Language of Love with Dr. Laura Berman - Finding Magic in the Missing with Kelsey Chittick

Episode Date: November 22, 2023

The biggest fear for many of us is losing someone we love; of facing unexpected tragedies that change the course of our lives forever. For comedian and author Kelsey Chittick, her worst fear became her reality, and it tested her resilience, shattered her world, and ultimately transformed her.   In today’s Language of Love Conversation, we dive into Kelsey's personal journey of grief and healing after the sudden loss of her husband, NFL veteran Nate Hobgood-Chittick. She opens up about her experiences with loss, anxiety, and even her spiritual exploration during this challenging time. She also shares her unique approach to parenting while dealing with grief, which is truly transformative and inspiring. We also get to chat about her incredible book “Second Half: Surviving Loss and Finding Magic in the Missing.” We break down: The profound impact of losing loved ones and finding strength in the face of grief The physical and emotional toll of grief on an individual The spiritual side of grief that opens us up to connecting with the other side   Finding joy and happiness again after loss  This one is a conversation that will give you deep insights into dealing with loss, personal growth, and finding joy even in the midst of pain. You can connect with Kelsey on Instagram and also visit her website to stay updated with her latest content and projects. And don't forget to check out her book, Second Half: Surviving Loss and Finding Magic in the Missing. It's definitely a must-read! My course, Good Grief: Healing From Loss with Love, is packed with insights and practical tips to help you navigate the journey of grief and loss. And, on December 2nd, I will be holding a live in-person event, Good Grief Day, at Hermosa Beach, CA along with amazing healers and teachers who will shine a light and guide us in our grieving journey. Tickets are limited so make sure you grab yours! Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Hey, I'm sex, love, and relationship therapist, Dr. Laura Berman. And for the past 30 years, I've been helping people just like you learn to love and be loved better. Here on the Language of Love Conversations, I'm talking to some of the world's most influential and revolutionary experts, thought leaders, spiritual teachers, and celebrities about love, sex, and relationships from a mind, body, and spirit perspective. And that way, my goal is to awaken your mind, body, and soul. It's time to become fluent in the language of love.

Kelsey Chittick is a writer, a comedian, and an inspirational speaker. And over the past decade or so, she's performed stand-up comedy all over Los Angeles, speaks at events around the country. And her story is a profound one. She was in a beautiful place. her husband, the love of her life since college, had finished a grueling six years in the NFL and had successfully transitioned into a new fulfilling career. And then tragedy struck on 11-11-17. Nate, a huge, happy, intense, passionate man, dropped dead at the age of 42 in front of their

kids. Kelsey's biggest fear had come true, and now she had to decide how to move forward. Hers is a story of resilience and humor and compassion and healing and hope. And she has a book out called Second Half, Surviving Loss and Finding Magic in the Missing. I'm so excited to share her with you. So you guys know that I talk a lot about divine timing, about sacred relationships, about soul friends. And I've been so lucky certainly over the past 10 years, which you know, I'm also always telling you over the, you know, that as the more that we heal and do our own work, the more we are a magnet for cool experiences and cool people and cool things. And I have certainly found that to be the truth in my life.

And so the other thing that happens to me is that either I will be in a public place, like in an event or in a crowd talking to people, and all of a sudden someone will kind of light up and I will unabashedly march up to them and say, hello, we're going to be friends because that's my little signal. But also sometimes someone introduces me to someone who kind of lights up and I'm like, oh, that's interesting. So that happened recently with the woman I'm about to introduce you to, Kelsey Chittick. We have a mutual friend, Nita Bouchon, who was in town and had asked me to meet her for

breakfast. And up walks this woman who, unbeknownst to me, I was being fixed up with. And her name is Kelsey Chittick. Say hello, Kelsey. Hello, everybody. Glad we were set up. Best first date I've ever had. It was.

So we went on a two hour or something walk and I fell in love. I don't know if you feel the same, Kelsey. I do. I do. Okay, good. I do. Thank God. Thank God.

Thank God it's mutual. Not that she would have like on my podcast been able to say, no, you suck and are a weirdo. But now we have a lot of, a lot, a lot, a lot of alignments. And what I thought was so interesting. So Kelsey has a book and we're going to be getting into her story, which is really profound It's about loss. It's about grief. It's about healing. It's about hope. It's called Second Half, Surviving Loss and Finding Magic in the Missing. I love that title so much. And you'll hear more about the double entendre, the double meaning of second half in a minute. But what I

thought was so cool, Kelsey, is that in those two hours of spewing out our life story to each other, there was a lot of this stuff I knew. I mean, the way you told it was hilarious and funny and compelling and heartwarming and more detailed, but I was really impressed that we covered a shit ton in our walk. There wasn't much of the aspects. Yeah, there was a lifetime covered in those two hours. So why don't we start with your story and what happened leading up to and on that fateful day of November 11, 2017. And then we'll go from there. Okay. But first, I want to say the same thing about you. There's so much magic once life shifts and you kind of drop into a new world. And I will say meeting people like you, I knew right when I

met you that there was something there. I knew we would be friends. And it's just a reminder that when it's easy, it's right. Yeah, that's a really good point. And so if you're trying to make anything happen, or at least I've thought that over time, like, oh, I should be friends. I should be doing this. I should be going here. If it's not fun and easy, it's the wrong spot, especially at this age. So anyway, I'm so grateful that I met you. And by the way, neither one of us knew that this interview was scheduled when we met. I had told my producer, Sam, when I first met you, I was like, oh, she's interesting. I want to interview her. But this is before we made a play date or anything else. And I completely forgotten about it. And when we went on our walk,

I was like, oh, we need to get on the podcast. And you're like, well, I'm traveling. I don't know. I'm a busy person. I'm very busy. So I was like, well, we'll do it eventually. And then I get home and discover that actually you are on my schedule to interview. How cute is that? So here we are. So yes, so thanks for having me. Thanks for moving here. Thanks for the walk. So my life, like many people, was very good for a really long time. I was raised in Florida. I was a swimmer. I had a good family, loving people, light alcoholic on one side, but you know that you need that just to keep you humble. we had really strong spiritual beliefs growing up I grew up in a really a town that was very Christian but my best friend was Jewish and my my mom always practiced Buddhism and meditation and we had deep conversations about what this whole thing called life is about I had a lot of love

I had a lot of great girlfriends and I just remember thinking like I'm the lucky one like I would feel bad for people I'd be like oh I heard someone died or someone got sick or somebody did whatever. And I was like, that's unfortunate. But for me, this is like, I just got the golden ticket. And I felt that way for a really long time, just a lot of gratitude for this life. And I remember thinking like, I'm not strong enough to handle anything. Like, I'm glad I have a good life because I don't have like the bandwidth for pain or I was scared. I had a lot of anxiety growing up, just underlying kind of like anxious, trying to make sure I controlled everything, but it was good. It was a great life. I ended up going to North

Carolina on a swimming scholarship to Chapel Hill. There I met this very large 300 pound like degenerate from Philly that walked into a bar one day and handed me a napkin that said, if you want the best, say goodbye to the rest, go home with me and I'll make you happy, which was classy. I remember thinking like, what a meathead. Fast forward, I married that meathead and five years later, I was at a wedding and this girl was like, you married Nate Havgood Chittick? You know, he put, he gave me a napkin one time at a bar that said, if you want the best, say goodbye to the best. I didn't put that in the book, did you? Oh, I didn't. I didn't. That's hilarious. So yeah, he was such a dirty dog, but I knew from the minute I met him that

this man was different. Like he was, his parents were, was a nun and they were professors in, at holy cross and ministers at harvard very spiritual people asking big questions about life and death and how this whole thing works and nate was a football player and by a thousand small miracles nate was a really hard worker he ended up getting a shot in the nfl and went on to play seven years and won a super bowl and we built a life together what team was he on when he won a super bowl the rams in 1999 yeah with dick vermeil so you know we had a we We had a really typically amazing and typical life. We got married young.

I remember we got engaged when I was 23 at the World Trade Center. And I think I told him like, either we get married or I'm going to start dating. It wasn't like some, and he was like, well, I'm not going to lose you. You know, like I love you more than anything. And so I remember everybody saying like, you're getting married so young. But something in my soul was like, we need to do this. And I remember at our wedding, like our rehearsal dinner, somebody was like, what do you want most for him?

Like, what do you love most? I was like, I want to be the mother of his children. And everyone was like, you're thinking about kids now too? Like, this is so weird. And he didn't really want to get married, I don't think, because he was young and he was kind of famous. But we did it. And we ended up jumping around teams and then moving to Manhattan Beach and staying with

a friend. We were going to stay on the West Coast for a couple weeks. And that was 22 years ago. I got here. And you'll see now that you're here. And so we had a great life. and the kids, I had a boy and a girl, they were two and a half years apart. I was just like, I keep nailing this thing. Like I am nailing life. Life is good. I don't know what to tell

people, but I should write a book on how to crush life because it's just going my way. And then around as time kind of went on, maybe when the kids were starting to be like five or seven, I just started to have like lots of anxiety about, I just kind of had an edge to me. I was, I was bitchy. I was just tough. I was like, I wasn't joyful. And I was working in a corporate job and I liked it, but I just didn't, I was like, is this it? That's, I remember thinking like, is this it? I've got these two kids, a great husband. I love my home. I love my friends, but there was something missing like from a deep soul level and I couldn't figure it out. And I kept feeling like something was coming. And I think around 2015, Nate had transferred

out of like different careers. He'd come out of football, which is a really hard thing to do. His body was hurting. He went back and got his master's in social work. And then he went on to get into finance. And I'd been doing pharmaceutical sales and then some corporate work in recruiting. And it felt like we were just kind of living life. Nate was doing great. He was like starting nonprofits. He was connecting with people. He was joyful. And I was just, my anxiety kept getting worse and worse and worse. And so probably around 2015, I started really digging into some spiritual books, went back to some books. I remember my mom read when my dad left her, just the ones where you're just sitting on your bed going like, I need help. Yeah. So long story short, mostly because

you were struggling with anxiety and you felt like this other shoe is going to drop, but I don't know what the shoe is. And so you just, okay. Yeah. I just felt like something was coming and the message from above was prepare. It's only, that's the best way I can explain it. Just like pay attention. And so I would, I would walk on the beach and I would pray. And I just, I couldn't shake this feeling that something bad was going to happen. So at some point I read a book called The Code of the Extraordinary Mind, which was a great book for me. It kind of just shifted a couple of things I thought about. And through a bunch of synchronicities, we got an opportunity to go to Jamaica for, they have like a three-day retreat. And I'd never done anything like that.

never left the country and i wasn't like a spiritual person that goes and like hugs and holds each other and stares each other for three minutes you know like that was i was like that's that's a no for me but my husband was at some point he was like kelsey you i don't know what's happened to you but you need to get away and you need to figure out like who you want to be what you're here for like we're all here we have a purpose like you need to live without fear there's nothing to be afraid of and so he said you have to go on this trip to jamaica and i was like I can't go. And I remember a month before we were in New York and I thought about the trip and I couldn't swallow. My throat was closed up. And I remember just thinking, I'll die. I'll die if I go

to Jamaica. I'll die. I'll miss the kids so much. I was super uptight about how I ran my house. And I'm very uptight about being clean and everybody has to make their beds. And it's not fun in my house. It was not fun. But something innate, he was just like, you're going. And he rarely told me to do anything. He was very supportive, but he was like, you need to go and you're going to come back changed. I can't wait to see who you become. Nate, sweet man. So that weekend, Nate took me to the airport to LAX and he normally would put me in an Uber because that's the type of guy he was. He would be like, I'm sleeping in sister. But he drove me there. And I remember he just held my hand. It makes me sad. He just held my hand and he was like, I love you so much. Like you're the

most amazing woman I've ever met in my life. I cannot wait till you go learn how to not be afraid and see that this whole thing is so big and beautiful. And I, I hope you come back changed and ready to serve the world. And I was like, okay, sure. Like, I mean, I'm still anxious, but okay. I love you. And we kissed and he's just like, I love you so much. And I got out of the car and because I didn't, we were, I was very cheap back then. I had anxiety about money and everything. So I decided not to get the talk plan because why would I, you know, for $9 a day. So we just texted over the next three days. And, you know, at first when I got there, I was like, oh, this is so woo woo. But then I started connecting to some really amazing people like

Nita who just kind of looked at life differently and they were having fun. People were having fun and these people had gone through like bad things and they were having fun. And at some point we just, I just dropped into the whole experience and started smoking weed, which I'd never done. I just danced in small outfits. I really let it fly, you know, like smoking weed and dancing in small outfits. Yeah. And we like, you know, we like put on mask and crawl around the floor. I was like, what the, I'm doing it. So I went for it, had the best time, made some of the best friends I've ever made. It was like camp for adults. And then the last day was November 11th. And I remember I, I just heard Wim Hof speak and he had talked about his, his wife dying when he

had four young kids and I remember thinking like I wouldn't survive that like I couldn't do this without Nate I don't know how people do it like that's too much and somehow after that talk I was just I was it was on my mind and so I went and got in the water and I remember swimming in the ocean in Jamaica right around 11 o'clock on that day which would have been 11 o'clock LA and I remember thinking like oh my god I'm not anxious anymore and I was swimming underwater and I remember feeling peace for the first time in a really long time and I was like I'm gonna be okay like everything's okay and I got out and I remember coming up to my girlfriends and saying I can't wait to tell Nate how much I've learned and then the rest is is the next part of the story whereas

I got a phone call from a number I didn't know and I didn't pick up because I was obviously dancing naked and smoking weed and I they called again and I didn't answer and then my best friend called and was like, Hey, listen, I don't want you to do the Kelsey. I don't want you to freak out. Everything's fine. But Nate was at sky zone, which is a birthday party, like a trampoline park. And he fell and they've taken him by ambulance to UCLA. And your brother's going to go get the kids go ahead and just enjoy your time. We'll see you tomorrow. And Laura, in that moment, like there was no doubt. I was like, he's dead. And they were like, who's dead. And I'm like, Nate's Nate's dead. and nobody everyone was like this is outrageous he just fell he's probably dehydrated and I just

I was soaking wet in my bathing suit and I just walked up and I stopped talking at that point and I just started packing up and I said someone get me to the airport and everybody was like this is outrageous and I just wasn't talking I wasn't talking and I got in the car I called my mom my mom said she was going to head over to the hospital and people were getting my kids and I got in the car, the taxi with two of my good girlfriends, and we headed to the airport to try to get a flight. And on that ride, my mom called and was like, hi, sweetie, I'm at the hospital. I'd like you to speak to the doctor. And he said, I'm so sorry, but your husband didn't make it. And I was like, what? And he's like, I'm so sorry, but Nate had a major heart attack and

he didn't make it. And I was like, is he dead? And he's like, he had a heart attack. And I was like, is he dead? And he's like, your husband's dead. And that was that. And then it explodes. Yeah. I was like, wait, what? Like, how can this be? And so that was the beginning right then of kind of the next part of my life. That was a huge line in the ground that I felt almost like, I remember feeling shocked, but also glad that it was over, that whatever I had been worried about coming had came and I, the waiting was over and I was right. And I knew that I, from that point on, I knew I could pretty much trust my intuition and not to be, I don't, not in a scary way, but in a way that we have that power of knowing what, when things are coming and we can prepare and we can

get ready. And so we got to the airport and they got me on the last plane with one, one seat. Cause I, my kids were still at home. They didn't know he had died. They were nine and 12 at the time. And they saw him fall. They saw everything, but they thought they didn't really even know what they thought. They moved him away pretty quickly. And so I flew home. It took about 13 hours because I stopped over somewhere in Texas. And I'm sure that's all a blur. And you came home and you had to tell your kids and you had to deal with life and you had to somehow function enough to care for your kids, even with support. And you and I talked about this. I I remember when we were taking our walk that in both of our cases, you know, me with losing

Sammy, my son, and you with losing your young, vibrant husband with two young kids, both of these kinds of things are huge, gobsmacked shocks. And people automatically say, and just like you would say to yourself, as you implied, you know, I wouldn't be able to live through that. I would have thought the same thing. So would you like, no fucking way am I going to live through what I lived through something like that, but you don't know what you can live through, survive through, and even potentially thrive through until you're faced with it. And that's one of the things that I think is so

beautiful about your story. And obviously you guys understand the second half, get that, like the second half, the name of the book, because he was a football player. And I was 40. You were 40 going into your second half of life. And a lot of the beginning of the book is not only telling the hilarious story of how you met and fell in love and his football career and all the things that were happening, but also then it gets into a lot about finding the magic in the missing. But that took a while. And there was this really beautiful moment that I wanted you to speak about that you write about in the book. And I had a moment like this, too, with my youngest in a

different way. But you were saying how I think it had been like three months and you had gotten through the holidays and your daughter found you crying because you were, you know, you were barely holding your shit together, understandably so, right? I mean, I didn't move. If I had not had like a 16-year-old who could basically take care of himself, I don't know what I would do. I didn't move for a year. So I can't imagine having to like function for young kids going through what you went through. But you talk about how your daughter found you in the kitchen crying And she was like, I don't remember exactly what she said, but she basically was like, Mom, I really need you to be OK. Yeah. And I'm going to ask you in a minute what you but I remember that moment with my son, which happened very quickly after Sammy died while I was keening around the house and losing my shit and wailing and screaming.

I mean, he'd never seen something like that. Yeah. And his mother, I mean, maybe in the movies. I don't know. But he was freaking out. And finally, my husband came to me and he's like, Jackson needs to talk to you. He's really scared. And so I went in there and he's and he said to me, are you ever going to be like, I'm scared you're going to go insane is what he said to me. I am scared you're going to go insane and that you'll never come back. and I said, I am definitely going to go insane for a while. I will be insane for a while off and on, but I will definitely come back and I will come back a lot in between, but there will be many moments where I am seeming insane because this is huge, but we're going to be okay. But it's scary as hell. And he was 16. Your daughter was much younger, right? She was how old? Nine or something. So that moment when she came to you and she's like, mom, what did she say? And what did you do? because it's such a beautiful story. I think she was just like, are you crying again?

And I was like, yeah. And she's like, I just want you to stop crying. I just, I want you to be okay. And I remember thinking, oh, this is really scary for them too. Like they just lost their dad. And I am literally in crawling in a, in a robe for like weeks, like weeks and not even knowing like where I was. I mean, it really is the death of you in many ways when you lose somebody and someone dies. It's not just you. It's not the person that dies only. It's the whole version of that life with those relationships and those connections that die. So what it looked like was I was dying and I was in many ways. I didn't know a life without my husband and you didn't know a life without your son like that. It was unfathomable. No, it is a death. It's a death of who you were

before and what you thought your life was going to be and who you were, the version of you is gone. Totally. And what I think people don't realize too, it's not as mental as you think when you're grieving in the early times, it's a physical pain. It's a, it's like, you want to bleed. You want to scratch yourself to death. I never understood cutting. I never understood. I didn't want to, I mean, more than killing myself, I wanted to stop the physical pain. Like I wanted to light myself on fire. I wanted to crawl out of my body. Yes. Crawl out of your skin. I've the same way. And that feel, I mean, that's what, like literally your heart is breaking, like it's broken. I mean, it feels that way. And you also referred to, which I totally was,

I mean, the exhaustion. It is like running five marathons worth of exhaustion, that kind of pain, which I didn't anticipate either how much, how all I could do was sleep. Yeah. I remember getting in the shower and being like, I have to lay down on the floor. Like I couldn't stand to wash my hair because I had to like wash it while I was on the ground because I I couldn't stand and when I would stand I'd have to lean my forehead against the wall like it is a transformation like none other every cell is changing when you go through that kind of pain and so your daughter's like look she kind of that was a wake-up call in that moment right yeah and I think early on the night I told Nate when I was pretty brave that first night because I had gotten

And I think I told you the story of this angel that was on the plane with me. Yes, tell that story. That was for so many angels that you came across in your journey. Yeah, that's the other thing I want people to know is that in tough times, angels are everywhere. There are synchronicities happening at million a moment. I mean, if you pay attention, you will be blown away by the support the universe gives you as you travel through these transitions.

Most of the time, probably because we've called for them on some way or some level, we are looking for this growth or this experience is important for our souls so they don't just send us out into the on our own it feels like you're on your own but there's a lot of magic in that so i got on the plane and i was throwing up and nobody was looking at me because they thought i was like had been broken up with in jamaica or like i didn't i forgot my xanax or whatever they thought that this like woman bird this lunatic that i would have been like get out my row like i will not put up with this heaving this vomiting into a bag so at some point i was just in shock like fully i'd never known what it felt like to be in shock but i knew now and now

i'll always understand what i see when i see people i always help them because you can tell when someone's in shock and something they've gotten news they have just gotten news it's a very it's a very stare and yeah and shaking and the shaking and the heaving so at some point nobody was talking to me and I would have not talked to anybody either if I was them. But at some point, this beautiful Jamaican woman, the seatbelt sign came off and this beautiful Jamaican woman walked up from somewhere behind me. I was in row like 11, of course, probably 11. And I remember she just came up and she put her hands on my forehead and her hand on my heart. And she just, she just said, baby girl, I need you to slow your breathing down. And I need you to know that you are not

alone, that God is with you, that I am with you, and all these people are praying for you. And she just kept saying, baby girl, slow your breathing down. That makes me cry. That's sweetness. I mean, that's such a gift. Slow your breathing down, baby girl. And she said, I don't know what you've been through or what you are facing on the other side of this flight, but I want you to know that you don't have to do this by yourself and that you are stronger than you think. oh and then she goes listen to me baby girl by then i'm kind of i'm regulating a little bit yeah and she said i want you to think about how you're going to deal with

this and who you're going to be a week a month a year and five years from now you're stronger than you think and so many people are praying for you she completely regulated my whole body she i stopped i put in my insight timer meditation and I meditated for 19 hours or however long it took me to get there. They took me off on a wheelchair because I was like an insane silent person and they took me to the gate and I just kept listening to the insight timer. I had no, I just kept going, who am I going to be? Who am I going to be? And at some point on that flight, I realized that my kids had lost their dad, but they weren't going to lose me. I was like, if I could honor my husband one way,

it's to fucking crush life for him and his kids like that that's the best thing to do and um that north star from the day one kind of changed my life it didn't change the pain or the hard but it kept me clear that i knew where i was headed so at some point when i told the kids about their dad dying the last thing i said to them was what do you need from me and they said if you're okay. We're okay. Yeah. And so I was like, she reminded me that day in the kitchen, like, I promised that I'll be okay. And so that's when I started to find some nuances on grief and what, how we do it and that we can, we can regulate it a little bit as time goes by. And especially if you have kids, you can protect them from your crazy. So you just hold on until they go to

school and then you just. Yeah. Well, you know, I think it's really an important point because now at this point, I had to create this Facebook group after Sammy died because all of these beautiful souls, all of these parents who have lost their children in similar ways. I think there's something like 13,000 parents now in the Families for a Fentanyl-Free Future. We had to start a Facebook support group because I could barely breathe and I was getting all of these families reaching out. And it's such a beautiful community. But at this point, I have met and communicated and connected with so many of these mothers. And there are all of these different stories of resilience and healing, but there's also a lot of people who stay really, really

stuck. And we're going to be talking about some of the ways you've moved through this in a second. And this story with your daughter was the beginning of that, I think. But what I have learned because I've now met so many moms who's another child. They lost a child to fentanyl poisoning or something. And now another child has died because they have survivor's guilt. They have their own grief they're not working through. But more often than not, and this is what I've learned because I kind of now have this large sample size and I always have my kind of clinical, I can't take it off when I look, I always see clinical patterns, I guess. And what I have learned, and I've talked to some grief experts and therapists who have confirmed

this, is that when we're not okay after something like this, not that we have to be peachy, you know, but when we're not okay, they are not okay. And if we are okay and are willing to go, and I felt that really early with Sammy, I was like, after that conversation with Jackson, I was like, I have to show him how to grieve. I have to show him that I can feel extreme pain, cry, feel, and then be laughing two hours later. That it's not something to be so scared of and that I'm going to be okay. So not only modeling for them what it looks like to have that kind of resilience and action, but also they need you to be okay for them to be okay. As most of you know, for the past several years,

I've been on a pretty intense grief journey and it's been a path of healing. I've shared lots of that healing with you and lots of the healing resources that I found. And I am so thrilled to announce that I am doing my first ever retreat for grieving mamas. So if you or someone you love is a mama who has lost a child in any way, at any stage, at any age,

I would love for you to come join me at 1440 Multiversity in the Redwoods near Santa Cruz, California, for four amazing days of beautiful, uplifting community and healing. We've got David Kessler. We've got Paul Selig. We've got Catherine Woodward Thomas. We've got me. We've got body work. We've got organic food, beautiful rooms.

Go to 1440.org. Check it out. It's right there on the homepage. I really hope you can join us. Yeah. I remember thinking in the beginning, they need to know I'm sad. I don't want them to think I'm not sad. I'm going to share with them that I am broken. Because my thought was what had happened right after Nate died, I got a lot of messages from older people that had said they had lost a parent. And I remember asking them, what would you have wished your parents would

have done? Maybe in the 1940s or 50s or even the 60s. And they said, we wished our parents had gotten okay. We wish our parents had gotten not over it, but yeah, kind of because we're still here. It destroyed them and they never recovered. That's what they'll say. They destroyed them. They never recovered and we never recovered and it changed the trajectory of our lives. Yeah. And there was nobody talking about it. So they, I think the generation before us went one way, which was just like, nothing happened. Dad's just gone. Bye. Go back to school. And I think I was like, oh, I'm going to, I'm going to take the seesaw the other way. but I realized actually we're not supposed to be on either side. We're supposed to ride the wave

and ride that seesaw back and forth at appropriate times. We shouldn't be down on the ground on either side of that. We're not totally fine and we're not totally screwed. And so once I understood that and I realized, oh, they actually want laughter in this house. They want freedom. They want joy. They want to be normal. It changed my trajectory. And I think you have to fight for joy. I think, unfortunately if you are the parent your job is to be the parent so as much as pain you might be in your first calling is to make sure your kids are okay and sometimes if you look at it now they're your gift because they keep you going like come on we're still here get your shit together mom we're still here like i'm still here guys like you're still you've got great kids so yeah

yeah and so you put on a song after that you put on three little birds three little birds everything's to be all right and we just we danced and we sang and i was like oh my god there can be joy and pain at the same time yes and that was the first time i realized i'm not a bad wife or mother if i don't cry all the time and i'm not a bad wife or mother if i cry a lot i get to be both and i get to toggle back and forth and that's where the magic is is flowing back and forth between these emotions but but not believing one has to, you don't want to get stuck. Well, you'd like to get stuck in joy, but I don't even know. Sometimes now when I cry, I'm like, oh, I'm so glad I'm six years out. So, and it feels exactly the same, but I know it now. So it's like an old friend. I'm like, oh,

oh great. We're going to sob for, you know, seven minutes and I'm going to listen to a song, but it's a beautiful, it's a beautiful moment now because I'm connected to Nate. Yeah. And you know, and you have the resilience, the experience of resilience. So, you know, I think one of the reasons it's so hard to hold those deep, dark places is because people think they're going to be stuck there. We start to over-identify with it and think, oh my God, this is where I am. I'm in so much pain and this is reality. And so after you have the experience of moving in and out of it and that you can go all the way into the bowels of pain and in fact, feel better as a result, once you do release it, then you start and you have the experience of joy

and pain and pain and joy. And also over time, every timing is different. Every person is different, but those huge waves get gentler and less frequent. Right. So that helps too. But I think it's really, as you say, the knowledge that like, oh yeah, I know how to surf this. Yes. I know how to do this. I'm just gonna. You build a boat. You build a boat that takes you on it. Right. So over at first you're just drowning and I think that's normal. Yeah. But eventually you go like, how am I going to, if this, if I'm going to be in this ocean for the rest of my life, how do I navigate it? And I never would have thought I could survive this and be so happy. I mean, I'm so happy now. It makes my previous life not look happy because the scale

is so different now. Like I never was that, I've never been that broken in my life and I'd never been this happy that we made it through. And I do think time, I know people talk about timing all the time and grief and it's kind of the people argue about it and stuff. I don't know that time heals time heals if you work yeah if you do the work you do the work time will heal because you it's actually a neuropathway type of thing it's your brain it's not even a feeling it's that when someone dies you don't have any memory without them at the end of it yeah so you have to create new roads that don't have that don't have a minute that have a new story about their life that you have to make up a beautiful story that makes it in the way you want it to go because

nobody knows. So you might as well just write a good book about it. Yeah. And we're going to talk about that in a second, sort of how you came to, and for you, your whole life, you were lucky to be raised. That's one of the things that I wish I had from, I mean, there are lots of things I wish I had from my childhood, but I wish I had someone who would have taught me how to have a two-way relationship with faith, with spirit, with, it wasn't until I really discovered quantum love when I went through really, you know, when my mother died 11 or 12 years ago, and I went through a really dark night of the soul as a result of that and broke open and discovered the magic that's available to all of us that definitely fortified me because I understood, and you and

I've talked about this, that I understood that energy can't, when Sammy died, I already knew, had drank all the Kool-Aid, understood scientifically, and knew in every cell of my body that we are all pure energy and energy can't be created or destroyed. It just changes form so we can stay in communication. And I know you feel the same way too. But before we get into that, I want to talk about something else that some people feel controversial, but I don't. Because you're supposed to be so sad when someone dies, which we are, of course, when that someone is someone who was so important to us, but with all things, and I could even give you some of them with Sammy's death, as much as I would do anything to undo his death and to go to

change it and to have him here, there are gifts that come with pain, not only in the wisdom and the freedom of moving through that pain and realizing how strong and powerful you all are and all the spiritual awarenesses that build as a result of that. But I thought it was really beautiful and valuable. You talked about this with me, but you also talk about it in the book around this idea that in some ways,

his death set you free, that there was so much of your energy. He was the fun parent. You were the, it's my words, not yours, the fixed managed control parent. You were the one buffering him, making sure the family's down. you had a lot of the tangible logistical responsibility. You were, quote unquote,

the sensible one, whatever, however you want to characterize it. So can you talk about that, that in a way his death, even though you would have never wished it for it and aren't happy it happened, that in some ways there were ways in which it set you free? Yeah. And I'm going to say something controversial since you and I are best friends now, but I wouldn't change any of it now. And I don't think, I think that's really hard for people to understand. And I wouldn't have said that the first couple of years I would have wanted him back because I didn't know how to live in this world without him. But now I have just such a different experience of death. And I just, I think that we have a lot of, we put good and bad on a lot of stuff. Yeah. And you know,

I always talk about childbirth. It's terribly painful and nobody complains about that. No one says it's awful. Don't have kids. Yeah. Don't do it. You know, it's not worth it. You're going to cut through your butt. And, you know, as you're going to be stitches everywhere, like that doesn't sound like an enjoyable thing, but we do it because it brings life. And I think when somebody dies, we have to say like, oh, we'd want them to come back. I don't know that that was what Nate and I agreed upon. It took me a long time to understand that, but it's this deep acceptance of what is, however that is, whether it hurts or you think it should be, it is. I think accidents are accidents, but you know, you could, Sammy had an accident with, with the drugs and Nate could

have taken better care of his body, I guess, but we would have to back up their entire lives and every single good thing that had ever happened to pull that out. So now I've forgotten your main question. My question was, how did his death set you free? Oh yeah. I mean, honestly, the reason why I called it second half is Nate was the most fun, kind, funny, amazing guy. But I was like, hey, by the way, we need to go to the grocery store or the kids need to get to school now. Nate was he lived in the present moment in a way that was unbelievable and I think that's partly why he was done at 42 I mean if you lived with that much compassion and passion about humans like he loved everyone he was joyful he did not complain he loved us so much and when we would

everything he did was 150 so if we were at a party Nate had already had 19 beers and I was on like my first half glass of wine and I'm like hello we have a two-year-old and a four-year-old and we're driving on the 405. Is anyone staying sober? I guess it's me. Or Nate would decide like he wants to invest in a company with a bunch of degenerates from Philly. And I'd be like, Hey, glad that you're like putting our savings into some like apartment complex. I'll just keep working at the corporate job for 80,000 that I can't stand. You know, like, yeah. So I was always the balancer and yeah, I was just always making sure. And I was uptight. I was like, when he died, what I realized is life and relationships is so much about energy. So

when that spot opened up, I had a chance to be fun. And I thought that I was just an anxious person. No, I was anxious because I was married to Nate because I thought he was going to die. Yeah. And the worst had happened. And in many ways, when the worst happens, it sets you free that in and of itself, there's nothing else to be afraid of. yeah and now I'm not afraid I mean I don't I you know I've had a couple diagnoses I didn't like I've had some couple experiences but I am that anxiety that was with me for 40 years is gone and I have a bunch of practices that I use to keep it there but at this point I'm more curious than scared about life I'm interested in it I'm interested in what happens but I wouldn't trade

it I don't think Nate would have stayed at people say oh you I wish he could have seen him and now I say like, he does, he does see them. I don't know how or where I won't know until I get there, wherever that is, if it is anything, but I do not believe he left us. I do not believe that he got screwed. I do not believe my kids got screwed. And so that's kind of, it's hard when I do work with people early on, because it's almost like a badge of honor, how, how broken you are. Yeah. Because if you're not broken, that means you didn't love them. And I'm trying to changed the narrative a little bit that the more you love them, the more you you're still here, the more you live the best life you can to honor them. Yeah. Yeah. And it's balance and there's

a timing to it. Obviously. Oh God. The beginning of the beast in the beginning. And then it evolves in the first year you're like in a coma and the second year you're out of the shock bubble and it's worse than the first year. And then the third year. Hell. Yeah. So there's a process to it. There's a process to it, but let's talk. And I want to get back to the magic part, too. And about this, because you and I agree on this, that they communicate with us in so many beautiful ways. But what are some of the things that you because, you know, you've you've been in the trenches with this and you're not talking with the therapist hat on that or a grief experts hat on people I've interviewed. And I want to hear from like you, what you have found to be the most helpful in moving toward joy without bypassing the pain, because we all know, and I'm adamant about this, that when we're unwilling to feel our pain, not only can we not feel all the joy we're capable of feeling, because we, it all comes out the same channel, but it can make us sick.

You know, it can be, and that happened to both of us. we haven't even gotten into this and we could talk for an hour about this, but both of us after tremendous grief had a little breast cancer hiccup. Just a titch, just to remind us. Just a little, a little tickle. So what are some of the things that you have found most helpful in your healing? I mean, early on, I just remember being like, I'm going to experience this whole thing. And it was awful. It was so dark. And I remember being like, just keep going, just keep going, like just hold on, but don't just feel it all. And I felt like for at least, at least two and a half years, like I was literally on a different planet and I

just kept thinking, like, I just, I have to go towards it. So I got really good at going, okay, you're miserable. Let's go towards it. Let's go towards it, towards it. And what I started to notice as I'd go towards it, I would watch it be, I would watch the timing of it. And if I would really get into the sadness, it would pass. And I'd come back up almost like I came back out of the water. And I was like, oh, so I started to kind of go like, oh, wait, I know here it comes. Here it is. You know, I think looking at pictures, I call it cutting for grief. It's so you need to do it. You're going to bleed. And so you get all that emotions out and then it kind of passes. And as time went on, I learned how to navigate. Like, when do I look at pictures? When do I not?

And then at some point I realized for me, the four things that I think changed my life was meditation. I realized early on I could live in this breath, but that was about all I had many days. So I spent a lot of time in meditation. I believe in being warm when you're grieving. So I spent a lot of time in the shower, hot showers, like burning, scalding. If you can get in a sauna, anything where you can just feel warm, because I think when you're grieving, you're like shaky and you're cold. Meditation movement for me was big. So walking, I probably walked 4 billion miles. So whenever I'm sad, whenever the kids are sad, we still do this. And especially when they were little, we get outside and we just walk and we walk and we walk. And I've never not

come home from a walk, not feeling better. Especially in nature. And you talked about this too. I thought it was so beautiful. I mean, we kind of skipped over this part, but I forgot I wanted to get into it, is that there were points because as a mom or any parent watching the pain, you're in your own pain, but then they're in this tremendous pain too. And obviously for all of us, our first instincts when our kids are in pain is to try to fix it or to try to convince them not to be sad or to try to show them the silver lining or whatever. And so when your kids are really in the bowels of it at first, you were like, but you had such a great dad. And there's so much to be thankful for. And all of that is true, but you eventually discovered,

which is such a gift. And I wish every parent with a grieving child could do this is that you just, you discovered that I just need to be with them and let them feel all the feelings and hold them and hold space for them and acknowledge what they're feeling. I don't have to fix it. and that felt like to me a huge shift that changed my life I mean I was so adamant that I was going to make it better and I was going to spin it and then I remember one night just being so tired I was like and I just my father-in-law who's a buddha who's a minister but he practices buddhism he was like you're not responsible I was like what he's like you're not you're not responsible for their happiness for them getting out of this you're not responsible for bringing Nate back

you're not responsible for saving this family and I was like what am I responsible for and he's like being there for them and so he said you know just that you know the buddhist prayer i see you i hear you i'm sorry you're suffering and it was like magic it was like i was like whoa this shit works and my daughter would be like flailing and just like punching me and screaming and i'd be like i see you i hear you i'm so sorry you're suffering and i didn't say anything else because anything else i would be trying to teach them something like and he was still great anyway love you you're lucky by like, I was just like, I see you. I hear you. I'm sorry. You're suffering. And it would just, you would watch them be like tossed around and then they'd calm down. And I put my little,

my hand on their little hearts and she'd be like, I'm better. And I was like, whoa. And that I can't, I mean, I think, you know, this, but I'm just going to acknowledge it almost brings me to tear what a profound gift that is to give your kids. Yeah. Because not just in there surviving the loss of their father, of course, but just if more kids understood early how to feel. Yeah. And I don't do a good job. Like my son will come home complaining and I'm like, I forget all the time because it works forever. And it is so hard to not tell a kid what you think they should or you want to make sure it is an addiction that we have. And, but I do think it's one of the most magical. Well, even if you don't do it all the time, the fact that you gave them experience in

their darkest hour, they now have that tool. Oh, they'll tell me, excuse me. We'd like the, I see you. I hear you. And I'm like, well, you're not going to be out late, but when they're like, I was just trying to tell you about the party. I'm like, well, you are not doing drugs. And like, they're like, what happened to the Buddhism? I'm like, it's coming back after I tell you what I think about what you did, you know? Like, so it is a tool that makes, and then I think music, i honestly believe for kids and for people in grief you should have a playlist that says i'm gonna ball my eyes out for fucking hours and that playlist should be like whitney houston i will always love you i mean you should go back i got one of those i got one of those and then you have

one where you're playing pink i am here or you're playing you know some song that's like i'm still standing and you you you grab a whiskey or something and you just dance and you're like I'm here, like I'm still here. And you laugh. And so music for me and the kids has been big since he died. We have a lot of music playing all the time with our little Amazon Alexa and the music, it helps you move out wherever you are, good or bad. So those are the things. I agree with all of those. Look at us, best friends. So I wrote this down because it was such a beautiful summary of kind of the spiritual side of staying connected, which you and I are both really passionate about. It is like a long

distance relationship, but we can absolutely stay connected to our loved ones on the other side. So this is what you wrote. When I was calm and just witnessing the moment, I could feel him all around me. Whether I was in meditation or just sitting with the kids, quietly supporting, I wasn't alone. The hair on my arms stood up and I felt like there was electricity all around my body. I knew he was with me because he had become love itself. When I was still, I could tap into mystical, magical moments with the divine and Nate surrounded me with his presence. In those moments, I heard a whisper. It came from my heart, not my head. I felt it more than I heard it. You were doing it. Breathe or you got this. Just be with them. You're just what they need. I just love that

so much because you're describing exactly what I feel and wasn't able to put into, haven't really been able to put into words. I'll say, I feel them all around me. And people are like, what are you talking about? Where? Where is he? I'm like, usually he is on my, for some reason, more to the right. Me too. I'm right here. I'm right here. Yeah. Oh yeah. That's funny. You tap your head, like your ear, she taps her ear. Like I'm at a concert. I'm like, uh-huh. Yeah. Or like you're talking to the security guards. A hundred percent. I'll wait, clean up. But yeah, no, I hear him in my, I feel him in my right side. But sometimes when I'm doing breath work or meditating, he'll be in front of me in dreams.

He's often in front of me or on my right side, but I definitely feel that feeling is you described it so beautifully. It's like electricity. It's a different vibration. It's a different energy. And I had this dream. I don't remember if I told you about this when we were walking or not, but I had this, oh, I was meditating. It wasn't even a dream. I was meditating. I've been doing this coherence meditation where you move your brain and your heart into energetic coherence with your breath. You breathe in for four and out for six, and you're thinking of something you love or appreciate. And so I do that for three minutes just to calm my nervous system down, but I started to play with it and like, okay, now that I'm in this really coherent place, like what can I do

with this. So when I'm doing an actual 20-minute meditation or something, I started playing with going into coherence and then asking a question. And so I asked a question like, okay, so how do I hold on to faith? I really want to feel spirit. I don't want to just reach for faith. I want to feel it. And all of a sudden there's Sammy, which is the last thing I expected. And I'm sitting there with my eyes closed, music playing, and I start sobbing because he's right there. And I can tell the difference between what they call lucid dream, like where you can smell them and feel them with all of your senses of it's as if it's real. It's never happened to me while I'm awake before. It's usually when I'm sleeping, you know, when you're sleeping and you're dreaming,

but you know, you're sleeping. Oh God, it's the best. I know you're not really sleeping and dreaming. I mean, you are sleeping, but you're also aware. So that's how I usually see him. But this time I was awake meditating and I was like sobbing and I was so happy. And we were on this, we suddenly were on this beach together. And I said to him, okay, I'm so happy you're here. I'm not complaining, but like, why, why are you here answering this question? Like, how are you the answer to this question and he just kind of looked at me with his little know-it-all smirky smile and he moved into my because he was of course we were walking on my right side he moved into my body yes from the right and I could feel him and I could feel him in the way that I feel

him all the time and it is not me it is definitely him I and we can do this with our loved ones who are still here if you want to you can actually feel their energy like if you close your eyes sitting next to your kid who's still here, you know their unique energetic signature. You know what they feel like, even if you're not aware of it. And so I never was aware of that before he died, but now I know that energetic signature really well. And so he comes into my body and I can feel him inside me. I'm like, okay, here you are. I feel you. And then he moves out and then he moves in again. And then he moves out. And when he moves in, it's just like my body's being filled not only with his energetic frequency, but filled with love, like abundant,

infinite love. And so he did that two or three times. I'm like, okay, this is fun. I'm loving this. I don't want this to stop. But like, again, what am I supposed to take from this? Like what is, and he, he communicated, he didn't speak with words, but the message I got is I am your, you're using me. And it's, I volunteer basically to be your conduit to God, your conduit to love. I am part of God, just like you're part of God. I'm a little more tapped in and tuned in was sort of his implication, you know, because he's not in body anymore. He's like, but this is what, this is all you have to do is let me in, let God in.

When you let me in, you're letting God in. And it was like, I can't even explain the level of profundity of how profound this experience was for me. And it just happened a few weeks ago, but it was such a beautiful lesson of like, that's all it is, is just allowing it in. I'd always thought of it as something you reach for, but it's really just allowing it in. And I think that's what we talked a little bit about psilocybin and some of the alternative medicines that take you to that place. But for you to be able to do that just with the regular consciousness is pretty amazing. Imagine what I'll do if I ever

go on a journey. I can't wait. I'll be right sitting next to you. See you in the ether. see you and i mean and that's kind of that experience of there's no separation there's nowhere to go there's nothing lost it's all okay you know there's this great sense of that we're all we're all together it's just it's amazing and i think we just have a generation that's or for so long religion has caused us to believe in these like yes or no you're right i'm right i mean the war is going on all of this is about you know everyone having an opinion but truthfully i think there's so much more that we, it's just love. I mean, and death teaches you about life. And what happens is when you lose somebody, you learn about life. You don't learn about death.

I don't know anything about death. I don't get it still because I've never died. But I know a lot more about life now than I ever did. And I think that's kind of what it's all about, right? Is knowing that you have this short time to take a body and do the thing. So go big. And I think that's why a lot of times people that have hard times go big and they've, they, they become the best people in different areas because once you've been somewhere else, you realize, oh, I don't have time here. Yeah. And you realize how insanely fragile life is. Yes. Every millisecond is such a gift and we're just supposed to live it. We're just supposed to love. We're just supposed to, to feel it all and do our best and we can stay connected. And you talk a lot about the

messages that you've gotten from him and continue to get, you share a lot about your, you did go on a medicine journey, a plant medicine journey that you had an extremely profound healing through. It's a beautiful book. It's called the second half surviving loss and finding magic in the missing. Kelsey Chittick. Thank you so, so, so much. So good. I'm so grateful. Where can people find you? I know they, what's the best way to follow you? She's a standup comic. I didn't even mention that, but I mean, I mentioned it in the introduction, but you were a little bit funny here, but I didn't give you too much of a chance to be hilarious because I'm making you talk, but she is hilarious about death, which is such a good combination. Well, the alternative is to

be miserable about it. And so I just chose the one that felt a little better at the end, but you can go to Kelsey D Chittick on Instagram. I don't have, I don't do a bunch on social media, but, um, www.kelseychittick.com is the guide work that I do. And so, yeah, you've helped people who are people that are going through hard times. Yeah. So we'll put all of that information in the show notes. And I'm so grateful for you for the work you do for my new friends that I get to play with and man that speech. No, thank you. I've heard so much about you. I've always wanted to be with, meet you because I know you're famous and you're on Oprah. And when I heard that I met you, I was like, hello, it looks like my star is rising. Yeah, right. Stick with me, babe. You'll

be farting for yourself. That's right. So no, thank you so much, Laura. I appreciate it. You're doing good work. Thank you, love.