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What we can learn about life from watching others die · The Uplifters

• 0:02
  SPEAKER_00: An Uplifter is a compelling leader who tries to breathe life and hope into people around them.
• 0:09
  SPEAKER_01: Who listen and care and guide and help.
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  SPEAKER_01: Who encourages you.
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  SPEAKER_01: Who shines their light to lead other people.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Who uses their best self in order to help others.
• 0:39
  SPEAKER_01: I found the life that I like and I work toward that.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_03: We are all Uplifters.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_03: Muah!
• 0:45
  SPEAKER_03: Big love.
• 0:48
  SPEAKER_02: I'm Leah DeVeo and I'm nominating Sundari, an Uplifter who's dedicated herself to supporting those who are grieving.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_02: Loss changes your life and often leaves a gaping hole.
• 0:58
  SPEAKER_02: Sundari connects people experiencing similar types of loss like the loss of a partner or a sibling or a child and the connections foster intimate conversations over a shared meal.
• 1:10
  SPEAKER_02: Uplifting those who are in need.
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  SPEAKER_02: Sometimes just knowing you're not the only one out there who's navigating life after losing someone is the light that we need.
• 1:18
  SPEAKER_02: Hey Uplifters.
• 1:19
  SPEAKER_01: I don't want to talk about death.
• 1:22
  SPEAKER_01: I mean I don't think anybody does.
• 1:25
  SPEAKER_01: It's sad and it's scary and it brings up so many fears of loss especially when I think about the people I love the most and hold the most closely and yet
• 1:39
  SPEAKER_01: It's a part of every one of our lives and without some real conversation about it, without taking moments to let ourselves see the beauty in life's transitions, we set ourselves up to suffer, maybe sometimes more than we really need to.
• 2:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so today, Uplifters, we are joined by Sundre Malcolm, who has
• 2:06
  SPEAKER_01: experienced way more than her fair share of loss, if there is such a thing.
• 2:10
  SPEAKER_01: At age 27, she lost her mother.
• 2:12
  SPEAKER_01: Four years later, she lost her father.
• 2:15
  SPEAKER_01: And through all of that loss, she has created purpose.
• 2:21
  SPEAKER_01: An Extraordinary Impact by Helping Others Learn How to Manage Life's Biggest Transitions.
• 2:27
  SPEAKER_01: She is the BIPOC grief educator and care curator for the Dinner Party, an amazing organization you'll hear about from her.
• 2:33
  SPEAKER_01: She's also a birth, grief and death doula and the founder of a healing doula.
• 2:39
  SPEAKER_01: She's a yoga and meditation teacher and the publisher of the book Grief Gems.
• 2:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I am so, so grateful that Leah DeFeo nominated her as an Uplifter.
• 2:52
  SPEAKER_01: Sundari, thank you for joining us today.
• 2:54
  SPEAKER_03: Hello to the community that is listening and or watching.
• 2:59
  SPEAKER_03: I am just grateful to share space with you all.
• 3:03
  SPEAKER_01: I find your generosity and your warmth so calming and yet I am kind of nervous to spend this time immersed in loss
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  SPEAKER_01: especially with you as somebody who has experienced so much of it.
• 3:18
  SPEAKER_01: And I imagine, though, at the same time, as a birth Julie, you've experienced the other side of that beautiful cycle.
• 3:25
  SPEAKER_01: So let's start with your story, Sundre.
• 3:29
  SPEAKER_01: You were just a child when you lost your parents.
• 3:33
  SPEAKER_01: And I know you cared for your mother for the last seven years of her life.
• 3:38
  SPEAKER_01: And so before we talk about her death, I'd like to talk a little bit about those seven years.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_01: And what you were learning through those seven years that prepared you or didn't for that tremendous loss.
• 3:50
  SPEAKER_03: Yes.
• 3:51
  SPEAKER_03: My mother is a Nnamdi.
• 3:54
  SPEAKER_03: And as you mentioned, I was born to Yogi parents, Yogi black parents in Brooklyn.
• 4:00
  SPEAKER_03: And my mother had been studying to be a Swami actually before her mother was diagnosed with ALS when she was 27 and she became her mother's caregiver.
• 4:10
  SPEAKER_03: And her mother passed at 55.
• 4:12
  SPEAKER_03: My mother passed at 55 when I was 27.
• 4:15
  SPEAKER_03: And I did spend seven years as her caregiver.
• 4:19
  SPEAKER_03: And nothing prepares you for being a caregiver for, especially I think in your 20s, you know, at the time I was coming out of college, I'd gone to the University of Delaware.
• 4:31
  SPEAKER_03: I was working as a public relations girl in Manhattan on Park Ave.
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_03: her record labels and nightclubs.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_03: And my mother was a teacher in Westchester, New York.
• 4:41
  SPEAKER_03: And I was trying to start my new life in my twenties.
• 4:45
  SPEAKER_03: I was surrounded by friends who were getting engaged and starting to have children.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_03: And I was sitting in hospitals, right?
• 4:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I was commuting back and forth from the city to Westchester, taking her to chemo.
• 4:58
  SPEAKER_03: One had been a pillar of health for most of my life.
• 5:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm such a strong advocate for holistic health and
• 5:05
  SPEAKER_03: and for wellness in general and such a strong force in the community and to be a caregiver is to watch someone slowly transition and people don't prepare you for that slowness.
• 5:19
  SPEAKER_03: I think also when you're watching specifically someone who is in a place of authority, so it's whomever you raised you, whether that was parents or grandparents or aunts or uncles, that
• 5:31
  SPEAKER_03: you watch a different version emerge and I wasn't prepared for that right this very strong island woman who all of a sudden was much quieter and weaker and frail and had needs and mood swings and I didn't know how to really navigate all that.
• 5:51
  SPEAKER_03: I think some of the things you don't realize as a caregiver is
• 5:54
  SPEAKER_03: I wish it was things that we spoke about and it's why in my work I try to speak to the things that don't get put in those fluffy books that you find.
• 6:03
  SPEAKER_03: And one of them was that you're angry a lot of the time and you feel lost for the life you're not getting to live.
• 6:10
  SPEAKER_03: It's not just emotional lift but there's a lot of physical support that happens especially as someone gets closer and closer to transitioning.
• 6:18
  SPEAKER_03: And so the grief starts way earlier than people talk about.
• 6:23
  SPEAKER_03: and they call this anticipatory grief, but it's the grief of knowing that your person is going to pass.
• 6:28
  SPEAKER_03: And so you kind of feel like you're always waiting, which is a really weird energy to inhabit year after year.
• 6:35
  SPEAKER_03: And it was hard.
• 6:37
  SPEAKER_03: It was beautiful many times, but I am looking back on it now.
• 6:43
  SPEAKER_03: I am so incredibly grateful that I got to be present with her, that I got to be there on those last days.
• 6:50
  SPEAKER_03: I coach a lot of people about what to do on those last
• 6:53
  SPEAKER_03: And I'm grateful I played Nina Simone and I rubbed her feet and we sang.
• 6:59
  SPEAKER_03: And those are things that I will carry forever.
• 7:02
  SPEAKER_01: And you were doing this all at a time when you were trying to be born into your adult life.
• 7:08
  SPEAKER_01: I was.
• 7:10
  SPEAKER_01: And so what was that tension like?
• 7:12
  SPEAKER_03: When I look back, I think that in the beginning, I was definitely trying to hold on to both worlds.
• 7:20
  SPEAKER_03: Trying to keep up my job.
• 7:21
  SPEAKER_03: I was trying to keep up a social life.
• 7:23
  SPEAKER_03: And then I got to a certain point where you just couldn't and there's a surrender that has to happen.
• 7:28
  SPEAKER_03: And a surrender that I had to fully give into.
• 7:32
  SPEAKER_03: And in order to do that I had to leave Manhattan and back to Westchester.
• 7:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I needed to be on 24-7.
• 7:37
  SPEAKER_03: And
• 7:40
  SPEAKER_03: There was no question, right?
• 7:41
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't have siblings.
• 7:43
  SPEAKER_03: I didn't have a lot of family around.
• 7:46
  SPEAKER_03: I'm forever grateful.
• 7:47
  SPEAKER_03: And I wrote about them in my book to the teachers at, in Chappaqua who were friends of hers and colleagues of hers that would trade weeks with me sometimes to take her to chemo.
• 7:57
  SPEAKER_03: But for the most part, I was alone and it was she and I, and there were a lot of things that perhaps I didn't get to do because I was a caregiver at that time.
• 8:09
  SPEAKER_03: I also know and I believe this deeply that we're placed where we're supposed to be and I am where I am and who I am because of that experience.
• 8:19
  SPEAKER_03: And I don't think really I've missed out on anything.
• 8:22
  SPEAKER_03: You know, I moved and shifted, but that was where I was supposed to be.
• 8:31
  SPEAKER_01: What a beautiful perspective and I think so relevant even to those who are experiencing a caregiving journey in their 60s and 70s.
• 8:40
  SPEAKER_01: For all of us, I think this desire to control our lives and when something this out of control and disruptive happens to feel maybe some very natural frustration and disappointment.
• 8:53
  SPEAKER_01: As you said, you were grieving for seven years.
• 8:56
  SPEAKER_01: You were also slowly
• 8:59
  SPEAKER_01: letting go of what you had envisioned those years to look like and the future that you imagined with your mother while at the same time what I hear you describing is an entirely new future being born that never could have existed without that.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_01: That's comforting to me.
• 9:17
  SPEAKER_01: When you talk about this legacy of loss in youth, your mother losing her mother at a young age and caring for her
• 9:26
  SPEAKER_01: throughout her ALS.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_01: What did your mother teach you through that journey that informed your own experience of it?
• 9:35
  SPEAKER_03: I'll be honest, she didn't speak about it.
• 9:37
  SPEAKER_03: And perhaps that's also why I speak about it so much.
• 9:40
  SPEAKER_03: I think whether that's from the culture of hailing from parents from the West Indies who didn't speak too much to feelings,
• 9:50
  SPEAKER_03: whether it was from the generation that she sat at, which is there were bigger things happening in their world at the time that a lot of them didn't feel like they had space for their emotions as well.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_03: And I think her becoming a mother while she would have been only three months out of her grief journey, I don't know that she could have held all of it.
• 10:11
  SPEAKER_03: So I didn't learn much about grief from her.
• 10:14
  SPEAKER_03: She taught me tools and I think a lot about that with my parents.
• 10:18
  SPEAKER_03: It's a funny question because how I am as vocal as I am about emotions and energy and grief and death and loss is not how I was raised.
• 10:26
  SPEAKER_03: How I was raised and what I do implement are the tools that I use.
• 10:30
  SPEAKER_03: And so I was raised by people who taught me how to meditate and who taught me the importance of self-regulation and taught me that it was important what I put into my body as a whole because that was going to present itself physically.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_03: When my life came to a halt, I pulled on all tools that they had given me.
• 10:52
  SPEAKER_03: I was set up greatly to know how to walk myself through that.
• 10:56
  SPEAKER_03: And it's why I feel so called to teach other people these things that are out there, right?
• 11:03
  SPEAKER_03: That indigenous cultures and cultures have leaned on for centuries of time, right?
• 11:08
  SPEAKER_03: Like this has always been here for us.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_03: And it's really just reclaiming what somebody in your lineage already knew.
• 11:16
  SPEAKER_03: right and reclaiming what already sits there and sometimes people just need to be reminded and we do so much especially in today's society of like outward facing of wanting others to come in and heal and so much of your magic lays within you and so much of your medicine lays within you and so that was a lesson.
• 11:38
  SPEAKER_01: And interestingly, because of this circumstance, I imagine there was an intensification of the appreciation of those tools.
• 11:49
  SPEAKER_03: I was raised between Yogerville and Harlem, but when I hit like teenage years and my 20s, I really was not sitting around meditating.
• 11:57
  SPEAKER_03: I was much more of a party chick at that time.
• 12:00
  SPEAKER_03: And it was when I lost my mother and my father was diagnosed a few years later that it felt like
• 12:08
  SPEAKER_03: I needed to make a deep shift and I didn't really know where to turn.
• 12:14
  SPEAKER_03: I felt untethered, right?
• 12:16
  SPEAKER_03: You feel like an orphan.
• 12:17
  SPEAKER_03: I mean, I don't think it doesn't matter what age you are.
• 12:20
  SPEAKER_03: I think when you lose whoever raises you, you feel a bit like an orphan.
• 12:24
  SPEAKER_03: And I didn't know where to turn.
• 12:26
  SPEAKER_03: And the only place I really knew where to turn was my altar and was to just sit forever grateful for everything that they gave me and every tool that they put on my belt.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_01: How is that awareness of your own mortality something that most 20-somethings don't have influence the way that you live each day?
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_03: Oh my goodness.
• 12:48
  SPEAKER_03: I'll tell you, it's been greatest gift.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_03: I know that that might sound weird, especially to people who are new to grief.
• 12:55
  SPEAKER_03: And so this isn't to invalidate how much pain you find yourself in right now.
• 13:00
  SPEAKER_03: But at a certain point, what I realized was I also had this
• 13:06
  SPEAKER_03: Because I was aware of how quickly life could shift, because I had sat at that point at the deathbed of my two people, there was a freedom in not really having anyone to answer to.
• 13:19
  SPEAKER_03: And there was a freedom in knowing I had already gone through the worst thing I could imagine.
• 13:25
  SPEAKER_03: And so if I was going to take a risk and I was going to fail, it was never going to be as bad as what I had just gone through.
• 13:34
  SPEAKER_03: there's sadness in that but there's also immense freedom in that in that realization and I mean I did everything I went one of the first things I did and I wrote about this in my book is I watched Eat Pray Love and I actually went on the same trip by myself like Bali, India, I went to Guatemala instead I went on trips by myself I went on retreats because for a while I was scared to travel alone
• 14:01
  SPEAKER_03: I became a yoga teacher.
• 14:02
  SPEAKER_03: I started working as a doula and all of these things fell into each other and that's not by accident.
• 14:10
  SPEAKER_03: I had sat through what felt like 10 years of war.
• 14:14
  SPEAKER_03: I was in like severe flight or fright all the time.
• 14:18
  SPEAKER_03: I had PTSD that I carried from being a caregiver and I needed to remind my body what rest and what balance felt like and so I decided I didn't want to live where I lived anymore and I moved to Miami and I lived by the sun in the ocean and then I converted a school bus and traveled around the U.S.
• 14:37
  SPEAKER_03: for two years.
• 14:38
  SPEAKER_03: I moved to Curaçao and lived there for a year.
• 14:41
  SPEAKER_03: I'm in Germany now
• 14:43
  SPEAKER_03: At this point, I've been a deaf doula now for almost 15 years.
• 14:47
  SPEAKER_03: You sit in these spaces and everyone, most, say the same thing.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_03: I wish I had listened to other people less.
• 14:56
  SPEAKER_03: I wish I had lived larger.
• 14:58
  SPEAKER_03: And it makes me cry to think about it because to imagine myself at the end of my life, whenever that may be, and to think I had the chance or the option, but I didn't out of fear,
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_03: or out of self-imposed limitations.
• 15:13
  SPEAKER_03: And I want to go out knowing I tried everything and I did everything.
• 15:17
  SPEAKER_03: I'm not a huge risk taster.
• 15:19
  SPEAKER_03: So to be honest, all of those things were done with a lot of planning and a lot of what ifs.
• 15:23
  SPEAKER_03: I've kept a job and I've done, you know, all of the adult things I should have, but also I continue to live life really fully because I want, I want the generation that follows me at some point, I'm somebody's ancestor, right?
• 15:39
  SPEAKER_03: that I have gotten to the point now where there are people that follow me.
• 15:43
  SPEAKER_03: I want in my family and in my own bloodline to look ahead and say, I want to be like her.
• 15:49
  SPEAKER_03: I want to experience life like her.
• 15:52
  SPEAKER_03: Because so many of what we've had to look at sometimes are examples of fear and living very small and living at best to the wishes of others.
• 16:04
  SPEAKER_03: And I wish us all differently.
• 16:07
  SPEAKER_03: This is real temperance.
• 16:09
  SPEAKER_01: All of it.
• 16:10
  SPEAKER_01: All of it.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_01: And I do think there is something hard coded into us to consider these questions.
• 16:18
  SPEAKER_01: Who am I?
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_01: Who will I be?
• 16:20
  SPEAKER_01: What do I really want from this life at the start of each new year?
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_01: And so as we enter a new year, it is almost a collective transition and an invitation for rebirth for ourselves.
• 16:36
  SPEAKER_01: Through Intentionally Living Bolder and Brighter and Truer.
• 16:41
  SPEAKER_01: How do you think about new years and the continuous clarification of who you want to be in the world?
• 16:50
  SPEAKER_03: I adhere more to the solstice, right, and with moving with the seasons.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_03: What is beautiful about moving with the seasons is this is the time of darker days and colder days and it gives you permission to be a bit more hermetic, a bit more quiet, a bit more reflective, to lean into it's cold outside and I don't want to join your merry celebration.
• 17:16
  SPEAKER_03: I'd like to be home and spend time with myself.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_03: But I think what's good about that is it lets you look back and see what worked and what didn't.
• 17:24
  SPEAKER_03: I think something about what I've learned about being a dreamer and death is that you are only willing to accept now what makes your soul feel good and what makes your soul feel peaceful.
• 17:37
  SPEAKER_03: And so I think it's a really beautiful time to look back and say, what didn't feel good?
• 17:41
  SPEAKER_03: Where did I feel like I'm sitting in places where I don't feel as safe as I used to?
• 17:46
  SPEAKER_03: I think this is the time to reconfigure your circles, reconfigure what you are allowing in and out, you know, like edit, delete, whatever you need to do.
• 17:57
  SPEAKER_03: I don't really do the whole resolution thing.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_03: I'm more of a like, I give myself two things to do each month.
• 18:04
  SPEAKER_03: And that lets me feel like, all right, I'm just kind of chugging along.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_03: But I think if you can use this time to just look back, be grateful for the things that worked and also pay attention to what didn't.
• 18:16
  SPEAKER_03: If it didn't work last year, it's probably not going to work next year.
• 18:20
  SPEAKER_03: And so let's allow things to let go.
• 18:24
  SPEAKER_03: It's just, what can I say?
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: Right.
• 18:26
  SPEAKER_03: This is just a time to get real quiet and let go.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_01: It is a perfect context for reflection, as you describe, and for getting really clear about what we want more and less of in the time ahead.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_01: And so often, because we are creatures of routine, we just keep doing what we've always done, whether it's serving us or not.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_01: And so it is reflection that creates the space to create the change that lets us be the difference.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_01: I looked it up earlier today out of curiosity.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_01: January is the month in which the most people die in the U.S.
• 18:58
  SPEAKER_01: each year, which I think is interesting.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_01: And so it feels like an appropriate time to have these questions, yes, about death, but what they can mean for us who live.
• 19:08
  SPEAKER_01: And I know one of the things that you have really taken on as part of your mission in this life is to create community for those who are losing and living.
• 19:21
  SPEAKER_01: What has the role of community been in your own healing?
• 19:24
  SPEAKER_01: And why is that where you've placed so much of your energy and attention in serving others?
• 19:31
  SPEAKER_03: I think as a woman who comes from a family that deeply believed in ancestral and holistic medicine, I think those cultures are also deeply tied.
• 19:44
  SPEAKER_03: to community healing.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_03: I think it's the Western world that, and I have, I also have a therapist, but the Western world is, is very ingrained in talk therapy, which is trying to figure out how you manage and walk through dysfunction.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_03: Whereas indigenous therapy is really about how we as a collective can heal so that we can all be better.
• 20:06
  SPEAKER_03: So there is no outward dysfunction rather than how do I heal myself to deal with the circus that's outside.
• 20:12
  SPEAKER_03: And I think when we intentionally sit in spaces that have been created for us, where we share a common thread, there's something about being with people where you show up as your whole self, where you can hear other people's stories.
• 20:29
  SPEAKER_03: When you hear what has been rambling around in your brain come out of somebody, that is deeply validating.
• 20:35
  SPEAKER_03: when someone looks at you and recognizes the way your head tilts when you hear something or the way you catch your breath that is deeply validating and I think too so there's that I think when you sit energetically with people whether you're online or virtually energy is real and when you are all there for the intention of
• 21:00
  SPEAKER_03: healing and having heart-centered conversations.
• 21:04
  SPEAKER_03: There is a beautiful energy that you are building.
• 21:07
  SPEAKER_03: When you walk out into the rest of the world, you become a domino.
• 21:11
  SPEAKER_03: And so when you think that this isn't doing much, like imagine if just groups of 20 people were sitting around healing, how incredibly transformative
• 21:21
  SPEAKER_03: I think self-care is important, talk therapy is important, healing in a quiet dark closet is important, but so is sitting in a space with 20 other people and making eye contact and giving somebody a hug.
• 21:35
  SPEAKER_03: There is magic to be made in collective
• 21:39
  SPEAKER_01: the point you're making about the ripples that come from the amplification of multiple humans creating that energy together.
• 21:46
  SPEAKER_01: It is so deep and primal and necessary.
• 21:49
  SPEAKER_01: And it's so tempting to hole into our safe, cozy, climate-controlled, message-controlled lives in our homes.
• 21:59
  SPEAKER_01: And the more we can control them, the more tempting that becomes because we can get ourselves into believing that we can tune out everything that's uncomfortable.
• 22:07
  SPEAKER_01: And yet the
• 22:09
  SPEAKER_01: The only way we grow, the only way we move through these things is to let ourselves be out in the world together.
• 22:16
  SPEAKER_01: And it's not always in the physical world.
• 22:19
  SPEAKER_01: Certainly the world can come into us through a podcast or a Zoom meeting.
• 22:24
  SPEAKER_01: And that's certainly what we're aiming to do with The Uplifters is to grow together through sharing our stories to help us feel less alone and more connected and supported and celebrated.
• 22:36
  SPEAKER_01: And there is just nothing like
• 22:38
  SPEAKER_01: Human touch and human presence, even with strangers.
• 22:42
  SPEAKER_01: I spent almost 20 years at Weight Watchers and I was responsible for the meetings business.
• 22:46
  SPEAKER_01: And what that was, was curated groups of people with common goals and interests and desires helping each other
• 22:55
  SPEAKER_01: not just learn how to do it, because frankly, even though it started pre-Google, you know, there have always been learning tools, but there haven't been living tools.
• 23:05
  SPEAKER_01: And communities are living tools.
• 23:07
  SPEAKER_01: We can get data all day long, but understanding what really works in our day-to-day lives, how we overcome the inevitable hurdles of just trying to grow, that we do in community.
• 23:20
  SPEAKER_01: And so you talk about the dinner party.
• 23:21
  SPEAKER_01: And I think the beauty of that is it said, we're going to be something different in the world for the people who need that difference.
• 23:29
  SPEAKER_01: So can you talk a little about what you do?
• 23:32
  SPEAKER_03: So the dinner party is a nonprofit grief org.
• 23:36
  SPEAKER_03: And I came to the dinner party actually as a griever in 2013.
• 23:41
  SPEAKER_03: I was super sad living in Miami.
• 23:44
  SPEAKER_03: My dad had just died two years ago and the founder had given an interview in O Magazine and it was about these people who were in their 20s, 30s and 40s who would meet at random people's houses and they were all grievers.
• 23:59
  SPEAKER_03: And I'd never heard of such a thing.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_03: And I emailed them sitting right there in this restaurant and letting the founder email me back within 20 minutes.
• 24:09
  SPEAKER_03: and I became a host.
• 24:11
  SPEAKER_03: So at that point we were completely in person and that meant I lived in Miami, Florida.
• 24:16
  SPEAKER_03: If you lived in Miami in my zip code, you came to my house and I used to meet twice a month for brunch and we would sit and everyone would bring food and everyone had a different loss type and I eventually became staff in 2018.
• 24:33
  SPEAKER_03: And so the background of what the dinner party is, is groups are brought together.
• 24:39
  SPEAKER_03: Traditionally, it's been over a meal, but since COVID, we have gone virtual, though some still meet in person.
• 24:46
  SPEAKER_03: We also offer something called the buddy system, which is if 10 to 12 people feels like too many for you, then you can just be connected to one.
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 24:53
  SPEAKER_03: And you can text and have conversations that way.
• 24:55
  SPEAKER_03: So the beauty of going virtual was also if you lived in a really small town and you wanted to be matched with a queer griever who lost her mother, sometimes we couldn't match in person.
• 25:06
  SPEAKER_03: Now You Can Be Matched Within Days, which really opened up connections for grievers.
• 25:12
  SPEAKER_03: We're getting much more intentional about doing trainings and continuing to do trainings so that people can hold hard conversations because it's not always about grief.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_03: How my work shifted was when George Floyd was murdered.
• 25:26
  SPEAKER_03: And what I recognized in that moment was that people of color were showing up in what were predominantly white spaces and showing up at what we call tables.
• 25:34
  SPEAKER_03: So you're a group of 10 to 12 and we're being the one of only and weren't able to show up in their full self.
• 25:42
  SPEAKER_03: And so we needed to create spaces where they can sit with other people of color.
• 25:46
  SPEAKER_03: This became really important.
• 25:48
  SPEAKER_03: And so I started creating events that were just for BIPOC healers led by BIPOC and started training the rest of our community to know how to hold BIPOC grief when people of color show up.
• 25:59
  SPEAKER_03: Outside of that, there were people that wanted affinity spaces across the board.
• 26:04
  SPEAKER_03: We had Korean American tables that just wanted to be with themselves who had just lost their mothers.
• 26:10
  SPEAKER_03: And so it became this opportunity to give people exactly what they wanted and what we have seen
• 26:15
  SPEAKER_03: is that yes, while you and I might share grief, there's something different that shifts when we also share that we both come from the islands, right?
• 26:24
  SPEAKER_03: Or we both come from immigrant parents, or we both just lost a sibling to overdose.
• 26:31
  SPEAKER_03: That is a different kind of healing.
• 26:33
  SPEAKER_03: And so that has become my main focus.
• 26:35
  SPEAKER_03: How do we create safe spaces?
• 26:38
  SPEAKER_03: Because not all spaces are safe.
• 26:40
  SPEAKER_03: You have to heal people as a whole.
• 26:43
  SPEAKER_03: and part of my work outside of my dual work has been how do I safe up all the spaces that are out there?
• 26:52
  SPEAKER_03: How do we teach people how to hold people in their wholeness?
• 26:55
  SPEAKER_03: How do we heal from a top-down approach from nose to toes, right?
• 27:01
  SPEAKER_03: And not just the symptom of crime.
• 27:05
  SPEAKER_03: How do we not offend people in their culture or race?
• 27:09
  SPEAKER_03: Healing should be accessible to everybody.
• 27:12
  SPEAKER_03: And that's what we're focusing on doing.
• 27:14
  SPEAKER_01: How incredibly important.
• 27:16
  SPEAKER_01: While not all of us are facilitating grief workshops, what can we all learn from that work in terms of how we act as better supports to our communities in a more accepting and inclusive way?
• 27:29
  SPEAKER_03: The easiest way is to look at your own communities.
• 27:31
  SPEAKER_03: When you're reading the newspaper and you see a person of color has been murdered and then you have a conversation with a person of color who's one of your friends, it is
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_03: probably best to address it because they're holding it.
• 27:45
  SPEAKER_03: The silence is louder.
• 27:47
  SPEAKER_03: I saw the news today.
• 27:49
  SPEAKER_03: How is that sitting with you?
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_03: How are you feeling in light of what's going on?
• 27:54
  SPEAKER_03: Some people might say they don't want to talk about it, but they'll notice that you asked.
• 27:58
  SPEAKER_03: That is one of the quickest ways just to look around who we sit with.
• 28:01
  SPEAKER_03: Sometimes we read the paper and then we keep moving and we talk to our friend about coffee.
• 28:05
  SPEAKER_03: You know, it's like there are ways to bring people in.
• 28:09
  SPEAKER_03: I think as you're moving through this season is to think about grievers in your life.
• 28:15
  SPEAKER_03: And the easiest thing is to send a message and say, I just want you to know I love you.
• 28:21
  SPEAKER_03: I just want you to know I'm here for you.
• 28:23
  SPEAKER_03: I'm thinking about you.
• 28:25
  SPEAKER_03: What I wish people would realize who aren't grievers is you bringing up someone that someone has lost is not reminding them of their loss.
• 28:35
  SPEAKER_03: They're already sad.
• 28:36
  SPEAKER_03: What you're going to do is give them a bit of light when one else besides them remembers.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_03: There is nothing I love more than somebody asking me a question about my mother and my father.
• 28:47
  SPEAKER_03: Because it's, you want to still talk about them.
• 28:50
  SPEAKER_03: You get to talk about your dad.
• 28:52
  SPEAKER_03: Why don't I get to talk about mine?
• 28:54
  SPEAKER_03: It's simpler than we think.
• 28:55
  SPEAKER_03: We need to go back to what we learned as kindergartners.
• 28:58
  SPEAKER_03: Be nice.
• 28:59
  SPEAKER_03: Share.
• 29:00
  SPEAKER_03: Give a hug.
• 29:02
  SPEAKER_03: Write a nice note.
• 29:03
  SPEAKER_03: Draw a picture.
• 29:04
  SPEAKER_03: It's so basic and I think we get older and we wrap it up in real fancy pose.
• 29:10
  SPEAKER_03: And it's like, what would you tell your three-year-old?
• 29:12
  SPEAKER_01: You would tell them to engage.
• 29:14
  SPEAKER_01: So much of childhood relationship is about just basic engagement.
• 29:19
  SPEAKER_01: And I've never thought about it until you said that, Sondre.
• 29:22
  SPEAKER_01: But that's why it feels so easy to make friends as a child, because they courageously walk up and say, hey, want to play ball?
• 29:32
  SPEAKER_01: Hey, want to slide down the slide?
• 29:33
  SPEAKER_01: And they don't need to have anything else in common or any understanding of each other's lived experience.
• 29:40
  SPEAKER_01: They just engage.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_01: And so much of what we do as adults is we figure out how to not engage and how to create boundaries and barriers and differences and judgments and interpretations.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_03: If you're not a therapist, stop trying to be one.
• 29:56
  SPEAKER_03: Like, just be a friend.
• 29:58
  SPEAKER_03: Just be a neighbor.
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: Right?
• 30:00
  SPEAKER_03: Like, stop trying to be what you're not.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_03: If you're not a healer, don't try to heal them.
• 30:06
  SPEAKER_03: Like, it's real easy.
• 30:08
  SPEAKER_03: Just be a child again.
• 30:11
  SPEAKER_03: How are you doing?
• 30:13
  SPEAKER_03: Your hair looks pretty, right?
• 30:15
  SPEAKER_03: Send a cookie.
• 30:16
  SPEAKER_03: So many are sitting in fear right now and all that's happening in our world.
• 30:21
  SPEAKER_03: A lot can be solved.
• 30:23
  SPEAKER_03: in just our neighborhoods, just within the square mile of making eye contact and not trying to be perfect and just showing up.
• 30:32
  SPEAKER_01: Most people just need you to show up.
• 30:34
  SPEAKER_01: And showing up doesn't even have to be a big deal.
• 30:36
  SPEAKER_01: I think you're saying it's like a text, a cookie.
• 30:39
  SPEAKER_01: Hi, I love you.
• 30:41
  SPEAKER_01: It's so easy to over expect from ourselves and the expectations aren't even realistic.
• 30:46
  SPEAKER_01: So like just allowing ourselves to do the simplest, most natural thing.
• 30:52
  SPEAKER_01: So when you talk about nose-to-toes healing and holistic support, I know that is a principle that you apply to your own self-care.
• 31:01
  SPEAKER_01: And whether people are in caregiving positions or teachers or health care workers or purpose-led leaders or parents,
• 31:11
  SPEAKER_01: So many of us identify in some way as uplifters, people who are investing and pouring energy into others.
• 31:18
  SPEAKER_01: And yet the most challenging thing for uplifters can be to give that loving kindness and generosity to themselves.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_01: How do you approach self-care?
• 31:29
  SPEAKER_03: It's twofold for me.
• 31:32
  SPEAKER_03: One is that I have to put discipline in because as much as I've been raised with this, I'm also a human.
• 31:38
  SPEAKER_03: I wake up tired and I'm like,
• 31:40
  SPEAKER_03: I could also just watch more Netflix.
• 31:42
  SPEAKER_03: I don't know that I need to go do some yoga right now.
• 31:44
  SPEAKER_03: And so I put alarms in my phone and I set them for breath work, for movement, for sound healing.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_03: I spread it out throughout my week, but I set them at the same time and I give myself consistency so that my body starts to recognize it always the exact same time every day.
• 32:02
  SPEAKER_03: and the truth is we do make time for what we want to make time for we just often look at self-care practices as being something extra when the truth is it should be an absolute necessity because we are all walking around like you said in some form of caregiving and some form of looking after whether it's your pets, your home, your car, your human, your spouse, your kids
• 32:25
  SPEAKER_03: You are caring for something, right?
• 32:27
  SPEAKER_03: Your colleagues.
• 32:28
  SPEAKER_03: You have to be full and that sounds cliche and bumper sticker talk, but it is real.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_03: And so self-care cannot be a luxury or an extra.
• 32:37
  SPEAKER_03: It also doesn't have to be as big as people like to make it.
• 32:41
  SPEAKER_03: So if my alarm is set and I'm out and it's for breath work, I don't need to be sitting on an altar or on a cave.
• 32:46
  SPEAKER_03: I don't need to wrap myself in robes, right?
• 32:48
  SPEAKER_03: I can go sit on toilet if I have to pee and just breathe deeply for three minutes.
• 32:53
  SPEAKER_03: Like, it does not have to be the big thing.
• 32:56
  SPEAKER_03: If I'm not in a place to have this beautiful yoga class, I also can touch my toes and move my hips and my arms and just spend a few moments repeating to myself, I'm in my body.
• 33:08
  SPEAKER_03: I am here right now, just slowing down.
• 33:11
  SPEAKER_03: The other part of it is that I try to make it a little fun.
• 33:14
  SPEAKER_03: I created something for myself when I was a griever called the self-care bowl and I still use this and that's because most of us go back to what is like consistent and so I will always kind of do the same things.
• 33:27
  SPEAKER_03: So the bowl was really to get me out of my own rut and I'll put stuff in in the beginning of the month and it's like call a friend, watch a comedy routine, go dance to something.
• 33:37
  SPEAKER_03: I pick something out of the bowl and that's just what I have to do.
• 33:41
  SPEAKER_03: and that switches it up for me and it keeps it fun.
• 33:44
  SPEAKER_03: Now I've had six months of dancing and yoga and watching comedy.
• 33:49
  SPEAKER_03: I've colored.
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_03: I've watched a childhood favorite.
• 33:52
  SPEAKER_03: I watched the Care Bears the other day.
• 33:54
  SPEAKER_03: Like I'm 43 years old.
• 33:56
  SPEAKER_03: It's just because I pulled it, but I also put it in there because at some point the little kid in me wants to watch a cartoon and I want to just maybe eat a bowl of cereal and sit on the floor.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_03: right like I suggest doing things like that again it's like I believe in putting things into place so that when I'm either at my lowest or my most frayed or I am not able to make a decision the thing has already been cemented I don't have to use the brain and I learned when I was a griever that low emotionally I don't always make the best choices and so if I can have things written down
• 34:36
  SPEAKER_03: and put there and I just have to read it, get up and breathe, go move your body, go call your friend.
• 34:43
  SPEAKER_03: It feels like someone's giving me really loving healing advice.
• 34:48
  SPEAKER_03: Some people perhaps can pull themselves out of holes like that but I find most of us can't and we often deflect to authority and so if the authority is you by putting the alarm in your phone,
• 35:00
  SPEAKER_03: then do it.
• 35:02
  SPEAKER_03: It's a brain hack, right?
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_03: I had to hack myself.
• 35:04
  SPEAKER_03: I also have gotten really good at saying no.
• 35:08
  SPEAKER_03: If I have reached my energetic bandwidth and by putting these self-care practices into place, you give yourself more opportunities to check in with yourself and you will notice when you are afraid before you flip out, right?
• 35:21
  SPEAKER_03: You will notice where you are angry before that spills onto somebody else.
• 35:27
  SPEAKER_03: I also have just started saying no and I just disappoint people and they'll be okay.
• 35:31
  SPEAKER_03: The world goes on.
• 35:32
  SPEAKER_03: No party has stopped because Sundari didn't show up, right?
• 35:36
  SPEAKER_03: But I find that the older we get, a lot of us want to again appear as I can do everything and hold everything and be everywhere.
• 35:46
  SPEAKER_03: And why?
• 35:47
  SPEAKER_03: You told us that.
• 35:49
  SPEAKER_03: It's so tiring.
• 35:50
  SPEAKER_03: So I implore you to give up.
• 35:52
  SPEAKER_03: Say no.
• 35:53
  SPEAKER_03: Say no.
• 35:55
  SPEAKER_01: And yet I am so, so, so, so, so, so glad that you said yes to being here today.
• 36:02
  SPEAKER_01: You are potent medicine Sundari and I am so glad I got to spend 45 minutes soaking you in.
• 36:11
  SPEAKER_01: And as I think ahead to this life that I am creating.
• 36:18
  SPEAKER_01: every minute of every day, just like every one of us.
• 36:20
  SPEAKER_01: There's not just some like, oh, magic moment or tragedy that defines our lives, but it's every single little moment and practice.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_01: And every moment is a chance to bring ourselves back into alignment with who we want to be and how we want to be in the world.
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_01: And my gosh, is this conversation packed with reminders of not just why to do that, but how.
• 36:45
  SPEAKER_01: And I think it is those two in concert that empower us to live our whole lives and to explore our curiosities and to look around corners and see what might be there for us.
• 37:00
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for sharing your story.
• 37:03
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for using your story.
• 37:05
  SPEAKER_01: And thank you for turning that story into
• 37:09
  SPEAKER_01: A Set of Powerful Actions.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_01: I'm a doer.
• 37:14
  SPEAKER_01: I like doers.
• 37:15
  SPEAKER_01: I like to do life.
• 37:17
  SPEAKER_01: And I really needed you in my life today.
• 37:19
  SPEAKER_01: So thank you for being here.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_03: Thank you to everyone who's listening.
• 37:23
  SPEAKER_03: and I just wish everyone a gentle season ahead.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you.
• 37:29
  SPEAKER_01: So often as I listen to you today I thought of the moment that we are creating as a community on May 17th of 2024.
• 37:36
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to be in a room together.
• 37:39
  SPEAKER_01: We're going to look each other in the eye.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_01: I literally get tears in my eyes every time I think of
• 37:43
  SPEAKER_01: Looking all these women in the eyes and hugging all of these people who have been just such a huge inspiration and influence in my life and introducing them and I'm going to send them off on walkabout with one another in a highly curated way so that people are really getting to connect deeply with others while doing their own work and setting big intentions and that we're doing this in spring.
• 38:04
  SPEAKER_01: It just all feels very right and so
• 38:08
  SPEAKER_01: Listening to you talk about community and the power of intentional communities just made me feel even more excited about it.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_01: So for those of you listening, if you haven't heard about this already, please go to TheUpliftersPodcast.com and join us.
• 38:22
  SPEAKER_01: Tickets are available now and it's just going to be a really special day for us to come together and celebrate and support one another and get stronger and tap into a little slithery magic.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_01: We're at MomLives.
• 38:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you for listening to The Uplifters podcast.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_01: If you're getting a boost from these episodes, please share them with The Uplifters in your life and then join us in conversation over at theuplifterspodcast.com.
• 38:52
  SPEAKER_01: Head over to Spotify, Apple podcast or
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_01: wherever you get your podcast and like, follow and rate our show.
• 39:00
  SPEAKER_01: It'll really help us connect with more Uplifters and it'll ensure you never miss one of these beautiful stories.
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_01: Big love.
• 39:12
  SPEAKER_00: Painted water sunshine with rosemary and thyme Dwelling not perplexing though you find it vexing Toss a star and hover, be your own best lover Relish in a new prime, plant a tree in springtime Dance without all hindsight, bring the sun to twilight Lift you up
• 39:39
  SPEAKER_00: Lift you up Lift you up Lift you up
• 40:12
  SPEAKER_00: Beautiful.
• 40:13
  SPEAKER_00: I cried.
• 40:14
  SPEAKER_01: It's that little thing you did with your voice.
• 40:23
  SPEAKER_00: Right, in the pre-chorus, right?
• 40:26
  SPEAKER_01: I was like... Mommy, stop crying.
• 40:30
  SPEAKER_01: You're disturbing the peace.