Kevin Boon | The Masks We Wear

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:

When you fill out your calendar, do you intentionally set time aside to reflect and for introspection? Probably not. Most of us don’t do so. However, as Kevin shares in this episode, doing so for his grief has made all of the difference in his life.

Kevin speaks to the cumulative losses of his career, his father, his mother, and subsequent divorce. He also shares the impact of having a small nuclear family and missing out on a larger, extended family community growing up.

We often don’t think about how our nuclear family of origin impacts our grief. However, it has everything to do with how we respond to it. Kevin grew up, as many of us do, unable to express his grief. As a result, it manifested in different ways. That is until he discovered the work of Grief Recovery. Kevin shares his experience working with me, addressing his grief through my program Do Grief Differently.

Learn through our conversation how, as a male and someone who has experienced various losses, it is possible to recover from all of the emotions that make up grief; anger, sadness, bitterness, and everything in between.

RESOURCES:

• Entrepreneurship Lives Here Podcast Interview with Victoria Volk
• Bryn Edwards with Victoria Volk Podcast Interview
• Book, Hold On To Your Kids
• The Social Dilemma
• The Emotional Wheel
• Empathy | The Cost of Dying Report
• Do Grief Differently™️ with Victoria Volk

CONNECT:

• YouTube
• LinkedIn 
• Instagram

_______

NEED HELP?

• National Suicide Prevention Lifeline: 1-800-273-8255
• Crisis Text Line provides free, 24/7 support via text message. Text HOME to 741741 to connect with a trained Crisis Counselor

If you are struggling with grief due to any of the 40+ losses, free resources are available HERE.

Are you enjoying the podcast? Check out my bi-weekly newsletter, The Unleashed Letters.

CONNECT WITH VICTORIA: 

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Victoria Volk 0:00
Thank you for tuning in to grieving voices. Today, my guest is Kevin Boon. He has worked the first 20 years of his career in the technology industry, and for the past 10 years has coached and consulted with startup entrepreneurs, and small to medium-sized businesses. He has a degree in economics, interest in history, politics, and has been interested in what it takes for economies and communities and for people to thrive. Thank you so much for being my guest, Kevin, also a Grief Recovery client of mine. Very interested in you sharing your experience with that at some point when it fits into your story, but let’s get started on really what brings you to grieving voices?

Kevin Boon 0:50
Well, I think that it takes me back, I think, to when I first kind of discovered you I was you know, I was going through some challenges in my life, I had, you know, had some career, I went through a job loss, I had my parents that had both kind of passed and went through kind of like what I would call, you know, I don’t know, health challenges that lasted for quite a few years. So there was just that part where there was just a lot of ongoing challenges with that I had a job that was stressful, and then eventually that job ended. And then within boat, you know, within about a year after my mom dying, my relationship ended. And so it was, for me, it was the three areas where basically, I had meaning in life. And within just a very short time window does work on. And so, and I knew I was grieving, I was, you know, working through and trying, you know, different methods and looking at different ways to support myself, but I was in a pretty, you know, tough state, it was a it was a really, really tough time to for going through that. And so I found you on I think it was what’s the guy? It’s it was a YouTube interview that you did with I think it was Brian Edwards. And, and it was just the topic was grief. And and what you said in those conversations, were just some things that just kind of said, Ah, there it is. That’s, you know, those are pieces and spoke to me, that was basically what it was. So I knew that I just, you know, I needed to reach out. And we did and we did did some work together, which was great. So so that was kind of that was my experience, you know, going through just the loss of those really important things in my life.

Victoria Volk 2:53
Would you say it was a dark night of the soul?

Kevin Boon 2:57
It was the dark night of my soul? Yeah, absolutely. And it was, you know, one of the things that you are one of the things I know that in the grief work that you do. You know, it says that, you know, grief is cumulative. And what that means to me is that you know if you have stressful experiences, if you have experiences that give you heartache Oh in your life, and if you don’t deal with those in some ways at the time, then they build. And what I realized, I virtually had like what I call a lifetime of working really hard and jobs always being on the go productive than trying to show up in a family trying to show up with my parents and a whole bunch of different things. A lot of times there were just things that would come up that would just never get resolved stead of going and sitting down and having a drink or eating food or watching TV. That was the way of tuning out. And I think that hit had been really hard to do what I call the introspection and this is what I think this worked help me to do a little bit of.

Victoria Volk 4:00
It’s like having a scab, right, this really gaping wound that scabs over, then you find yourself like picking at it in these moments of frustration or anger and it never resolves, right? It just always is a gaping wound, it’s always an unhealed wound and we go to the doctor when we have a broken arm or broken leg. But I think society is maybe getting better about going to a professional when they have a broken heart. But yeah, your progression of going through the program and seeing where you started and then seeing where you landed at the end. It was beautiful to be witness to that and you just see people and I saw you just get lighter and lighter like you just you carry yourself different you show up differently. Did you feel that way in your life and relationships and connections with other people and

Kevin Boon 4:54
Yeah, it definitely was something we’re at the end of that I came out lighter. And I was carrying, I would say a lot of unresolved grief with my mother. You know, it was interesting because my mother died in, you know, 2018. And I remember just kind of, and I was we, you know, the whole family, we were with her in palliative care when she passed, you know, it was trying to, you know, kind of be there. But I was almost like, in this place where I was feeling numb. You know, I didn’t know what the emotions were like, I couldn’t cry. I couldn’t, you know, I couldn’t let this go. I think when I went through the grief work, especially around my mother, that was where the tears started to flow. And I thought, holy smokes, this is, you know, this is deep stuff, and it just started to get me into this place is like, Oh, okay. You know, like, just these little pockets, where it was like, Oh, my God, this happened. And this is how I felt. And sometimes it’s not even so much about what somebody does, it’s, it’s about just the feelings that you it’s, it’s even their state of mind, you know, my mother would be in a place where she, a lot of times was worried, or she was anxious, or she was depressed herself. Like she, you know, she had moved from England, you know, you know, and kind of lost that connection with her family. And I think she was going through her own grief, I realized so much around how, especially when I was little, some of them were memories that I had, but some of them were not memories, you know, they were, they were just things that I go, Oh, my God, I just felt intuitively into this place. And it’s like, all there it is, you know, and it’s and so, so I think that the work of your work helped me to open up to some of these bigger windows of things that maybe I hadn’t paid attention to. before so.

Victoria Volk 6:53
Yeah, and what I hear and you saying that, and what, you know, when you went through the process, it brings the importance of understanding how important our environment is into our development. And like, you spoke to your mom’s own stuff she was experiencing and going through, and like, let’s say a family has a dog, but everybody in the family is kind of anxious, you know, they’re just kind of like, unsettled within themselves and just kind of anxious family maybe even angry. Yeah, you often see that reflected in their dog, you know, there’ll be an aggressive dog or a really scared dog. I actually had that purse, I just comes to my mind. Now we had tried to adopt it, we adopted a dog poodle, which isn’t kind of a nervous dog anyway, but my children were young, and this dog just did not that nervous energy, and the energy of the children. It was too much for this dog, and he did not adapt well to our family. Right. Gave him to a retired couple. He was like a completely different dog. Yes. And I think just as dogs respond to their environment, in either in how they behave and react, so do we as children growing up in that environment. So if it’s, if they’re if you’re in an environment that’s really angry, and there’s a lot of fighting, and there’s a you know, lack of stability, emotional stability, yeah, might be someone who has trouble coping and managing your own emotions as you get older. Right. It’s, this is why we say adulthood is childhood reenactments. And so I just wanted to highlight that, it doesn’t mean you’re crazy as a Griever. That’s where people kind of get stuck in feeling like it’s all them. We’re all products of our environments and our experiences. So thank you for highlighting that and mentioning that.

Kevin Boon 8:49
Yeah, absolutely. And I would add something really important. It’s, you know, as I went through looking at my childhood, my parents immigrated, like I said, from England, they came to Canada when I was like four months old, like I was a baby in arms, coming to Canada, and then we lived in Canada for four years. We went to Australia for four years. But what we were we were that typical nuclear family, you know, so, in my family back in England, you know, there was uncles and aunts and grandparents, like if I was in that environment back there, you know, we would have gone weekends over to visit the grandparents or visit the uncles or you know, kind of do things with this wider audience and what I realized as I started looking at my own and I caught my grief journey was just living in the nuclear world. Where are this little nuclear niche where it’s your mom and dad are your primary caregivers. That’s not a lot of that’s just a pretty narrow perception of the types of personalities that are out there. And it just so happened that my mother you know, was you know, somebody who worried a lot something. He had a lot of anxiety, she was, you know, lonely, depressed, like, in her own way to pick that up, like, it was like, you know, I’m intuitive like I’m, I’m empathic, I know that I am that, you know, and as a child, she was the person who I spent like 80% of my time with. And then my dad on the other end was, he was always like working at jobs and always busy. But I knew that you know, money and survival were part of their, you know, their, their modus operandi type of thing they were, that’s where they operated from. And so what I’ve discovered for my own journey is that, number one, how much of a loss it was to not have that wider circle of influence. Like even mentors, when I think about my life growing up, like, I don’t think I really ever had what I would call a mentor, until I got into like adulthood in my 30s or 40s. Like, like, like to not have, like, you know, when kids like, you know, they say that when a child thrives at some level, there’s somebody that they meet along the way, that says, hey, you know, they, they pay attention to them. They say, you know, what, you’ve got this skill here, or you can do this, or they have a different perception. And I realized in my life, that part of my grieving was the grief that I didn’t have that bigger, expanded network of people within my community, if you will, or tribe, whatever you want to call it. You know,

Victoria Volk 11:30
Don’t you find that interesting that what you do now, and what you’re interested in is all about community. And, you know, it’s like you’re looking to build something that you didn’t have, right? You’re looking to support something you didn’t have? And I, yeah, I think our passions generally do come from our pain.

Kevin Boon 11:54
Oh big time. And, you know, it’s, it’s interesting, because I’m a big fan of Gabor Ma Tei. And Gordon Neufeld, they have a book and it’s called, I’ve actually got it here, it’s called hold on to your kids. And the whole premise of this book describes the fact that as a culture, you know, for the last two or three generations, and going back to the baby boomers like this goes back to the baby boomers, but what they say is that we have a culture, where children at a very young age, lose their family attachment, and they become peer attached. So they become attached to their friends and schools, or if you put a knife pad in front of them, they become attached to people online, whatever it is, and that peer attachment is crippling our self-esteem, you know, that’s part of the message. And I and I look at that, and I and so this is where my interest in kind of like being able to present this stuff and to talk about some of these ideas because this is a big challenge. It’s, you know, in any ways, for me, it’s not just me, you know, I have my own unique experience of this. But there’s a bigger expanded challenge that we face in society, with the fact that, you know, most kids today are becoming pure attached at a very young age. And the whole society teaches us to, you know, that, Oh, you know, we got to go to school, you got to go to preschool, well, you got to go to pre, preschool, whatever it is, and we get kids out of the house, and they’re in this peer attached world, which is not as reliable now, if they go at home to their family, and their parents are stressed because they’re, they’ve got jobs that are busy, and they’re running around all the time, then it’s also hard for them to get the family attachment. So there’s a bunch of things where sometimes we’re just not able to slow down as a society. And so you know, what does a child need? You know, and what does a child need? You know, a child needs a gabber Mati and others talk about they need attachment. And they need authenticity. So it’s a place where they can be themselves, they can be true to themselves, they don’t have to try to fit in and get marks in school, they can be themselves what is, you know, what is that true essence of self. So that’s been my search. And the grief work is a really important part to that. So that’s, yeah, interesting.

Victoria Volk 14:30
Two words that come to my mind when you’re talking about that, you know, the attachments, you know, peer attachment and family attachment is add in like adding a grief event right, like a traumatic loss or a really challenging time or a mental health challenge with a family member or parent or a child. All of these other components of life that happen that are unfavorable to us, and how do you cope? You know, it’s so we all have different ways. is that we do that that are unhealthy. Usually, that’s so I think we’re speaking to is all these different threads that kind of really just create this tapestry of really what’s needed as is balanced to. And I thought of to when you were talking about with the peers, it’s really about teaching our kids and to, it really matters who you surround yourself with, not just as an adult and emulating that. But as a child, like how do you how do you help children discern who is going to be that peer, that is going to uplift you and inspire and encourage and, and really, truly be a friend? You know? Yes. And a role model? In as what a friend really is?

Kevin Boon 15:49
Yes, it’s the healthy relationships, right? Because, you know, we can talk family attachments, but if you’re, you know, if your parents are abusive, or neglectful, or they’re stressed, whatever it is, you’re going to struggle within that environment. And I think it’s people I don’t know, it’s people like Oprah, I think I remember for her, you know, she had a challenging childhood. But she had, you know, people along the way that just, you know, were there that paid attention to her and inspired her, you know, things along that lines. And I think that that’s the part that it’s really important, I think, for society to figure out how do we find that place where a child’s going to attach to create a connection, where they go, oh, you know, I’m important, you know, and, and this gets into, like, I think some of the bigger challenges we’re having in our society right now, where I think that people have, you know, we try so much in our technology world, to try to have like, you know, the, the one, you know, the one app that’s going to solve all our problems, or the, you know, the special thing that if we can talk to a million people, then you know, people are going to be saved, whatever it is, through through whatever, whatever this method that we’re teaching, but the reality is, sometimes I think that people just, you know, we need to have that personal connection, that personal interaction and as children, that that’s about attention, somebody’s paying attention to you in a in a real positive and in an uplifting way that that pays attention. You know, that’s, that’s so, so important.

Victoria Volk 17:27
And that’s the Grief Recovery experience. Right?

Kevin Boon 17:29
Totally, totally. Absolutely.

Victoria Volk 17:31
It really is, you feel heard for the first time. And oftentimes, that’s what many clients have said is, I felt like I had a place where someone really, truly understood and where I could really, in a safe space, you know, dig into that.

Kevin Boon 17:46
Yeah, more fully. And I realized, I realized, as I was going through my experiences, I realized that it was really hard to be able to have somebody here, you know, and, you know, and so, you know, and I don’t know, trying to be vulnerable, and just saying, Hey, I’m feeling this right now. It’s like, there was a period of time where it was nobody, no one was really interested in having that conversation with me. You know, and, and if anything, you know, as a man, I would look weak, you know, that was it, if I, if I, and I think that this is this, you know, this is the part that I found that the majority not I don’t know, if it’s, I don’t even know what the percentage is. But a lot of people do not have an ability to talk and be with somebody in grief. I don’t know. And I don’t know why that is, I think our society has kind of tried to focus, you know, we focus on the material world, we focus on the world outside of us, getting things done productivity, having jobs, doing all this stuff. But we, we don’t pay attention to the inner world, I think most of us are so out outward, focused in terms of what we what we do, you know, and as a result, we neglect things like a grieving experience, you know, we don’t give ourselves time.

Victoria Volk 19:11
I believe that there would be a really good percentage, I don’t know what it is, but I’m just speculating here of a male in your situation, who essentially lost everything, lost your marriage, lost your parents, your mom and all this in a short amount of time you had you moved a lot of change in a short amount of time, your career, a lot of men would have probably contemplated suicide. Oh, had that ever crossed your mind?

Kevin Boon 19:38
It’s you know what, there were times when I thought, You know what, I just don’t know if this is going to be, you know, if I’m going to be able to do this, and I think I knew well enough, though, that there were people that I loved and people that I cared about. And I thought that if I did that, it would be hard experience for them. And so I think I was able to connect to that in at least a certain way. I, you know, I do have a friend from my university days who committed suicide. And he, you know, he had gone through something similar, he had lost his relationship. And he was a family guy. He wanted to be that family like that, that was so important for him. And I know that he kind of just, you know, he kind of just bandied around for about four or five years. And then I don’t know, and I heard the news, kind of, like, after the fact that wasn’t in touch with him, because it was kind of like, you know, 20 years after we had graduated, so to speak. But, but it was sad, you know, and the other challenge is, is that when he passed, very few people talked about that, you know, the suicide or why he did it, or anything it was, it was talking about his memory, good guy, all that kind of stuff, and, you know, kind of celebrating that, but nobody wanted to go to that place as to you know, why he might have done that? Or even to have that discussion, you know, so I do you know, to answer that question, I had thought about it, but at the same time, I never lean that way. Let’s just put it like that. I just, I think I thought you know what, no, I know, I can’t do that. So what I did instead, to take myself outside of that realm was I realized that I have to create some sort of purpose for myself. Because and what I did was I developed purpose in what I called ritual. And ritual for me was around walking. And so that was an ability where I just started, I made a commitment, you know, I’m going to walk an hour and a half to two hours every day. And in that time, I’m going and I’m going to disconnect from electronics, you know, so it’s not listening to an iPad, or a podcast episode or something like that. It was about disconnecting, and just going into ritual, so calling in whatever it was just, you know, to be able to reflect, to work through things so,

Victoria Volk 22:11
That’s an amazing tip. And it’s connecting to the present moment and to nature to at the same time.

Kevin Boon 22:17
Yeah, absolutely. And it was interesting, because I did that for when I when my marriage first ended, and I moved out of my house, that was what became my ritual for the first year and a half, after moving out, it was something that was really important. And then I did lose connection to that for a little while. And then I’ve I’ve moved recently, and I would say that within the last month or so I’ve actually really taken that up again, but I find the ritual piece and the intention. And things like that are just a really are a really important part to finding a way to bring yourself into being centered so,

Victoria Volk 23:01
Intention is huge. I will I will agree with that. Yes, intention is huge into anything that we do, you know, even if before you go into a difficult conversation with someone, you know, thinking about your intention, like what do you want to bring? You know, do you want to bring anger and bitterness and resentment to this conversation? Or do you want to bring compassion and open ears and, you know, that are open to listening and honoring the other person to and their feelings? I don’t know, what made me say that or what came, but I felt like I needed to say that, but intention is huge. In a lot in most situations.

Kevin Boon 23:36
Yeah, absolutely. I think one of the things that I noticed, and I and I agree with you on all of that, it’s, it’s the people my age, right? So I’m in my mid to late 50s. You know, I’ve been around for a while, right? Like, my, my, I’ve got history, right? And it’s like, when I think back about that whole grief thing about being cumulative, you know, and I think people that I know my age, like when you’ve had 50, some odd years to kind of like not process your stuff, then either you’re going to do one or two things, you’re going to be on medication, you know, you’re going to either, you know, soothe yourself with alcohol or drugs or whatever it is, or, or whatever, you know, watching TV, whatever the like zoning out. And I think that, you know, part of, and I feel that we have a lot of people that are in that place, you know, that’s where they live, you know, they live in the world of either addictions, or zoning out or whatever it is, or you know, they’re on prescription medications, and I just really didn’t want to go that route. And I think the worst case scenario that happens for that is that I think that as my dad got older, he went through and had dementia cysts symptoms, you know, and I think what happens there’s a certain period where your cognitive abilities kind of shut down or whatever it is, or they change you’re not able to quite do it and if and if the grief has kind of accumulated over your lifetime With the trauma that you’ve experienced, and you haven’t processed it, I don’t know what the stats talk about. But I’m a big believer that things like dementia, or things like around are caused by unresolved grief, or that’s my opinion anyway, just based on what I’ve what I see with it, when I look at the work you do, and especially the work when you do it one on one or in small groups, but you and I’ve done the work together one on one, it’s like, it’s something that we need to just have a bigger, a bigger awareness, like a bigger availability for because I think that a lot of people are looking to be heard, but they’re not there was an article and I’ll just share it in Canadian in one of the Canadian news things, and it just said that there’s a crisis in mental health in Canada. And they were just talking about, you know, with COVID, with all the, you know, the challenges that we’ve had the last few years that there’s a crisis in mental health, and they said that the biggest challenge is the fact that people can’t really get access to help they need. And therapy is, you know, people usually there’s waiting lists, and what ends up happening as either people are put on medication, or they don’t get treatment. And that’s a huge challenge that we have societally.

Victoria Volk 26:13
I think there were always mental health challenges. I just think that during COVID, for a lot of people, I believe it was the straw that broke the camel’s back, you know, it was like this one last straw for a lot of people, but I think we’ve always had it just, you know, as a society, I think it just kind of turn a blind eye to it. And it’s not me, it’s not happening to me, it’s Nobody I know. So, you know, yeah, that mindset.

Kevin Boon 26:43
Yeah, definitely. Well, and I think the other thing, too, today that accentuates it is technology, right? And, you know, the, I don’t know, if you’ve ever, if you’ve watched the movie, the social dilemma, or the, you know, looked at some of the work that there’s a center for humane technology, that kind of, it’s the organization that came out of the movie, the social dilemma, it’s run by Tristan Harris. And they actually have on their website, they actually have eight specific areas where technology does harm, and most of them are in the areas of mental health. So it’s designed to maximize our screen time, you know, our phones are built on like a little gambling casino, where we’ve got little buttons that give us rewards, and we’ve got, you know, things that we’re striving for, like likes, or you know, whatever it is, and, and it’s like a casino, you know, it’s, it’s, we’ve, we’ve built this mentality, and yet, and then we give that to kids when they’re young, right, or even in their teens, like it’s, and I think those are the things that are kind of probably magnifying it, that a level that we you know, that’s that’s adding another layer to what has already been there, like you said, it’s always been there.

Victoria Volk 27:57
So you’ve shared a few tips throughout in different insights, what is the best piece of advice you ever received, during your time dealing with when you had your dark night of the soul or when you were really struggling, the best piece of advice you received, or perhaps what you would share with people now, after you’ve gone through kind of addressing your grief.

Kevin Boon 28:22
I think it’s, you know, it comes down to what the Grief Recovery Method does. Or what you do within your work is it’s having a listener, you if you carry grief, or if you carry trauma, or if there’s anxiety, whatever you’re going through, it’s really important to have, you know, one, two, or two or three people, three or four people in your circle that can be listeners. And so when we did our work together, you were a listener throughout some of that, I have my sister who I’m well connected to, she’s a listener, like we work, you know, we and she understands me, so to speak, you know, which is really, really cool, right? And, and then I have one or two other friends, in particular male friends, who I’m able to have the conversation with i One of the things that I had also done was I joined a men’s group when I went through some of these challenges, and I found that the men’s group allowed me to give voice to what I was feeling and what I was going through. And interestingly enough, I really discovered that most men struggle with this stuff. It’s not just me again, it’s and for men more than ever, you are more than more than women, probably they have a harder time verbalizing it or getting it out. You know? So to have that space has been really, really important to.

Victoria Volk 29:51
Yeah, we just don’t have the language. We don’t have the language and I’ll put it in the show notes. But I recently came across something it’s called the emotional wheel. And it’s really expressive words of how you feel right? But it gives you more language. Yes, you can get in order to really, it’s like, yeah, I might be sad, but it’s not just sad. It’s what’s deeper than that, you know, there could be bitterness there too, could be anger, it could be frustration. Grief is so much more than just, it embodies all of it, and even joy. Even joy.

Kevin Boon 30:26
Yeah, definitely. It was interesting. I was having a conversation with a gentleman the other day, and, and he works, you know, hard. He’s, he’s about my age, and he works at a job he’s does management, he’s just works very hard at his work, right. And he’s, he gets up early in the morning, he’s, you know, works long days, he’s got to manage teams. And we’ve just talked about over the time, but the thing that he said to me was, he says, you know, he, and it was just because I shared my story with him, he opened up to me and started to share that, you know, he’s been going through depression challenges, and he’s been seeing a therapist and trying to kind of connect to what that is, and, and again, on the outside, you know, you’d see this person and you say, Wow, they’ve got it all together, right? They’ve, they’re doing great, you know, they’ve got a great job, they’re, you know, they’re, they’ve got a nice home, all that kind of good stuff. But there’s just something there that, you know, that if it wouldn’t have been, let’s say, where I started that conversation at some level, that would have probably not come out, you know, in normal circumstances,

Victoria Volk 31:32
Right? You went first. And sometimes I think that’s what we need to do is go first to give other people permission, that it’s okay to share. Yeah, definitely. Yeah. So what has your grief taught you?

Kevin Boon 31:44
I don’t know, my grief, my grief has taught me, it’s taught me that all aspects of me are important, not just the surface aspect in the corporate world, right. You know, they, you know, I used to have, and I used to, I heard the catch term corporate speak, you know, and you speak, corporate speak. And it’s like, you know, while we’re doing this, and we’re doing all this great stuff, and you see it in great marketing language, and you present this image to the world that wow, things are just shiny and rosy. And, you know, what a great place, you know, and all that stuff. But what Greif taught me is that, you know, there’s, there’s two worlds, and both worlds are important. In fact, the the world around our emotions, in our psyche, is probably the most important world. And because that’s the world that if we do well within that place, then it impacts how we do in our other parts of our life. But when we neglect that world, to focus on some sort of an image, or mask, or whatever it is that we were, you know, the Eleanor Rigby song right, Paul McCartney, or the Beatles, were they saying, you know, putting your mask at the face in a jar by the door, right? So it was like, I don’t know if you’ve ever heard that song where they go through that, that, that thing, but it’s all about this idea that, okay, I’m, I’m in my home right now. I’m feeling a certain way. But now I’m gonna go out into the world, I’m gonna put this mask on. And I think for the longest time, that was what I did in the world. And what I didn’t realize what I didn’t know that how much hurt and how much grief and how much was unresolved in there. So grief has taught me that I’m much bigger, and much more whole than I than I ever imagined that I was, let’s say, you know? So it’s important. You know, it’s that. And when you talked about the idea of joy, right, and being able to connect to both, you know, the grief, emotions, but also the positive emotions. I think there’s positive emotions that come from grief, when you’re able to really sit with it for a period of time and let it out. It can. It can make room where that all There you go, that is such a relief. I’ve gotten that off my chest. And let me just sit in that. And then oh, like, it’s like thinking about, let’s say, my experience with my mother, you know what I loved and cared deeply about my mother, and that love and care needed to come out. But it couldn’t come out until I let go with a grief. I don’t know if that makes sense. But,

Victoria Volk 34:31
Yeah, it’s like, days and days of clouds and rain and no sun, and then all of a sudden, the sun comes out, right? Yeah. And it’s this beautiful thing, and you bask in it, and you feel warmth, and joy and lightness. And yeah, I totally get it.

Kevin Boon 34:48
Yeah, for sure. So that was a bit long-winded, but hopefully answered that question.

Victoria Volk 34:55
No, I was it was a good beautiful answer, actually. Is there anything else that you would like to share that you didn’t get a chance to?

Kevin Boon 35:01
Yeah, I would like to just say one thing. It’s, you know, my parents as they went through their life, I think one of the biggest challenges that they had was economic uncertainty. And the other passion that I have in being able to kind of bring to light in the work that I’m doing now is to really talk about how we build economies, where we were, as a society, we start to take people out of this mindset of having to live in economic survival, because I feel that when people are focused on economic survival, that that creates trauma, it creates grief in its own way, it creates the ability where, you know, we don’t pay attention to children, things along that lines, and when we build structures within societies that kind of, you know, make it hard for people to be successful. Like, I don’t know, I think in the US, right, we talk about the fact that the gig economy has emerged, right? Like, you know, and people are going out, and they’re working multiple jobs, a lot of times at minimum wage, right. And, and it’s, it’s hard for them, it’s, they call it the decline or the stagnation of the middle classes. And I think that these are big, big challenges in a culture that just add to our collective trauma, it adds to our grief. And it means that we stay stuck as a society. So for me, my philosophy is that, you know, not only do we want to work with people to help them help their individual lives and work through the challenges that they have, but there’s a collective thing that we can do, from systems, you know, in terms of how we build economic systems, and things along that lines that can really help to, to just change, to change the experience, like we live in such a technology-rich world, that abundance abounds, and phenomenal levels, right? And yet we hoard wealth, we and or we create rules around it that you know, that it’s kind of like you know that people get stuck. And so when we’re trying to live to a material world, we’re getting stuck in our ability to really be able to just enjoy and connect to our true selves as the authentic self, if you will. So,

Victoria Volk 37:28
Two thoughts come to my mind, as I hear you talking about that just the economic impact, right of all that you shared, there is an economic impact to grief. It’s huge. The Grief Recovery Institute did a study on this. It’s the grief index study the company empathy, which is an app for Grievers, they released publication regarding economic repercussions of grief as well. And so I’ll put that in the show notes as well as where people can find that. Yeah, I just Yeah, exactly what you what you share, there is an economic impact, definitely on as a whole, right, as a whole.

Kevin Boon 38:11
Yeah, definitely. There’s, there’s another index, that’s, you know, that you might be interested into kind of connect the dots. But in the US, it’s called the job quality index. And this is it’s I don’t know if you just research or just Google job quality index, but they, they describe the fact that within the last 40 years in America, that jobs have basically transitioned from were like back in the early 70s. You know, I forget what it was like, but like, it was like, the majority were either medium, medium to high paying jobs, like over 70%, something like that. And today, the, amount of low-paying jobs has actually gone to over 60% and those of transition from manufacturing to the services economy. So America used to manufacture most of their stuff, you know, people used to live comfortable middle-class lives, a lot of those jobs changed or went away. And today we work in service jobs, you know, that pay much lower. And in those impacts like this is this is why I think that the grief part for me, from my own personal experiences has been my foundation that says, Okay, this is where we need to look at economics, this is where we need to look at technology, this is where we need to look at the outputs of what we bring into the world. And so to build thriving economies, you know, and you see it like in some economies like in Europe and other places where they have, you know, a decent middle class where they’ve got a good social safety net, you know, things along that lines where people live comfortable lives. Whereas I think in some of our cultures and America is probably one of them, but we neglect that, you know, just the fact that, you know, a woman who’s pregnant that gives birth to a baby has to go back to work in like three weeks or whatever it is like, you know, to have a real maternity option or a paternity option for people to spend time in those important attachment, important attachment years with children is so critical, you know, in our society. So I, my belief is that it has to happen from two levels healing. Number one is each one of us has an individual responsibility for ourselves. But I think on the other end, there’s a collective responsibility that we can start to do to build systems that create more prosperity. And frankly, that’s the essence of just the podcast that I’m in the process of launching, to be able to bring those topics to light. So,

Victoria Volk 40:53
Sounds wonderful. Yeah, I think that’s a good topic. Yeah. Awesome. Well, where can people find you if they’re interested in what you’re doing and learning more about you?

Kevin Boon 41:05
Yeah. So right now, they can connect with me on LinkedIn. So it’s my it’s, it’s K Boon, I think it’s our @kboon on LinkedIn. And then I’m going to be launching my podcast, standing in both worlds is the name of the podcast. And you’ll be able to find that on most places where you get your podcasts. So that should be live in the next month or so.

Victoria Volk 41:33
Amazing. Now, at the time of this recording, it’s going to be several months until your podcast actually goes Yes. But that will be put in the show notes by the time people listen, and where they can connect with you. And I also want to add that, if you are interested in going through the process that Kevin did, which inspired me, actually, you and several other clients I took through the program, I’ve expanded on it. And it’s now called do grief differently. And it’s a 12-week program that combines both the Grief Recovery method as it is because it’s brilliant as it is, along with another program called Youmap. And so I bring those two together, because, like in your experience, when you’ve lost everything, and you ask yourself, you know, you go through the grief experience of working through your stuff in which is a continual process. It’s always a continual process. Once you learn the tools, you always have them but then you ask yourself, well, what now? And so Youmap is like your guide your Northstar in doing that. And so if you’re interested in that, I will put the link in the show notes for that as well. In the meantime, I hope you come back and listen again. And remember when you unleash your heart you unleash your life. Much love.