This Is Woman's Work with Nicole Kalil - 099 / Grief Is Love with Marisa Renee Lee

Episode Date: July 27, 2022

Our topic today is a heavy one, but it needs to be talked about because so many of us are experiencing it personally, collectively and globally. I often say that ‘I don’t know what to do with all these emotions’... all this anger, sadness, frustration, and the many, many other feelings. I’m not very good at grieving. Because I’ve never been taught how to. Here to help us learn to grieve is Marisa Renee Lee - Grief Advocate, Author of the book Grief Is Love, and the friend we all wish we had in times of need. Marisa is a Harvard graduate who uses research based wisdom to help us navigate the complicated and dark emotions we face when experiencing loss. She was also just on Glennon Doyle’s podcast, which makes me feel like I’m getting one step closer. lol What if we learned to live fully with our grief? Yes, that sounds hard because it is. But everywhere I look I see women doing hard things. In fact, I believe we could teach the world how to live well with hard emotions. I know many of you are grieving and I’m sending you love and hope. I’m also asking you to hold onto your love and hope, because that is Woman’s Work. You can follow Marisa on IG @marisareneelee You can learn more about her work at marisareneelee.com To learn more about what we are up to outside of this podcast, visit us at NicoleKalil.com

Here is a quick glimpse into today's incredible episode. I think when we normalize and accept grief as just a part of life, it makes it a lot easier to deal with. I am Nicole Kalil, and on today's episode of This Is Woman's Work, we're going to cover a pretty heavy and important topic. I'm going to encourage you to hang in for this one because our topic today is something you have and will experience. And when you're experiencing it, you may feel lonely, isolated, depressed, and a whole host of other emotions we don't generally like to feel. And in my experience, it can be hard in those moments to ask for the help you need or even understand what to ask for when you're in it. And at least part of the

problem as I see it is we don't talk about this topic enough to understand it. So when we experience it, we often try really hard to get over it, or we place unhealthy expectations on ourselves and others about how we're supposed to move through it, handle it, and express it. Our topic today is grief. I told you it was heavy and important, but it needs to be talked about because we're experiencing it personally,

collectively, and globally. And I don't know about you, but I found myself more and more saying to myself, I don't know what to do with all these emotions, all this anger, sadness, frustration, fill in the blank with the many tough emotions we've all experienced lately. And I'm not very good at grieving because I've never really been taught how to. So here to cover this topic we all benefit from learning more about is Marissa Renee Lee, grief advocate, author of the book Grief is Love, and the friend we all wish we had in times of need. Marissa is a Harvard graduate who uses research-based wisdom to help us navigate the complicated and dark emotions we face when experiencing loss.

Her resume is beyond impressive, from working in the White House to being featured as an expert on CNN and MSNBC, and many, many other achievements. Marissa, I'm a little nervous to talk about grief with thousands of people listening in, so I so appreciate you joining us to share both your experience and your expertise. Absolutely. Thank you so much for having me. I really appreciate the opportunity. This is such an important topic. So yeah, let's do it. I know from preparing for our conversation today that you don't agree with the idea that grief is something we should just get over. So if we aren't supposed to get over it, what do we do with it?

So at this point, you know, I am almost 15 years out from the loss of my mom and almost three years out from the loss of a much wanted pregnancy. And I don't believe that we are meant to get over these things. I think we are meant to learn how to live with the hard things that happen to us in life. And I think that the way that we define grief as, you know, this thing that happens immediately after someone dies and then you get over it and you move on, I think that causes a lot of harm. And so I've redefined grief in grief is love as the repeated experience of learning to live in the midst of a significant loss.

You know, I'm not going to just forget about my mom because she's dead. So instead I have to regularly learn what it means to live without this woman who raised me. You know, when I finally became a mom myself, there was a lot of joy, but there was also grief because she's not here. When the good things happen, like this book comes out in the world, there is a lot of joy and a lot of gratitude. And I want to find ways to include her in the process. And so, you know, we do things like make her favorite recipes to kick off pub week and, you know, find ways to introduce my mother to the grandson that she's never really going to know. And so I think, I think if people can look at it as a transformative process where there will be times that are super sad and hard, you know, there might be times when you feel angry or resentful about your loss. There also

might be times where you feel happy and, you know, just think about them and the love and the life that you shared with them and that it's all normal and okay. Like I think when we, when we normalize and accept grief as just a part of life, it makes it a lot easier to deal with. So I love your definition of grief. And I do think word choice matters. I'm sure you were very particular. Tell us about the word repeated. Yeah. Yeah. That really jumped out at me. So for me, the two words that were really important to me was repeated and learning. Because what I have found as I move, you know, further and further away from my mother's death, which occurred when I was barely

25 years old, I know that there are multiple instances where I have had to face my grief, even when I didn't want to. And what each challenge then represents is another opportunity to learn how to live with the loss. You know, I think back one really unexpected example, at least for me at the time was when my relationship with my then boyfriend, now husband got more serious and we moved in together. And I like instantly had a ton of anxiety. And I knew in my core that it wasn't because I wasn't supposed to move in with this guy or like, he wasn't the right guy for me. Like I knew that wasn't it, but I didn't realize it was grief until I spent a couple sessions in therapy and came to understand that, you know, this anxiety that I felt as the relationship developed was about loss. You know, like I

knew what the worst looked like when it came to relationships, you know, like my parents had modeled in sickness and in health and till death do us part. And it was scary and sad and hard. And I needed to work through that in order to be comfortable being in a relationship with this guy that I ended up marrying. And so I know at this point that it is something that continues to come up in good ways, in hard ways, in funny ways sometimes. And I don't think that ever stops. I could be wrong, but I'm sure at some point, you know, when my kid is older, he's going to do or say something that's going to drive me crazy. And I'm going to wish that I could call my mom for advice, right?

So accepting it as a repeated thing that keeps coming back, I think makes it easier to work with, you know, and I think that's how we should think about acceptance in terms of grief. You know, we hear about acceptance a lot, and we've come to equate it with getting over it and moving on. But I think instead instead what we should accept is the repeated experience of the grief itself. I find that so powerful. And actually, I don't know, that sits better with me, this idea of getting over somebody who is so important. It seems so impossible. So when you think you're supposed to, that seems harder to me. Yes. Yeah. And you think you're supposed to, and then when it doesn't happen,

you start to think that there's something wrong with you. And I feel like that is part of what makes grief more isolating, you know, this sense of judgment and shame, because we have this society that, you know, all you ever hear about grief are these five stages, which let me take a minute and just blow up the five stages for everybody. The five stages of grief. And Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross says this herself, like they were not developed for you or for me, Nicole, like they were developed for people who are actually dying themselves. They have a process of grief, obviously, that they have to go through as they move to accept the fact that, you know, whatever disease they're living with is terminal. That's who that system was written for.

And she also says that, you know, even if you want to apply them to the experience of grief that happens to us when we lose someone we love, that you should never think of them as linear. You know, this isn't like the 12-step program in AA or, you know, the different child development milestones that we look to as our children continue to grow. Like these are feelings that she thinks ebb and flow over time when you are bereaved. And so I want people to stop trying to apply that to themselves, to stop trying to live within some specific timeframe with their grief, and to just accept that, you know, fundamentally, you shared an unconditional love relationship with someone who is no longer here. And that isn't something that you are meant

to forget about and get over. You know, the research that grounds everything in grief is love is something called the continuing bonds theory, which essentially argues that the healthiest way for us to live with loss and to move through the hardest parts of grief, it's finding a way to continue our bond with the person we lost. So whatever that looks like for you, you know, I just want to encourage folks to find a way to do that because that actually is healthy and normal. So I'm glad you talked about that. I was going to ask about the five stages. Out of curiosity, how does this apply when you're grieving the loss of someone who hasn't passed? So it could be heartbreak or divorce or the end of a relationship. Does this apply there as well? I think so. Because I mean, think about it. Like I, I'm going to go out on a limb here and I'm going to assume that the person that you're married to is not the only person you've ever dated or been in a serious relationship with in your entire life. Right. And like, when you think back on those experiences, like while you may no longer,

you know, long for your high school boyfriend, but in my case, like I, I'm never going to forget that he existed and that we had, you know, frankly, a really great, positive relationship that was really important to me as I grew up and developed as an adolescent. And, you know, it, for me, like that relationship, it affirmed a lot of my values and helped me see myself in a different way as a young person. And like, it remains an important part of my story. And that's the way it should be with any kind of loss. Like if you go through, you know, I have a few friends who are at the age where some folks are ending their marriages and, you know, moving through divorce. And that's something that leaves an imprint. It doesn't, it doesn't go away, you know, because at the end of the day, we grieve the things that force us to alter our view of ourselves and our view of our future. You know, like part of why losing my mom was so hard was because I was young too. You know, like I had an idea of what our

relationship was going to be like as I continued to, you know, grow as an adult and get married and have kids and have new jobs. I had these hopes for a shared future together that will never be realized. And I think that, you know, that figuring out what to do with these visions that we have for ourselves and these hopes that we hold for our future. I think that applies to lots of different things, not just the loss of, you know, a parent, a friend, a spouse, et cetera. It can apply to a job. You know, like I think about, I think about when we all woke up on, what was it? March 15th or so, 2020. And we had a way that we lived and worked and moved about

the world. And all of a sudden that all disappeared. And we all felt this sense of grief and loss for things that we'd previously taken for granted. I think people who get seriously disabled or hurt in an accident, there are lots of contexts where this framework around grief and loss applies beyond just, I don't want to say just, beyond the loss of someone you love. So I'm going to make an assumption. You can confirm or deny. I would imagine that we don't all experience grieving in the same way or in the same order with the same emotions. My question though, is does gender play a part in our grieving process?

Does race play a part with grieving? Are there cultural implications? I guess in your research and experience, are there additional influences that play a part in grief? So I think yes. And the research points to it. You know, I mean, I am someone who thinks about race and gender all the time, because fundamentally how we move through the world is absolutely impacted by our identity. You know, like I think even just in really practical terms, like I'm sure you and I would approach walking to our car in a dark parking garage late at night, very differently from our husbands, for instance, you know, like you, like it is, it is ingrained in us that, you know, as women,

we aren't as safe. And as a result, we have to do certain things to protect ourselves, you know, be more aware in different situations, et cetera, et cetera. Right. And I think this concept of safety is really important in the context of grief and loss, because if you don't feel safe, how can you let yourself grieve and, you know, sort of fall apart a bit emotionally. Like, how do you do that if you don't have access to like true physical, emotional, and psychological safety? You know, if you are barely making it in the world, which we know race and gender plays a big role in poverty. How do you deal with and really heal from grief and trauma? You know, when we look at, for instance, the folks who died thus far from the COVID-19 pandemic, they are predominantly undereducated, lower economic status, people of color, veterans,

et cetera. So they are also the people who are most disconnected from the resources that they and their families would need around physical and mental health. And, you know, even things like just being able to take some time off from work to deal with your grief. And so I think it's really important when we think about grief and trauma. And really, I think it's important when we think about anything hard that we have to deal with in this life to bring a race class and gender lens to it, to ensure that healing isn't only reserved for those who are privileged enough to be able to afford it. So my belief is that as it stands today, people who are privileged are the ones who have the resources, the opportunity, how do we change that? How do we do our part?

That I mean, yeah, yeah, it's, it's, it's big. And it's really tough. And for me, you know, yes, I am a writer, but I can never shut off like the strategy policy half of my brain. And I think the first piece is, you know, raising awareness of the issue and trying to create a society that is less grief averse. And I hope that grief is love is a part of, you know, shifting that narrative and making sure people better understand grief and loss and what is needed to move through it. And then I think there are a number of systemic changes that need to happen with regard to mental and physical health and care for people when they lose loved ones. You know, I think about children in particular, this pandemic created over 200,000 new orphans. Like that's horrifying. And so I want those of us, I want those of us with the privilege. And as a black woman, like I count myself as one of the privileged folks. Thankfully, I want us to be aware and to do what we can to try and extend our privilege to others. government level, or even just, you know, when you access therapy, like asking your therapist,

if they have either sliding scale programs for people who don't have the same resources, or if they accept insurance, you know, just, just being aware and sharing that privilege. Because one of the things that I think often happens in conversations, especially around white privilege is people get caught up in feeling guilty for the privilege that they have. And I don't think that helps anyone. So being aware of the privilege and pointing it out when and where we can, and doing what we can both individually and from a bigger systemic and policy change place, I think that's what's actually going to help solve this problem long term. But it's a big one and it's going to take time. Yeah. Okay. I'd like to talk a little bit about maybe some nuances as it relates to individual loss versus community or collective

loss. So I think as an example of an individual loss, some of the things we've talked about losing a loved one or divorce, uh, and as a, uh, compared to a more collective loss, like we've experienced with the pandemic or the mass shootings or Roe versus Wade, and if you're not comfortable getting into these topics, that's okay. I feel so much grief around some of these more collective, like, I don't think I've sobbed as much as that I did after the more recent school shooting. And I don't know what to do with all this grief. Yeah. I think it is important for people to hold space for their feelings of grief when these things happen in our country. Like, I think it is healthy. I think it is normal.

And so I want to encourage people to not judge themselves because I think sometimes when these things happen, like Buffalo, Uvalde, Roe, et cetera, some people, again, like feel bad for feeling bad because, oh, it didn't happen to me. You know, I'm not actually going to be directly affected by, you know, et cetera, et cetera. But no, like your grief is valid. These things are deeply painful and they, they cause us pain. Even if like, you know, you or I, like we didn't have a kid in that school and you've all day, like I didn't lose a family member in Buffalo, but they cause us pain because they get at the heart of what this country isn't and how far away it is from what we hope and want it to be

like that's like like again it's it's this grief of unfulfilled hopes and unfulfilled expectations and it hurts because like fundamentally like I was born in Poughkeepsie, New York. Like I am an American. Like I, I, I'm not going to stop being an American just because this country is racist and has all of these other issues and challenges. Like I am still an American and at my core, like I love my country and I want to feel proud to be an American. And it's really hard when we see these things happen, frankly, that we feel could be prevented and aren't being prevented for the myriad of reasons.

And it hurts. And so I want people to be comfortable with like the pain that comes when these things happen, because it should be painful. Like we don't want to get to a place where we have become comfortable with these tragedies. So that's my first piece. My second piece is, you know, I think for me, the fact that I have hope in an America that is better than what it looks like today, that means that I also have a responsibility to do the work to create the country that I think we all hope for. Because just hoping for it and, you know, wishing for these problems to go away, like that's, that's not enough, you know, just like living with loss requires you to do the work that you need to do to heal from your loss. I think being hopeful about the state of the world requires you to do the work to actually see your hope realized. Does that make sense? Yeah. I courage and action keep running through my mind. That's what I keep saying to myself. I even have on my calendar each week, a courage and action time slot as a reminder to me to

yes I love that keep it in the forefront and to keep doing something about something that means something to me because I agree with you though it's the loss of a belief or a love of something yeah that it's it can be maybe not just as painful I don't know but it can be painful yeah no it's it's a really hard time you know I feel like these last two years with the murder of George Floyd the pandemic and now all of these things that we've seen just in the last couple of months like it is it is a constant onslaught of tragedy and I think it can be I mean not I think I know at least in And I think it can be, I mean, not, I think I know, at least in my case, like it can be incredibly hard to continue to hold on to hope when there is so much grief

in this world, but I don't know what the alternative is. Yeah. Okay. I want to ask one final question. You talk about what we really need to know about grief. I would love if you'd share with us the three main takeaways. I think you talk about them in your book. What do we need to know about grief? Yeah, so some of the main takeaways for me from both living it and doing the research for grief is love. So the first thing is like people need to give themselves permission to grieve. That is the first chapter in my book. It is the

longest chapter in my book because it is one of the things that I have struggled with the most. You know, we have a culture in this country that is very focused on positivity and it kind of strips away any acceptance of feelings that aren't or don't appear to be inherently positive. And that's just not how we're actually wired. And so I think starting by giving yourself permission to grieve and not judging yourself for how you feel as a result of your loss is a really big, important piece to this. The second thing that I will say is, and this is a hard one and it connects to the piece on hope, healing requires work. And I'm not, I don't want people who are grieving and hurting right now to feel like they've been given another thing to do, but it at least requires you

to find a way to continue to put one foot in front of the other during the worst of it. Even if it's as simple as, you know, last week you didn't get out of bed at all. And like this week you are brushing your teeth. So you're getting out of bed at least once a day. You know, like I'm not, I'm not talking about like big, crazy things, but healing requires you to commit to accessing whatever it is you need to be okay with your grief over and over and over again. So for me this year, it meant digging back into therapy, you know, the transition to motherhood, having a book come out, like all of these things brought up a lot of grief and just, you know, it was just stuff that I had to work through nothing, nothing horrifying about it. But I definitely had some work to do. And so I think, I think a commitment to healing and to taking steps forward, no matter how tentative they may be, like that is, that is a big part of the process. And, you know, I think an important takeaway for anyone who's dealing with grief, another big thing

that I talk about in the book that I have found to be really important as a part of my journey is the concept of grace. You know, I think grief requires grace because it's lifelong. And so there are going to be times when you are not going to be the mother, friend, parent, whatever, who people have come to expect. And you're going to have to ask people for grace. There are going to be times when you ask people to support you and they don't show up the way you want them to, and you're going to have to give them some grace. And then there are going to be times when you need to extend grace to yourself when you're grieving and you're, you know, maybe not moving through something the way you want to, et cetera.

So I think being prepared for that is really important. And then the last thing I'll say, and I've said this a little bit already, but this is the most fundamental piece, like the unconditional love you shared with your person didn't die when they died. Like that love and that relationship leaves a permanent imprint on your brain. And the pain of grief is actually the pain of unrequited, unconditional love. Fundamentally, love is both feeling and action. And when your person dies, you don't have to stop loving them. They don't stop loving you, but their ability to act on that love does stop. And that's why we feel so much pain. And so if you can find your way to continue to love far, you know, it is never totally pain-free.

And so I hope that if folks are able to commit to finding that love, that that does make it a little bit easier to live with. Yeah. So while you were talking, one other question got triggered. Some people might be listening and go, that sounds so hard. What is the downside of not allowing ourselves to grieve? Unacknowledged grief doesn't go away. It just manifests in other forms. And that's true of every challenging feeling, you know, research in my book and every therapist will tell you the only thing that reduces the power of difficult

emotions is acknowledgement. You know, like you think acknowledging your grief is the thing that's going to knock you out, but the thing that will actually knock you out is not acknowledging it. And then being forced to suffer from, you know, anxiety, depression, et cetera, because you haven't acknowledged that grief. So unacknowledged grief has consequences. And that's why, et cetera, because you haven't acknowledged that grief. So unacknowledged grief has consequences. And that's why, you know, I call myself a grief advocate and not a grief expert because I want to be out here talking about grief and making sure that we acknowledge it during this time so that we don't go from pandemic to mental health crisis in this country. Yeah. Marissa, thank you for being here today.

Thank you for your important work. It falls in like the Brene Brown category for me talking about something nobody wants to talk about, but so important. So if you're listening and you want to find or follow Marissa, you can go to her website at marissarenelee.com or follow her on Instagram at MarissaReneeLee and definitely get your hands on her book. Grief is Love. You can find it at Target, Amazon, bookstores. And I want to add the note, it is not a depressing book about death.

Straightforward, compassionate, and inspirational guide to living a full life after a loss. So Marissa, thank you so much. Thank you so much for having me. My pleasure. All right. I'm going to close this out by sharing some key takeaways. We experience grief because whomever or whatever it is we lost was something that we loved. It is important, not past tense. The love isn't what is gone. We experience grief because the love remains. There's no getting over it. And there's certainly no timeline. Our opportunity is to learn to live fully with our grief. And that sounds hard because it is. But everywhere I look, I see women doing

things that are hard. In fact, I believe we get to teach the world on how to live well with hard emotions. I know many of you are grieving and I'm sending you love and hope. And I'm asking you to hold onto your love and hope because that is woman's work.