The Therapy Edit - One Thing with Zoe Clark-Coates on loss and grief

Episode Date: January 21, 2022

On this episode of The Therapy Edit's 'One thing', Anna Mathur chats to Zoe Clark-Coates MBE, Grief Specialist, the author of 4 best selling books, three on grief and the latest on pregnancy after loss. She's also the CEO of The Mariposa Trust, which is widely known by its primary support division ‘sayinggoodbye.org’Zoe's one thing is naturally on the subject of grief and she discusses the fact that there is no time limit to it.To find out more about Zoe : Follow her on Instagram @zoadelle

Hello and welcome to The Therapy Edit with me, psychotherapist's mum of three and author Anna Martha. Every Friday, I invite one guest to tell me the one thing they would most like to share with mums everywhere. So join with me for the next 15 minutes as we hear this dose of wisdom. I hope you enjoy it. Hi, everyone. Welcome to today's episode of One Thing. Today I have with me a friend called Zoe Clark Coates. Many of you will have seen I share, I've shared her books, I've shared her words. She is incredibly passionate about talking about grief and loss.

Now, I think this is something so many of us fear. It's often something that fuels my own anxiety. And I just find Zoe's words just absolutely inspiring. I think I've done an IGTV or we did a little live once together, where she spoke about loss and grief in a way that took some of the absolute fear out of it for me. And I think her words are just, they are nourishing, they're hopeful, even in the depths of talking about something that I think so many of us, it's a hard, it's one of the hardest topics that often we just want to not think about and not talk about, but we need to.

So thank you so much for joining us, Zoe. You are the author of four bestselling books. I can see at least two of yours on my book. shelf right now. Three of them are on grief, just guiding and supporting and handholding people through grief and navigating that time. And the latest one is on pregnancy after loss. You are the CEO of the Mariposa Trust and that's widely known as its primary support division, which is saying goodbye.org. You are on Instagram as at Zoe Adele where you share all your resources and your wisdom. So hello, friend. It is so good to have you here today. How are you?

you. I'm good and it's such a pleasure to be on with you, Anna. Thank you. I hear you all currently just all, everything's all over the shop, moving house at the minute, a lot going on, Christmas coming up as we record. So I'm really grateful that you're taking these few moments to share with us. So Zoe, the question we ask our guest here is, if you could have, imagine you've got all the mums in one massive, massive stadium and you're there and you've got like a few minutes, You know, what is that one thing that you would just love to share in a part in the hearts of the mum's listening? Well, it's such a big question, isn't it? And there's so many things I'd want to say to all of those women in that room.

But I guess the main thing I'd want to say is that grief isn't time limited. And I think this is something that we are all taught as humans is that grief has a set window of time. And those around us often back that up by saying, well, aren't you over it yet? Aren't you through it yet? And that reinforces that we need to almost run with grief like it's a race and that there's an end in sight. But actually that's not true because grief is a lifelong journey. And it's something that will constantly change and evolve as we're moving through life.

And if we can accept that, it means we can. let go of the guilt of grieving. And I see this a lot with mums who have lost babies, those who have still got empty arms because they've not been able to have another child or not wanted to try for another child. They feel often guilty that they are still grieving. And for those who are blessed to have a child in their arms, they then feel guilty that they're grieving for ones that are missing. And they fear that that may look like, they don't appreciate the children that they've got. And none of that could be further from the truth,

because actually, when you do have a living child with you, you're just acutely aware of what you've lost. So, of course, you're going to be grieving for the ones that aren't here. And if we can let go of this guilt, of these false teachings that we have taken on board the fact that we need to be over a loss quickly, we just give ourselves the freedom to really walk through loss. I think that's, it's a heavy thing, isn't it, to add guilt onto grief, especially when it doesn't need to be there.

Because guilt, I think it's that saying I should be doing it differently. I should be doing it better. I should be doing it faster. And actually, it's an integration, isn't it, to life? I think we lost my sister. And I was even thinking about this last night in bed. You know, what would that have been like for my parents? What is it like now?

Years and years later, looking around the table and knowing that there could potentially be a whole other family there that isn't there. And I think it's that integration, isn't it, into life and acknowledging that this is, it's never, you're never going to feel the same. Because nothing is, nothing is the same. But we don't need to pile guilt onto that.

So what would you say to moms maybe that have got that guilt layered on top of that, on top of that grief. Like how do they start to kind of let go of that guilt? You talk about it. And as you're acutely aware, the fact that it's the talking that frees you. It's something that allows the brain to come to terms with the trauma and the loss.

And so people need to tell their stories over and over again. And I know many feel like, oh, everyone's going to think I'm a broken record because I'm talking about the same subject over and over again. But actually, that's what needs to happen. That's how our brains begin to accept what we've gone through. It will never make it okay, but it gets to a point where it says, okay, I have been through that.

I have survived it, but it's okay to still talk about the trauma and the loss. And if you let go of that guilt because you process the pain, that releases you from the shame of feeling those emotions. And as we all know, shame is the thing that locks away pain. And it means we can never actually break through all of those layers of suffering. But if we actually face it head on, know that we don't need to feel guilty. We don't need to feel shame for feeling the feelings that we do. Then we're able to experience real freedom.

And freedom doesn't look like we're not grieving anymore because we still are. But it actually means that we can grieve in a lot more healthy way, rather than feeling we need to do it in secret, the fact that we need to pretend that we're okay and fake happiness. Actually, it allows us to experience real joy and happiness again because pain doesn't have to be hidden then. And so you then begin to realize that the beauty of life

is that pain and joy can sit side by side. Both of them can have a seat at the table. It doesn't have to be either or. I know when I was in the depth of grief, It was at Christmas and I remember sitting around the dining table with family members and I'd said, I don't want to be there. I don't want to ruin your Christmas and the family were just all so great and beautifully accepting of the place we were in. And they were like, no, we want you to sit here.

This is what family is all about. We are okay with you sitting there crying. We are okay with you being real. And I think having the freedom to truly show up in that way, even in the depth of pain, even in that heart of that suffering when I just lost my second child and I didn't have any living children with me, I felt joy around that table. I could feel joy in the fact that there was people surrounding me that loved me, the fact that they were giving me the freedom to be real of where I was at, of how I was feeling. And that really meant I could experience a level of happiness, even in the

depth of that pain. And I didn't really know that was possible until then. I thought, grief and pain was a season and you came through it and then you walked back into a place of hopefully joy and happiness and peace again. But actually I learned a lot through going through suffering and grief and loss. And I learned the fact that it can happen simultaneously that if we allow pain to be present and not rush it and not say it's for a season and then we need to be done with it, actually we can go through all of these things. things in a really healthy way that makes us feel less like we're drowning. And I realized that the more I hid it, the more I felt like I was drowning in pain and grief. And the more I was able to be

open about it and to be real about it, the more I felt that I could take a breath, the fact that I realized that I could take in oxygen, even though I felt like I couldn't. But the key to that was being open about it by realizing that it wasn't time limited. It's not a race. It's a lifelong walk and I didn't need to strive to get back to who I was because I was now changed. And the real lesson was knowing I could accept the new me on the other side of loss was somebody who would grieve forever and that was okay. So affirming. I've just remembered this moment, I think after my sister's funeral where my brother and I were rolling down, down this grassy bank in the sunshine at the bottom of the graveyard, beautiful village graveyard. And we were

laughing and that joy was real even amidst the sadness. And I think as children, you know, we see our, I see my children go through these like, happy, sad. You know, they're living in the emotion. They're not judging their own emotion and thinking, wait a minute, I should, I shouldn't feel happy or I should feel happy or. And I, and I I think, do you think that as we grow older, we start kind of creating these or allowing these rules to be created around what should our process be? What should we be feeling? So this is like a call, isn't it, to actually just let go of those things? Just be, just accept the sadness. And then as you accept that, you make space for the joy as well to come in. Absolutely. And letting go of our perceptions around grief, the fact that it has to look at the

certain way. And I think we put that on ourselves as well as society putting on us. I'm always saying to people, try not to say to a grieving person, wow, you're so strong. I couldn't act like you. I couldn't cope like you are. Because to a bereaved person, that feels like you're saying that you aren't grieving enough, that you aren't showing enough raw emotion. And it's all of these comments, cliches, things that are said to the bereaved, that actually inform our thinking of what grief should look like, and that all then makes us feel even more guilty. It reinforces, oh, wow, they think that they would be still crying at this point, but yet I'm laughing. So clearly they're judging me. And actually, when people make those comments, all they're trying to do is

say, well, you're just doing so well, or you're so strong, or I don't think I could cope. They're not saying the fact that you're not acting like you should, but that's how our brain interprets those comments. And that just makes us feel like, okay, we shouldn't smile. We shouldn't be seen to have any happy moments because the world may interpret that as we didn't love the one that's died enough. We don't love our babies enough or we don't love our parents enough if we're able to go away on holiday and then have a great holiday months after their death.

When actually none of that is true because grief doesn't look like the world tells us it looks like. It is seasons. It does come in waves and one moment can be utterly suffocating, well, the next minute we feel like we can take an air again. And actually, all we need to do is let go of what the world thinks grief should look like and have full permission and give ourselves full permission and those around us permission to grieve in whatever way they feel fit or whatever. way they feel comfortable with doing. Because for some people, they will never be okay with sitting in a room and openly talking about their loss. And that's okay. They don't need to do that.

Just because someone else feels comfortable doing it, doesn't mean the next person does. But likewise, for those who do feel comfortable talking about it, we shouldn't make them feel bad by saying, why are they still talking about it? Why are they still going on about this? Why aren't they over it yet? Because that's where we bring in those layers. of guilt and shame, and that makes people lock away their feelings and act in a way that's not true to who they are. So we just need to not judge ourselves, not judge others, try and avoid making comments to other people and to yourself, because, you know, we can be our own worst, harsh critic and, well, I shouldn't be feeling this or I shouldn't be acting this way. And give ourselves

freedom to be genuine to our emotions. And that means, if we feel like crying, we can cry. if we feel like laughing, we can laugh. And I know I had to battle through all of those things where I was worried people would think I didn't care about the babies we'd lost if I smiled. And then I realized, what do I want their legacy to be? Do I want their legacy to be one of tears and just heartache? Or do I want their legacy to be that of love and joy

and that they brought all of that into my life? And that's what I would want to be thought of if I one day do die, which does happen to us all, that I want people to smile when they think of me. So I know that my babies that I've lost would want exactly the same. So by giving myself permission to smile or laugh or cry, then I think I'm giving myself the chance to experience everything life has in store for me. And for myself to reach my full potential and not hold myself back. Yeah, thank you. Thank you so much for bringing such an important message and such an affirming message of acceptance, acceptance of just letting yourself feel how you feel, not putting

boundaries around it, rules around it, and also that loving advice and how to support someone who's grieving in our lives. You know, just don't, yeah, just let them be how they are and hold that space for them. Thank you so much, Zoe. Thank you. Thank you. Right. So at the end of each episode, I ask my wonderful guests a few quickfire questions. So I'm going to ask you, Zoe, what is a motherhood high for you? A motherhood high is when I see my children displaying true kindness and thoughtfulness to others, because it's in those moments. I really can sit back and think I'm teaching them well. And I think we can all be so hard on ourselves and our parenting. So when we see our children act in a way that is so generous and loving, I really feel that's a pat on the back for

my mothering. Yeah. So allow yourself to see those moments and be proud of them. And what's a motherhood low for you, Zoe? I think, I guess when you see your children be ill or sick and feel like you can't rescue them from it, that's such a low for me. especially having journeyed through loss and your mind can take you to dark places really quickly. So I have to really tell myself off a lot on that, that I don't need to think the worst. The fact that a cold is just a cold and you don't have to go to those dark places, but it's still a challenge and I think it is for anybody who's experienced loss. Yeah, yeah.

So he wants one thing that makes you feel good. in terms of mothering. Yeah, or anything. Anything. You as a person, what makes you feel good? I think in terms of just life, it's in when I see that I've helped somebody come through the worst time of their life

and can now smile guilt-free and they attribute that to our work or my work or my writing, it feels like I'm fulfilling a life call and to just know that you've been that hand to somebody in their moment of need, nothing can come close to that in terms of feeling that you've got a true purpose on this earth and all the work that you're doing is not in vain because it can feel like that at times, especially when you're working so many hours a week. Well, your work, so it is not. It is not in vain. I take great confidence in knowing that I have your books to point people towards.

It's great. Oh, it's just, it's just a privilege to have those resources there that I can confidently point people towards. So, Zoe, how would you describe motherhood in three words to finish off? I would sum it up as beautiful, rewarding and emotional because you experience all the of the emotions when you remember the whole the whole lot of them the whole range well thank you so much for joining us today thank you for all that you do in in just diving into one of the one of the biggest topics i think that that that we need in the way that we need to hear it and i'm so appreciative of your work and it's great to be able to point people towards you so you're on instagram as at zoie adele so if you're listening and you don't follow zoe go

and give her a follow today. And thank you, Zoe, so much for joining us. It's been an honour and a pleasure to talk to you. And you, thank you. Thank you for listening to today's episode of The Therapy Edit. If you enjoyed it, please do share, subscribe and review. You can find more from me on Instagram at Anna Martha. You might like to check out my two books called Mind Over Mother and Know Your Worth.

I'm also the founder of the Mother Mind Way, a platform full of guides, resources and a community with the sole focus on supporting mother's mental and emotional wellbeing. It's been lovely chatting with you. Speak soon.