The Soul Talk Episode 151: How can Grief impact us, and how can we deal with it?

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Welcome friends, to the soul talk podcast, a show where we explore and uncover the path of the heart, amplifying your conscience. Join me as we meet incredible souls. Were in this journey and learn from their experience and different methods that will make it vibrate your heart. Let's get into it

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Hello, everyone, this is Monica Ramirez the Warrior of Love. And we are not only in Soul Talk, we are also in Soulogy Network. And we've have a person that I haven't met in person that is very, very special for me. I consider her my friend. And she has helped me tremendously in so many levels in so many ways. In not only my speaking gigs, in the personal level, it is I really love this woman. Her name is Heidi Dunstan. I hope if I say right,

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you said it the Spanish way. Heidi Dunstan in the German way. It's Heidi Dunstan. But yeah.

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I love the way you say it, you know that I live in Mexico part of the time. So I'm used to the Spanish way. Oh, gosh, one day, I may have to do the same thing going to Mexico.

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Same thing that you're doing. I should be doing myself. Let me tell you a little bit about it. She Heidi, she is a certified grief educator, and best selling author, your passion is to help in others in the learning more about the grief, and how to support others when they're grieving after losing their fear losing her husband, unexpectedly, almost three years ago, she experienced all this. And that's how she became a grieving coach. By her own experience. She's also the best one of the best selling authors. And we're going to be talking a little bit about her book very soon. And it thank you for making the time because I know you're always so busy all the time in.

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Oh, Monica, I love spending time with you, you know that and you're special to me as well. And I'm honored that you would allow me to be on your show. So thank you, it's a gift.

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Beautiful, I would like to ask you, okay, there is different kinds of grieving not only for losing a person, it can be losing a relationship, I would like to. First let's talk about what is grieving.

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So grief. The Grief Recovery Institute defines grief as a loss due to change of any kind, right? And so it isn't just going to be about death. It could be that somebody has passed away or an animal's passed away. But it could be that we've lost our job, that we've gone through a divorce. Maybe we've had a health change. Maybe we've in that job loss, we get a new job and financially we take a significant change, right? People grieve all through COVID when they when they saw that things, their money situation changed. People are grieving right now is as the cost of things have increased tremendously. Well, kids grieve beautifully, little kids, you know, when they lose their pet rock or their balloon floats away, or their ice cream hits the ground. That's grief. They're they're sad about those things. Teenagers grieve, too, when you turn off the Wi Fi or take a device away. Their grief might look a little different than a toddler's, but it's still grief. And the hard part that people often don't realize is that grief is what I call an umbrella term. It's that umbrella that under kind of covers off a ton of different emotions. And so there could be anger, there could be sad sadness, there could be depression or, or significance.

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frustration, confusion, there could be gratitude, there could be regret, there could be guilt, there's a ton of emotions, all described by one little word of grief. And so people don't always understand when they say, Oh, I'm grieving, but that grief doesn't look what they think it should look like. Because grief can look very, very different for everybody.

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And not only that many people do not even realize there they are in any of these situations, I Euskara clients that she told me,

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I just realize that I am sad that I have a deep depression for a long, long time. And until now, and it was like wow, it's like how long a person can be grieving for long periods of time. And they don't even realize they are

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really everybody. Well, and the hard part is is in our world. We also think that grief is just about death. And it isn't always right. I recently was chatting with a friend who just had it went through brisk

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Cancer. And in her surgery, she lost part of her breast and, and, you know, as she's getting back into the work world, she's realizing, like, my clothes don't fit the same. And I look, you know, I have to get undergarments that are different and, and I said, my friend, you're grieving, you're grieving that you've lost a piece of your body.

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And the tears started and and I just said, you know, you're allowed to, like this is significant. You know, we as women identify so much of our femininity around our breasts. And so when all of a sudden we lose a piece of it, there's going to be grief there. But because we don't talk about grief, very much, it kind of it takes a little bit to actually go, oh, yeah, I am. Right. And, and a lot of people are, are worried that, oh, people are gonna watch me like or judge me, right? There's lots of judgment and grief and, and we don't live in a world that likes to deal with pain. And so we tend to leave all that stuff behind. But the reality is, is it creeps up into our everyday life and, and we see it in different places and spaces. I mean, we're almost at the end of September, think of all the parents that just sent their kids off to college. And they've got empty nest syndrome. That's grief. Right? Those are, those are all normal. And yet, a lot of people don't know how to identify it, because that one little word could mean something. And, you know, a mom could be sad, and a dad could be mad. And they're both grieving. Because I believe grief says individuals are fingerprint, and none of us do it the same. Which means that none of us do it right or wrong. How we do it for ourselves is the only right way. And we don't get to get to decide how somebody else helps somebody else's grief looks for them.

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And how do we get overcome that how we move forward, because the pain is gonna be there. They're missing parts of whatever it is, from the breast from marriage from a person that died.

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It is different, but it is the same pain, how we move forward with it. You know, I believe that grief is love. And that when we grieve somebody, it's because we love them, you know, my first grief counselor after my husband died. That was about six or seven months after he passed that I saw her. And I was very emotional in my first session. And I apologize for my tears and kind of felt bad that she had to see me in that state. And she said Heidi wet and I witnessed deep grief, it's because I'm witnessing deep love. It wouldn't hurt if you didn't love your person, if you didn't love that piece of you if you didn't love the way your life was. And so, lots of times when grief sneaks up on us and I'm my husband passed in 2018. So it's been almost five years that he's been gone. There are still days that I grieve, are they as frequent as they were when he first passed? Definitely not.

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But can they be just as intense there are days that can be they're not as often. But there's days that I miss him. And so the way I kind of relate grief to people like as an image is, when it first happens, it feels like you're carrying a huge boulder.

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And it's insurmountable. Like it just, it's awkward, you can't see around it, your arms are sore, you're trying to hold this thing. And as you move through time, you know, you start moving through those emotions and feeling them and maybe you go and get help, or you know, get your health on track, whatever that looks like. And pieces of it'll start breaking away.

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And also your arms and your body start getting used to carrying it. So I'm not gonna say that you get a strong group, but you get used to carrying it's not as exhausting. And as it gets smaller and smaller, it becomes more and more manageable.

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And so that's where I think a lot of people use kind of the platitude that time heals all wounds and I think that term is a little bit BS I'll be honest with you, because I still can have days that are just as heavy and dark as the day that I lost my husband Mike. But the reality is is that I have gotten my grief is now I'm able to carry it and on the days that I can't I just give myself the grace to carry it the way I need to in that moment. But you know, it's it's a matter of we carry those things and some griefs are easy and they kind of just turn into bite size you put it in your pocket and it maybe flares up right like so for example. You know, it might be

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a grief like, you know, I was diagnosed with cancer and when you have sudden B cancer

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five years down the road it could be like wow, like I've come a long way and but you still look at that time and you still have all those memories you still have all of that stuff. It just isn't as intense because

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As you have moved through some of the emotions, right, and not everybody moves through the emotions, there are people that have anticipatory grief, the grief before it actually happens. Some people have delayed grief, they don't, you know, don't move through the emotions right away. None of that's right or wrong. You know, the reality is, is we we do things the way we need to do them, I would say the wrong thing that we do is that we judge others, and we judge ourselves on how we do them. Because I can tell you, there are times that I didn't want to grieve, you know, in the grocery store when I didn't have to buy milk again. And the tears like I'm messy crying in the grocery store, I didn't want to grieve, then. But I didn't get a choice. And I had to allow myself to feel the fields, I tell people feel the fields so that you can move through them. So that you can and I never believe that you move on, I believe you do move forward, the language you used earlier, Monica was bang on, we don't move on. It isn't just like that, that's done.

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People and things in our lives that we love and cherish. And so know that that's possible. And know that sometimes you grieve things that you wish you had, you know, there'll be people that are grieving. You know, for example, say you have a parent who maybe wasn't the best parent, maybe they were abusive, or maybe they had did terrible things to you, you may grieve the fact that you never get a chance to have a healthy parent, or the parent that you wanted, or that, you know you saw on TV. And that's a normal grief to. So sometimes we don't grieve the things that we've lost, we grieve the loss of a dream. You know, families that have kids with disabilities, they often go through grief, and it's the grief of my kid will never be, quote, normal. And that's that that is a normal grief to go through.

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To

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Yes, May when my dad I had delayed grief, it took me five years to actually cry it out and actually heal it. That was almost 20 years ago.

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And I promised myself because this world is not conducive to actually understand that we have to honor our emotions. If you're angry, you have to hold it. If you're sad, you have to hold it you have to support all your emotions in inside of you. So everything has to be peace and love.

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When in reality, but we're not honoring those, that is when I feel it linger more the whatever emotion you're passing through.

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Well, the problem is, is that we live in this world that doesn't like pain. And so we're good life. We're happy. Everybody's Oh, Monica is all peace and love. We're good. But when we're feisty and angry or sad or grieving, then people that's when the big bad kryptonite comes out. And that's judgment.

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And that's when we judge people, and we forget that their grief look will look different than our grief. And we compare, right? I can tell you the first three months after my past I heard every death story possible. I understand grief, I went through divorce. I totally understand grief. My 95 year old grandma died. I understand grief, my goldfish, I heard all of them. Right. And the reality was is I wasn't in a state to carry those stories. My story felt way too heavy. But the reality is, is I know that the people didn't say it to me because they wanted me to carry it. They were trying to empathize with me.

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But sometimes what ends up happening is we end up feeling like we're comparing.

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Yes, it is a deadly mistake a while back that was like, Oh, well, I understand a divorce. And when someone become a widow, and it's like this is not a scene, this was my choice. And the other one wasn't my choice. And not everyone can someone become widow is not a choice. It is very different. Having a choice and not having any choice at all. And I'll agree with you it is very different. And it is it is probably one of the things that I encourage people not to say, to turn around and say hey, I understand grief. I went through divorce when somebody has just lost their spouse to death. They don't. There is grief and divorce. And it is significant and it is just as intense. But it is not the same. And it can really harm the person that you're saying it to because they're not going to bump into their their person at the mall anymore. They're not going to have been able to hear their voice so they're laughing anymore. CO parent with them. Their whole world has shattered. Right and they've they're picking up the pieces. No different than you did in divorce but you've got pieces where you'll pick

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up with that person, or still have the ability to, to oh, I ran into them at the restaurant or, you know, whatever that looks like, post breakup. But so yeah, I encourage people don't say things like that I encourage a lot of things to not say, as we say. We say really weird things to people. What do you say to someone that is just recently? Got someone? Well, why don't we start with some of the things we don't say, Because oftentimes, those are what people relate to. And, and I tell Grievers, and I learned this, I mean, I, I felt it, I felt it early on when Mike passed, and I felt it. Throat, my, probably first two years of grief, where people just said things that missed the mark. And so things like, you know, any sentence that starts with at least, and we hear these kinds of sentences, so at least they're not suffering anymore. You know, for somebody who has just lost somebody to cancer or maybe to ALS, or Lou Gehrig's disease, yeah, their person isn't suffering anymore. But the person who's standing right in front of you is suffering right now. They're missing their person. And so be cognizant that the at least really minimizes, at least you're young, and you can find love again, my husband died the day before my 40th birthday. You know, but it didn't mean that because he died that the switch turned off and that I was ready to find love again, you know, at least you can get another dog.

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At least you can have another child. That doesn't acknowledge the fact that these griefs that we're having hurt right here right now. So I have, I encourage you to avoid any sentence that starts with at least I also don't love the phrase, I'm sorry for your loss. It's right up there with thank you for your service, you talk to most service people, and they're like, I don't know what to say that. People just say it because they're supposed to, and that's what we're taught. But for me, I'm like, I'm sorry for your loss.

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It doesn't allow for connection, it doesn't acknowledge the fact that I'm in agony.

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So I encourage you to say, you know, losing a parent is a significant loss.

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And I know how important your mom was for you, and my heart goes out to you.

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That's a way different story. And might be, or May I share a story of your husband, Keith, you know, I remember when, and be able to bring a memory alive, if they want if the person wants to hear that story.

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And then I also encourage a lot of people will say, Call me if you need me.

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I heard it hundreds of times. I didn't know what I needed. I didn't make any phone calls.

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But the people that showed up that person, my neighbor who said, hey, you know, because I lived in a condo complex, leave your garbage on the doorstep. And we'll make sure that it gets taken out. So you don't have to worry years people worry about it. Or the people who just said, Hey, I'm going to the grocery store, what do you need?

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And oh, my friend who had children and she became a widow. Hey, I'm driving my kids to school. Can I pick your kids up to along the way? Would that help today? offer specific help, because they don't know they need it? You know, I lost 30 pounds in the first three months after losing my husband. And everybody raved. I mean, I you know me, Monica, I have a little bit of extra. It wasn't a bad thing for me to lose it.

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But everybody raved at how good I looked. I had one friend who reached out and said, Have you lost all this work weight because you're not eating?

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And I said, Yeah, I hate eating alone. My brain fog is so bad that I i burning stuff on the stove if I have more than one pot cooking, like I said, and I feel sick to my stomach when I eat. So I just eat once a day. And she's like, I'd like to have you over for dinner. And why don't you stay the night and we'll watch movies and we'll have popcorn and maybe ice cream if you feel up to it and and I'd like to bring some Tupperware and I'll send you home with leftovers. So you just have some stuff to reheat.

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Right? That's grace. that's those are when you lean in. And I call my program lean into grief. It's those moments when you're meant to when you feel like you don't have the right words to say those are the moments when you're meant to lean in and support somebody and hold space for them and see them and love them exactly where they're at. You know, we talked earlier a little bit about judgment. And

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all people want when they're grieving is to be seen.

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Right? They want you to see them. They don't want you to say hey, don't cry, you'll make me cry too.

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What happens is that wall goes up, the armor goes up.

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And they stop talking to you. And so instead I turn around and I say thank you. Thank you for sharing your

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have tears with me. As you can see, because I often I'm a sprinkler, I'll cry with them. And I thank them. And I'm grateful that they share their heart with me. That's a gift. It's an honor. It's not a burden to me. And when you see that somebody's actually when somebody shares those tears, they're sharing love with you. It's a hard love, because they're learning to love their person when they're not here anymore. They're having to learn to love that person that they've lost, that isn't here anymore. And so when all sudden, they're like, Hey, I just need a place that somebody sees me, it can be such a gift. You know, it can really truly be something that you have no idea in the moment and they may not acknowledge it in the moment, because in that moment, there's a lot going on. But I can tell you, I remember the man who sat with me 11 months after my husband died in a restaurant and just let me messy cry in my soup. And he wasn't throwing Kleenex in my face. He wasn't telling me to, you know, get over it. He wasn't telling me to stop crying that it were in a public place. He just let me cry.

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I will remember that man for the rest of my life.

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Because he held space, he didn't try to fix it. He didn't. You can't fix it. The only thing that fixes it is bringing mike back. You can't fix dead. But you can witness grief, you can hold space and just love somebody exactly where they're at.

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without judgment.

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That is so true. I make me remember all the things that I hear when my mother died about two years ago. And, and all the things that I heard them.

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And it was like it was okay. Like, basically, I came to understanding the funeral. Do not cry, or live in and just pass this to these days. As horrible as they are they are and they're going to survive. You already survived. Father, you can survive this, but but he was holding the rain and holding the ring and holiday and many things that I wanted to talk that later on even when going to people to eat this like oh, you don't wanna you want to talk about your mom, please don't. And I invited him in here eating with you.

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Yeah, it's about holding space and knowing that there's going to be times that you don't have the words. And lots of times what happens is when we don't have the words, we get silent, and we don't say anything. And for those people that are grieving, that silence is deafening. It's like God, don't you see me? Don't you see this hurts? Don't you see that? I'm shattered inside. And so I encourage you, if you don't know what to say, say that say, I don't know what to say here. Like this sucks. You know, I remember and I don't know if I can cuss on here. But I saw a friend about six months after Mike died. And somebody had said to her Yeah, Heidi just lost her spouse. And she goes, Well, that's just shit.

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And I was like, it is just shit. Thank you. It wasn't a I'm sorry for your loss and that awkward weirdness. She was like, that's, that sucks. Like, I can't fix it. There's nothing I can do or say, but I'm gonna say what it is, you know, which was way better than you know, the person who tried talking to me about NFL

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Super Bowl stats. And I was like, you know that, like, my husband just died four weeks ago. She's like, Yeah, I just don't know what to talk about when that happens. So I just make weird conversation. And I was like, and it's weird

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because I don't watch football.

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No. Right. And so

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and so just love people where they're at do it without judgment know that how they grieve will may look very differently than how you grieve. And that's okay. You know, it's those statements that people make like that there's you know, it's been five months you're not over that yet. There is no timeline on grief. You know, all they took their wedding band off. Oh, they're trying for another baby. Oh, look, they got another dog. That's we don't get to decide how what that looks like and what's right for people what's not, you know, I just love people exactly where they're at. And even when it's ugly, and sometimes grief comes with anger. And sometimes they don't say the nicest things and I still show up and I still say Hey, I see this is hard.

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It's about giving people a little bit of grace. And I tell Grievers, you've got to give the people around you a bit of grace to because they're not so good at this and not

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Nobody said these things to me out of malice. Nobody was like, oh, Heidi lost her husband. Let's kick her Weller down while she's down and say all these terrible things. They say them because they've never been taught.

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Our grief culture goes to about the service or maybe a week after and then we don't know what to do after that.

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is a big dip. Put a timeline, how long do you have to grieve?

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says, How long do you get to breathe? I will love and grieve my husband to the last breath I take.

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Plain and simple. That is so true. That how do you

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whether you use,

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what is the the normal?

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I don't even know how to say these words.

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How long? Do you know that actually, you need help.

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Let's say I was I always say that if it if it feels insurmountable, get help.

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You know, I knew I needed help. I knew that my The loss was unexpected.

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I had a heart attack. I wasn't anticipating this. And I knew that it was I needed help. My whole life turned inside out and upside down in an hour.

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And I didn't I didn't have anything to relate to. And so I went and I specific I encourage people get specific grief, grief, help, go and see somebody certified in grief. Don't just go and see a counselor or a psychologist. I saw a general counselor about three months after my husband died. And she was like, You're doing everything right.

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I was like, Are you kidding me? Like, I'm not functioning. She's like, Yeah, you're doing it. All right. Like, I'm like, I don't need cheerleading. I need somebody to show me that. What what's ahead like, what, how am I going to move navigate this and remind me that this is normal and, and spell out some of this stuff? That doesn't make sense. And, and when I saw a grief counselor, who actually was able to see and witness me and then said, Hey, like, why don't you go into a young widows group therapy as well, so that I could go and learn from other widows that were in the same, like I wasn't when I was 39 years, I was just 40 years old. So I went in a group with a bunch of young widows, not widows that were 70 years old that had been married 30 years. And so, you know, I got to learn that I wasn't the only one going through this. And that, even though other people's circumstances were different, like some of them had kids, and some of them had different losses, types of losses, that the process was

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had similarities. But that we all navigate how we all navigate, it was basically how we need it, it was kind of like the Choose Your Own Adventure. You just didn't get to choose it was you know, you had to navigate it your way. And

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you have to do it with with the grace and so do it with a professional.

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You can even read like Meghan divines book, it's okay that you're not okay. She was a psychotherapist. And she stopped practicing after her husband died. And she realized that she was not equipped to

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help people with grief because she was never really trained well enough to handle it.

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You know, I've seen, I was messaging with a widow probably a couple years ago. And her husband, she was 37, her husband died in a workplace accident. And it wasn't even nine months after. And she was at her doctor's office trying to get some medication to help her cope because she wasn't sleeping. And the doctor was like, out of all my patients, you take the biggest crack prize and grieving the hardest. I came from a doctor. So it's not a surprise to me that as everyday people that haven't been trained in bedside manner or death and dying, screw it up.

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And so I always tell Grievers, like give the people around you some grace, when they say stuff and they stick their foot in their mouths. You know, instead of ripping their head off, let them know that hey, that kind of missed the mark. You know, tell them about it. free complimentary classes, because they don't they don't say it because they want to hurt you there. It's uncomfortable that they have a hard time seeing the fact that their friend or their loved one is hurting, and they can't fix it. And some of them they have to remember when I was out recently, when recently divorce. When I my son was five years old. I was 21 years old. About half of us were younger, and I was grieving it was in that pain and so forth. And I went to a therapist, and the first thing he was the dean of the University perogative of psychology, and he told me Well, and like why you're so sad

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So I bought I just recently divorced, I have now three kids and, and I knew how to move forward with what I was gonna do with my life and dedicating three little boys and so forth. When he told me about, don't even look for anyone else, you just have to wait 10 At least now he was 810 years more on to your son, he's 18 years old, so you can remake your life that they went did like, and so in a depression, so they because it's like, have to wait 10 years really to start? Living again, is like, what that's the next step in 10 years. What is next? And that was and then on a new versus saying those kinds of things. When there's a retrain? Yeah, not all of them grieve.

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I feel that your expertise is very unique. That is not for all the therapists or coaches, they can deal with the same thing. Because of the judgment. Yeah, it is, depending on whatever they have leave. They have never been in a grieving in any aspect or divorce or passing to anything for them to have that empathy. Sometimes they don't, they cannot get it. They don't.

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And people don't understand because they haven't had the experience. They haven't lived it. You know, I guarantee that I said crappy things to people before I lost my husband. I know I did. I know. I said I'm sorry for your loss. I know I kind of was like, hey, like it's been a year, you're still this is still on your mind. Like, and not that I was that callous, but, you know, it feels that callous to somebody who's in agony because they've lost somebody. And I handle them those things very different, you know, now, you know, I know, like, I mean, you know, me, I traveled quite a bit like you, we you know, so my Uber adventures, I spend a lot of time in airplanes and, and in Ubers, and you're laughing because I have some good Uber stories, don't I?

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But oftentimes, you know, I ended up chatting with the drivers and, and they always asked like, are you married? And I say no, I'm widowed. If I'm if I'm feeling like I want to go down that path. And the first question people asked me, and these are complete strangers, I'm in another country in a car. How did your husband die?

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How does your husband why does that matter?

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How does that that information help me? Like, you're now making me go back to the day that he had his heart attack. You're now making me go back to the day that I have to remember that I did CPR on him, that I cracked his ribs open like that. You know, that was the hardest day in my life.

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So I don't I don't ask cause of death. And I'll be honest with you, I believe that it's the TV and TV and movies that crime shows that, you know, we always ask, Well, how did they die? Well, the reality is, is when you don't know the person. And even if you do know the person, you probably don't actually need to know because unless you know how to bring them back from the dead. You can't fix that.

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And so I don't ask, I don't need to know. And if I felt like I needed to know, like, for example, about nine months after Mike died, I was at a My husband was a fireman. And I was at a dinner with a bunch of firemen. And one of the men that I ended up sitting beside

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saw my husband the week before he died.

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And so I could see that he was devastated. He's like, I saw him and he was so happy. And he was talking about you and how in love he was and and then a week later, I got an email that he died.

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And instead of saying what was the cause of death, he said, may I ask what happened?

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He asked for permission, if I was willing to go there.

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Could I handle that? Because here's a man who has dealt with people on their worst days of their lives. He's seen people have to find loved ones who have committed suicide or died by overdose, or died in car accidents. And he knows that those days are traumatic. And I learned so much from him that day, because he asked, it gave me a bit of grace. I'm at a dinner full of people that were going to honor my husband that night. And may I ask what happened? Instead of How did he die? Yeah. Interesting.

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Because he and I felt it was it was fair to share with him. Now I share my husband's cause of death because I know that everybody's curious. How did the young lady's husband die? You know, because a lot of people want to know if it's weird, like suicide, COVID

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addiction, things like that. But the reality is, is when we do ask people you're now asking them to relive how

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Probably one of the hardest days in their life. And you don't need that information. And so I encourage you not to ask it.

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If you feel like you've got to get a sense of where things are at, I sometimes will ask was it expected.

35:15

And it's not to minimize expected and unexpected deaths. But sometimes it'll tell me when the person has been sick know, the person has been sick for six months, we kind of knew it was coming. Or not wasn't, we had no idea this was coming. And it could be something like, I have friends that have lost spouses due to being hit by car while they're in a crosswalk, you know, like some of the real tragic ones like addiction or suicide, I, I don't need to make them relive those days, I really don't. I will hold space, and I will listen to them if they want to share with me. But I'm not going to force them to go there.

35:57

Say I have a one of my, my sisters, her son died about seven years ago, or eight years ago. She has never recuperate from that. And that's why I've my question was to what point you actually advise that, hey, you need some help.

36:16

Because everybody's different. I mean, the reality is, is if you go into help means that at seven years later, and you're sitting there like a lump on a log, it's not going to help you. You know, you have to be willing to do the work. And some people just aren't, you know, I met a woman. It was that I was going to my first counseling session, and I come out of the session, I looked like I'd been in my first counseling session, I've been messy crying. And

36:43

I ran into her in the hallway. I didn't know her. She was like, did you just come out of the grief program? And I'm like, yeah, she was my ask who passed away, I said, my husband. She goes, when I said six months ago, she said, do the work. Now she goes, my husband died seven years ago, went up and traveled for seven years. And now I gotta do the work. And it's harder. Now. She goes, I wasn't able to do it until now. But if you can, don't avoid it. But some people that's that's their way. Some people, they can't move through it. Some people need time, some people process it very differently. You know, I was chatting with a woman recently who her brother, he's like, I don't want to talk about his daughter was murdered. And he's like, I don't want to talk about it. I don't want to know about anything. I just,

37:33

it is it. You just don't talk about it. And that's his way right now. And it isn't anybody else's job for him to move through that on his own. And he will do it when he's ready. Or maybe he is doing it. And it just looks very different than what other people are going through. And that's okay.

37:55

We don't get to decide. And the hard part is, is lots of times when we're grieving. And we see that somebody else is grieving in a way that we don't recognize, we then want to try to fix it, because it's way easier to fix somebody else to move through our own emotions. You know, and sometimes I have to say to people, like, why do you need to talk to them about this? Why? What is the purpose? Is it that you're trying to avoid your own emotions? And and I would say probably 75% of the time it is about them, it's easier to help somebody than to go through and feel the pain that we're feeling.

38:30

But the hard part is, is when we do that, it often makes the other person feel like they're being judged, because they're not doing it the right way.

38:38

That is a true. That is That is so true. And if I took some something from today, is that

38:48

because we're so conditioned, and that we have to all be like uniform emotions. And this is how we should be this is how in the movie looks like.

39:01

There's just conditioning that we're accepting that it doesn't have to be true.

39:06

I recorded a podcast recently where the podcaster said, I've watched a movie recently and a lady was grieving and she wasn't crying. So I thought she was a crappy actress. And she goes so now after talking to you, I'm realizing she's just representing grief in a really different way. And that that character maybe resonates for the people that don't cry. Because there's lots of people that I pray enough for many people, I think I'm a sprinkler. But there's lots of people that don't cry and that's okay.

39:35

You know, they find other ways to move through their emotions and just because the tears don't shut, come through it doesn't mean they're not grieving.

39:44

It. There isn't a normal look of grief.

39:49

That is

39:51

and

39:54

I would like to ask you, okay, I know you wrote a book, what is the name of the book? I can

40:00

contributed a chapter to the blue talks, volume three, and I'm currently writing two books, but you know my schedule, and it's a little full. So one is a legacy book about my husband, I believe that when we actually get to hold space and love people in grief with people, that we also get to carry on the legacies of people that we've lost, and I believe it's our duty to leave the legacies. And so what I've done is I've gotten 10 chapters from 10 of my husband's friends. And I'm compiling them to talk about the legacy that he's left behind, and how losing him looks really different for all 10 of us. And so it's a bit of a passion project, I really,

40:42

and I don't, I don't know if you know, this, but I'm actually without my contacts, I'm legally blind. And when I was young, they actually didn't think that I'd be able to, they thought I'd have have a developmental disability. And so I always had a dream, once I got God glasses that I would write a book. And so it's a real important book for me to get out there first, is this passion project of Mike's legacy, because even though he's gone, he's still helping my dreams come through, which I think is pretty magical.

41:16

But then the other book will be about what to say and not say to somebody who's grieving and, and again, a lot of the same things that we've talked about today. But I may actually also include some chapters from people who have lost.

41:30

Maybe it had a stillborn birth or miscarriage, people that have lost people by due to addiction or suicide or murder.

41:38

So that because the words matter and grief, and and I truly believe the reason why people don't say anything at all is because they're afraid they're gonna screw it up. And they know that the words matter, and they're afraid they're going to stick their foot in their mouth. And so I encourage people, when you see grief, whether it be a child that is lost their balloon, or a teenager that has

42:01

lost their internet, or a friend that maybe broke their ankle and can't drive,

42:06

or somebody who is is grieving a divorce, or whatever that looks like, you work your grief muscles in those uncomfortable situations, learn some of these tools,

42:16

and just start being comfortable with some of the uncomfortable conversations that we're not used to. So that when we have to be with people that we care about that are enduring pain, that we feel like we're equipped to handle those conversations rather than to go silent. You know, grief is love. And when we can do it together, it allows for connection. And so I encourage people, I want people to grieve with Grace together.

42:47

And more, because in that moment is when they feel more alone.

42:51

So that insulation, isolation, isolation, yes, you got it. Yeah.

42:57

It is so tremendously because you feel that no one will understand. So people tend to become permits in that time.

43:07

So those were greater biases to do when someone just lost someone.

43:14

Well, and know that, you know, when all sudden you go silent, or you go and you're disappearing, it means that they're they're having to grieve you too. You know, I lost four of my closest friends after Mike died, and I grieved the loss of them for the first few months harder, because I was like, they're still here. Why? Why can't they see me? Why Am I invisible all of a sudden, now, it's taken me some time to realize that, you know, I was a reminder to them, because there was six of us that all hung out. And without Mike here, I was a reminder to them that Mike was gone.

43:49

But in that moment, those first that first year, it ripped my heart out that I had to lose them too.

43:56

And so know that when you don't show up, you're making them grieve another loss. And so show up. And even if you don't know what to say, say that. I don't have words. I'm not good at this. But You're important to me, and I want to show up for you. And when I screw it up and say when I screwed up, I know that you probably will, because I mean, I'm trained in this and there's times I screw it up. Right? And so please tell me, like give them permission to be real with you.

44:28

Know that you're not intentionally doing this, that you're doing the best you can. You know, grace means that you give yourself grace, you're giving the other person grace and they're giving you grace. Right. This is nobody wants to have to have these conversations. But the reality is, is all of us are going to grieve. All of us will lose people all of us will lose things. And so be graceful, be gentle. Be gentle with yourself, you know and just show up the best way that you can without judgment.

45:00

You don't judge how people live happy. I mean, we talked about peace and love earlier. I don't look at Monica and go, Oh, is that how she does happiness? I'd be like, Look at her. Look how happy she is. You know, I always tell people about like, the America's Got Talent when they get the Golden Buzzer. When they get the Golden Buzzer. None of them celebrate the same way. Their dream just came true. They're not celebrating the same way. But we don't judge them. But we do judge how people live through pain.

45:29

And we get to choose, you get to choose to say, hey, you know what, I need to stop that.

45:35

How they go through pain is how they go through pain. And it isn't for me to tell them what that's supposed to look like, or how long it's supposed to be.

45:43

You know, love them exactly where they're at. That's what they deserve. That's what they need.

45:48

Or they're angry.

45:52

With they're

45:54

not angry at you. They're angry that their life has changed. Yes.

45:59

Right. They're angry that they, I mean, I was angry at Mike, you left me with a huge mess to clean up, you left me by myself. You taught me that I could be loved. And then also you died. And now I got to do it again. No, like I was angry. Right? Rightfully so it's part of the process. You know?

46:22

It sucks. Sometimes. It's hard. There's also but there's also beautiful parts of grief. You know, I'm really open about my grief. I'm grateful I had Mike, as much as losing him broke me, inside, I'm grateful I had him, my life would be very, very, a lot less if I didn't have him in my life. And so those moments when I'm going through the dark parts of grief, when I need to move forward and need to get out of that and get back to living, it's that I'm grateful. I'm grateful that I had him and 17 that everybody has to remember that when someone is showing up just angry all the time. I'll be there depress you sinister, negative person? Yes, but what is behind that anger. I always say anger is one letter sort of danger. It's an emotion. But if you don't actually stop and look, it's a surface emotion. And it's kind of like the scratch ticket that you get at the gas station, if you scratch off, you'll see a different emotion behind it. Right? And, or a different reason, like, you think that they're angry about this. But really, it could be that they're sad about something else. Or they're missing something, or that they're, you know, feeling guilty or regret, that there'll be another emotion behind it. So

47:47

it doesn't matter what emotion it is, there's always something behind. That's why the healing process for the human being

47:57

in the near end, never ends. Yeah. Well, I'd be fine.

48:03

You know, and know that it shifts like, you know, I had a friend who her husband died 12 years ago.

48:10

And she's a grief lady like she's trained in all this stuff. One of her big grief days happened to be her birthday.

48:18

And it was the birthday that she now was older than her husband.

48:24

Because he was 12 years older than her

48:28

and all sudden it had her like a ton of bricks. And other people were like, Why? Why is it bugging you?

48:36

Because it was never supposed to be that way.

48:39

And so you know, know that it may not look the same know that it could be 12 years, it could be 15 My husband was 24 years older than me. So when I turned 63 It's going to be probably have some emotion to it. It might be emotionally charged. And that's okay.

48:57

You know, I'm allowed to I give myself that permission.

49:02

You know me you know that I can schedule everything. You know that I run events, you know that? I'm really good at order. Yes, grief fucks that shit up.

49:13

And it is so key to actually be vulnerable and say, You know what? today? I'm not feeling right.

49:20

Now you're passing through? Yep. Sometimes we have to stop and say you know, it doesn't matter. You're grieving coach or you're a coach or a healer, whatever you want.

49:32

We'll pass into emotions. And we need to honor them. Because we know not all ages, we're trying to push down and hiding from ourselves is going to come up and come up until we actually do that in your work.

49:46

And know that sometimes that that stuff comes percolating. I you know, like, there's times where I'll walk past somebody and they're wearing a cologne. This is the same one that Mike wore. And I'm like, you know, and I'm like, Ah,

50:00

And some days, it'll bring tears to my eyes and other days, it'll bring a smile to my face.

50:05

You know, and that's, that's the reality of it, right? Like, we don't get to choose, those memories will percolate in in different places and spaces. And so it can come up when we least expect it. You know, when we think about grief, and we think that it's Oh, it's just a personal loss. So you just deal with it at home, but it happens at the office.

50:27

You think about your loved ones at the office, you think about your loss, the dog that you just lost at the office. So grief shows up at the office, we need to use these these skills at the office just as much as we do at home. You know, the grace is needed. I mean, I remember, my husband's funeral was about two weeks after he died because of the holiday season. Because he died at Christmas time. And then

50:51

it was on a Friday. And on a Monday, I had my business right on the money. On the Sunday after his service. I got an email from one of my clients who was at his service. So she knew he died,

51:02

said the list of things for Heidi to do is growing. Are you going to be available to do it on Monday? Or should I find somebody else?

51:11

My response was fine somebody else?

51:14

Because my other clients messaged me and said, Hey, Heidi, we know that you've have gone through hell and back, how do we support you? What is what does it look like? What do you need.

51:27

And they gave me that grace for a year.

51:31

Like we're, I phoned them and said, You know, I know we talked about this in January, that I can't do work on the fly, like I need longer time to get work done. And you guys have done that. But I now need to probably make a little bit of money, the bills need to get paid. And, and they were like we were waiting on you.

51:51

You know,

51:53

is that remember, one of my best friends died about seven years too.

51:58

And we used to paint murals together. And we painted in different restaurants here locally. And I avoid going to those restaurants because any not one of the members. Until finally, this last year, I took my daughter and it's like, let me show you something we already did with one cards.

52:17

And we went in a car with Yeah, I remember when Carlos was over there, he almost fell down from that chair, painting that mural. And now it was over here the printer was on a fallen term. But now we can, I can laugh about it. But I avoid those places for seven years. Because it was too painful to go and, and, and have those memories back. And sometimes it is take your time.

52:42

But it is important that you will see them. They own the same stories in a very different way. Like now collab with my daughter about the pain was going to fall on top of me and things like that. And now we can talk about

52:56

that. And everybody does that differently. Like some people might be like, hey, I need to see those murals. Hey, you know, I want those memories and other people. Yeah, it's too painful. And neither one of them are wrong. And that's okay.

53:13

Be gentle with the people around you. Be gentle with yourself, you know, know that this is something we don't talk about, like literally all we've been taught taught to do is send some flowers, maybe a card, attend a service, some of us might might make a lasagna. And then when the service is done, we really don't know what to do or say.

53:36

You know, and so know that judgment is group's kryptonite, like every time I say see the word judgment now I just see that big green stone and Superman

53:48

and, and just love somebody exactly where they're at. And even if you don't agree with it, even if it shouldn't look that way in your eyes just be like this is their process. And all they need to do is be seen.

54:01

I know you have some glasses once in a while that you teach when you have time.

54:08

Or how do people can get a visit on my website, Heidi dunston.ca under Events. I just did one last night. Thank you very much. Thank you, Heidi. Thank you, Monica. I would like to say before we know thank you. It's been a real treat, being able to chat with you. I've missed chatting with you. It's been a couple couple months. So thank you for taking the time to be with me.

54:30

Thank you everybody. This is Monica Ramirez the Warrior of Love and thank you for being in Soul Talk and on Soulogy Network.