Unlonely with Dr. Jody Carrington - If You're Old Enough to Love, You're Old Enough to Grieve

Episode Date: December 21, 2023

In this episode Dr. Jody digs into Grief. She explains the difference between grief and mourning and how grief is such an individual experience. EVERYONE grieves at some point in their life in some wa...y, shape, or form and this episode helps give some insight to it all. Hosted on Acast. See acast.com/privacy for more information.

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Starting point is 00:00:46 Indigenous peoples in this country have taught me the most about what acknowledgement truly means. So everything that I've created for you happened here on Treaty 7 land, which is now known as the center part of the province of Alberta. It is home to the Blackfoot Confederacy, made up of the Siksika, the Kainai, the Pikani, the Tatina First Nation, the Stony Nakoda First Nation, and the Métis Nation Region 3.
Starting point is 00:01:16 It is always my honor, my privilege mostly, to raise my babies on this land where so much sacrifice was made, and to build a community, invite a community in, talk about hard things as we together learn and unlearn about the most important things that we were never meant to do any of this alone. welcome back welcome in to the Everyone Comes From Somewhere podcast. Holy. Listen, this is a solo episode today. And I got to tell you, I think I like it. I really, really, really am enjoying the guest episodes.
Starting point is 00:02:21 I actually thought that my favorite were going to be the solo episodes where I get to just like talk about whatever I want. But I don't know. I really, there's been so many episodes, so many guests this year. And as we step into 2024, I thought I would reflect a little bit on so much about what they've taught me. And that's what I was thinking about, you know, like when we do the solo episode, what can I talk about? All the things that, you know, we've been speaking to people about this year. And then the thing that just kept coming back for me, which is probably not how you should end a year. It's grief. And I think that, you know, anytime there's big emotion in any season or any story or anything, period, the thing we don't like to talk a lot about is how grief is often interwoven into many things, even the good stuff like the holiday season. And because so no experience happens in a vacuum. No experience is all good. Like from a philosophical perspective, right? There's always a little bit of bad in everything. And there's always a little bit of good in all the bad, you know, I think about listening to the stories
Starting point is 00:03:48 where everyone comes from. And, you know, I think about Tarek's story, if you haven't listened to his episode, you know, he was a refugee in Lebanon, originally from Syria. And I think about him stepping into his success that is Peace by Chocolate in this moment. That episode is just so fascinating. And you'll hear in all of his success, the grief of leaving behind a life that he knew that was so great, that he loved so much about. You know, I just taped an episode that you'll hear probably in the new year. The guy named Lorne Miller and his wife, Lindsay, who cancer is back for the third time. And this guy, you know, firefighter, rock star, talks about, you know, a beautiful childhood, having two healthy babies, you know, being connected in his marriage, serving his community, all those things. And the grief of all of the ways that life has turned for him becomes sort of a place of like, can you let it overshadow the world? And again, you know, like I mean, there's a million stories that I could reflect on. And I, you know, I hope you listen to some of these episodes because I do my very best to sort of put into context the fact that all of us have beautiful pieces of our story
Starting point is 00:05:29 and that they make us who they are and it helps us define who the world is and how it works. And, you know, I mean, I think I've said this before when we were talking about therapy, the therapy episode, which was really like, you know, does it all come back to your childhood? Yes. And the answer is that doesn't mean that it is going to direct where you go, but understanding where you came from can become some of the most significant pieces in understanding how you will handle big emotions. And grief is no exception. So the definition of grief, you're born with it. If you're old enough to love, you're old enough to grieve. Grief is the human response to loss, you are also born with the capacity to grieve. The thing we're not born with is the roadmap, the script on what to do with grief.
Starting point is 00:06:39 And many of us call that mourning. And grief in and of itself, the entity in and of itself, is that the emotion is probably, can be the most debilitating, kick you in the vagina, take your breath away, unpredictable motherfucker that you've ever met. Okay? Grief is such a, I can't even think of a word like him, being meanie. Grief is, I hate it in so many ways. Because I think part of the issue with grief is that it's unpredictable. And just when you think you're fine, it kicks you in the ass. Just when you believe you've overcome it or, you know, you should be over it. So many of us understandably want to get through grief. You just want to be done with it. Okay. How long does it take me to grieve? People ask me this question.
Starting point is 00:07:44 I've had this conversation. How long does it take me to grieve? People ask me this question. We've had this conversation. How long does it take? What do I need to do to get over it? And I think the answer is so obvious in so given moment, this is what blows my mind, in any given moment, in this moment, every single person listening to this This episode around this globe is in a state of grief. We have all lost someone or something. And where it gets a little a war or, you know, whatever that looks like, a cultural genocide. So it's not as bad. I think that there really is no benefit to comparative suffering because it is very difficult to tell the story of how anybody makes sense of grief, because context is the prerequisite for empathy. And it becomes very difficult. You know, I talked a little bit today about resilience and how does one person get more resilient than the other? I truly believe that, you know, in any place that
Starting point is 00:09:20 we've talked about trauma, it's not what happens to you. It's what happens inside of your body as a result of what happens to you. And so what's really critical for me in this world of grief is equally, if not more important, understanding the concept of mourning. What you do with grief. And mourning, some would say, is how you heal. And, you know, an emotional illness, sorry, an emotional injury, not an illness, an emotional injury is the same as a physical injury. The sooner you treat it, the more you expose it, the more you, you know, attend to it, the better it has the capacity to heal. And a physical injury and an emotional injury are exactly the same thing. Grief is an emotional injury.
Starting point is 00:10:23 The deeper the wound, the closer it is to the heart, the more life-threatening it becomes. Grief operates in the same way. It'll leave a bigger scar. It will take longer to heal. The more deeper or explosive, I don't know, I can't think of the word. The more closer to the heart it is. And what I love about the concept of grief and mourning more,
Starting point is 00:10:54 you know, is really, it's like a philosophy of life for me. The more you have the capacity to attend to a wound, the more there is a script for, you know, what do you do when, if it's a burn or it's a massive laceration or it's a broken bone, right? If I sort of know or have a plan for what I'm going to do for that, oftentimes there's some comfort and there's some ability to settle and heal and step into that. Grief is the same way. And when you think about mourning, mourning, so grief is often such an individual process. This is how I've thought about it over the years. Grief is such an individual process because how I make sense of the world, how I make sense of a relationship, even if, you know, my partner and I share a child and we lose that child,
Starting point is 00:11:50 how I have a relationship with that child is completely different than the stories and the context. You know, it can be completely different than my partner might, right? So it is such an individual thing and it hits us at so many different levels and times and places in our body and we hold it in very different places in our body. And it is often done, grieving is often done alone. We often want to be alone in grief. We often fear other people having to help us navigate that. You know, the first time you have to lay eyes on somebody after, you know, a big death or a loss has occurred. You know, grief is such an individual process.
Starting point is 00:12:35 You know, just for me, for example, you know, or not like the individual will have a different story. You know, we might have had a scene about pierogies or, you know, the story, the one time that we, you know, hung out together. And so that is our respective response to grief and versus, you know, you have a completely different experience. And so grief is so intimate, I think, to the relationship that you've had with the person or the animal or the, you know, whatever the, where that pain of loss comes from. Mourning, alternatively, is how you heal. Mourning is often done in relationship. Mourning often involves joy.
Starting point is 00:13:20 Mourning, in my opinion, often involves story. Okay. And you are not born with the capacity to mourn. Somebody has to show you. So if the expectation, and I have to talk about this, you know, in the good old days, whatever those are, you would get a call. And because you would have very little ability to communicate in any other way, you would have to go face toface to the person who experienced the loss. Now, if the loss was untimely, tragic, sudden, any of those things, just like it is today, the desire to connect, to understand,
Starting point is 00:13:58 to get the information, to support, to get all hands on deck becomes much more quicker, right? Like there's an urgency to it. And if it is a predictable death and expected and, you know, regardless whether it's expected or not, still the last breath still is stabilitating. But anyway, the urgency is less, but it still is, you know, like, what is the process? Okay. Now, if I think about the olden days, the expectation, and I glorify this sometimes, and I really want to be clear that
Starting point is 00:14:39 this is not about glorifying, they had it all right, or it was so much better. The only thing that I think previous generations had over us was proximity. Now, just because I put two people in the same place doesn't mean they're going to do anything great with it or they're going to be kind to each other or they're going to figure out stuff together. What I love about proximity is you then have more of an opportunity to engage with, navigate, make sense of experiences and emotion. The more you avoid, the more exit ramps, off ramps, the more you stop looking, for sure, the more you stop seeing. And so what I love about historically thinking about the ability to lean into the ability to warn. So like, if you came over, I just remember even,
Starting point is 00:15:26 you know, the death of my grandfather in this lifetime. I remember how I was amazed at how like my best friend's mom and my best friend, I mean, I was 14 at the time. I remember so clearly that they came to the house. I remember so clearly that like my mom's heart was just so broken and that I, mine was less broken. Because as long as my mom and dad were okay, I felt like it was going to be okay. But I remember, do you remember? Butter tarts. Sheila Ritchie, you make the best butter tarts of all time. And I will forever connect those butter tarts to, see, I often say open-faced egg salad sandwiches are the universal sign of death. Also, for me is a big deal. Despite the fact that my grandfather was old and older,
Starting point is 00:16:25 he wasn't even that old. He was sick. We knew all of those things. I remember thinking, wow, people are here. They're bringing stuff. They're concerned about my mom. They're concerned about my dad. They're saying things to me like, I'm sorry. Here's what I loved about your Jeej. Here's what I remember. He had the best laugh. He's so funny, right? Like all these kind of things. That experience as a child made me look around and go, okay, this is a big deal. I remember being at the funeral home. I remember it for the first time, like really being sort of unsure about whether we should be in this place. And watching my parents navigate that, like, yes, come over. Like you can, this is, he's, you know, you can touch him if you want. You don't have to. You know, this is what has happened. This is what's going on. All those things. My good friend Jeremy Allen and I talk about this all the time.
Starting point is 00:17:27 And, you know, we've done some work together in the past. He's a funeral director and a rock star, young, amazing soul who has done so much in this place of grief and mourning. And I just really appreciate his commitment, particularly in his practice, to bringing children into the funeral directing or the funeral process, the wake, the celebration of life, whatever the deal is. Because here's what we forget so often in this mourning process is that the people closest to the dead guy will lose their ability to navigate their own people through it. Right. And so what becomes so critically important in any death is like, especially if it's untimely, but even if it is timely, whatever the deal,
Starting point is 00:18:09 whatever that means, the spouse or the kids or the people the closest to them will struggle so much to navigate their emotions. And so a village is so necessary in times of grief because there is that sense of like, I'll give you a place to land. Can I get you a snack? Right. The fact that Tannis would have came over at 12 years or 14 years old, I can't remember how old I was, and just sat with me. I remember like our moms stayed in the kitchen and cried and did all the things. And, you know, Tannis and I, as I remember it, you know, had a conversation. We went up to my room and put on music and listened. And,
Starting point is 00:18:48 you know, I just remember being so sad and being okay to be sad in that moment and that she, you know, would be interested in that. And I think giving our children the opportunity to make sense of death, Because like, we'll never automate death. We're never going to get out of the death game. We will always be in this place. I say this, I mean, you can't automate relationship, but you also can't automate birth and death, at least in the foreseeable future. And so the question is, how do we do our very best to give scripts around that? And so I often make, you know, statements about this, you know, having the conversations, particularly if there's a death by suicide or, you know, we don't want to talk about the fact that, you know, this might be imminent or that, you know, daddy's going to die or
Starting point is 00:19:38 whatever that looks like. I think that in developmentally appropriate ways, making space for those conversations might be the single most important thing you can do. The holidays are coming and nobody wants to deal with seasonal bugs making their way through the family. That's where Maple comes in. No more scrambling for open clinics during holiday festivities. One membership covers the whole family, making it a gift that keeps on giving this season. And with over a million five-star reviews, Canadians are loving it. Don't let sickness slow down your season.
Starting point is 00:20:26 Download the Maple app today. See a real doctor on your phone in minutes, 24-7. Get Maple. Get well. Sooner. You know, people say, well, I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say. I don't know what to say. Do you know what the easiest... I was going to say cop-out, but this isn't actually a cop-out. The easiest thing that I think happens in this space is you ask questions, right? And instead of trying to tell people, you know, what happened,
Starting point is 00:20:54 you know, how does this make sense to you? You know, when you're 11 and you get the news that, you know, somebody in your family died by suicide. How does this make sense to you? What does this mean to you when I tell you those things? And, you know, this is how, you know, your cousin was struggling or, you know, this is what happened. What does that mean to you? And do you have any questions about it? And does anything about this scare you? And I think sometimes we try to put, you know, we always want to regulate emotion. Okay. So like, you know, he's in no longer in pain. Everything's okay. Now you're safe. Everything's fine with the best of intentions.
Starting point is 00:21:30 But what we forget is just to hold space for emotion and acknowledge it. And in the space of grief, my God, because there is probably no more painful emotion on the planet. What we want to do so much is just jump to the fucking it's okay piece. And that's understandable and you should get there. My only ask or wonder sometimes is I often think the work happens in those few seconds, those few moments, those few hours, whereas a human to human, we have the physical capacity to sit in the mess. So, you know, as I was thinking about this in particular in this holiday season, I think that if this is the first holiday where you're without somebody you loved, if this is the 32nd holiday, a couple of things are true. We encode a lot of memories in times of big emotion, which means that the holidays tend to be more present in the holiday season, which often makes many people hate the holidays or avoid the holidays or want to do all those things.
Starting point is 00:22:51 Like I get all of those things how they connect. My wondering this season, knowing now that every single one of us is in a state of grief, some of it more acute than others. I want you to think about this season, the importance of sinking highest on your heart, your grief heart. Honoring traditions, saying names, not being scared to do the wrong thing at the wrong time. And if you do, believe me, you'll have the capacity to get through that. I think it's a risk that we often should take.
Starting point is 00:23:47 And sometimes, you know, it doesn't pay off the way that we want to. But I promise you, oftentimes the avoidance is the hardest part. And I think that one of the most critical places that we need to spend a little bit more time in is the landing of the joy and the telling of the stories and the remembering of the things that bring us back to a sense of peace and joy and safety in our bodies. And now people say,
Starting point is 00:24:23 you know, well, that won't bring them back. It doesn't make it any better. It's still really shitty. And like, 10-4, rubber ducky. The intention of mourning is not to relieve, not to extinguish the pain. It is to help in the rewriting or the continuation of the story. Because when we stay stuck in the pain, what we. He's one of the prodigies of, the woman who created those five stages of grief. And he himself struggled or experienced significant loss, the death of a child. And his recent book introduced the sixth stage of grief, which is, he calls meaning. And the interesting thing is that I think we try to jump too quickly to meaning. What is this for?
Starting point is 00:25:56 What does this mean? I'll be, you know, like, there's a reason for fucking everything. I think that it takes some time to get to the sixth stage. I think that many people, full permission to stay in the anger and the resentment and the part where you deny it all. It doesn't feel like it's real. I think all of those things, we have such a desire to get to that sort of fixed stage. And so that holding space of it all matters so much, you know, I just asked her about the intensity and frequency of grief, you know, if I can take you to the first moment that you understood that your daughter was no longer on this planet to now, what does that grief look like? And she said, you know, the intensity and the frequency have decreased. And it doesn't mean
Starting point is 00:27:15 I don't, you know, and I think there's always like this sense of like, we have to clarify. This doesn't mean that we don't honor or love, that there's any less commitment to, but the ability to get to that place where the pain isn't acute to the point that it's so debilitating. And some of us feel like we deserve to stay in that place, which I think is worthy of an explanation or an exploration all of itself. Because in this human condition, you know, we're just walking each other home. Nobody gets out of here alive. And no matter how much you stay in hurt and pain and feel like you pay the price for the loss
Starting point is 00:27:54 or the should have or the could have, the outcome is you miss everything that you're intended to see in the next days, weeks, months, years following the loss of anybody who you have in your life. And it does not make it any better. It does not bring them back. And I think her description sort of of that was so interesting to me. You know, the intensity and the frequency decreases and equally the moments of joy had opportunities to introduce themselves and be moments that you were more and more inclined to grab
Starting point is 00:28:42 instead of feeling like you were undeserving of them. So you would let them just fly by. And I think in this holiday season, what I'd like you to consider, no matter what stage of grief you're in with whoever you have in your life, that the focus is a little bit on grabbing those moments of joy and stringing them together, not necessarily letting them pass by. Because I think it is from those depths of despair, of grief, what that emotion,
Starting point is 00:29:22 that human emotion, that universal human emotion is intended to teach. I think the ability to climb out of it from time to time and then string those moments together, if you can, is truly where meaning lies. So there you have it. A little deep dive on grief, mourning. Ellen Wolfelt, you know, really helped me understand that difference between grief and mourning. And I think, you know, I don't know, man. I don't know, woman. I don't know, human, if it's right or wrong. And again, remember, this is just my opinion.
Starting point is 00:30:18 You and me hanging out, you're doing your run or your walk or having your nog, whatever that is. I hope you're having a lot of nog. I'm still on the coffee train today, but I got to tell you, now after I said that, I'm going to have some eggnog tonight. Actually, I don't even think I like eggnog. I'm just going the coffee train today but I gotta tell you now after I said that I'm gonna have some eggnog tonight actually I don't even think I like eggnog I'm just gonna get that rum put a little nutmeg in her you know make it festive maybe a cranberry
Starting point is 00:30:37 see just created my own cocktail right there easy okay that's all I got for you today. This little deep dive into grief and mourning, I hope my friends will bring you a little peace in your heart, wherever that is, with whoever you're hanging on to or connected to this season. Drop your shoulders. Look at your toes for me. Say a couple of these things in your head. You are loved by so many. You matter to so many. And I'm just so grateful you're here. Happy holidays, Merry Christmas, all of those things to you and yours. And I gotta tell you,
Starting point is 00:31:18 we have a season of podcastery coming up in this new year that I cannot wait to sit with you through. I hope you'll join me. It's now one of my favorite things to do on the planet. So yeah, stay tuned. Stay connected. And I'll meet you right back here next time. I'm a registered clinical psychologist here in beautiful Alberta, Canada. The content created and produced in this show is not intended as specific therapeutic advice. The intention of this podcast is to provide information, resources, some education, and hopefully a little hope.
Starting point is 00:32:15 The Everyone Comes From Somewhere podcast by me, Dr. Jodi Carrington, is produced by Brian Seaver, Taylor McGilvery, and the amazing Jeremy Saunders at Snack Labs. Our executive producer is the one and only, my Marty Piller. Our marketing strategist is Caitlin Beneteau. And our PR big shooters are Des Veneau and Barry Cohen. Our agent, the 007 guy, is Jeff Lowness from the Talent Bureau. And my emotional support during the taping of these credits was and is and will always be my son, Asher Grant.

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