Takeaways & Reflections | The Evolution & Ripples of Hope & Grief

 

SHOW NOTES SUMMARY:

In this episode, I dig more into the topic of faith and spirituality that Lizzy and I touched on in her episode.  Communication and support were a huge influence on her grief, whereas, I share how my experienced differed, despite both of us having the exact same losses which occurred in the same order, too.

From Margo’s episode, I talk about how hope greatly influences our outlook. Also, because it hasn’t been talked about a whole lot yet on the podcast, I wanted to talk more about grief in the workplace that Margo and I discussed in her episode. With Covid-19, there is plenty of grief in the workplace. I describe various reasons why our personal grief impacts the workplace as well – plus more!

Resources:

Thank you for joining me today on another episode of grieving voices. Today is Episode 36 takeaways and reflections from Episode 34, with Lizzy Flavin and Episode 35, with Margot folks. And Lizzy’s episode was about the loss of her father, and how that shaped her life and her faith. Maybe even deep interfaith, I can’t speak for her. But that’s the takeaway of mine that I got. She had also lost her uncle and her grandmother. And we had a very similar experience in that way. losing our grandmothers than our fathers, and then an uncle. And so she reminded me a lot of myself, actually, you know, in that it wasn’t? Well, it was quite a long time ago that I was in my early 20s. In some ways it feels like just yesterday, but another as it’s like that was three lifetimes away or ago, three lifetimes ago.

But yes, Lizzie is 22ish. And she lost her dad when she was 12. Also to colon cancer, as I lost my father, when I was eight. And so we talked a lot about what that experience gave her in terms of. So we talked a lot about faith in her episode. Faith was a huge part of her life growing up and a big thing that her father instilled was as an important thing in their family. And she felt like she needed to continue his legacy and has found her own path and is still walking that path, of course. But it’s led her to seek answers for herself. And one of the ways that she has been diving into faith is how different we can experience faith, how many different experiences there are of faith and the separateness that exists in the world when it comes to faith. It just made me think of as I was hearing her talk during her episode, it’s this thought of even when I was a kid and all my life, I would just say can’t we all just get along? Like can’t we all just look at one another as human beings, because that’s what we are. It doesn’t matter where we’re from, the languages we speak, who our God is, who we believe our God is, what the color of our skin. You know, we’re human, we’re just all human. And if we all felt the exact same way about everything, there would be no use for humanity. We might as well all be robots. And so it’s in this difference. I feel that there is an opportunity to see inclusion. there is opportunity to see difference with respect. And no, Lizzy’s exploring why those differences in faith in particular exist. She’s actually going to school for religious studies. So I’m very interested to see where that path takes or over the years.

Independence Versus Dependence

Another thought that came to my mind, in talking with her and after and after, when I edited her episode was this idea of independence versus dependence. And, you know, when we’re children, we rely heavily on others, for our security and for safety, and the essentials of life, really, food, clothing, shelter. But there’s also those needs that often go unmet, that aren’t really considered. And I mean, kids don’t come with a baniel. Oh, if they did, but they don’t. So there’s emotional and spiritual needs as well. And we come into this world and into a home where there are certain beliefs about everything. And I can have an identical twin, and we can be separated at birth. And we can, although we come from the same womb, it is the home in which we are raised that will determine because we, there is a possibility.

And I do believe this wholeheartedly, that our past does not have to determine our future, although in so many cases it does. So with that being said, you can have two identical siblings who grow up into different homes and experience lives that are completely different. And it’s based on the beliefs that helped shape them in the homes in which they are raised. I’ve even said that to my one of my kids not long ago. You know, even though even the political party in which most people say they are a part of is that because you were raised in a home that believed those things? Or is it because you’ve found your way on your own, and challenge those beliefs that you were raised with and forged your own path, and your own thoughts and your own beliefs and your own feelings? Because so often, I think we just accept what has been taught to us, whether it’s grief, or whether it’s how we deal with grief, or whether it’s about religion, or political views, or our views of wealthy people, that’s a perfect example to have, you know, we can grow up in a home, where it’s, there’s a lot of lack, and, or there’s a lack mindset. You can even have a family that’s I mean by, by all accounts on paper, should be doing pretty well but are up to their eyeballs in debt and might even have gambling issues, or you know, these other aspects of life, or grief, that infiltrate every other area of their lives, like addiction does or like grief does. And that has a direct relationship to your money, probably how much you have, how you view it, how you spend it, how you save it, and who you give it to? And how you hold on to it as well, of course.

And so what grief recovery has done for me personally has helped me to see what thoughts and beliefs were mine and which ones weren’t. Which ones were those that were passed on to me that I learned no longer served me. This has been greatly true in the case of money. You know, people might say money doesn’t grow on trees or which it doesn’t, I assume that’s not a lie. But you know, wealthy people are just arrogant and evil people, you know, and money is evil. And money is the root of all evil, which is a very common belief that’s often passed down. And so people that really take that on, as their belief, live that out in their lives. And if they believe that money is the root of all evil, they likely have a problem holding on to it. This is the perfect analogy for grief, because what we believe about grief, and our faith is directly mirrored back to us and reflected in our lives. And how we process grief, or our faith, and how we look to our faith, whether we have it at all, whether we have group, whether we have faith at all. And I didn’t for many years, unlike Lizzy, I didn’t have that.

A Conversation of Faith & Spirituality

There wasn’t the conversation, first of all, you know, we stopped going to church. And I had to go to get confirmed. That was pretty much the only reason why I went to confirmation class, although I never went to church, I went to confirmation class, so I could get confirmed, because that’s what you did. But I wasn’t a practicing church goer. And to be honest, I wasn’t living in integrity with myself, because I blamed God for my life circumstances, and what happened when you know the loss of my father. And that was the last place I wanted to be. And so every time I had to go to confirmation class, and I had to listen to these things that I didn’t really fully believe. That was living up in out of integrity with myself. And it took me probably it took me another eight years, before I would kind of come back or before I’d come back around to the idea of faith and religion, or anything of the sort. But I came back around because I, I really desired to understand, I desired to understand where that disbelief came from. I just I really needed to go within and figure that out for myself. And then discover what was true for me, what I resonated with, and how I wanted that to be a part of my life moving forward. And so unlike Lizzie, I had I did, I did that on my own. But she had, thankfully for her.

And if you’re listening, I hope for you to a support system that has open conversation about issues like this, that has open communication about faith. But the interesting thing that I shared with Lizzy and we got to talking about was spirituality, and how I view spirituality a little differently than I do faith. And spirituality to me is this deeper connection that takes your faith even further. It embodies the sin without believing. And yeah, I think just makes the whole experience of faith and more deeper in our process. And spirituality means different things to different people. I do feel like spirit. Like the spirit within me is in the likeness of God. I feel like we all are a spark of the Divine. And because I do believe that we are all made in his likeness of pure love and light And it is grief, my friends that easily easily dims that light. And we tend to. Yeah. I think the darkness and the gray kind of overpowers the light until we reach out until we put our hand out and we cry out for help. Whether that be spiritually, whether that be faithfully whether that be emotionally or mentally to someone who can support us, and to guide us, and to reflect back to us what we can’t see from with inside the jar. Right?

So one of the greatest lessons, I think, in the conversation from what Lizzy and I talked about is, is that you follow the follow the nuggets of interest in faith and spirituality wherever they lead you. Ask deeper questions. Don’t be afraid of being wrong, either. I think we just are so conditioned to find the right answer, do the right thing. And who makes those rules? what’s right. And I think the only truth about that it’s what’s right for you at the time, and that will evolve and that will grow and that will change over time with your grief with your faith with your spirituality. We are an evolutionary process. So I hope you check out Lizzy’s episode, Episode 34 never a fatherless daughter. It was a wonderful conversation. I love to bring lots of different perspectives of loss. I believe she was the first younger guests that I’ve had. So I really enjoyed our conversation and I hope you check it out.

Losing a Son to Brain Cancer

The next episode I like to share in this takeaways and reflections episode it was with Margo folks who in her episode lessons from my beloved son Jimmy, she had lost her son in 2014 to brain cancer after his battle. After he battled it for eight years. I feel like we covered so many good topics around grief, you know, as a loss, as a parent, but also in her work that she does as a consultant for corporations and companies to bring more grief education and awareness to the workplace. And we talked a lot about that she has a website called find your harbor. And it’s also salt waters, the name and she got the name from a quote that reads the cure for anything is saltwater, sweat, tears or the sea. And I just think that’s so beautiful. And that’s true. We can go out in nature by the water and and feel this connection to the earth and I don’t know there’s a rhythm to the ocean, you know, it goes in and comes out. The tie goes in and goes out and if fell in love with the beach when my husband and I went to Hawaii, which feels like forever ago. But I fell in love with the with the ocean when we were there. But I absolutely love going to lakes and just sitting by the lake. You know, having a cabin out in the woods and being by water is just soothing tears actually have a chemical within them. That is it releases a chemical that is good for us. It is cathartic and sweat. Of course when we move our bodies and we sweat releases endorphins, it releases these feel good chemicals that help us to feel better.

And so yeah, the cure for anything is saltwater, right sweat tears or the sea. I just can’t imagine what that loss is like, and I don’t pretend to know, and I will hopefully never know. But I can’t imagine the grief that her son may have felt too, even though she said how hopeful he always was. And it was his hope that helped them hold on to their hope. And that was such a gift that he gave them when we’re younger. We have this spirit about us. Maybe that isn’t a kind of fades over time as we go through life. It’s that young, spirited thing. It’s this energy that we have in our youth that kind of often fades with life’s challenges and life struggles and if your life was otherwise wonderful experience up until a diagnosis of something like this lady that her son had had perhaps that’s why he had the hope he had. But obviously that’s what kept him alive for so long to his hope and the determination of his loving parents.

And just speaking with Margo. She talked a lot about the research and the investigating that she did on our own time to in support of the doctors in Jimmy’s health care team to make sure that he had the best possible chance of something that may work. I just really enjoyed my conversation with Margo. What I also found interesting too, around Margo’s loss was that and she really described this well was the fact that she really hadn’t experienced a loss even remotely close to a young person in her life, much less obviously, as close as her son, but you know, everyone in her life was living up to or into their hundreds. And so I think when you’re you, when you’re blessed with that sort of experience of grief of this, this long life that you have to look forward to, that you think is, this is just how it is like, this is how my experience will be, you know, I imagine it was felt like a train that hit her, when she realized this would not be the case for her son. How traumatic that thought alone, I’m sure was just.

Workplace Grief & Communication in Workplace

So much wisdom in Margot’s episode. And in talking about workplace grief kind of comes back to the conversation I brought up with Lizzy and that our beliefs shape, how we view grief and our experiences. And we carry all kinds of beliefs. As I mentioned, you know even about money, but beliefs about our nation or state or community, our workplaces or lifestyles, faith and faith leaders, political systems, economy, healthcare systems, and even about the goodness of humankind, beliefs about COVID-19 and the government response. And like I mentioned wealthy people, and you know that we have to work hard for money and you know, versus money as a neutral resource. It’s neither good nor bad. And all of these have been challenged, obviously, to through COVID-19, and even beliefs about other ethnicities. It’s, you know, the social bias. And it is all these beliefs that we have that shape our lives. And it’s on the job, it’s in the community, it’s on the news, and it’s at home. You know, there’s something called to the sandwich generation, you know, it’s the people that are homeschooling and working and caring for an aging parent. There’s the boomerang generation that’s makes up 29%. of third 25 to 34 year old live with their parents in a 2012 article, that was only in 2012. Now imagine with COVID, that numbers probably much, much higher. So it there’s a lot of grief out there, and a lot of workplace grief because we bring our grief and our lives to the workplace.

And so your co workers grief is your grief because it impacts you to. Our grief creates ripples in our lives. Every area it touches in our lives. I know this to be true. I believe it with 100% of every fiber of my being. Your grief is impacting every area and facet of your life. You don’t connect the dots. But it’s the truth. How your body reacts to it, how it manifests in your body, how it manifests in your life. If you are shopping, gambling, going to the bar every other night, you know picking up a guy or a chick or just really feel unsettled and who you are. It’s this restlessness, this irritability, maybe even anger this low grade anger. We can’t function at 100% of who we are at our core, we much less knowing who we are at our core when we have all this emotional stuff weighing us down. A 2002 grief index study that was conducted by the grief recovery Institute Educational Foundation measured sources of emotional pain ranging from miscarriages to pet loss and economic impact. And what was found was that hidden grief causes US companies more than $75 billion annually that’s billion with a B as in boy. And current update is reflecting more than 100 billion in productivity increased errors and accidents due to reduced concentration and focus and of which death of a loved one $37.6 billion that is costing our, that costs US companies. Pet loss alone is 2.4 billion death of an acquaintance. 7 billion financial trouble 4.6 billion family crisis 9 billion divorce or marital woes 11 billion Americans mourn the death of 2.4 million loved ones every year. And counselors interviewed more than 25,000 grieving people and almost all said that their job performance was affected. I’d actually given a presentation of grief in the workplace during 2020. Yeah, during 2020 for COVID.

And it just blows my mind how companies are dropping the ball when it comes to grief in the workplace. Think about where you work. If you had a loss of a loved one recently, during COVID, or otherwise, did your manager ensure that someone reached out to you? Does your manager even know who you would feel comfortable being that who you would feel comfortable hearing from? Because here’s the thing, too, we may not feel comfortable with everybody reaching out to us because maybe that relationship doesn’t, isn’t in the place of that emotional exchange, right? This is where communication is so important in the workplace. You know, if you’re close to someone, you have had emotional exchanges of you know, share details of your personal lives, the mere, perhaps the one to reach out to that person and check on them. But sometimes, that person doesn’t want to hear from everybody. And that’s okay. But not saying anything isn’t the right answer either. And that’s where the managers really need to understand their people, they need to have this open conversation and dialogue to understand, you know, as a leader, who is under their wing, as a company, as a team, things like that. I think that’s where a lot of companies are dropping the ball, you know, someone experiences a death, you’re expected to maybe take a week off at the most and then come back and be at your best self like you were before.

Some Of The Things You Can Do To A Griever

And people expect you to behave as you did before, right? And because people are so uncomfortable with grief in general, because we’re all taught these myths that I have an episode on the myths of grief, go back, it’s an earlier episode. We are all taught these things, we are uncomfortable with other people’s grief. So that’s why we don’t bring it up, especially in the workplace. You feel like it’s not appropriate, it’s not your place. But here’s the thing. If no one’s reaching out, think how you would feel and you don’t have to approach them. You can send a card, you can send a thoughtful service, like hello fresh, you know, send them a subscription to so they don’t have to worry, you think about food for the next week. Don’t send flowers, send something practical. Is that a mom? Do they have kids? Because they need help with carpool? Is there? You know, do you have a resource? Do you can you clean their house, I mean, there’s so many things we can do to help those people in our lives that we see every single day. But yet, we’re just afraid, we find ourselves afraid. And again, it comes back to communication among the manager and the team members and ensuring that we’re watching out for one another. Maybe you haven’t taken stock of what your company or your agency provides you as far as support.

But understand that recovery comes by learning to make a series small positive changes and in our attitudes, and then our behaviors. It means getting better not getting healed. It’s an ongoing process. And it comes sooner with positive actions and it comes sooner. Also with appropriate support some ideas for workplace grief is to validate and acknowledge the grief and avoid the myths statements and validate with I can’t imagine that’s what you can say I can’t imagine and identify and name the loss, whether it’s tangible or intangible, and you help name the feelings. They’ll tell you the story, but they want you to hear how it feels. So give them a voice and be a heart with yours. help them make different choices. Now again, if you have that sort of relationship, you know, we don’t want to come in like we’re the expert when we haven’t processed and did any of our own work but let the griever take the lead. But also don’t not say something, you know, because it’s almost the unsaid word that hurts just as much and If you’re the griever, and you find yourself in a situation like this, how is this situation changing your life? specifically? What are the elements of change at hand? Because grief makes us feel like we don’t have a choice to. So identifying where those changes are taking place.

Take 1% Reponsibility

And then what challenges do these changes present? Are there certain areas where you need support? Are you having these feelings of guilt, which so many of us have that we need to wash that phrase from our vocabulary? Because guilt is an intent to do harm. But what are your choices you can feel powerless, but you don’t have to, you can’t change the big picture. But you can take 1% responsibility for how you respond. So look for and brainstorm choices, get creative, evaluate your boundaries, that boundaries are huge when it comes to grief when making even small choices helps you to get some of your power back. And especially in the workplace. They got to ask for what you need. And I have to mention the grief recovery method because it works. We learn in three ways seeing hearing and doing in grief recovery involves storytelling. It’s this meaning making, that so many of us are looking for as Grievers. It gives voice to undelivered communications. It’s systematic, it helps organize our thoughts and our feelings. It’s based on health education theory.

And that’s an action based program. It’s the show me how, you know, people tell you, you know, you should be over your grief by now. But they don’t tell you how, how do you get over it. And then there’s so many people to that will challenge that idea of that you can get over it. And it’s not about getting over. It’s about recovering from the emotional feelings of being incomplete. So that you can create new positive memories without being drugged back into the past. And that doesn’t matter if the person has died. Or if you’re working on a relationship with someone living because many times it is the relationships with the living that also causes the most grief.

much love, victoria

P.S. So I hope you check into this evidence based program that I talked so much about, it changed my life in March of 2019. And it’s continued to change my life ever since in a way that I really can’t even articulate. It’s just opened so many doors for me, because it’s helped me come back home to myself. It’s helped me to drop the backpack of rocks that I had been carrying for so many years, but in all the years in between. It affected every area of my life. And I know it’s affecting yours, that your grief is affecting yours. Even if you don’t want to admit it challenge that belief that your grief is not impacting your life today in all areas. Thank you so much! And journal on that. And remember, when you unleash your heart, you unleash your life. Much love.

 

 

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