it’s really take that time to settle into yourself and maybe kind of get some guidance maybe and how to tap into your own knowing. Right?
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 11:33
Absolutely. And I think even though, you know, we talked about, you have multiple griefs over lifetime. Each of those, even though we do have griever styles, and it’s not the you categorizing anyone in any one way we do know, there’s some general styles of grieving that people fall into. And then you’ve got things like gender and gender orientation, or introvert extrovert, all those things play into how we grieve. But I’ve also found that each loss and different points in our life results in different responses to grief and loss as well. So it’s not like because you dealt with one loss this way that that means the other, you know, the next loss is the same way. And so what surprised me about my mother’s loss, in particular, besides being tied to this other loss, is, you know, I knew she was going to be passing away, I had all that anticipatory grief. And I expected it to be difficult, but I didn’t know it would lead me into two years of what I call lost limbo, because I just really, really, really was lost. My father who in many ways I felt closer to it was difficult to lose him. But I kind of rebounded from that much, much better. And I do think it has to do at a more complicated relationship with my mother, than I did with my father. And sure, that’s all of that. But that’s the other thing you don’t know. So you need to, you need to kind of spend a little time again with with your give your grief a little chance to unfold. So you know, what is it going to be like? Because initially, you don’t necessarily have a whole lot of control, you’re kind of following it before you learn how to, you know, reintegrate it into a new lie?
Victoria Volk 13:03
Did it help you too, and I don’t know, maybe you weren’t able to do this, or maybe it wasn’t part of your process. But I imagine your mother losing two other children. I’m a mother, I can’t imagine losing a child, you know, and so instil the difficulty of still having to be present and be a mother to you, in any other children that do have other siblings
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 13:29
Later on. Yeah, later on, my sister came along, and then something even further later on, my brother came along, so there were other children later on. But to get where I think you’re going it, my mother’s life was changed forever. And my mother, what I did not know, until I was 33. Because again, nobody talked about it. And when I would try to ask questions, people would just try to change the subject matter. All my life until age 22, from age three to 33, I did not know that part of what caused the fire. What I knew was an accident. But what the story I had been told to protect me actually was not true. That in fact, my mother fell asleep smoking in bed, and had a can of hairspray next to the bed that blew up. And that just immediately, just the house just went up in flames so quickly. And so she lived with that, her whole life and at the end of her life, you know, a big part of trying to, for her to find some peace as she began, you know, her process of leaving this this life was trying to come to terms with that even all those years later, as her life was coming to an end. It was a very real thing, but I didn’t know that until I was 33. So then I kind of went through a whole nother loss process around that because, you know, my my father said, Well, we didn’t want you to like blame your mother. It’s like, gosh, dang, I don’t blame my mother. I had this immense grief for her like for her like I was owning it for her and just, I think about all the times you couldn’t hug my mother, my mother wasn’t good at hugging like she, if you went to hug her, she just kind of lean in almost like she didn’t deserve a hug. I mean, we used to laugh about that. It’s like, now I know why, you know, and I think about some of the she, you know, she’s separate from some mental health issues as well. I’m sure all this exacerbated, right. And if I’d known some of this, particularly as a teenager, oh, my gosh, it would have helped me, it was still been a challenging time in our household, but I would have been able to process it better. So sometimes people try to protect kids. And in the long term, you know, maybe it’s not as protective as people think. But yeah, she, she struggled her whole life.
Victoria Volk 15:44
And I say grief shared as grief diminished. And I think that’s, it’s a disservice to children, when we think that not talking about it as protecting them. And my dad passed away when I was eight. And that was something to my mom openly grieved. And it was almost to the point, and not unhealthy. But like I couldn’t, there was no space for me to grieve. Because it took up so much room in our home. You know,
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 16:12
Yeah, I do. I absolutely know what you’re saying, Victoria, I really do.
Victoria Volk 16:17
So, you know, parents listening, it does not help the children to shield them from the reality of grief, it really sets them up to, like you said, unlike me, personally, too many people that I’ve talked to on this podcast, who experienced traumatic or grief experiences in childhood, it’s not something that just goes away. Because it wasn’t talked about, in fact, it has probably more does more damage than anything. Did you feel this immense pressure then to to to do something impactful? And do something? You know, because?
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 16:57
Yeah, that’s an interesting question, because I do feel. And it’s interesting to where you come at this question, because I think one strategy for actually dealing with loss and the fact that and survivor grief and survivor guilt, like, Why did I get to live, you know, just be I mean, I’m alive, because I happen to be on the bottom bunk, and old enough to walk to a window and pound on a window and get out, right? I mean, it’s just so arbitrary. In some cases, I mean, just the way it happened. So part of what has helped me is being what I call an avatar, which is, you know, there are times when I’ve not wanted to do something, or I felt really stuck, or, you know, I called the certain kind of Griever process I called being a bear, where you just want to go in hibernate in a cave, and just everybody go away. And part of coming out of that as saying, Well, you know, they didn’t get to live. So I need to live for myself, I need to live for them, I can see things I have clothing that I wear that my mother never got to wear, that now we were very different people. So she had long arms, she was taller. So I roll up the sleeves, you know, but I wear them for her. And I feel her when I do that. So on one hand is a really healthy and empowering thing to do. But I have also been in exactly the place that you’re talking about where at one point I became such a workaholic, such a, you know, just really felt like I can’t waste a single minute, because there’s all these people that don’t get to live like 911, I still think about the people who got up like any other morning and thought they were going to go to work or go to school and come home and it was just gonna be another day. And they didn’t get to have any more days after that. So you feel you can get to a point where you take being that avatar for your others a little too far. So it really is about balance, it can be a way to help you integrate them into your life, because they are part of you. That’s been removed. And so you’re trying to hold on to that part as you move forward. But you can take it to an extreme and I have been in that place and had to just back off and say, maybe my others want to rest right now maybe my others would like to sit outside in the sun and just chill, you know. So it’s, it’s, it’s, it’s an interesting part of all of this.
Victoria Volk 19:11
I don’t want to circle back to your mother’s decline and how you said that, you know, part of her process, in her End of Days was to come to terms with those losses that she had. And I had actually had a conversation with Dr. Chris curve. He’s researcher of end of life experiences. And the one thing that he says is that and I think this is something that people don’t necessarily look at terminal illness and think, Oh, gee, that’s a beautiful experience, or it can be right and I certainly was one of them because that’s how my dad passed away in a nursing home right but going through end of life training as a doula completely flipped that on its head for me, because I’m talking to Dr. Chris curve because just to your point It’s like our soul has this, this or soul process, what what it’s longing for right as we get through to the end of life and he had a beaut He has a beautiful example in the podcast episode. But essentially, and one of the stories was two that is shared real quickly, I’ll share it. But a mother had lost a baby miscarried. And at the end of her life, her family was in the room with her and she started rocking a baby. And they realize that, because there was actually I think someone in the room that did not know that she had had a miscarriage. But it’s, you know, the loved ones come to you, at the end of life, and it’s been witnessed and stories have been taught, it’s been documented in research that this starts happening as early as even six months before someone passes have a terminal illness. Did your mother ever speak to any experiences like that?
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 20:57
Absolutely. And I witnessed it. I mean, I witnessed it myself and my father, who was agnostic and would never have expected it and who’s ended up lifetime in the hospital had some very amazing experiences. With my mother, though, to get to your question, it was still several months before she passed. So it is sometimes it comes and goes over that period of time. But she would have to, there were several, several things were meaningful. She was visited by her mother, she felt her mother there. And her mother, she and her mother had a complicated relationship. And the time that they spent, seem to bring some reconciliation at the end of life. And then and I write about this in my book, actually, there’s a point at which my sisters, and it’s not my sisters, it’s my older sister, I had one of the sisters that died one, when I was three and a half, my older sister was right before her seventh birthday. And my younger sister, the day of the fire was literally her second birthday. So she died on her second birthday. So my mother at the end of life for a while and it just lifeless for just out of the blue, in the evening would be visited by my older sister. And so the first time this happened, I was with my mother. And we were sitting together and you know, interest, kinda at the end of the day. And Sue was really kind of tucking her in, if you will, for the day, she’s, you know, no energies, you’re very tired, right? And, you know, my mother seeing my sister and became very distraught, I mean, physically distraught, like, almost like she was in physical pain. And what disturbed her was that the older sister was there. But the younger sister who had died on her second birthday was not there. And it was extremely disruptive to her. And so I’m going through my, my, my mind trying to think, you know, what can I offer here? What can I do here? Because she’s just like, physically bent over like, she’s in physical pain. And so I just said, Oh, mama, you know, little kids, she’s probably just off playing, you know. And the goal was not to anyway, minimize what was happening, because I could see what she was seeing. She was looking in a very specific place, she was seeing my older sister as a child, I wondered in my head at the time, Victoria wondered, what does this scene look like to my mother, because she’s seeing my older sister who’s just before her seventh birthday, and here’s her 40 something year old, you know, middle child, right at that point, you know, what do we look like to her. But as soon as I offer that, and she thought about that, she calmed down. And then she didn’t talk to my older sister, but there was just this quiet and she, and she just walked away feeling or had this feeling that my older sister was okay. And then she felt loved. And that was really comforting to her. And then my sister just kind of disappeared. And this happened for a while for, you know, really a couple of weeks. And then just as mysteriously, she stopped being visited by my sister, she never did see my younger sister. But somehow she came to terms that she was just off playing and that somehow the interaction with you know, whatever my older sister was, in that moment, whatever real is, you know, was very real for her. set her mind at ease, and it was a great gift. And it was not someone said, Oh, well, maybe it’s her mess. It was not her meds, you know, I don’t know what it is. Is it the mind? Is it the Spiritual World, I just one of the beauties of being at this stage of my life is it’s like, cares, whatever it was, it was real for her. And, and it was healing for her at a time that she really really needed that. Feeling things were okay after so many years of them not being okay.
Victoria Volk 24:36
And the how that is helpful for you to and your healing and for many families who get to experience that with their loved ones, right. That’s and I think like Dr. Chris Kerr said in that episode, too, he said, you know, we medicalize dying, we medicalize dying, and when we medicalize dying, we robbed people of the opportunity to you not keep them comfortable, but don’t rob them of the opportunity to have these very lucid experiences that really step like, set their soul at ease, really, it can help their release.
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 25:15
Right, right. And I think it’s also a gift for you, if you let your mind be open. I mean, I’ve certainly had people. And I work in in charitable and philanthropic end of life planning. So I’ve worked with a lot of people at the end of their life who are trying to do some like charitable and estate type planning. But we’re also in a time now have of what I call kind of a good death movement, right? Where people are very consciously thinking about what they want that end of lifetime to be like, I think the COVID pandemic has brought new light to that, and people realizing what they don’t want. So they start thinking about what they do. But having worked with so many people over the years, who are in that end of life are nearing that end of lifetime. And the experiences they’ve had, and I’ve talked with people are like, Oh, Dad’s going crazy. Again, he’s thinking this, and he’s thinking this, and I’m like, don’t try to correct him. lean into it. This is real for him. And when you try to tell him, no dad sounds, so is dead, or, no, that’s not really here, you’re hallucinating, or we need to scale back your meds. People are well intended, but it doesn’t help that person at all. I’ve never seen any time where that helps. And if anything, it can drive people into I am I again, I’m not I’m not a psychiatrist, or psychologist, I just know what I’ve witnessed and experienced. And that is, when you try to tell people that these things are for you just make them feel a little crazy. And like they’re like they’re dying wrong. I mean, that’s just that that’s like that would be the crazy thing is to have people somehow think they’re doing their own and the lifetime, wrong, because you can’t and you know, the fact that we can’t explain what these things are, or we’re going to come up with an explanation doesn’t really matter. It’s for them, it really helps.
Victoria Volk 27:02
I also think, too, it’s why it’s so important that before you get to that point with a loved one who is sick or dying, or before you find yourself in that situation where you’re by bedside, it’s so important to have addressed what is incomplete for you with that relationship, because I think, you know, it can be a less than loving relationship, or it can be a super duper loving relationship almost to the point of codependency. And then you’re just holding on and holding tight with, you know, with the grip that let’s do anything and everything to stop this from happening. And it really is dishonouring the natural process. And yeah, so there’s so many different ways we could dig into that topic even more the end of life is something that Yeah, I haven’t really fully explored yet as an end of life doula, I’m not even sure what that’s going to look like for me. But education is a definite cornerstone of that. Just that’s why I started this podcast to is just education, grief, because so many don’t even recognize grief in themselves. But it shows up in all kinds of ways.
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 28:12
Well, because grief when people think of grief, they tend to compartmentalize it to just mean sadness, or longing or whatever. But it’s this kaleidoscope, I mean, absolute kaleidoscope of emotions, physical sensations, thought patterns, it’s so many things. So you get, you know, so sometimes people will say, and I can think of several people I’ve worked with over the years who think in my book, I write about this one artist who’s really funny, she’s really quickly but she’s like, Oh, I’m so past grief, you know, over her mother dying. But then all the three years after her mother died, all these weird things started happening in her life that she couldn’t make sense of. And, you know, I think we came to the conclusion was she she was still grieving, and they’re still things she needed to deal with, you know, that she just hadn’t really dealt with. And they were showing up in multiple ways that you wouldn’t think that screen. It’s like, Yeah, I think that probably is part of your grief, you know, so. Absolutely. Absolutely.
Victoria Volk 29:07
Yeah. So tell us a little bit about your book.
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 29:10
Ah, well, you know, it’s interesting. I, you know, a little over a year ago, I started writing, I decided to write a book. And it wasn’t something I had really planned to do. But I had been really just paying attention to the people I was working with in my work and how they were struggling with COVID and the seeming randomness of this invisible virus that was making some people very sick and others not so much. And that, you know, initially the deaths were very terrible. I mean, at one point, I think in April of 2020, the people that were going into the hospital in New York, if they were over 65 and put on a ventilator, they had a 95% chance of dying. 90 now, things have gotten a lot better since then, we’ve learned so much. There’s more therapies, there’s all kinds of things, but that point I literally had older people that I was working with who said, I want to add something into my Advanced Directive. Because if I get this thing, I don’t want to go to the I just want something that puts me to sleep. I don’t want to go that way without my loved ones around me. And, and so I think so I’m having all these kinds of conversations with people. And then right before people believed in COVID, I mean, initially, there was like, Oh, you have to go to China to get it. If you did, this probably not a thing, right. And I gotten sick on a business trip. In Seattle, right around the time, Seattle was determined to have community spread. Long story short, I, whether or not I had, it’s not clear, I didn’t have flu, because I was tested for that. And the early when I finally was able to get a test, because there was almost no test here, it was a really early version. And I was actually the first person in this one area to get tested. So you know, I’m not even sure how accurate at that point, they could be accurate, and inaccurate both ways. But I was very sick for about a month. And so you’re laying there watching all of this unfold, and you’re hearing interviews with people. And you’re, and I like to read a little bit, you know, beyond just the typical what comes on your media, you know, news channel or comes up in a feed on something. And so I’m picking up these stories in strange places of people having what seems like COVID, even though supposedly, they never been to China, or at that point that France, you know, started spread out. But the fear that was there and fear across all age ranges, and the sudden feeling that, oh, my gosh, this could happen to me, this could happen to somebody I know. So writing the book for me was about.
And of course, you feel a little egotistical, but I felt like I this had been such a part of my life, it’s like, I’m really good at that. I’ve dealt with it for so many different ways I’ve dealt with it in my career, I helped raise funds for the first pet loss support Hotline at a veterinary school early in my career. So I thought maybe I can offer something to help people navigate this some actual practices and some storytelling, so people don’t feel all alone. And then my husband is in his end of lifetime. So, you know, the title is grieving as a field guide for living with loss without losing yourself. And the title really works on multiple levels. Because in some ways, you know, I’m kind of grieving, the end of what I know is going to be my own relationship with my husband, and he’s still with me, which is wonderful. But we know day by day, it’s it can happen at any time, right? That’s always been true for all of us. Right. But when someone gets older, and when they have a very major illness, you know, it just brings it into such focus. So the book was about, you know, not only, you know, you write about something, you get better at it yourself, and you understand it better yourself. So my goal was to help others to kind of help myself through some difficult challenges. And to just to just offer some practices, because I know for myself that there are a lot of really good grief books out there. But I myself when I was looking for different therapies or strategies, I felt so often there was no how to, you know, there were stories to read about there was talk therapy, but there was never like, what are some specific things I could do to try to take a break from this, and I had figured those out, at least for me, may not work for everybody, but I wanted to share those. So that’s really what the book is about. And I gotta tell you, Victoria, it’s just, you feel a little egotistical, like what do I really have to offer. But you know, since that time, I’ve had some amazing outreach from some of my readers, telling me about how the book has helped them. I had somebody come up in my Facebook, and I’m not a big Facebook person. But you know, she’s in Vietnam, and she’s not only dealing with, you know, grieving a longer term loss with her parents. But Vietnam has been having some very difficult challenges. And from what she described pretty horrific challenges with COVID-19. I recently popped up that one of my books, reviews on Amazon was from someone who lost a about a 50 day old infant, many years ago and has been struggling all these years, even though she has other children, and his mood clearly move forward in her life, but she’s still been struggling and found, you know, not to me, it’s not about my ego, but to the way she described the impact of my book on her. It’s like, you know what, something happened to me tomorrow, at least I know, I helped somebody, I helped a few somebodies and that’s what it was about. That is what it’s about for me.
Victoria Volk 34:25
I love the title too, by the way, would you say that you feel you’ve healed much of your grief.
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 34:34
I do. I mean, I think grief is an interesting thing. Because in some ways, it is like a really bad wound and that you have some kinds of wounds that will completely heal, right. They’ll completely heal. There’s no scar, there’s no damage to a tissue or bone. And then there’s more severe wounds where you’ll have a scar that’ll be there’ll be with you. Or I think about Anne Lamott, the writer who talks about you know when you lose Somebody sometimes it’s, you know, you’re going to move forward, but it’s going to be like having, it’s like having your leg broken. And when it rains, you know, you have an achy leg that day because of this break that you endured. I think she’s right about that. I think for me, I’ve healed it. But it is like a wound. It is like a broken leg that aches when you know, when the weather gets cold and damp, or a wound that sometimes just opens up again. And I do think it’s that way for most people. So I feel that from the standpoint of, is there joy in my life, you bet even on the worst days, I know how to find it. But there will always there’s always something there because the loss does really go along with you.
Victoria Volk 35:41
Living in in it as we speak, you know, with COVID, and your husband, what are some things, some tips and things maybe some that you include in your book, you don’t have to give away the whole book, but a few things that you would share with the listeners today?
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 35:59
Well, for me, what really helped me get out of what I called that two years of lost Limbo after Ruth suicide and my mother’s death and moving across country and starting, you know, a new life someplace else. Um, you know, I struggled for two years and one night I went, I lived there, we bought a house that had some river frontage, I was very fortunate. And I, when you lose, when you’re in grief, a lot of your routines and habits get broken. And that’s one of the things that I reflected back on that I think gets overlooked even, even in sometimes very, really excellent grief. psychotherapy, for instance, is the dailiness of our love how love is a habit and how, when you lose somebody, your days really do get broken, because there were times that you did things or times if even if they weren’t present, that you are thinking about them at certain times, or doing things all those rituals, habits and routines tied to them are now broken. And part of it is trying to figure out what those are, sometimes people don’t realize how their days are broken. Part of it’s figuring out how to bridge those so that they don’t get become giant grief holes, because I think we’ve all had those moments, I was talking to someone recently who told me on a very certain day, very certain time, she can be doing great all week. But when that day and time comes, she’s integratable because that’s when her mother died. She’s at least figured that out. So then you can start to plan around it. Right. So what helped me is when I was really struggling, and I had these broken days, and I hadn’t yet figured out why I couldn’t get it together, you know, why was I still struggling so much after two years, which I later found out is actually not terribly unusual. You know, I mean, it’s not the ideal. I mean, I would certainly Life is short. So I would certainly encourage trying to get to joy sooner rather than later. But the one habit that wasn’t broken is I always locked the doors every night before I went to bed. And I do write about this in the book. And one night, I just decided to wander out to the river. I was definitely having a blue day and I just wandered out to the river. And I was just standing there in the darkness. And it was very quiet. But I could hear the water coming over the stones in the river. Sometimes you can actually hear voices in the water. And it’s not like there’s really actually it’s just the way the sound of the water moving through the rocks and the shifts and you could hear birds shifting up in the trees, you know, and their night roofs and it was there was Miss so the just feeling and I was just really taking it all in and then I decided to go back and lock the doors and go to bed. Well as I was walking back to the house Victoria, I realized in that few moments, it couldn’t have been more than three or five minutes I stood by the river. I felt okay. I didn’t feel sad. I didn’t feel brilliant. I mean, you know, I wasn’t my world was I wasn’t suddenly cured or healed. But I felt okay. And so I realized I had taken a break from grief. And so then I started thinking I need to do this, I need to do more of this. And I started implementing what I call tiny come back to your senses rituals, because for me, it was just coming back to my own body, my own senses, being so caught up in the sounds, the sights, the smells, well, how I how I felt in that moment, that it turned on the volume on my mind a little bit because I think our minds are great for healing, but they can also pull us into some dark places. And I just got absorbed. And so what I will always encourage people is just the simplest thing at all is just to stop and breathe. And you don’t have to be a meditator. You don’t have to be in mindfulness. Those things help. But you can literally just take three minutes get an egg timer, an old fashioned egg timer if you need to, and just sit and pay attention to your bread or I like to tell people pick one cents and cent cent your sense of scent is often a good one because it involves breathing. Although a scent is something that really triggers you because your beloved loves, you know lavender or something you might want to choose hearing or taste. But just really immerse yourself in that sense for just a few minutes. And you really can’t take a break from grief. And once you start taking more breaks and make those breaks larger. Joy can start to come back. The joy is there. I really believe It’s always there, but you can invite it back in. And I will say, just really quickly, I want to define what I mean when I say joy, because it’s not like you’re a bully, and you’re gonna kick your heels up, you know, the, you know, all is good forever. To me, Joy is about feeling connected to your own life, feeling connected to the moment, feeling like your life has meaning and purpose, even if you don’t know what it is. But if you just belong to the moment into your life, and to be a part of the world, to me, when you have that, that’s really where joy starts. And that’s what those little grief breaks allow you to do. So that’s what I would encourage is just get back to your senses for a few minutes today.
Victoria Volk 40:39
I actually did that before our call today. My back patio is just one of my favorite spots because the birds and so I went and I sat on the concrete and just close my eyes and I just felt the sun on me and the breeze and heard the birds and the barking dog then ate the neighbor’s barking dog. But it really is just finding that sense of peace within ourselves. It it doesn’t have to be this pressure to feel joy, but just a sense of peace. That’s with that comes from within. And like you said, it’s not you can’t you it’s not just gonna happen on its own. You have to curate that. And so yeah, I think that’s a perfect, perfect tip to give because I’ve I’ve worked a lot in working on that myself, like just, I do believe I do meditate daily, but break in middle the day, 10 minutes,
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 41:35
Way more powerful. I’ve had people say, Oh, it sounds so hokey. You know, and I tell a few stories in the book, one in particular that you know, up and coming executive who just was go go go, but every night would come home and just sob as she said sob into a glass of wine, because she was missing her brother so and didn’t feel like she had time to do anything. But we all can find just even three minutes. And it sounds hokey and Pollyanna ish as I’ve been accused of both those until you do it until you have that moment in that you had today of being in the sun. And you’re feeling that sun. And you’re also hearing things and even if what you know, you’re not even judging the dog barking, you’re just like, you might not have ever even noticed that. It’s just all these things that you that happen all the time. I mean, we have sensory input coming in at us right and left all the time. And of course, if we tried to remember everything and pay attention to everything, we go a little bonkers, but in the moment to really just feel that son and be paying attention to all of that. It just slows everything down. And you realize that the world is just okay. And it’s still going on. And you’re here. I mean, you’re here and you’re feeling it. So? Yeah, it’s not it’s way more powerful than it sounds. It often sounds too simple to be true, but it works very well.
Victoria Volk 42:48
Well, it takes a conscious choice. You can’t just say, yeah, you have to choose it. Because like I said, it’s not going to spontaneously happen on its own. You can chase sadness, and sorrow, which are valid feelings. But do you want to chase those feelings? Or do you want to chase, solace and peace? And feeling good? Just ask yourself what would feel good? Right now? Exactly. My face. And that’s why I chased it. I sat down and I just felt the warm sun on me. Because pretty soon it’s going to the leaves are turning Oh, the North Dakota winters are long. So yeah, savor it while you can write. I’m curious, too. You’ve given some great tips. But what are some things that you found helpful in ways that others supported you? And have supported you now with, with your husband and everything?
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 43:42
Yeah, I think one of the things that has surprised me at different points in my life is when we think about being supportive for others, I think the two things I would say is, it’s very easy for all of us to feel like we want certain kinds of support for even if we can’t name it, like you don’t realize you have, you have an expectation until the expectation isn’t met. And then you realize that there was an expectation there. I think without realizing it, when we’re grieving, there is a sense of what we think we want from other people. And sometimes people immediately round us can give us that, and sometimes they can’t. And so there’s two things I would say about that, that I think are really helpful. One is it, it’s very easy when you’re grieving and anger and disappointment and loss. There’s so many emotions that go with grieving. But if you let yourself get caught up with, you know, you had someone on your podcast that talked about a friend who just wasn’t there for her, like radically not there for her. Um, you can get so tied up with and I’m not reflecting on the person you’re interviewing, but I’m just saying I’ve done so many people that’ll get so tied up and that becomes part of the grief, being angry, being disappointed being hurt all those things. You just pull yourself down deeper into the hole. Sometimes the reason people like at the end of my mother’s life, the person that you There are two people in her life two women friends she cared about deeply one of them was so there for her, one of them was so not there for her. But that’s because she had such an empathic personality, she could not personally bear it. So I would say, express radical empathy. And just say, You know what, I don’t understand why this person, not here, it upsets me, it hurts me honor it, acknowledge that that’s how you feel. But then I’d say the best thing you can do is let go of that and just assume for whatever reason, she or he cannot be there for me, and move on. Related to that is accepting that sometimes the people immediately around you are not the ones that can support you. Sometimes what you really need are other kinds of people that you would not think about. And so for me, like when I was really struggling with my mom, it was actually my mother in law who didn’t live near me. But we’ve talked frequently by phone, who I felt was one of the most supportive people to me at the time, in dealing with my loss of my mother and an understanding why this, why is it taking so long to read my mother in law, got it in a way that was helpful. The other thing is, you know, is sometimes being a part of a group of strangers that are on their own loss journeys. One of the things that I’ve started as a result of my book, and people wanting help, in implementing, because it’s one thing to have the information, it’s another thing to actually implement it and figure out how to integrate it into your life. So you know, one of the so I’m rolling out something that’s essentially a part workshop part course, if you will, smart, you know, sort of small group experience, so that people can support each other and the don’t, they’re coming together don’t know each other, but they’re on loss support paths, or are different loss paths where they can support each other in ways that maybe other people right in their immediate environment can’t. And sometimes people can talk much more openly about their loss with someone that’s a perfect or an imperfect stranger than they can with someone like a lot of mothers I find, and maybe you can relate to this, have a hard time talking about a loss, because they need to feel strong for their children or their spouse. And so sometimes it’s easier for them to talk with someone that’s not part of their family where they can really let their hair down and just, you know, express what’s going on and then have accountability. So if you say, I’m going to start doing the thing, where I go out every day in the sun on my back porch at 10 o’clock, so that I can start getting those breaks, and then you let your life get busy. Or you’re in that kind of grief hole. You have someone that can kind of say, Hey, are you out on the patio? Did you do it? Are you out there, let’s go out in the patio together, I’ll get on my patio, you go on your others. So that would be the other thing I would say is look for people that might not be in your environment that can support you or understand you and help you feel okay, and help you stay on your own path to getting better.
Victoria Volk 47:48
Absolutely. I agree with all of that. What has grief taught you?
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 47:54
Oh my gosh, Victoria, so many things. At the very I let one of the things I like to do is go with the very first word that pops into my head, which can be dangerous. I suppose if I’m having a I haven’t had a word nerds, or sometimes quirky words popping in my head. But the first word that popped into my head, when you ask that question is resilience. Because there are a few experiences. And you know, sometimes we like to say certain losses are worse than other losses, I really like to stay away from that because somebody losing a grandparent, it can be actually way worse than losing their dad. It’s hard to imagine, but I’ve witnessed it. It has to do with that relationship and the dailiness of that relationship and how broken those days are. But what I would say is, so whatever that when you go through a really tough period of grief, whatever that grief is for, for whatever that loss by name and via death, that might be a divorce, it might be you know, your parents got divorced. And now you don’t see your dad, very often your mom very often, when you go through that, and you are able to come out on the other side, you’ve learned some things, you’ve learned some skills for the next one of those that comes along. Because you know, we know there’s always going to be another something coming along, you don’t look for it, you don’t invite it. But you can become more resilient and kind of take care of yourself better so that when the next thing comes, you’re able to not get stuck as long or hurt as long because I do believe in the sciences there that the longer you stay in pain, it can become a way of life, it can become a new way of life. And then it gets harder and harder to actually get back to a place of wellness and feeling joy and peace and those kinds of things. So resilience is definitely the thing that pops into my mind. And it’s a it’s a code word for some because I know in some situations, you know, resilience suggests like Oh, Buck up, you know, come on, be a man be a woman. Yeah, that’s not what I mean at all to me. And I even define it in my book so that we’re talking about the same thing because sometimes even in the work environment, resilience is used to say, you know, pull yourself up by your bootstraps and let’s move on. It’s like an excuse for not granting people space to To be human basically is what it means. But resilience, what I mean is really, and it’s and was often described as bouncing back. And I, I gotta say I disagree with that definition because I don’t think coming back from grief is ever a violence. I’ve never just bounced back, and you’re not really bouncing back, because you’re like, you’re not the same person you were before that event, you know, when somebody dies part of who you are that relationship, I mean that physical presence is gone. And you have to figure out a new way of living without that person in their in their previous form, you know, we can take them with us in a different way. So really, resilience to me is really about, you know, knowing how you develop the skills and mindsets to help you take whatever’s coming in to know to know in your bones, that you will get through this, and that you have an ability to, to get to a new place is going to be different, but where you can feel good again.
Victoria Volk 50:54
Yeah, I’ve said this many times on my podcast, and I’ll say it again, because it came up and that was your word. But when people I think the word resilience in used in reference to children who’ve experienced grief and loss and traumas children, I think that’s almost a way for adults to let themselves off the hook. You know, when they say children, oh, they’re resilient, they’ll bounce back, like you said, they’re resilient. But children don’t choose resilience. Resilience is something that it’s they either, it’s a survival mechanism, really. And so you know, this being a child who’s experienced who was in a home with a lot of grief, and was raised with grief in the home and had personal losses yourself as a child, you lost your sisters to don’t forget that, you know, like people can forget that, like you had a loss as well. And so I am curious, how did the lack of communication around your loss, your mother’s lost the loss of your sisters out did that, especially in the teen years? Because that can be a really trying time for a lot of people. But how did that impact your school years?
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 52:11
Yeah, I mean, gosh, probably in so many ways, including ways that I probably can’t even articulate or even understand myself. Because you really even now the stage of my life, I still process pieces of it. And I still have elements of memory that I kind of come back and look at again. And as time goes by, and you have new experiences and memories, you know, that also changes how you remember what you remember, it’s, it’s there’s like a layering on effect. So it’s, you know, you just keep evolving, I will say by the time I got to high school, my father was also a field engineer for several years in my life. So before my sister and brother came along later, sort of the, you know, afterwards, right much later, I think was nine when my sister was born, and then 15 When my brother was born. But there was a period where kinda reminds me of me leaving my home in the east to go back west, you know, where my father got a job as a field engineer. And so we put all of our stuff in storage, we were living in St. Louis, then that’s where I was originally born. And instead of just leaving my mom and I there, while he went off to all these job sites, he bought a travel trailer and we went with them from place to place, it was actually a really good experience for my mom, because it got her away from again, just getting away from a very dark, place and time. But what it meant for me is when you’re constantly moving, and sometimes you’d like I went to three different first grades and several different second grades, and there’s periods where my mom would train me or teach me, you know, while we were traveling, or because we were going to be someplace long enough to really be enrolled in school. So I would say one of the things that made that complicating as you learn early on, because I’d had lost that every time you start to make friends and then you’re going to move ouch, ouch, that doesn’t feel good. So you stop really trying to do that. And so it’s interesting that I’ve spent a career working one to one with people because most of my life up until, you know, really into my 30s I was not just an introvert but painfully shy. And when we would move to a new place I just stopped really even trying to connect and so I didn’t as a young person build a lot of those relationship skills. I don’t know I still to this day don’t have a lot of close friendships. I know a lot of people because of my work but so I think you know, it definitely shaped that and when you add in this sort of moving thing you know, it has made it has made me for up until my 30s resist getting really close to people because if you lose them, it doesn’t feel good. And it was until I got further along into my life that I realized that that’s not a fun way to live either. You know, granted if you don’t love no problem with grief, right? You don’t have it right so you know that you so when you start loving and caring about people You just have to accept that the grief goes with it. But once you’ve developed some some skill sets, that happens, and when you talk about even resilience, you know, I always say, I really couldn’t agree with you more, I think it’s, we do expect children to, like, somehow they don’t understand and everything’s gonna be okay. And the problem is because they don’t actually understand and their brains don’t have all the different inputs and knowledge bases, they can come to some pretty bizarre conclusions, which I did at times about, you know, my self worth, did I cause their death because So, uh, you know, I had a, I broken my sister’s crayon that day, and you know, and she was mad at me is, you know, so and then she went away Is it because I broke a crayon, there’s all these things that kind of happened with that. And then I would also say, if you’re in a really bad place, it’s kind of like resilience in parts of the developing world that are dealing with war, or extreme poverty, there’s only so far resilience will take you with, even within intentionality, if the environment that you’re in is constantly, you know, difficult abuse of, you know, not really supporting, you know, a full, rounded, healthy human being. So it has its limits. At some point, if you’re in a really bad space, you have to pull your your hands unless you can get out of that. And some people can, some people will live their whole lives in a situation where they can never be all that they could be just because of the nature of their situation. And so they can do the best they can do. But there is a limit to where any of this will take you as well.
Victoria Volk 56:23
You know, when I think of resilience to it, in terms of COVID, many, many people are having to kind of dig in that resilience well within them. I mean, this because we as we spoke briefly before we started recording, it seems like where is the end? You know, it’s like many people asking themselves, when is the end of this?
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 56:46
And the gravy? Yep. Yeah. And you know, and there’s this tendency to, you know, because, throughout across the country, and across the world, people have responded to the situation, it’s bubbled up at different places at different times earlier, in the pandemic, it was really no big deal where I live. And now, you know, at this point, we are a year and three quarters into the pandemic. And my area is, you know, has one of the highest case positives in testing and we had the worst month last month, even though we’re you know, a while other areas, people are out, living fairly normally. So I think that’s the other thing is, is how important it is to approach all of this from a place of empathy, to realize that some people the whole time, as we talked about earlier, before, our conversation now had to get up every day, no matter what’s going on, and put on a mask and go do what they’d always done, you know what it’s like, I always think of the folks working in the grocery store every time even to this day, when I go in, I come out with my groceries, you know, I mean, who knew you’d go grocery shopping and have to have a remote space around you. And so I always say thank you to the people that have been there throughout all of this to make sure I could get ahead and let us you know, by the same token, there were others because of serious health issues, their own health issues continue. And my husband, I are still very, very isolated relative to everyone else we know because, you know, there’s some health issues that we have to be uber careful about. And we know that the virus could be probably fatal at this point. So, you know, that’s the thing I think is important is to realize whatever is going on in your world, you know, somebody else has a whole different, it’s like the invisible back of rocks, we all have an invisible bag of rocks we’re carrying around, we don’t know what’s in that. So to really approach it with empathy without knowing when people say or do things that seem opposite or irritating or don’t agree with our beliefs. It’s probably because they’re coming from actually a very similar place a fear of concern about well being. And you know, COVID put mortality front and center for everyone at all age ranges. It’s not just something off out there happening to other people, we know, oh, my gosh, this could be me. So what does that mean?
Victoria Volk 58:58
Just as there’s no hierarchy of grief, or a loss, a type of loss, there’s no hierarchy of fear either. You know, it’s like your fear is no worse than my fear. My fear is no worse than your fear. And I really, me personally, I, I honestly, I don’t watch a lot of the news and I don’t, I have made a conscious choice and effort to not worry about COVID Me, for me, personally, my body like I am not going to let myself succumb to that fear. Because the fear itself is making people sick too. And I just I don’t, I don’t show up. I can’t show up with you. I can’t show up in my work that I do with my clients and grief in their grief. If I’m sitting here, living just consumed consumed by fear, personal well being those little breaks we were talking about sitting in the sun, sitting outside in the darkness they The Night thanking the day thanking the son thanking, just giving thanks, right? To wake up, right and maybe building in some routine to help bring some normalcy as much normalcy as you can. Just to get through another day
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 1:00:18
Routines really help, I mean, we tend to think of routines as staid and boring, but they I mean, I think that’s one of the things again, that happens with any kind of loss or grief. And there’s just such a sense of loss, because our, just our loss of our way of life, loss of ordinary, the ordinary ability to look at a face and see their whole face, you know, is a loss for a lot of people, right? So I think, taking, you’re having some routine, and people will say, Well, I have a hard time sticking to a routine, there’s always a few things, it’s like, you know that for me, it was locking the doors at night. The other thing that’s No, no matter what is happening, I make a cup of tea in the morning. And so one of the ways I started getting better, was trying to add in that sort of grief break, you know, after I was having my cup of tea, or as I was had or turn that type of cup of tea into an experience, not just slugging down a quick cup of tea, you know, to really experience everything the sense what it looks like, in the glass, how the warmth feels in my hands, you know, sniffing it, you know, all of it, the sound of it going down my throat, and watching the steam go up and just, you know, disappear into the, you know, to the sky. So finding it, people can find a place where their routine still kind of works, where there’s something that they just almost always do. And then just start by building even a few minutes. And it sounds crazy, it doesn’t sound like it would do that much. But as you know, it just, it can make a huge difference in how the rest of your day goes.
Victoria Volk 1:01:43
I have a morning ritual, I get up about 5:45 and I meditate for about 20 minutes. And then I do my gratitude journal. And there’s some other things I do. I’ve set my pot coffee pot the night before. So it’s I grab my cup and I come down my my Zen Den, I call it and you know, it’s people might say, Well, nothing’s happening. I meditate for 10 minutes and nothing’s happening and the monkey doesn’t shut up. And I think with grief, the monkeys have like tambourine. So it’s like really loud. Yeah, there’s
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 1:02:14
More monkeys going nuts. Yeah,
Victoria Volk 1:02:16
Yeah, all the more reason to like, just sit in nature for a little bit. But I cannot tell you though, after I think I’m on day 39, you’re not going to notice anything profound, right? You might get like this intuitive hit or this intuition or the sense something like you need to do that day or reach out to somebody or whatever, you might get a thought that comes to you. But I think what happens, more net, like naturally unfolds is that you aren’t as reactive to people as you would have been before, or as you used to be. And I definitely feel that true for myself. Like I’m not as easily provoked. And I think, especially in times of COVID, which can happen very easily amongst family friends. Yeah, I think it’s so important to latch on to something that can help bring some I really, it sends a peace within yourself.
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 1:03:16
And that that reactivity thing, I mean, that’s a really important place to think about because it is very easy to be reactive to just, and again, you’re often reacting out of fear, or some somebody pulled your trigger, whatever that trigger is. But it’s also that ability, that when you start to feel yourself going down that path, it gives you a greater ability to pull yourself back so that you don’t get stuck in that place. I know just for me and doing my tiny come back to your senses ritual, I do have a process where before I start that ritual, I take a moment to check in with my emotions, to do a quick little body scan, like what’s actually going on in my body, what’s feeling kind of cranky, or crinkly or not great. And then after I’m done with my ritual to just have a little check in and just say how am I feeling right now, that also does help bring that sense of momentum. I feel you get that feeling a little bit faster. Because if you can realize I actually do feel a little bit better, you know, and that little glimmer, I think kind of motivates you for the next time and the next time so it really, yeah, I think we’re, we’re on the same very much the same path.
Victoria Volk 1:04:20
Absolutely. So what gives you the most joy and hope for your future?
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 1:04:25
And most joy and hope for my future? Well, quite a few things. I think for me, it’s wanting to feel like I can be helpful to other people. I feel like you know, we all have different things going on in our lives, but we also have something to give and that even though I’m many ways introverted, I love a lot of time and solitude. For me, finding some way to help others on their journey, whatever that is to help them be able to be more of what they have the potential to be to help them unlock their own potential anyway that I can really help people live more Fully, whatever that means to them. It’s not about my way that to them. That is what really gives me joy and hope for the future and feeling like, you know, you take what you learn, and you pass it forward in a meaningful way.
Victoria Volk 1:05:13
My art for my podcast is me on an island with a megaphone, right? Because you feel like you’re on an island have one by yourself, like, isolated, you know? Exactly. And no one’s listening to me. That’s why I need this megaphone. So you have a megaphone, and you have the world’s attention. What do you want to scream to the world about grief? What’s your message?
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 1:05:33
Think about that for just a quick moment here. I think what I would say is that grief and joy coexist, you have to believe that and you have to know it, then that in the muck, no matter how deep your grief is, to look for and find that opening, where joy is still hiding in that moment, it’s entirely possible to be in the depths of grief. And yet to have to go back to you in the moment of sunshine on your patio, that moment of feeling, okay, feeling part of life and the world and knowing that you’re going to get through it. So I think I would just want people to really know that joy is always there, it doesn’t feel like it at times, but you can look for it, you can try to take that break, and create those little breaks in grief that let just a little bit of light in that. And again, whether we call it joy or peace, as you have been saying. That’s I just think so often people don’t believe that there are some Facebook groups that I you know, follow. And so often people will feel like, I will always be sad, I will always be in this place. And someone recently typed in everyone talks about their neck. No, I’ll never get better. Is that really true? I don’t know if I can go on living, if that’s the truth. Some people don’t. I would say the vast majority of people do, but there is an element. And it’s what you said earlier, Victoria, there is a degree of choice. And even though we might choose it in the moment, it seems really hard. And each day, it’s not easy. If you just can believe in your bones, that there, there is something better for you. And you just have to try to find a way to get a little break in that grief. So it can come in and find you and you can find it.
Victoria Volk 1:07:17
That was my story I over 30 years, right? I thought that was my story. I’m just going to feel like this for the rest of my life. This is This sucks. You know, this sucks. It sucks. You feel stuck, you’ve no you’re not living to your full potential. I felt like I was meant for more felt like this. This is just how it is I am destined to be in this space of stuckness and suckiness forever, like Graceville you know, I was stuck there. And but I knew in my bones that I was meant for more. But I knew I was not living up to my full fullest potential. And so it is really just not letting go of hope that there is something there for you to help you. For me. It was Grief Recovery. It changed my life. It’s led to this podcast, it’s led to Reiki, it’s opened so many doors for me. It’s why I’m talking to you today, literally, you know. So Chase, that feeling of feeling good. You want to feel good, find what makes you feel good. And it’s not a sturb. Like we say in grief recoveries short term energy relieving behaviors, it’s not alcohol, it’s not going to be the drugs, it’s not going to be the sex, it’s not going to be the man or the book or the fantasy world or whatever. It’s actually action action, moving yourself forward through it, working through it by taking action. That’s how you widen that gap. So I that was
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 1:08:47
Actually a key component in my book as well. But you know, there is while you can do while there are the hummingbird Grievers that Go Go, go go go. That’s a different that’s trying to outrun grief right at times. So I couldn’t agree more that it is, you know, finding that intentionality to take some action to create whatever that is, and it’s gonna be different for different people. I mean, that’s, you know, what, what may have worked for you is gonna be different for me different for someone else, but the action is really just sort of waiting. Like, I have to say one of my pet peeves is when people say, Well, time heals. Like the time is time. I know people who have who are still, you know, 30 years. That’s a long time. That’s it. You know, time passed, and you didn’t you know, you know, that’s why I say you know, we have this one and only heartbroken but still beautiful life. And so regardless of what we believe after this life, the only thing we really know for sure, and I just hate to see anybody not make the most of whatever it is that is meaningful for them. And the reason that they’re here and to feel that sense of purpose. So I’m so glad that you found something that created this moment of being here talking with each other and seeing your face smile
Victoria Volk 1:09:53
And you too lead to your work. I think our passions in life is all about often are often born out of our deepest sorrows.
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 1:10:03
It’s very true in working in philanthropy, people don’t often realize how much philanthropy giving, whether that’s volunteering, giving financial gifts. Random Acts of Kindness often will come out of people’s love stories, things, you know, sadnesses things that were difficult, and they want to make something better. No, not only honor somebody like a lot of giving, it’s a way to try to make sense out of something that’s senseless, basically, you know, that you do I mean, you just you do find your way.
Victoria Volk 1:10:33
Yeah. There’s hope. Don’t lose hope. Absolutely. So where can people it first? Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 1:10:41
I think we covered a lot of ground here today. Victoria, I just want to say thank you so much for this conversation. I, I hope that your listeners find some things that we’ve talked about that will serve them in whatever they are trying to work their way through. And just know that there are people that care about them. It may not be obvious right now, but they’re, they’re out there.
Victoria Volk 1:11:02
Absolutely. And where can people reach you if they like to talk to you?
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 1:11:06
Well, I am at poetowl.com. And I will be setting up a special landing page for your listeners. So I will get you that link for your notes so that people can I like to create a special place. So when you’re going to a website you’ve never been to before you know, you can see a familiar the podcast cover and just and just know so it will be poet owl.com/grieving voices. And so I will get that set up for your listeners. It’ll have a link to my book and how you can get that it’ll have a link to the workshop that I offer for people trying to work find a way back into their lives after a loss. I think I’ve agreed for assessment. There are a few things but certainly my book, an easy link there of it.
Victoria Volk 1:11:52
And I’ll put all the links to the in the show notes as well. Sounds good. Well, thank you so much for your time today and sharing your wisdom. I very much appreciate it.
Kimberley Pittman-Schulz 1:12:02
I’ve enjoyed it. Yeah, I have enjoyed it. Take care.
Victoria Volk 1:12:06
You too. 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
Educational, Grief, Grief Tips, Growth, Living Unleashed, Mind/Body Wellness, Pespective, Resources |
Covid-19 has stolen so much from so many people and left people with a desire to start a new life. It’s not enough that life poses challenges, many unexpected, then additionally having to deal with the stresses, changes, and losses that Covid brought to many lives. It’s grief on top of grief on top of more grief. The weight of all of this change and loss can feel overwhelming, even for the rich, poor, famous, and person next door – grief doesn’t discriminate. If Covid-19 has brought any light to the world, it’s shown us where the systems in place for mental health are broken and where improvements need to be made. It’s changed how we live and work in the world, and the only way is up from here. It has to be the only way. Anything but is settling for how things are and that’s does nothing to help us collectively recover from the mess it’s left in its wake.
Mental health is a tricky subject to talk about for most people, and it’s hard to admit when you are struggling. A lot of people would rather give their left kidney than explain to someone that they feel as though they are sitting in a dark hole, all alone, and don’t know what to do. I especially felt this way when I was experiencing post-partum depression. Meanwhile, other people aren’t as severe as this, but still not in the best life possible. I’m going to be looking at some of the things that you can do to leave this feeling behind and create a new life (and the perception of it) for yourself. I’m going to share three steps that can help you begin the journey to a new life – alongside the grief. That is if you’re ready to do some inner-work and look at life (and grief) differently.
Awareness
First, you need to understand that you have the ability to change. You need to be able to see that there is an issue that needs to be addressed rather than avoiding or burying it. Most importantly though, you have to want to change, to be better, and move towards the new life that you have been thinking and dreaming about. If you are more attached to the pain out of fear of change, that’s understandable. People would rather be comfortable than venture into the unknown and uncomfortable. I recall many years where I was adamant I was “fine.” We learn how to put on a show and wear a mask of illusion when we’re out with others. Inside, however, it’s a different story.
Becoming aware that you’re sick and tired of being sick and tired, overwhelmed by fear and worry about the physical symptoms in your body that were manifesting is one way people become aware. This was my experience. I never fully dealt with the grief in my life and, after having children and in my 30’s, experiencing post-partum and other life challenges, I found myself experiencing another loss. By that time, I had done a lot of personal development work; even felt “fine” for several years. But, I was far from “fine.” We all have our own “rock bottom.” Even when I was abusing alcohol, nearly got fired from my job, and had my driver’s license suspended, I hadn’t met my “rock bottom.” When I say “rock bottom,” I mean in the sense of grief. Because grief, as I would later learn, is the catalyst for most of the problems in our lives – even the cyclical, repetitious situations we find ourselves in (the toxic relationship, addictions, financial gains, and losses, career change after career change). Grief, as you may have already learned through my work and the content I share, is both the thief of joy and the bearer of many gifts. However, we never see the difference between the two if we refuse to look at it.
Moving beyond the feelings of having no choice and recognizing the lessons grief holds, is what the step of awareness is all about.
Seeking the Right Help – for You
Society has been taught that it’s shameful to seek help – to need help. You may have grown up in a home where you didn’t talk to other people about your problems or issues in the family. Or, you may have never had a safe person in your immediate family growing up who you could go to. Any and all painful emotions were then likely stuffed down or were expressed in unhealthy ways. If you’re reading this, perhaps you have a child that’s struggling. Do you believe you are a safe person your child can go to where they won’t be criticized, analyzed, or judged? If you didn’t have that emulated for you growing up, there’s a good chance you may not know how to be a safe person for others because you never learned how to be. Are some people naturally better listeners and communicators? To a certain degree, yes. But when it comes to grief, we don’t know what we don’t know. We can easily say something that is hurtful or harmful without realizing it or without intending to do so.
So, in seeking help – follow your gut instincts. If you aren’t drawn to a certain mental health professional, friend, or family member, there’s a reason. Not everyone will be able to hold your grief with you, and this is especially so if they haven’t addressed their own. We can only help others to the capacity at which we’ve addressed our own grief.
How do you know if you’ve found the right person to help you? You’ll know when you have – it’s a feeling. Follow the cues of how you feel after you speak with that person initially. Does your body language close up and drawn inward? Do you find yourself not wanting to reveal much at all about yourself? On the flip side, do your shoulders relax, your speech slow, and a sense of calm and hope come over you? The body is always giving us cues and, it’s no different when we’re in the presence of or connecting one-on-one with another person.
Hold on to hope that there is always help available. There are many more resources today than there ever has been; likely some services you’ve never even heard of, too. I am aware there are waiting lists and cost is also a factor for many, too. I personally struggle with this because, although I know the value of Grief Recovery and believe every single person should have access to it, However, I am not in the position at this point in my life where I can give it (and my time) away either. Not only that, I do know that if a griever doesn’t have any “skin in the game,” meaning, they don’t have anything to lose (monetarily), that they are more likely to drop out of the program completely or not put 100% effort into it. I have personally witnessed this – both during my training and otherwise. This avoidance to do the work (with little to no financial attachment) is especially true when the inner-work gets hard – and it does get hard. As hard as it is for me to not give it away or for next to nothing, I know, without a doubt in my mind, I would be doing a griever a great disservice. That being said, I’m not opposed to bartering. If you are interested in Grief Recovery and have a skill or service I would find beneficial to me, please reach out. This may also be true for other mental health service providers, too. Get a little creative with how you can receive what you need while also giving your gifts and talents, too.
Bartering aside, there may also be grant or scholarship programs for which you can apply at certain agencies/businesses. I’m looking into how to implement this for my own business.
Once you find the right help for you, it might be the case that your needs entail medication, it may be heading to rehab for a little while, or include therapy sessions. Help could include all three, but that doesn’t matter as long as you are trying and working toward the new life you envision for yourself. No matter what, listen to your gut instincts when it comes to your mental health.
A Plan To Stay Healthy
The final thing that you are going to need is a plan to stay healthy in the long term. A lot of people find that having a routine helps them manage their life, keep out of overly stressful situations as much as possible, surround themselves with kind and loving people, as well as so much more. Be honest about what you have been through, and tell yourself you won’t be going back there as this will encourage you to stay on track as much as possible.
I personally have learned the importance of doubling down on self-care when life around you is in chaos as of recently. I denied myself self-care, completely stopped meditating after 93 days straight, and completely disregarded my mental, emotional, and physical health. As a result, I ended up getting Covid-19 within two weeks of stopping all of the things that grounded, centered and brought me a sense of peace and security. I don’t think that’s a coincidence. When the chaos ensued with all of the unknowns and uncertainty, the one area of my life where I could have created certainty and security, I didn’t devise a plan to maintain it.
I recently read this quote by James Clear, author of Atomic Habits, and shared by my mentor, Kristin Sherry, which is short but profound…
We don’t rise to our goals, we fall to the level of our systems. – James Clear, Atomic Habits
As an entrepreneur or as a mom that wears many hats while raising a family, I have systems in place that help my home and business run smoothly. However, we fail to recognize the importance of systems, as James Clear suggests, for personal well-being. Think about how you can create systems for success in staying healthy. Maybe, if you are wanting to exercise, you place your workout clothes right beside your bed, have your water bottle already ready to go for the next morning, and your workout planned out so you know what you’re doing before you head to sleep the night before. These are the very steps I take to set myself up for success, by having a system that helps me make better choices. I also don’t start, first thing, with exercise. Instead, I start with 20+ minutes of meditation. This is what I was doing before my self-care went out the window and, what I’ve since learned is that, no matter what, I can’t let go of and especially when life gets challenging. Because, when your cup is empty, it’s empty. You won’t have the motivation or the energy, even if you wanted to, to tackle physical demands, much less emotional ones. Create a plan, have a system in place, and stick to it as if your life depends on it because, in truth, it just might.
I hope that you have found this article helpful, and now see some of the things that you are going to need to do to move forward, towards a new life for yourself. It’s important that you understand the cost of not doing anything to move forward into a life you desire. Mental health is hard, but you don’t have to stay in the dark hole forever, there is a path into the light. Follow where your curiosity and intuition lead you, and when you’re ready to take your life by the horns and create lasting change, reach out to me or someone, but don’t suffer in silence.
As I’ve previously shared on my podcast, Grieving Voices, you’re already suffering; you may as well suffer while moving your feet. You have so much more to lose settling for a life not lived unleashed of suffering.
Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Growth, Pespective, Podcast |
Kristin Sherry | Career Grief and The Gift of Hindsight
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY
Kristin Sherry is a bestselling and award-winning author, creator of YouMap®, a 2020 Career Innovator Award recipient, and she’s also my mentor. Her brilliance is why I am a Certified YouMap® Coach.
If you have been struggling with your life path, career, purpose, or what I like to call – a midlife unraveling, this episode is for you!
Grief is the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations. When it comes to what we spend most of our waking hours doing if we don’t love it, don’t utilize all of our skills, or aren’t valued, grief is often the result.
It’s also for you if you’ve experienced grief of any kind, too. Why? Because, also in this episode, Kristin and I talk about why I include this program with my one-on-one grief recovery clients and why as grievers, we can sometimes feel isolated within our love relationships.
Kristin shares how her own losses and career grief have shaped her work today and why perception matters. We also get into how the way we grieve, when misunderstood, can cause further conflict and grief in our lives.
There will be golden nuggets (and a new favorite analogy of mine) in this episode you’ve likely never heard before (even if you’ve listened to every previous episode). I hope this episode inspires you. And, if you want more inspiration after you listen, be sure to follow Kristin on Instagram!
“The more you know yourself, the less you look to others to tell you who you are.”
– Kristin Sherry
RESOURCES:
CONNECT:
Victoria Volk 00:56
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today I’m very excited to share my guest, Kristin Sherry. She is a mentor of mine, and she is also the best selling and award-winning author and creator of the YouMap profile, the 20 Career Innovator Award recipient from Career Directors International, and she is the managing partner of YouMap LLC, as coaches, consultants and leaders as YouMap. Coaches. Kristin is the author of international bestseller YouMap, and a pen craft award winner in business for her management book. Your team loves Mondays, right? She’s also the author of Mom’s Choice Awards called Children’s Books, You’ve Got Gifts, You’ve Got Values, co-authored by Lila Smith, and You’ve got Skills, and the 2010 a book of the year, Maximize 365 from Indie Book Awards. Thank you so much for being here.
Kristin Sherry 01:51
Thank you, Victoria. It’s been a long time coming, hasn’t it?
Victoria Volk 01:55
Yes. For those who don’t know, Kristen Sherry, because she is the co-creator of YouMap. She is who I received my certification through for YouMap as well. And how many YouMap coaches are there would you say?
Kristin Sherry 02:13
I think we’re we’re just coming up to 130 and seven countries.
Victoria Volk 02:18
Now that’s a very small group in the scope of the world.
Kristin Sherry 02:23
Yeah, we certify in small batches of six, so it takes a while.
Victoria Volk 02:29
But it’s growing, it’s really growing and expanding. And that’s, it’s amazing. And I so many coaches in our small circle are doing amazing things with YouMap. I incorporate it with my grief recovery work as I feel like it was the missing piece in the work that I was doing with people because career grief is a huge aspect of life. And we don’t necessarily connect the dots of what’s happening in our lives personally with grief if we’ve lost a loved one or things like that, because grief is a real clarifier in a lot of ways for many of us, and we might have, you know, the death of a breadwinner in our home. And so, we suddenly find ourselves having to navigate, first maybe entering the workforce for the first time or maybe needing to really buckle down and find something that’s more sustainable or stable or offers more income. So, I really am excited about this conversation because it is an aspect of grief that has not been talked about on the podcast as of yet. And who better than to have a career expert like you. So, thank you.
Kristin Sherry 03:39
Yeah, I think we can tend to minimize and say, oh, you know, career grief, that’s, oh, that’s not a saying or that’s not very important. The only thing that really matters is grief around losing people, right? Because people are more important. And that’s true. But what people are forgetting is we in the western world tend to connect our identity to our career. And we have relationships in our workplace. And so, when we lose that role, or that job, or that position, or whatever happens, we also lose that daily connection with those relationships we had and also our identity does take a hit. Ideally, we don’t connect our identity to our career, but that’s so common. What’s the first thing you hear people say when you meet them most times is so what do you do?
Victoria Volk 04:31
The Kristin Sherry that you were maybe 20 years ago to the Kristin Sherry who developed YouMap and career grief, maybe? Maybe grief otherwise in your life? That clarified things for you because I just said you know; Grief is a clarifier.
Kristin Sherry 04:48
Yeah, that’s true. I’ve had a lot a lot of that actually. I’ve had a lot of career grief. I’ve had more career grief, as a form of loss, if you will, then I’ve had grieving of losing people. So, and I think that’s probably because I’ve transitioned so much in my career, I’ve, I’ve, I’m like a serial job changer I was before I owned my own business. I have had situations where I quit my job and took a new job. And then someone showed up with a gun on site, and the place shut down. So, I had quit my job and started a new job. And then I couldn’t go to work at my new job because of this domestic violence situation that happened at the company and that I was thrown into this super chaotic situation. I’ve had situations where I’ve had to quit my job with nothing lined up and I was the primary breadwinner because of very unusual toxic workplace situations happening. That was just not sustainable to stay there. I’ve had situations where I was offered a promotion in a different department in the company, and was given a counteroffer by in my department, so I declined a significant promotion, and they reneged on their counteroffer of promoting me. So I lost an amazing job offer. Because they didn’t follow through, I’ve I’ve had situations where my husband and I both lost our jobs the same week. And we found ourselves with two kids. At that time, I have four now, but we had two kids and no income. And no savings really, either at that time. So yeah, and that’s just, that’s just the tip of the iceberg. I could go on, but you get the idea. I’ve had a lot of a lot of career disappointment.
Victoria Volk 06:55
I imagine you knew your value. And that’s what kind of kept you pursuing things. But what can you speak to that? And in particular, about how, when were not valued, like you said, you were, they didn’t follow through. And so, they didn’t value you as an employee. Can you speak to how when our values are dishonored, kind of adds to the grief too?
Kristin Sherry 07:20
Oh, there’s a lot to unpack here. So, there’s a couple of things that I would say in terms of how I’ve been able to navigate those things. First of all, the benefit of hindsight, the job that I did not take the promotion because I accepted the counteroffer of the the department I was in if I had to if I hit if they had not countered, offered, for example, and I had gone to the department it was running the bio physics department in this it was a Yeah, it was a graduate level biophysics program. And it would have been basically being the administrator of that program. And if I had gone that path, I would have probably become a dean of a university or that that would have been the career path I had been on. But that happening led me to pivot my career and meet my husband, so and he’s my best friend and my favorite person, the whole world. So, I literally would have gone down, we lived in different states, we didn’t have any mutual friends, our paths would not have crossed. I met him because of the new career I transitioned into, because he transitioned and in the same career as well. So it’s hard for me to lament my employers are screaming over. It led to really one of the best things that’s ever happened to me in my life. So, I would say, I tend to believe in a friendly universe over a hostile universe. And I believe that things work for my good. Even when I don’t see what’s being taken away from me a door that’s closing, I don’t see that as a positive thing. I was mad. I was very mad when that happened. But with the benefit of hindsight, I can see how that path ended up working more in my favor. Because path I was on actually wasn’t a good career fit for me anyway. So I always say to myself this or something better this or something better when I want something in my career. And when the door closes or something doesn’t come through for me, I say, Oh, I’m getting something better. So there’s this perception and when you believe in a friendly universe over a hostile universe, that things are working for you or that you can be the architect. We’re not in control of everything. But we can take the pieces and parts and bits that were given and recycled them into something great. So there’s this perception continuum that I learned about when I got my masters certification and brain basically Coaching, which when you coach people, a lot of it is dealing with anger, fear, baggage, they have situations childhood trauma, family of origin stories, people come to the table with a lot of other things other than the situation you’re helping them with, as you know, as a grief counselor. And so as a career coach, I wasn’t just dealing with help someone find a job, right? What’s their attitude of getting fired from that job? Do they feel? Who am I without that job? Are they feeling this sense of identity loss? Are they feeling like a failure? Because they can’t provide for their family in that moment? Are they feeling on useful? Because they feel like all they’re doing is sitting at a computer job searching? So you’re dealing with this mental aspect, right? So the perception continuum continuum, is around helping people actively manage their mindset, because we spend about 80% of our thought life in a sort of default network, our thoughts are largely going on unconsciously, we have about 80% of the thoughts that that we have every day repeat themselves. So there’s this track that plays every day, I’m worthless, I’m never going to find love, I’m going to be alone forever. nobody appreciates me my life has no meaning whatever we tell ourselves, we tend to repeat those messages daily, day after day. And because those thoughts go subconsciously, they tend to go unregulated, when we’re just they, they run away with us. And then what happens is, we start to have some sort of biological reaction to those thoughts. So we’re having these negative thoughts, they put us into this sense of fear, harm, and despair. And then so we start to have actions, those thoughts become things so we withdraw, we become self protective, we become angry, we start feeling depressed, our brain starts to release neuro chemicals that put us into the fight flight freeze mode. And so those thoughts are not harmless because they become they, we start releasing chemicals in our brain in response to those thoughts. And then it affects our actions. And I remember my mother saying to me, when I was younger, at first, I had sort of a negative reaction to it, she said people’s lives are largely a product of the decisions they make. I had a negative reaction to that, because first of all, I didn’t like the accountability that was attached to that. And I thought, well, people have a lot of bad things happen that are outside of their control. But what I didn’t realize is how we respond and react to those things, the decisions we make, and even the indecision not acting as a decision, right. So if we go through life, and we don’t act, and we don’t act, and we don’t act, decisions can be made for us. And so when she said people’s lives are largely a product of the decisions they make, I thought, I’m going to make sure that I’m proactive and making those decisions because I didn’t want those decisions made for me, or I didn’t want my indecision to lead to outcomes that I didn’t want. And so that was sort of the start of the journey for me. So the perception continuum has two parts to it. And it’s like a coin, you know, you have heads on one side and tails on the other. So on one side of the coin is that threat and defend model that comes from the fight, flight, freeze, response, threat and defend and when we are in a threat and defend mode, we feel a sense of harm, we feel we have no options. We feel things are unfair, we feel broken, we start to feel doubt, fear, confusion, we look at things from the perception of loss, deficit and lack and that leads to despair. So we might start to feel offended, we might start to avoid we become self focused at navel gazing, we start to put walls up to protect ourselves and we disengage and we withdraw. But there are options to choose for each one of those things. Instead of feeling harm we can choose to feel safe and so we we then choose to be on the other side of the coin, which is the flow flourish model so creating safety for example. So when we feel we have no options, we can say oh, I have the freedom to choose when we feel something’s unfair. We can choose gratitude. When we feel broken. We can focus on feeling whole. We can choose optimism over doubt. So you can see everything has a companion fear The other side of fear is trust. The other side of confusion is what’s the meaning in this. The other side of loss lack and deficit is I have enough I will be provided for the other side of despair is hope. And instead of avoiding, you can press in and approach a person or people or situation instead of disengaging. You can engage with authenticity instead of being self focused. You can look at the big picture, instead of being offended, you can give people the benefit of the doubt, there’s always another choice. Well, so how do you get there? Well, the first thing is when you lose a job, for example, or you apply for a position and it’s not given to you, you don’t get that promotion, where you get an injury, and you can’t pursue what you let’s just say you wanted to go into the military and you don’t pass the physical, or let’s just say, you want to be a hand surgeon, and you have an injury on your hand. And now you can your whole career you had planned out? Well, when I lost my my job, I said, you know, this is disappointing. And I’m going to be grateful for the friendships I made for the experience I gained. And I know that I am going to be okay, I’m excited to see what’s next. For me, this is going to open up opportunities to try something new, meet some new people. And I think we claw into our circumstances because we don’t like change. Most people don’t like change, some people do. And we definitely don’t like change that wasn’t on our timetable. And by our design. It’s someone else’s change imposed on us. But we can choose how we respond to that. Where is the opportunity in this? What is something I’ve always wanted to do or try instead. And so when those doors closed one time, I got a training email from our company, it was a job board. Notice, it was a director of training position, and I was a, I was, at the time I was an interim Senior Manager of operations. I said, Oh, I’d love to go into training, I always want to work in training. So I applied for this job as the director of training, and I had done a lot of the work with my team that they were looking for. So I thought, Oh, I had the experience. I’ve heard I already know the company. I’m already in the company. I didn’t even get called for an interview, let alone not get an offer. And I thought, oh, that’s unbelievable to me that I never even got called in for an interview. I checked all the boxes here. But I came to find out later that this division had a terrible work life balance. Everyone worked 80 to 100 hours a week there. And culturally, it would have been a terrible fit. I had two small children, and I was a single mother. So if I had got that job, it would have been a disaster for my family. So when you start to look back at six situations that were disappointing, you can apply this perception continuum. What was the time that I felt something was unfair, and I was able to be grateful that that actually ended up happening? What was a time that I was doubtful, but really optimism was warranted because of how it worked out, or what was a time where I wanted to withdraw and focus on myself. But I focused on other people serving others looking at the big picture and showed up and engage and how did that work out? What was the time that I feared something and that fear never even came to fruition? I think when we look back, and can see all of the things that were disappointments that actually worked out. That helps us see that ultimately, we can have faith in a universe that is not hostile toward us toward us, but that works in our favor.
Victoria Volk 19:06
It came up for me and I was listening to your talk is which is very applicable for my life right now. But it’s wanting the proof or the evidence before we have it right? And so, I think what you’re saying is these asking yourself these better questions, like these hindsight type questions, to bring the awareness of, to bring real life awareness to examples that you’ve experienced before in your life, where it wasn’t the worst-case scenario where it worked out in your favor, where it worked out for your higher good and in everything that you’re speaking to. So, it’s not like this Pollyanna approach where Oh, just think better thoughts. It’s, yeah, it’s looking for evidence in your life before in these hindsight type questions. And I think that’s, that’s a great way to actually live our lives in every aspect.
Kristin Sherry 19:57
Yeah, there’s I think when we’re looking at a situation that we’re in, we don’t factor in a lot of variables we factor in, I’m disappointed because I didn’t get what I wanted. But we don’t factor in look at the people who stepped up and gave us love and support. Or look at the strength that I discovered that I never knew that I had. There’s a saying that says you never know how strong you are, until you have to be. Right. When we’re in those trials, that’s when we have a chance to actually shine because we can we learn and grow from those experiences. Our friendships can deepen, yes, you will also have some stripped away, because the people that you thought would be there for you or not. But you know what, that’s a gift too. It’s a gift to have your relationships clarified, to use that word that you use earlier, who are the people that I should be spending the most time and attention with the PN, you know, you have to give great people grace to like, you don’t know what people are going through. And so someone may not have shown up for you because they’re in the pit too. So, you have to, and you didn’t know that they were in the pit because you weren’t around for them either.
Victoria Volk 21:23
Right, that is an in during the time of this pandemic, that’s very, very likely to be true for most many people. I shouldn’t say most, but for many, you know, with careers and transitions and changes and loss, so much loss.
Kristin Sherry 21:43
Yeah, but I will tell you that I did a lot of research, when I wrote when I wrote my book maximize 365 A year of actionable tips to transform your life. I did research on happiness. And people who focus intently on themselves. Like where are your thoughts all the time is the first thing you think about when you wake up your situation, your problem? And do you carry that through the day? Are you even getting your eyes up off your desk, and looking around and seeing who can you help who might need you? It’s difficult to want to serve people when you’re hurting, I get that. But research shows that people who serve others and focus on others are the happiest people who focus and navel gaze on themselves are the most miserable. And when I think about people that I know that every time I talk to them, they just wallow in their own situations. And all they do is talk about themselves. I realize, oh, this is not this is not because of their situation. This is because the setting they have themselves on and it’s going to be another situation another situation another situation. Because I will get to the end of the year. And I’ll say, Boy, that was a great year. And every year I say that, and the next year is going to be better and better and better. But it’s like well, wait a minute. I’ve had two miscarriages. My grandmother died when I didn’t think she was going to die. Like I when I was 19 years old. My mother told me my grandmother was in the hospital. And I was like, oh, well, I’ll just visit her when she gets out. Like my grandmother was a really strong woman. She was just like a hero in our family. She never took crap from anyone. She was just this the strongest woman, and she was an advocate for education and learning. She was very intelligent, and a well-read woman. And I just admired her so much. And she used to pick me up from school and bring me home and make me lunch. And I was in elementary school, and I would hang out with her. And so when my mom said she was in the hospital, I was like, oh, I’ll just I’ll visit her when she gets out. And then my mom came home and said, you know, Grandma John’s died. And I was like, what that was not what was supposed to happen. I was just It never occurred to me. She was 80. But it never occurred to me that she would die. This is my grandmother was so strong, she was going to come back from anything. And even though every year has one of those things, I mean, I don’t lose a family member every single year but my cat was viciously attacked a cat I had. I was eight years old. And then when I was 24, she was viciously attacked by to name her dogs and and it was it was a horribly traumatic experience. And but yet every year I’m never saying Oh, I’m so glad for this. I can’t wait for this awful year to be over. And I said to my husband one day, why is it that I never feel that way? Like I can’t wait for this terrible year to be over? And he said because you focus on the good things that happened that year, not the bad things. And I said yeah, that’s exactly what it is. And I get it like Some things that people go through are really, really bad, like way beyond getting fired from your job. I’m not suggesting people say, this was such a great year, you know, when they lose a child or something like that, I get I get that I’m not being glib when I say this. But just in general, I’m talking about the mindset, the perspective. And the example I use is when you look at the moon in the sky, if you stand and put your thumb over the moon, you can cover the entire moon with your thumb, and not even see the moon. And so you can eclipse the moon with your little thumb, but the moon is quite large, right? So we can Eclipse and ignore our blessings by focusing on this problem, this system is the problem and eclipse the abundance that we have in our lives.
Victoria Volk 25:52
I love that analogy. Because I have a confession, I’ve been one of those that’s been saying I can’t wait till this year is over.
Kristin Sherry 25:59
I hear it every year. I hear it every year people. And this is a tough time for a lot of people, no doubt, because my parents live in another country. And so, I’m feeling a lot of stress and anxiety now because I’m trying to go see them over Christmas. But I have to have a PCR test for me and my kids and my husband. Like I have four kids and my husband and me. So, we all have to get PCR tests and get the results within a 72-hour window. And we’re supposed to go the 27th but it’s Christmas on Saturday. So there’s not going to be anything doing tests. And will they even be open on Sunday, and Friday is going to be too soon and Mondays too late. So now I’m like, ah, how am I going to see my mom and dad, my dad had a very critical health scare this year, we got to the emergency room. And my mother was told if she had brought him in even an hour later, he would not have survived because his he was in sepsis, septic shock. And his whole stomach had filled with bile. And he was vomiting bile which is terminal. If it gets in your windpipe and into your lungs, he was on the edge of death. And I was able to get into Canada earlier this year to be able to see him and thankfully survived and he’s getting stronger. It was very touching go situation if my dad was going to make it to my parents are 77 and 76. And we’re in a situation where we live in different countries. And so that is very stressful, a lot of people who are separated from loved ones because of the pandemic. So, in a situation like that, instead of me just everyday focusing on Oh, I can’t be with my parents, and I know I’m going to lose my parents and I won’t be able to go their funeral instead of like catastrophizing like that. I focus on Well, what can I do? And so we can get on video, chat and talk and see each other. And we can send each other messages every day. And we make videos of the kids to send to them. And we’re going to try and get over there. But I don’t know if we’ll be able to get across the border. But we’ll see. Fingers crossed. Yeah. But yeah, I know a lot of people are in those types of situations. But it really doesn’t serve you well to it’s not harmless to wallow in the stress of your circumstances. Because when you feel really bad that big that becomes spec becomes physical, right, you get ulcers, and I mean, I’m not telling you anything, you don’t know all of the different physical ailments that come from stress. So, I tried to I exercise every day, I do have a rest day but I exercise every day, you can get a 12 hour mood boost from walking in the forest from the oxygen coming off of the trees. But it’s funny because we turn to food a lot of times and sugar in particular, which is really quite poisonous in our body and large amounts. processed sugar fruit, natural sugars are great maple syrup, pure maple syrup, and fruits and things like that. But we turn to food. And that that sugar might give you an immediate boost, but it actually tanks, your mood food affects your mood. And so, when we’re not eating clean foods or eating the processed junk that gives us that that drug it’s like sugar is more addictive than cocaine you know. So, it gives you that immediate but you have the crash of drugs that that crash afterwards sugar gives you the same thing You’re much better off exercising for a mood boost than eating ice cream.
Victoria Volk 30:06
I were just talking before we started to record, and I was telling you about my son who’s been kind of in and out of the hospital the last few weeks and we just came out of a stent of him being in the hospital and I was telling you how just physically, that stress has manifested in my body, like even my eyeballs hurt, like to put my eyeballs up. It’s like, oh, and I’ve canker sore the size of Texas and yeah, to my lip. Like that’s my first like, that’s usually the first thing that happens is I get canker sores. And, and so yes, absolutely 1,000% stress manifests in our bodies grief manifests in our bodies. And I think that’s one of the first things that goes out the window, when I’m stressed is my self care. The one thing that you need the most we often neglect when we really need it. And it’s really difficult in hospitals to I suppose I could walk the halls and I should have like, I’m like, now hindsight. It’s like, huh, we definitely need to walk more, you know, instead of just sit, you know, you do so much sitting,
Kristin Sherry 31:09
Do laps around the hospital for sure.
Victoria Volk 31:13
Right? Yeah. I would love to hear more. And for the listeners to learn more about YouMap in how that transition into you creating that has changed your life and how you’ve seen it change so many other people’s lives because I absolutely am a huge proponent of YouMap. I like I said, I’ve incorporated it into the Grief Recovery work that I do with my clients, because I feel like it was the missing piece for for many. And so yeah, take it away, please share more.
Kristin Sherry 31:41
So YouMap was created by accident, I think accidental entrepreneur would be a good title for me. I was really unhappy in my own career. And I know people are using the map for a lot more than career stuff. But I was unhappy in my career. And I kept going from job to job and it would give me a new shot in the arm for a little while. But then a year in I was getting wanderlust again, and I would want to leave. And I really didn’t understand why. And I started to feel guilt around that. First of all, I felt guilt because I was sort of disengaged at work. And I felt guilty that my employer in some cases, I was getting paid six figures, and I was daydreaming out the window half the day not being as productive as I could have been. And then I also felt guilty because I had this great paying job that I had dread going to. And I thought I had a gratitude problem, then I was really grateful in a lot of other areas of my life. So I didn’t know that that was exactly true. So what was wrong, I didn’t really know. But what was wrong was I really didn’t know myself. And I didn’t know the reasons of the conditions of career fulfillment, what would fulfill me and what wouldn’t. And so I kept putting myself into situations that really didn’t align with who I was. And I came to find out that career success is really predicated on self awareness. When they look at people who are the most successful and happiest in their career, and really, in their life. Self awareness is really where it’s at. Why? Well, first of all, if you know your gifting, you can align to what you do well to things. So your you can use your talents and work becomes effortless to you because you do things naturally well, and instead of working against the grain of who you are, but really what’s key is the values. They’re all important all too. So YouMap looks at a person’s strengths. Their values are what’s most important to them, their preferred skills, what burns them out versus what brings them energy and their personality. And the personality is around your motivation and your preferences and your interests. They stem from personality. But for me, I had a values problem. And the reason I was unhappy in my job is because autonomy was in my it was my number two value is the second most important thing to me. And so I would go to a new job. And it would be great at first but then the bosses would say no to my ideas, or I’d have to do things I didn’t like doing. There was always something that I felt that I was sort of not in control of my work. And I started to realize I need to work for myself. And that’s not for everyone. And I think when people go around pushing everyone needs to be an entrepreneur. That’s so not true. That is absolutely not true. For a lot of reasons, but for me, I was never going to be fulfilled because I wanted to write the script for my own life. And I couldn’t do that as long as I was working for other people because there’s a quote by Jim Rohn that says if you don’t design your own life plan, chances are you’ll fall into someone else’s plan and guess what they have planned for you not much. And that’s how I felt at work every day that I was in someone else’s plan instead of fulfilling my own plan. So once that happened, once I realized what my own values were, I started to look at that whole big picture, which gave me the four pillars of career fit, I interviewed people, I started taking notes, of why people were unhappy, why they were fulfilled. And I started to look at the patterns. And I knew that I had to understand how people worked, why they worked, what they wanted to work on, and who they are, I needed to know those four things about people to really help them and so that that fast forward, people are using you, Matt, for all kinds of things. Now, like you said, for grief counseling, how do you grieve? Are you a big thinker, so you grieve by going inward, and you’re grieving the loss of a child and your spouse is a relational person, their gifting is building connections with people and your gifting is thinking. And so now they want to connect with you. But you’re coping inside, and they get divorced. Because the the one who’s the relationship builder feels rejected, and neglected, and the one who is the thinker that needs to process internally feel smothered by the other person, and they don’t feel understood. And they don’t feel like the other person is meeting their needs, whether that’s giving me space, or whether that’s pressing in and connecting with me, that’s just a very simple example, to show. When we understand who we are, we start to understand other people. And then we don’t take it personally when we grieve differently, as an example.
Victoria Volk 36:50
And that’s a beautiful way, the way you said that. And actually, it’s a great segue to into talking about how that can trickle into relationship grief. Like you just said, people can end up divorce because they simply don’t understand how each other is wired. I’m very much a thinker, I’m in my head. And just like you said, my husband is very much more of creating that connection. And so, I tend to feel smothered, sometimes.
Kristin Sherry 37:17
Doing a certification class, one of the women in the certification class lost a child. And she said, in the class, you know, if I had gone through YouMap, and my husband had gone through YouMap, when we lost our baby, I think the baby was stillborn. They didn’t know anything was wrong until we’re maybe within the first couple of days. But anyway, I think that’s what happened. She said, I don’t think we would have been divorced. She came to that conclusion, when she started to understand how she processed and how she she said, I don’t think we would have ended up divorced if we had known if we had done this.
Victoria Volk 37:57
And this is why I think this is the bit has been the missing piece for the work that I do. And so, I’m glad that that the conversation went there. And you brought that up, because I think it’s it’s huge. What are some things that you look forward to, with you map in, in, in in your own life with, you know?
Kristin Sherry 38:18
Oh, boy, I am looking forward, there’s a couple of things I’m looking forward to continually innovating you map so that it can be used in ways I can’t even fathom right now, I get excited thinking about taking places that I can’t even tell you right now, because it’s so like out of the box that I don’t even know what it is yet. I get excited thinking about what’s possible for it. But I also get excited thinking about, perhaps one day starting a Foundation, a nonprofit foundation to help people with you map. And we can employ people, but the people who use our services don’t have to pay for it. So, we can help people getting out of prison with you man so that they don’t. So, they understand their value because you met those confidence when you start to realize what you have to offer. And you have innate abilities. Even if you’ve been incarcerated for most of your adult life, I look forward to being able to offer it to people who are in a situation of domestic violence because first of all, when women or men are in a domestic violence situation, they don’t tend to control the finances or anything but so to be able to help them build their confidence in who they are, just by understanding themselves better alone, and then having a tool to see how they could provide for themselves and what careers would be a good fit for them. Those types of things. I really get excited thinking about giving people hope through UMap in incarceration, dementia Sick violence, potentially even homeless people. I’d like to have a foundation; I’d like to be able to fund it myself sort of Bill and Melinda Gates don’t need donations from people building the business to the point where I can then fund a nonprofit and everyone. So Lila Smith always says she’s a YouMap. Coach, she always says the world needs to be you mapped. And the reason that she said that was because when she got certified as EMF coach, she worked with her first she does communication, consulting, using it, but she worked with her first client. And they had a breakthrough on a communication problem they’ve been having with their boss. And this woman had been struggling with this problem. And it just YouMap illuminated what the issue was like, boom. And so it was so exciting for Lila to be able to give that client that breakthrough. She called me from the back of an Uber after she was leaving that meeting. And she was so excited. She just said, this is this was that was just the most incredible feeling and to be able to bring her to that point. And she said, The world must be human. The world must be you mapped in her excitement. And so that’s sort of in the running joke. And I’ve thought about that ever since she said it. And I thought, well, the only way the world is going to be you mapped is if it’s accessible to everyone. So, I that’s what I think about.
Victoria Volk 41:21
I 100% agree. And actually, some of the recent Grief Recovery clients that I’ve had that I’ve used, YouMap with them. Both of them have had career big shifts in their lives, as far as career and one of them is looking to start a podcast and really just under looking at the YouMap just coming back to that every time. And looking at truly like you said it builds confidence. And it was very affirming for me that what I do in my work is spot on. Like I am in full alignment. And so that was the beautiful gift that it gave me was yes, I am on the right path. So, it can do that for you too.
Kristin Sherry 42:07
Yeah, absolutely. I always use my own new map to guide me. It’s my my guiding light. If you map says no, I’m not going to get involved in things. Why would you want to do this when you’re you map says no.
Victoria Volk 42:24
Right? It’s a tangible piece of real estate of who you are. Yeah, you can look at.
Kristin Sherry 42:32
Yeah, summarised and visual. That’s how I like things.
Victoria Volk 42:36
Yes. Same. What is one thing that you would suggest to someone who I know you’ve had a lot of suggestions and the advice, like the different questions are amazing. But for someone who isn’t sure if the career is the problem? Or if it’s something else, do you have a way to help someone discern that?
Kristin Sherry 43:01
Sure. So, I have an ideal day exercise that I love to give people. And if you want to put it in the show notes, I can give you a URL to a quick video that people can watch to do it. But if you just go through and think about all the times in your life that you really enjoyed work that you were doing. Even if you hated the job, what were things that you enjoyed. So maybe you had a customer service job that you absolutely hated. But you loved chit chatting with the customers. Or maybe you you had a job as a data entry person and you hated data entry. But you really loved the mission of the organization you work for. So what were the things that you enjoyed, or that you liked? And if you write all those things down? What are the themes that you see? Did you love problem solving? Did you love creating? Did you love thinking and analyzing? Did you love meeting new people? And are you doing that now in your life? How far is your life? Now? How far have you drifted from this list of things? That that really made you happy in your work? And if it’s not the actual work, what you’re doing isn’t the problem, then maybe it’s your values? So what are times that you felt really satisfied, fulfilled and happy in your life? Not because of work, per se but what that work gave you. So did you thrive on being independent? Or was it community that you really love to really learning and growing? Or did you were you in circumstances where you just got to enjoy the beauty of creation? Or were you in situations where you felt respected or you had expertise or or something, the things that you valued and are those things being fulfilled in your life? So if it’s not how you’re spending your time and what you’re doing, it might be where you’re doing it or who you’re doing it for.
Victoria Volk 44:57
I love that and I know you don’t work one on one with people. And so, if anyone listening, they might want to say, I really want to work with this Kristin’s charity, but they can’t, right. Is that correct? Yeah. But you have all these brilliant books that you’ve put out, which I highly recommend you map as the book is a great start as well as maximize 365, then you love to segue into the children’s books, because I think, just like helping children with loss program and Grief Recovery is intervention. I think in a lot of ways your books are the intervention of helping children build that confidence before the world gets a hold of you, right?
Kristin Sherry 45:37
For sure. Yeah, I had a mom write me on LinkedIn. And she said her four-year-old daughter had been molested by her dad, by her own dad, not not the mom’s dad. And obviously, that’s an immense trust break and trauma. And she had been reading through the children’s I think it was the first one, you’ve got gifts, because there’s four of them. And she said that, helping her see her gifting. And what was wonderful about her, was really increasing her confidence. Because I think when kids are betrayed, for lack of a better word, by the adults in their life, they don’t view the adult as the problem. What a terrible evil person. They view themselves as bad and dirty. And so that’s why she wrote me because she just said she was grateful that her daughter had something to to show her what was good about her. Course, there’s nothing bad about her from that situation. But she was feeling that way
Victoria Volk 46:44
Gave her hope. For herself. Yeah. So yeah, again, like I said, intervention, intervention.
Kristin Sherry 46:53
If somebody does want to go through the map process, and it’s not grief related, if it’s career related, you could go to my youmap.com. And you can either get a YouMap yourself, and there’s a workbook that goes with it, to work through it. Or you can go to the Find a coach page, to find a coach that focuses on career. But if somebody is dealing with a loss from a grief perspective, of course, I recommend they work with you.
Victoria Volk 47:17
Because I am the only Grief Recovery specialist that is certified.
Kristin Sherry 47:20
In the whole world, you are the only one.
Victoria Volk 47:23
Yes, I can say that for a long time. Yes, I highly, highly recommend it. Yeah, like you said, you can do the DIY. And that’s certainly a viable option. But I do think the coaching really helps to implement and facilitate or what you know, I think a lot of it, too, is the accountability piece.
Kristin Sherry 47:48
Also the coaches will add insights that you won’t be able to add yourself because you’re too close to yourself, you need that third party objective person to help you look into your situation and reveal things that you can’t see, because you can’t see the forest for the trees.
Victoria Volk 48:02
You can’t see the label inside the jar. Right?
Kristin Sherry 48:04
Yeah, I always say that it’s hard to read the label when you’re inside the jar.
Victoria Volk 48:10
And that’s true with grief as well. What gives you the most hope for Well, I kind of asked that already. I’ll just give you the floor. Is there anything else that you think would be pertinent to people during this pandemic? In the work that you’ve done? And created all through these past several years that let’s just say, let’s say you had the mic for five minutes? Mm hmm. What is the one message that you would like to share with people?
Kristin Sherry 48:38
I think it’s, I think the simplest message is just find out what you do best that other people need most. So how do you do that? Well, when you start to think about things you do well, you can ask other people, what was the time I made an impact in your life? Can you tell me about a time you saw me doing something out of my gifting something that I did naturally? Well, and how was that helpful? Or how did that make an impact? And when you ask 10 People that you’ll start to see patterns? Whether they say, Boy, you just a really good listener, you’re really good at make holding space for people and making me feel seen and heard. And just Everyone’s so busy, I feel like you’re the only person that sees me, or maybe they say, you always know the right thing to say in every situation. Or maybe they say, anytime I come to you with a problem, you’re able to just hone in and see exactly what the problem is that I couldn’t see. So what is it that you always just do Well, naturally? And who can you help with that? Because when you’re in a difficult situation, the best way to feel a sense of purpose and usefulness and is by making a difference in other people’s lives because I truly believe that so think about marriage when People try to, to fulfill themselves to get what they want in the marriage, it doesn’t work. But when you try to fill fulfill the needs of the other and they do that to you, everyone’s needs are met. It’s it’s really true when you look out for people obviously look out for number one that does not work in marriage doesn’t work in any relationship, you need boundaries. 100% boundaries are important. But when you service the needs of your partner, and they service your needs as well, everyone is more fulfilled than when you endeavor to fulfill your needs yourself. There’s something magical about that, about meeting one another’s needs, then each trying to meet their own needs individually, it’s like something magical happens. Well, it’s the same thing in all relationships. I think if you figure out what it is that you do best, and you apply it to people where you feel passionate to help, your fulfillment in life will go up. I was a selfish person. When I was younger, I always worried about myself, what was best for me, and that just didn’t get me anywhere. And the minute I started to invest in other people and making a difference in other people’s lives, my purpose and my fulfillment just went through the roof. So that’s what I would recommend to people stop navel gazing, figure out your gifting what you do best, who needs it? And marry those two things together?
Victoria Volk 51:27
I love it. I love it. Is there anything else you’d like to share?
Kristin Sherry 51:31
No, I don’t think so. Except for actually, if you go to if you want to have some free videos on some of my content, if you go to youtube.com/c/kristensherry, or just search for Kristin Sherry on YouTube, I have a ton of videos on there to help people in a lot of different areas. mindset stuff, self confidence career, the ideal day exercise, figuring out your strengths, your values, it’s all on there on the videos.
Victoria Volk 52:06
And I will put that in the show notes the link as well. Excellent. And how can others find you as well? If they want to find you on social media? Where are you at?
Kristin Sherry 52:17
Probably you can reach me on Instagram @careerkristin, Twitter @YouMapcreator? Um, that’s I mean, you can connect with me on LinkedIn. I don’t I’m kind of on a sabbatical from LinkedIn right now. I got burned out day after day contributing there. So, I’m sort of taking a little break. It’s been a couple months now. But you can connect to me there for sure. But I only checked my messages like once once a week there.
Victoria Volk 52:47
Or on myyoumap.com, right?
Kristin Sherry 52:49
Yeah, through the website? Yes. I actually have not delegated the messages to my operations manager me me. I read and respond to every message to the website myself. A lot of people say I should probably delegate that. But I like doing that.
Victoria Volk 53:04
That’s your baby. Right? YouMap is your baby. Well, thank you so much for your time today. I think this is such an important topic, given this long drawn-out pandemic that is continuing well into 2022 It seems but so thank you so much for your time today. I greatly appreciate it. And I have no doubt that anyone listening is going to find some value in what you’ve had to share today. So thank you.
Kristin Sherry 53:37
Thank you, Victoria. It was a pleasure.
Victoria Volk 53:40
And thank you for being a mentor of mine.
Kristin Sherry 53:43
My pleasure. I love it. I love meeting all the YouMap coaches and investing in you guys. It’s my joy.
Victoria Volk 53:48
And it is a phenomenal program to by the way the support is bar none.
Kristin Sherry 53:53
Thank you. I appreciate that.
Victoria Volk 53:56
All right. And remember when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.
Grieving Voices Guest, Grieving Voices Podcast, Pespective, Podcast |
Katie Carroll | The Best Things in Life Aren’t Planned
SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:
Katie Carroll had her life mapped out from the time she was a little girl. She knew, from a young age, that she wanted to be a mother one day. However, as she found success in every other area of her life, there was one area of her life that hinged on her desire to be a mother.
She was busy in her career as a pediatric ER traveling nurse, had been dating, and all the while, looking for the one who would complete her life and be the father of her children. However, love wasn’t coming easily to her and by the time she was 36, she found herself in the deepest depression of her life and suffering from burnout from her life.
She had a lot of grief of what she wished would’ve been different, better, and more, and the grief of the loss of hopes, dreams, and expectations for what she thought her life was going to look like by the time she was 40.
As Katie found out, and you will also hear in this episode, the best things in life aren’t planned. And boy, do I have my own truth around this, too.
Katie shared in this week’s episode, “If you want God to laugh, tell Him your plans.”
We have free will, yes. But we get ourselves so wrapped around the axel of life when we try to plan every detail of our lives. Where is there room to be delighted and surprised, when we have so many expectations of what we want to happen?
Listen to this week’s episode and be inspired to see what’s already in front of you and perhaps to also allow yourself to be delighted and surprised by life’s unexpected gifts.
CONNECT:
Victoria Volk 0:08
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 and advanced Grief Recovery methods specialist, I know how badly the conversation around grief needs to change. Through this podcast, I aim to educate grievers 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. It’s another episode of grieving voices. And today my guest is Katie Carroll. She is the coach in scrubs. And she has been helping people heal from what ails them as a pediatric nurse for the last 21 years. And she is now helping single women learn how to love themselves exactly as they are today so that they can move forward in the direction of their dreams and hopes and goals. Katie is extremely passionate about empowering and educating women on learning how to fill their cups, so that they can not only pour into others, but so that they can also reap the benefits of having enough in their crops to pour into themselves. When she’s not working 12 hour nursing shift are working in her life coaching business, Katie can be found spending time with her fiance and playing cars, trucks and transformers with her beloved three nephews. Thank you for being here, coach and scrubs.
Katie Carroll 1:47
Oh, thank you, Victoria. Thank you for that beautiful intro. It like gave me chills, like just like hearing someone else say it is like that is me.
Victoria Volk 1:54
No it’s beautiful. So what brings you to be the coach and scrubs? So let’s start there.
Katie Carroll 2:01
Yeah, that’s a great question. So I’ve always loved helping people. And I am the firstborn, I have two younger brothers. And I started babysitting at the age of like 12. And I volunteered in high school at Children’s specialized hospital. And I’ve always been in that caregiver role. And so like you said, I’ve been a nurse for over 21 years now and pediatric nursing, and probably about the first 15 years of my career, I didn’t realize that, if I don’t take care of myself, then I’m no good to others around me. Because in nursing, and I always say this, when I’m speaking to nurses is that, you know, we dive headfirst into the deep end. You know, we go to nursing school, we study, we take the boards, we apply for a job, and then we jump right in, like we’re so excited to have that title of nurse and help. But we don’t realize that all of a sudden, it’s now years later. And we have forgotten about ourselves. We have forgotten to take care of ourselves physically, mentally and emotionally. And so I found myself in the deepest burnout and depression of my life about six, seven years ago while working in the pediatric emergency room. And funny enough, I went back to school to become a certified health coach, because on the outside, I just wanted to help more people. But that’s the hamster wheel that I was on was that let me go do something else to help more people and get another certification almost like something of worthiness so that I could help more people. But what I realized was that I actually went back for myself that I needed to learn how to help myself, Mind Body Spirit. And so when I started my business as a health coach, I call myself coach in scrubs because I thought it was cute being a nurse and coaching people and so it has stuck and here I am now you know still working full time as a pediatric nurse and also building my life coaching business on the side.
Victoria Volk 4:19
I love that are most of your clients then other people in healthcare?
Katie Carroll 4:24
You know, it’s funny that you say that Victoria I’ve had, I did a group coaching program where about half of them were nurses, but out of my one to one clients, none of them have been nurses. So it’s interesting that I do speak to a lot of nurses and I thrive in that community. But my clients, they’ve been all women and some have worked in health care in some fashion, but most of them were not in healthcare at all,
Victoria Volk 5:00
I’ve saw an ad not that long ago, I’m talking about because nurses, doctors, physicians, people in health care are just like everybody else, and are prone to the same risks and behaviors as everybody else, like addiction with alcohol and opioids and things like that. So I’m interested in learning your perspective on is, is it the burnout that leads to these things you think, you know, like, because in Grief Recovery, we talk about Serbs and like, addictions, can be a sturb, in order to we resort to these things to feel better for a short period of time. But of course, they don’t make us feel better. They make us feel shame, falling guilt and all these things after. And so it perpetuates the cycle of repetition, right. So yeah, what are your what is your perspective on that?
Katie Carroll 5:48
Yeah, I love that question, Victoria, because I’ve been speaking more about burnout as well. And you know, when I first started talking about the addictions that may be, can happen, I was embarrassed to talk about all of the wine that I used to drink a lot of wine. And I think I was embarrassed because you feel like you’re showing something to the world. And people may think that then you are less than or judge you or shame you. But what I have realized is that we are more alike than we are different and that other people are suffering. So when I do speak about it, now, I know that it could help one other person. And for me, I’ve never been a big drinker. Like, that’s always been the joke, you know, and I never liked beer, I always drank, you know, like a mixed drink at a party. And I always like to be in control. But when I was going through my deepest burnout, and depression, I was living alone, in my one bedroom apartment, and I was single. And I know that we have talked about this before, that my story was that I always thought my life was going to look different. I always thought I was going to be married with a bunch of kids. By the time I was 3536 years old. I actually mapped it out when we were in nursing school, we did a vision, you know, exercise where we saw ourselves. And I’ve seen myself as a mom, since I was a little girl. And when that wasn’t happening, I fell deeper into my depression. But the way I coped was drinking, and I found myself going to the liquor store multiple times during the week to get a bottle of wine or two, and I would come home from my nursing shift. And it’s kind of like a joke in the nursing world, or even healthcare, I mean, even seen on shows like Grey’s Anatomy, they all go to the bar at the end of their shift, and they have a drink, and they talk about the day. And I would walk into my apartment, and I would pour myself a glass of wine, like it was my it was my gift to myself, for taking care of people for 12 and a half hours. And I would limit myself to two glasses because I didn’t want to have a headache the next day, but I usually did. But if I didn’t work the next day, maybe I had three glasses. And I found that on the days when I wasn’t working. And I was just out running my errands and doing my things and going into the gym and doing laundry, I poured myself a glass of wine around five o’clock or six o’clock as I was getting ready for dinner. And looking back now I realized that that was my way to numb out from the stress of the job. But at the same time, the disappointment in my life. And so I was able to just numb out, drink some wine, watch some TV and not be present with what was actually going on in my life and what I could possibly do to start to change things and better myself. And so as I have shared my story more I have had other nurses and health care providers open up about similar addictions and whether it’s like you said it could be alcohol, drugs, it could be sex, it could be spending money, you know, just go into the store spending money to feel better in the moment. It could be gambling, you know, but it we find ways to numb out so that we don’t have to deal with the pain of what we see and smell and hear and do in our daily jobs.
Victoria Volk 9:29
I’m so glad that this came up because I think it’s in the culture. It’s embedded in the culture this there is a wine culture, right and even with moms, the mom wine culture, yes. It’s so because motherhood is can be can burn you out too. You know, if you’re not taking care of yourself if you’re not filling your cup, right. And that’s that was me. That was me too. You know, I bought a bunch of hats at one time and I had no balance in my life and I was burning out as well. And really, the underlying current was grief, unprocessed and undealt. With grief. Yeah. So can you share about more about your, and, you know, this vision that you had for yourself and how that’s transformed and changed over time?
Katie Carroll 10:22
Yeah, you know, I feel like okay, you know, get the tissues for myself, because I know, you know, but when I share it, I love sharing my story now, because I know it will help people. But like, first and foremost, it has helped me to share my story. And when you just said like, the undercurrent was grief. That is, so what I was living in. So when I was a little girl, I used to play this game with my mom, where I would walk into the kitchen with one of my doll babies, and I was maybe 567 years old. And we played this game where she would call me Mary, I don’t even know where that name came from. And I would walk into the kitchen, and she would say, Mary, how are you? I haven’t seen you in years. And we were like, friends, and she would say, How many children do you have now? And I would have one or two or three dolls with me. And I would say I just had my third. And she would say, Oh, my goodness, I have three children, what are their names. And this went on for a couple years. And I was two years old when my first brother was born. And then I was six years old when my second brother was born. And when my second brother was born, I would carry him around the house, like he was one of my dolls. And I had younger cousins. And so I was always kind of playing with the kids. And then like I said, I started babysitting at age 12. And I just always pictured myself as a mom. And I would hear people say you’re going to be a great mom, you know? And and I would say yes, I know. And I can’t wait for that day. And so I went to nursing school. And like I said, we did a vision exercise at the end of our last year, a couple weeks before graduation, and it said, where do you picture yourself in five years, and I immediately wrote it out. I’m 27 years old. I’m a pediatric nurse practitioner at the Children’s Hospital in Philadelphia, and I’m married with twins boom. I mean, there was no question in my mind, Victoria, that that was going to be the life that I was going to lead. I had no idea that believing that that was my path. I was also believing that if it didn’t happen, then something must be wrong. I never thought that it would look any different. And so I went into my 20s. And I, you know, I lived with a friend and I did all the things and I went out and had great times. But I was constantly thinking, when is it going to happen? When is it going to happen? And if I would meet a guy and go on a date, in my head, I immediately put my name with his last name, I immediately thought, is this going to work? Does he want kids, you know, and I’m sure I pushed away so many men because of that, or even sabotage relationships because of that. And as I turned 30 years old, and I was very single, and I was a traveling nurse. And I traveled to Philadelphia. Funny enough, I was a traveling nurse at CHOP at 30 years old, but I was single with no kids. And then I traveled to San Diego and then to Boston and then back to New Jersey. And I feel like I was like looking for my husband, I was looking for that answer. And as I turned 30 and then 3132 3334, I was the maid of honor in a bunch of weddings. I was named godmother to some of my best friends, children. My younger brothers were getting married, having kids, and everybody would say, you know, your time will come. But I knew that getting older, for me for having a child that that clock was ticking. And when I was, I guess it was around 36 years old, 37 years old. And that’s when I fell into my deepest depression was that I would lay my head on the pillow at night and cry because I actually pictured my own week.
And I pictured myself really old like I’m like, Oh girl, you’re gonna live a long time, like, you know, 90 years old, but I pictured people peering into my coffin and whispering about me saying things like, Did she ever get married? Did she ever have children? Does she have family here? And in those moments, I related, not ever getting married, not ever having children with an unworthy life, and that I would have spent all this time here and then never made an impact. Never left a legacy. And so when I think about those times, I think that you know, I had no idea of how to get out of how I was thinking, I was so deep in it. And the burnout was real. And I said I was burnt out at work. But I was really burnt out in my life and drinking and spending money, but still saying yes to everybody. And being a people pleaser, because I was working so hard so that people wouldn’t realize that on the inside, my soul was slowly dying, I was in the best physical shape of my life. And people would say, you’re in amazing shape. You have great arms, you have great legs, you know, all of those things. I worked out three, four days a week, every week for years, because I was protecting the inside, unbeknownst to me, that maybe if I looked perfect on the outside, that nobody would know, on the inside the mess that was happening in my heart, in my mind. And when I look back to that time, Victoria, I don’t, I don’t know how I knew how to move forward, I just know that I had an incident while working in the pediatric emergency room with one of my patients where he tried to harm himself under my watch. And my clock, and I something that night in may just broke. And I remember saying to my mom, three words, that I’ll never forget, I said, I don’t care, I don’t care. If I get in trouble at work, I don’t care. You know, my patient was fine and safe. But all the other things I just didn’t care about. I don’t care if I get in trouble if my boss yells at me if I lose my job. And my mom said to me that night, Kate, this doesn’t sound like you. And this hasn’t sounded like you in a really long time, something has to change within you. Because I was looking at the outside world to change. I wanted people to change around me, I wanted work to change my co workers, my patients, I wanted Mr. Right to walk into my life. And it was in that moment, that I just started to realize that I needed to start taking some responsibility for myself and my actions, and my happiness if I wanted to start living. Because I felt like I wasn’t living, I was waiting, I was waiting for so long for all these things to show up. And I was missing out on the things that were happening in my life. And so that kind of started my journey of learning how to love myself, and learning how to show up for myself and truly learning how to fill up my cup so that I could show up for myself and this world. In all of the ways that I was meant to.
Victoria Volk 17:49
Sending you a hug, you move me to tears, I just felt your pain in your words. And they say that there’s something called I had a podcast guest not that long ago, she had lost her child after birth, within hours. And she said she’d wake up in the middle of the night with empty arms syndrome. And it just made me think of what you share like this, this empty arm syndrome that just doesn’t go away that you never got to experience. And I’m gonna I’m gonna ask a question that maybe a lot of listeners may be wondering, had you ever considered just being a single mom and finding a way for that for yourself?
Katie Carroll 18:33
Do you know? That’s a great question, Victoria, because a lot of people have asked me over the years, I was dating someone between like 33 and 35 years old, who I thought I would marry and have kids with, even though you know, there were some things in the relationship, you know, that I wasn’t sure. But it was one of those like, well, you know, we’re at the age and we talked about it, but some, you know, family situations happened for his family. And, you know, ultimately we ended up breaking up when I was when we were 35 years old, were the same age. And you know, people started saying then why don’t you freeze your eggs? Why don’t you or think about being a single mom. And for me, I was still holding on to that dream that it would be with a man that I would meet someone and that it would happen. And then I started dating someone else when I was just turning 40 Almost 3939 Almost 40 But he was much older than me. So we I wasn’t sure again, if that would happen. But you know, we loved each other and cared about each other and we’re kind of moving maybe towards that and maybe doing some type of fertility but again, it didn’t get to that point. And we ended our relationship. So then I found myself at 42 Totally single and you know wondering should I should I do the thing should I go and you know, do the fertility on my own. And actually, I have two women in my life who did it on their own, who are about my age, and one of them has two children on her own, and the other one has one child on her own. And I started weighing the do I want to go through all of that myself and do all of the medications and the treatments. And, you know, I respect everybody’s opinion, and belief on this. And my personal belief was that I didn’t want to take all of that medication and do all of the medication. And so then that was kind of the answer, well, then it’s not going to happen, if you’re not going to do it that way. And also, the money to be put into it, I didn’t have the money to put into it, although I know, people say that you can find a way. And so you know, I, I was in this place of, well, I don’t know, then if it’ll happen. And you know, people will say to you, like, Oh, my aunt got married when she was 45. And they had two kids after you know, and maybe they did fertility or maybe not. And so, you know, for me feeling like I was on this quest for my worthiness or my purpose in this world. You know, during those years, my first nephew was born, I feel like I could cry again. But my first nephew was born five and a half years ago. And it’s like, when he was placed in my arms, I’m like, Oh, this is, this is what it’s all about, you know, I knew I would love him. You know, I just never knew how much and so that started helping me realize that, like, you know what, I can still have an impact in this world and love and share my love and fill my arms, like you said, with my nephews. And then my second nephew was born three years ago, and my third one was born two years ago. And through them, I have found such a purpose with, you know, sharing the love, because I think that’s what it is Victoria, too, is that I knew I had so much love in me, that it hurt, not to give it out to people. I mean, I give it to my family and my friends, but like, to really just pour it out, you know. And I found through my nephews, I’m able to, like, pour so much love, you know, into them and think about, you know, their lives and their futures and just being a part of it. And then, you know, almost two years ago, I rejoined match.com, at the advice of a friend, when I had sworn I would never, ever do it again, because I did it for years, I went on a lot of dates, I dated a lot of guys, there was there was some good, there was a lot of bad. There was, you know, feeling not good enough. And people judge you by your picture and your age. And you know, I had sworn to never ever do it again. And I hadn’t done it in years. And one of my co workers said just try, just try. And I joined on a Friday night. And the next day, there was an email from a guy named Peter. And we started emailing that day, that Saturday, and he called me the next day Sunday. And he picked me up on Tuesday for our first date. And that was it. And we moved in together April 1 2020, the beginning of a pandemic, which was a great time to have a nurse move in with you. And we got engaged in November in Aruba. And we’re getting married next month, August 6, our two year anniversary of going on our first date.
Victoria Volk 23:55
Oh, just chill bumps.
Katie Carroll 23:59
I’m sorry for the crying, but I feel like it’s just, you know, coming out, everything’s coming out. And it’s just, you know, it’s when people say like, you know, maybe that wasn’t your time. You don’t want to hear that during that time. I didn’t want to hear that I didn’t want to hear people’s stories about their aunt that met someone when they were 45 and had kids because I thought but my story was supposed to be different. And when I started my coaching, I wasn’t sure who I truly want to help her how I want to help them but in helping single women, which is part of what I do is that, you know, there may be someone out there in this world who shares a similar story. And I’m so happy that I had the support around me. And the you know, maybe the incident in the emergency room that was kind of like my awakening of starting to make small changes in my life. and ultimately never giving up hope, even though there were some really, really dark times, because with the birth of my nephews, and then meeting Peter, you know, people are still asking me Are you guys going to have kids, you know, and I’m 44 years old now, he’s 52. And I can honestly tell you, Victoria that if it happens, it happens that we have talked about it, and we will be fine with it and overjoyed, but if it doesn’t happen, I’m okay with that. Because I know that my purpose and my worth really isn’t tied to me birthing a child, and that there’s so much in this life to be thankful for, and that I’m so you know, lucky, and feel so grateful that I have, I have both my parents, I have my siblings, my sisters in law, my nephews, my fiance, and we are just so excited to share our life together, and do all of the things that I always dreamed about doing with that person. You know, and it didn’t happen in the timing that I thought it would. But if we had met 20 years ago, who knows what would have happened, or if we’d met 10 years ago, or even, you know, five years ago, that it was truly All in due timing. And, you know, they always say like, if you want to make God laugh, tell him your plans. I mean, he was probably thinking, Katie, I know, I know, you want this, but you know, some things have to happen first, and I want you to learn this lesson or that lesson, and it will come you know, and I always say like, Peter was worth the weight. I mean, he was so worth the weight every, every day, I pull into my driveway, and I smile, when I just know, I’m going to walk into the house and see him and you know, now it’s almost, I’ll never forget my life at all and all of those years, but it’s it’s a gift to be able to look back at that version of me that was trying so hard. And I love her and I want to send her love and just say like you were doing, like the best that you could at that time. And thank you for staying strong, because I wouldn’t be here today, if that version of me didn’t stay strong.
Victoria Volk 27:18
What comes across in your words is gratitude. I just feel it is so much gratitude. And I think as a mother, and I’ve birth three children, you take it for granted. Like in there was a point in my life, my early 20s. I didn’t want kids. Like I actually said that I didn’t want kids. I think because my experience growing up, I thought it was a cruel world. And I didn’t trust. I didn’t have trust. And I thought, Gosh, I don’t want to bring a child into this, you know, this misery. In a way, you know, but you know, when you meet someone too, that flips your life upside down in a positive way. And you have moments that awaken you, right and change the trajectory of your life, things change. And that’s what happened for me too. But what were some of the unhelpful or hurtful things that you heard during that time? Imagine there was a lot.
Katie Carroll 28:16
There was you know, I heard a lot that it just wasn’t my time yet. And that, you know, that hurts because it’s it seemed to be happening happening for everybody else. You know, and so when it’s not happening for you, but you look around at your siblings, and it’s happening for them, and their younger, it’s happening for my best friends that I’ve been best friends with since sixth grade. And all around the same time, actually, three of my very best friends from sixth grade, got married within five weeks of each other. It was just about five weeks, three of my very best friends I would I was the maid of honor in two of the weddings. And in all the wedding parties, and within five weeks, you know, they all got mad. I mean, it was like talk about you know, the bridal showers in the bachelorettes and then the weddings I mean it was boom, boom, boom, you know and so I feel like every birthday I would here this is going to be the year you know people say that this is going to be the year I feel it. Good things are gonna happen and you want to feel that way right like another year. This is gonna be great. And then when it didn’t happen, it was this unbelievable like disappointment and also feeling like what am I doing wrong? What is wrong with me and I think that was probably the biggest thing Victoria was that what is wrong with me? You know, I feel like at the core I am a good human being. I’m a pediatric nurse. I’m I’m a good person. I was always a good student. And that was the other thing right? Like doing all the right things like I was an a B student in high school, I was very good. I’m such a rule follower. You know, I, I applied to nine colleges. And I got into all nine, you know, and my, my father was just telling someone the story the other day, and I went to a great nursing school and I graduated, and I pass the board’s on my first attempt, and I got the first job I interviewed for. And I felt like I was doing everything right. And I think then you sit there, I would sit there and think like, well, there must be something like, I must definitely it must be, I must not be pretty enough or thin enough or smart enough or funny enough, like, there has to be something wrong, because it happens for the majority of people. And so I think, you know, I don’t know what people could have said to make it better. But I know that, you know, saying, well, it’s not your time, or, I mean, some people would say, you know, very brazen to say, maybe that’s not your path, you know, every once in a while someone would say that. And I did not want to hear that, you know, and they would say like, look at your life, you have a beautiful life, you’re healthy and well in great job and family and friends. But it’s like, but but it’s not enough is really what I wanted to say. But you’d never want to say that. Because you don’t want people to think you’re ungrateful. I have a friend who’s my age. Well, she actually just turned 44. And she’s single never married. No kids, she has a younger sister who’s married with two kids. And she feels the same way about her niece and nephew that I feel about my nephews. But at her sister’s baby shower, an aunt said to her, this must be really hard for you. And so even though I’m sure people don’t mean to hurt your feelings, saying things that like, this must be really hard for you. Or, you know, I think one of the other things is, like you said, you know, my mom would run into a friend, or like one of my high school friends, moms, she would run into her, you know, over Christmas at church. And my mom would say, Oh, Mrs. So and so said, How’s Katie? Has she found anyone special yet? And my mom would say no, you know, she hasn’t, you know, so it was almost this pressure, like, not only do good in the world, and get a job and make money and be self sufficient, and take care of yourself and make everyone else around you happy. But like also, like, try to find that husband and try to have those kids in that house. And you know, so the pressure, I think that is put on us as a society, because that’s just how it’s been for years and years and years is that, you know, a man and woman I mean, in today’s world, you know, everything is very different, beautiful, and who you know, man, man, woman, woman, whatever it may be. But that like a woman, her job was to, you know, find a partner, build a home, birth, the children take care of the children take care of the home, you know, and now many women work, you know, outside the home in the home, but still doing all those things. And if you’re not, you’re almost looked at like, Oh, what, you know, they want to almost say to you like, what’s wrong, you know, and I actually one time I was working in the during that time during the peds emergency room years, and I was working with a male nurse who was per diem. Like, he wasn’t full time with us. He was just there like every now and then. And I was approaching the nurse’s station and his back was to me. And he was like, around my age, and he was married with kids. And he didn’t know I was standing there. And I heard him say to someone else, what’s up with Katie, man, she’s hot. Like she’s a nurse. Like she’s got a good job. Like, she seems pretty smart. But like she’s single, like, she’s never married, like, doesn’t have any kids like and then he said it What Is she crazy? So then that thought comes in your head? Like am I is I guess something’s wrong with me mentally maybe there is something wrong, you know. And so all of these messages that are sent to us, left me feeling like it’s definitely me, I’ve done something wrong, or I’m doing something wrong, and I’m not doing enough. And so at the end of the day, it’s my fault that it’s not happening.
Victoria Volk 34:26
So was it the moment your nephew was born that the flip the switch flipped to understanding that really, it was self love that was missing for you? And and can you take us back to your childhood and where maybe that stems from?
Katie Carroll 34:42
Yeah, that’s a great question. Because I feel like you know, as an adult, I feel like I can look back to so many things and we may not think that it’s affecting us now. You know, 44 years later, but Yes, with my nephews, my nephew Liam when he was born And he was born premature. He was five weeks early, and he was in the NICU for 25 days, but we were able to visit, you know, all the time, you know, I was saying when I was holding him and just looking down at his little face, you know, and the love I felt for him, I guess I started to realize, like, it was an extension of me. And like, truly an extension of me, this is my brother, Son, and the, I guess, like the way that I was able to show up for him. And my family, you know, and a lot of people would say, Katie, if you were married with kids, your relationship would be very different, probably with your nephews just in a different way. Because you would be, you know, in your world, with your kids and everything. And I do think about that, sometimes to that, you know, it still would have been very special, but different because I was able to step in as the aunt, you know, who doesn’t have kids was able to babysit and do the things and be with them. And I think like you said, it was I started to realize that, you know, I, I hadn’t been loving myself and I when I would look at his face, and think about like his life and being there for him. It was all of a sudden, like, I have to take care of myself so that I can be here for him and his life. You know, and then with the births of my second and third nephews, you know, wanting to be there, you know, for all of the wonderful moments in their life. And so when I think about my childhood, you know, and that’s, it’s hard Victoria, you know, because you think like, I had a great childhood, like, Thanks be to God, like, you know, I never had any trauma, like abuse, like in those regards. When you hear some people’s stories, you know, like, my mom was a stay at home mom and my dad worked in the city, and he was home every night at 6pm for dinner. And, you know, we went, we lived in a great town, we went on vacations. But when I think about did I love myself, I guess I never thought about it like that. I thought I’m surrounded with love, so much love. But I don’t think that I was loving myself. And I think and I’ve told this story a couple times when I talk about, you know, being a perfectionist and living that people pleaser life that my father, he used to yell a lot, especially at my brothers like I was rarely yelled at, but I think it was because I was like such a goody goody. And I don’t know if that was like the firstborn, you know, but my brothers, I mean, their boys like I see it with my nephews. They were constantly wrestling and physical and everything. And my father would yell and when my father yelled, the house shook, and I cried. Meanwhile, I wasn’t the one being yelled at. But I learned at an early age that I didn’t want my dad to yell, like at me. So I tried really, really hard to be perfect. And the people pleaser to not upset him. And here I am at 44 years old, and I can honestly say that I still try to please my dad, he doesn’t yell like he used to do, right. I mean, we’re all adults now. I mean, but it’s that thought that I don’t want to upset him. And what if I upset him? Not that he’ll yell, but maybe he’ll say something, you know, will it hurt my feelings. And so I think that maybe I was working so hard on being perfect. That when you’re working that hard on being perfect, like you’re beating yourself up all the time, because like we all know, nobody’s perfect and nothing is perfect. But when you’re striving for it, and you’re not hitting it, because it’s not realistic, it’s a constant knockdown of yourself, beating yourself up the negative self talk. So I realized now that I was living for decades striving for something that was not realistic never hitting it because I never was going to and in the process just beating myself up. You know, I remember putting out a post recently that said I was in an abusive relationship, dot dot dot. And of course, I got so many people’s attention like what and I said with myself
Victoria Volk 39:19
With yourself? Yeah, yeah. How many of us are right? Oh, such a good point. So did you do you see when you look back now, do you see how that kind of translated into your relationships with men?
Katie Carroll 39:31
Yes, I totally do. Because I, I would, there were no boundaries with them. And, you know, I’ve like I said, you know, working as a nurse, I’ve worked three days a week for, you know, over 21 years. And so if I met a guy that lived, you know, 40 minutes from me 45 minutes, and we would maybe plan a dinner for Thursday night. I would always say I can drive. I can drive to your house. It’s okay, I’m off tomorrow. I’m a nurse, you know, and I would constantly give them an out. And I remember one time my cousin saying to me, she’s five years older, she’s always been like a role model in my life. She said to me, why isn’t he driving to you. And at the time, it was someone that lived in an area in Hoboken, he didn’t have a car, he took the train everywhere. And I said, Well, he doesn’t have a car, and it’s okay. And my cousin said, he can take the train to where you live. And so I see now that I was constantly trying to please them, and even physically right thinking that, you know, if we have sex earlier than not, maybe he’ll like me more. And then maybe I’ll get closer to that goal of getting married and having the kids and then when it didn’t work out, thinking, was it because I had sex too early was it because, you know, I didn’t do X, Y, or Z, the constant beating myself up again, you know, not realizing that, you know, I only realized I should say that I am like, fully myself with Peter, when I met Peter, I think, because we met at a later stage in life, that, you know, we both came to the table with, this is me, this is who I am, you know, I was 42, he was 50. And this is who we are. And, you know, I liken it to I say, it’s like the, you know, Ferris wheel at an amusement park. That’s been going right. And like Peter and I jumped on, and I had 42 years under me, and he had 50 years, and we’re like, let’s see if we can make this work. We like being together, we’re attracted to each other, like, you know, we have so much other stuff in our life, that it was almost, it was hard to not be who we are, you know, because this is me, this is who I am. This is what I do for a living. This is my family, you know, these are the things that are important to me. And then the same for him. And, you know, that’s when I feel like you truly know you’ve met your person. When you feel like you you’re not putting up any facades, you know, and, and it works, you know, and now when I look back to all those years of dating, I think I was not me. I mean, you know, even when someone says like, where do you want to go to dinner? And it was always it’s wherever you want to go, right? Meanwhile, I’m like, Oh, I really want sushi or Italian or Indian food or something, you know. But when you meet that person that you’re totally you know, yourself with, and it’s like, where do you want to go to dinner? Do you want to go to talent, Italian, I’m not really feeling Italian tonight, you know, might be too heavy on my stomach, can we go do something else like sushi or Indian or you know, and you just find that you are being you. And then it’s so easy. Because you’re not trying to be somebody else. And when I look back to those times, like that’s why I think it was so hard. And that’s why I think I struggled and, you know, self sabotage and had so many disappointments, I had all these expectations. But I was like working so hard. You know, I wasn’t being who I truly am. What truly made me happy. I was just on this mission. I was just on a path to meet a man and get married and have kids. So you know, I thought that was like the ultimate goal. I was on this in this race against time, you know? And then I met Peter and it was like, why does this seem so easy? Because I think and I don’t know, if it’s something that comes with age, you know, but we were both at points were like, This is me Take it or leave it. You know, I think I had built up my confidence also, in doing the work on myself, the years leading up to meeting him that I knew what I wouldn’t stand for what I would stand for what made me happy. And I was already feeling fulfilled and with a purpose. With my nephews and my family and my life. I was feeling very, you know, worthy of my life and at peace. Yes, yes.
Victoria Volk 44:01
Peace Peace inside peace out.
Katie Carroll 44:04
Yes. Oh my gosh, victoria so much and that you know, you remind me of I was working with a life coach like around that time roughly and he would always say what do you want in this life and peace was my number one answer I wanted peace in my mind in my heart. I didn’t know how to get there what it would look like but I knew that I was I was at unrest like I was at such a place of just feeling like disheveled on the inside like frantic and depressed and anxious you know and I wanted peace because I knew that would be the opposite of how I was feeling I you know living like that was an enjoyable and that’s why you know again the numbing out you know the drinking, you know the spending money so that I didn’t have to sit with the way I was feeling
Victoria Volk 44:54
Emotional dis ease, huh? Yeah, that’s what I saying Grief Recovery. Yeah, yes. and I, when you were talking about just coming to the table and being who you are, it’s, it’s being able to cut the BS, right? It’s like, there’s no, like you said, there’s no pretending there’s no facade there’s, you’re able to, to, to just be and speak your soul. Yeah. I love that. I love that too. So throughout your experience, what has given you the most joy and hope for your future?
Katie Carroll 45:34
Hmm I feel like I could get emotional again thinking about it. Because it’s, it’s such a happy thought now, just living my life being grateful for the day to day like I said, when I pull into my driveway at night, and I smile, thinking I’m No, I know, I’m gonna walk in the house and see my fiance and when we go out to dinner, and just enjoy a good meal together. And when I see my family, and we just get to celebrate life together, and being with my nephews, and also being at work, I left the pediatric emergency room. And now I work in a pediatric same day surgery unit and knowing that I was put here for a purpose. And that purpose is to share my love and to spread my love. And that has looked like being a pediatric nurse for 21 years. And it has looked like being a daughter and a sister and an aunt and now fiance, and that at the end of the day, I feel whole and worthy and fulfilled knowing that I’m doing exactly what I was meant to do in this world, and it feels so right. It just pours out of me. It’s who I am. And I’m able to, you know, go to bed at night feeling feeling peaceful feeling fulfilled, that I’m living the life that was always there. But I chose to look the other way for a really long time.
Victoria Volk 47:10
I was gonna say, Don’t you think it’s kind of ironic that you chose peds?
Katie Carroll 47:14
Yes.
Victoria Volk 47:16
But peds chose you. And if think about it, like there’s, I’m sure there’s plenty of nurses who have children at home and or maybe you’ve been burned out at home. So then they come to work and they’re burned out? And are you really able to serve those children then. And you’re burned out at home. And so you bring a gift to those kids of really being able to be present with them. Yeah, because you don’t have that burnout at home.
Katie Carroll 47:45
Right? I never thought about it that way too. I love that.
Victoria Volk 47:48
So where can is there anything else you’d like to share?
Katie Carroll 47:51
Oh, this is awesome Victoria, thank you. I just feel so grateful for you allowing me to share my story here and be me and be vulnerable. And you know, just I love to share the message that you are enough, you are born enough. You’ve always been enough. And now is the time to start believing it. That’s what I say to my clients. So the world. And I feel like if we can start to embrace that a little bit each day, then the happiness that we’re looking for in life, the piece will start to uncover itself because it’s there.
Victoria Volk 48:29
I love that. Beautiful. Thank you. Where can people find you? If they want to reach out to you?
Katie Carroll 48:35
Oh thank you so much for asking. You can find me actually at my name Katie Carroll, it’s K A T I E C A R R O L L. Katiecarrollcoaching.com is my website. And then you can find me on Instagram and Facebook at Katie Carroll coaching. I have a Facebook group Katy Carroll coaching and I’m also on LinkedIn. And those are the place I love Facebook. I love Instagram, and you can go to my website, you know to schedule a free discovery call with me, you could send me a message on any of the social platforms, I would be honored to connect with anybody that would like to connect. Are you currently taking clients? I am thank you for asking. I definitely am in my one to one coaching program. So I would be honored. I always say I’d be honored to walk alongside anybody on their journey in this life. Because you know, sometimes we need that person to just walk you know lovingly alongside of us as we navigate this crazy beautiful world.
Victoria Volk 49:41
Right? Is your name changing in your branding? Oh goodness
Katie Carroll 49:45
Wow, you know what? That’s a good question. I mean, we talk about the name changing and today we were doing stuff with the marriage license so that’s interesting. Yeah, I you know, it’s funny Victoria because I’ve always been KTM Carol RN, you know As a nurse and KMC RN, I’ve been writing that for 21 years and people are saying at work, are you going to change your name? And so we haven’t decided yet if I’m going to hyphenate it or change it, you know, so that you’re right now that I think about it, I’m Katie cow coaching everywhere. So I’ll have to ask Peter if he wants to take my name. Right? Yeah.
Victoria Volk 50:08
Why Why is it to change RNA right?
Katie Carroll 50:27
My dream my for so long, like I said, of changing my name. And now all of a sudden, I’m like, Oh, I’m, I’m like Katie Carroll Coaching.
Victoria Volk 50:34
Is that? Isn’t that funny? Like, it’s funny. Not funny. Like, it’s really ironic. Like, it’s something you wanted so badly. And like here, now it’s coming. And it’s like, you may want to keep my name. Right. Right. I know. That is very, you could always you could always hyphenate and just keep your business
Katie Carroll 50:53
True. To You’re right. You’re right.
Victoria Volk 50:56
It doesn’t have to be either or it can be and,
Katie Carroll 51:01
huh, yes, I love that.
Victoria Volk 51:04
Anything else?
Katie Carroll 51:05
I think that’s it. Thank you so much, Victoria. This was amazing. I always feel like so at peace talking to you. So thank you. Thank you for that.
Victoria Volk 51:13
And thank you for being here. Yeah, thank you so much. 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.
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
