Latest / Through the Sh#t with Jen McDowell / Michelle DeCola | Why We Chase Happiness Instead of Healing
Transcript
- speaker-0: Things don't always turn out how we want them to go in our personal lives. And we can start making up stories about that. ⁓ and really it's it's it's looking for the next best thing that's gonna make us feel better. And sometimes it really just means sitting with ⁓ the losses that we've gone through and being able to understand and and and be with them and and and be accepting of that. speaker-1: Welcome, I'm Jen McDowell, and you're listening to Through the Shit, a podcast for anyone going through the shit and the people who love them. And every episode we'll hear a new story of loss, hope, and resilience, and how going through the shit led to something greater. So if you're in the shit now and feeling lost or alone, disconnected from your badass self, or in need of an ember of hope to keep putting one foot in front of the other, you're in the right place. So settle in, prepare to be moved and inspired, and welcome. To the shit. Welcome everybody. You're listening to Through the Shit. I'm your host, Jen McDowell. Joining me today is the lovely Michelle DeCola, ⁓ whom I have known for several years now. Michelle is an expert on grief, and so we're gonna take a little bit of a different direction in this podcast episode. So instead of talking about the shit, we're gonna talk about grief and why grief is so messy for people. So, Michelle. I'm super excited to have you here and welcome. speaker-0: ⁓ I'm super excited to be here, Jen. It's ⁓ it's really an honor. And I am so happy you asked me to talk about grief because I think it's such an important ⁓ experience, ⁓ allowance of our emotions to examine. And I think we a lot of us don't grow up in cultures where we were given permission to do that, to go there. And I think that it's it's a huge part of understanding ourselves and being able to go forward with having grief, which leads us to also having our happiness. So I really appreciate you asking me to be here. speaker-1: Yeah, and already I, you know, this idea of like, I don't want to grieve, I don't want to cry. I mean, there's a lot from my own background that's like, ⁓ and I don't want to talk about it. But we're gonna get into that, I know, because some of that's like family of origin stuff. ⁓ so let me do your bio and then and then we'll start the conversation. Okay. ⁓ so Michelle is a licensed psychotherapist and founder of Life Counseling Inc. She's licensed in Colorado and Illinois and sees patients via Zoom and in person at her office just outside Denver, Colorado. Michelle received her master's degree in counseling psychology from Dominican University of California in 1994 and worked as a licensed marriage, family, and child counselor in California until 1996. She then moved to Chicago, where she worked in private practice and also provided therapy in an intensive outpatient program for children and adolescents who were living in temporary housing. She spent two years as the clinical manager, providing group and supervision to therapists and interns until she left to pursue private practice full-time in 2000. Prior to becoming a therapist, Michelle earned a BA in communications from Pepperdine University and pursued a career in public relations and marketing. And in her work with patients, she draws on both her corporate background and her training in psychology to help people in their personal lives and their careers. Michelle specializes in psychodynamic therapy, which is about understanding family patterns and early childhood relationships, cognitive behavioral therapy, mindfulness practices, family systems, and positive psychology. She also has specialized training in group psychotherapy and received certified group psychotherapist credentials through the American Group Psychotherapy Association. She's also received advanced training for couples therapy through Gottman Workshops and Terry Real's couples training. And has studied attachment theory to help couples understand their attachment styles. Integrating mindfulness and meditation practices into her therapy work, Michelle is passionate about helping people celebrate their strengths, accept their imperfections, and make meaningful strides in their personal journey towards self-awareness. Michelle, welcome. speaker-0: Thank you, Jen. Yep. speaker-1: Okay, so I remember one of the things that I would say a lot around, you know, when I was going through my own journey of my parade of horribles is kind of breaking down this stigma of like, ooh, feelings are messy. And like I don't wanna I don't wanna talk about the feelings ⁓ around my feelings in general and especially in grief. And it wasn't until sort of my parade of horribles happened that the emotions just got so overwhelming that I couldn't not talk about it. But Why is grief in particular so hard for people to talk about? speaker-0: Yeah, it's a really important question because we are in really a grief grief phobic culture. Cause we are in a culture that wants to chase happiness. We have an obsess obsession about chasing happiness at any cost. ⁓ meaning we can work 12 hour days to make tons of money so we can get the things we want and to be happy. And so we get stuck in this place of wanting to feel happy all the time. And so that means pushing away our sadness. Mm-hmm. And and it has a cost to our spirit because it's really important to honor that every human is going to go through loss and the acceptance that that we will go through loss and grief. And it's really taking the time to make the space for the messiness and to sit with the really hard and vulnerable emotions. And so many people growing up weren't taught in their own families how to have vulnerability and how to to be with these emotions. speaker-1: Yeah, I mean, that was something that was really instrumental in in my own learning experience is this idea of, you know, all of the emotions are valuable. They all play a role in our human condition. And try as we might, we can't escape emotion, even the unpleasant ones. I mean, certainly it makes sense to want want to have pleasant emotions all the time, but the unpleasant ones. not only make the pleasant emotions more pleasant, I guess, but suppressing the unpleasant ones is unhealthy. speaker-0: It it's unhealthy and we don't get to bring in all the aspects of ourself. And and really it means pushing pushing feelings away that we don't wanna have. When we do that, we're actually pushing away parts of ourselves. speaker-1: Hm. Yeah, so it's not just a thing, it's a part of ourselves. speaker-0: It is. It is. And and and grief is a part of us and it and it and it's a painful, painful emotion that we don't want to feel. And when we don't allow ourselves to have that feeling, it is it it is a big part of ourself that we don't get to experience. Mm-hmm. speaker-1: Yeah. So I mean, I I remember going through my parade of horribles and all of the time that I spent, you know, working with mental health professionals. And I think it was Susan David who talked about this and it was in a podcast with Brene Brown, but emotions are signposts and they tell us something. And so what do our emotions tell us and what does grief in particular tell us? speaker-0: ⁓ that's well, th those are really important questions. I think it's just our emotions are telling us how we tap into what our needs are and and what our desires are. And and grief, grief is a really important one. Sadness. I it's so important to honor the sadness. And if we're growing up in a family where parents don't really allow our sadness that that that we come up with solutions. W you think about being a child and you and a child that maybe lost a baseball game. They're six years old and they're crying. And the parent might say, ⁓ don't cry. It's you know there'll be other games or they'll get, you know, you'll win again. And it's basically sending the message that somehow it's not okay to be sad. And And so a lot of times, I mean, that's actually where shame can come from. It's like, well, if I have these feelings and I'm being told by our culture, by my family, it's not okay, I'm shutting down a part of myself and I actually feel shame about having a vulnerable emotion. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Yeah, I that being a really sort of insightful realization for me is that connection to shame and and thinking that those feelings weren't okay because those were sort of the messages that I was told, you know, growing up. It was, you know, you can't be upset, you can't have a 10 per tantrum, you can't cry. And I think looking back, I think some of it is a function of Not knowing how to communicate effectively with someone who is in a in their feelings, but also I think sort of this desire to soothe and to take away the feelings. Yes. And sort of the the well intentioned efforts to soothe in the long run have a harmful effect because it creates the shame. So tell me about how you see this play out when you're practicing. speaker-0: Well, I think that's really important when you talk about the deep grief of a huge loss and and and we talk about death and people that have lost the most painful death is losing a child and how hard it is for others to connect in and be present for people who have gone through horrible, horrible pain and loss. And Sometimes we don't know what to say. We don't know how to to be with someone. And then we're kind of losing our connection in our it to others in our relationship. When we aren't allowing ourselves to feel pain and grief and and suffering, it's really hard to connect and sit with someone else's emotions. And then we we really lose. the ability to be to be present with someone or you know, we're not present with our own emotions. We can't be present in our relationships. And I think that is what really happens in in relationships. It was like their separation because we don't have our own ability or willingness to be with our uncomfortable feelings like grief. It's hard to be with with someone else. And And then we lose we lose connection. Yeah. speaker-1: So it's this idea of like help yourself before you can help others. You've got to be able to sit with your own emotions before you can sit with other people and their emotions. speaker-0: Well, that's right. But I think what happens is I think someone has to get really curious and be open to realizing. And I think that's the something that's again, this is part of our culture is if we're chasing happiness and the next best thing is gonna make us happiness, we are avoiding sitting with the more vulnerable emotions and and grief and sadness. are the the most painful emotions to sit with. So we want to immediately go to something else. Yeah. If I'm if I'm successful in my career, if I have a lot of friends, it's it's it's external things that keep us away from feeling our grief or or also feeling like we're good enough. Because, you know, Things don't always turn out how we want them to go in our personal lives. And we can start making up stories about that. ⁓ and really it's it's it's looking for the next best thing that's gonna make us feel better. And sometimes it really just means sitting with ⁓ the losses that we've gone through and being able to understand and and and be with them and and and be accepting of that. speaker-1: Yeah. Okay. There's there's a lot there that I want to unpack, but I think I'm gonna go back to this idea of curiosity. An important part of your work seems to be getting people to be curious enough about their emotions to counteract some of that shame they feel. ⁓ and so before we even go down that path, I'm curious what made you want to get into this work where you sit with people in their grief all day long. Every day. That's not from Saint of Heart, Michelle. speaker-0: ⁓ no. So I I I studied ⁓ communications and public relations and I was always pretty much an outgoing person. So I I ⁓ my first career was I was in sales and I got to work for very fancy hotels and I was in the sales and I was responsible to bring group group business into ⁓ hot into the hotels and so for Groups and conferences, meetings and conferences. And I was really happy in that job. I I did really well. ⁓ but I don't know, I was pretty young. I I'd done it for two and a half, three years. And I woke up one day and I said, What's the meaning of this job for me? And I said, What's my purpose? And I thought, well, your purpose is to make money for this company. And somehow I thought, You know, that's not enough for me, like to do this for the rest of my life, to make money for a company. And I thought about, well, what would bring you purpose in your career? And the part about my job that I loved in sales was I'd show them the hotel, I'd go over the contract, and then I would take them to lunch. And we'd sit there, and at lunch, I got out of my sales role, and I just got curious and asked them questions about their personal life and and their families and what was going on, what made them happy. And and so I thought like, ⁓ that's the part about your job that you really like is sitting with people. And then somehow it just came to me like, why don't you be a therapist? I I had never even been in my own therapy at that point, but ⁓ I I just got it and light bulb went off and ⁓ quit my job and went back to grad school. And I am so happy with what I do. I I I get a lot of joy and fulfillment out of being with people. And when you said getting curious, it's like making a space to understand ourselves and and and being by someone's side in that guidance and help and support to to really understand ourselves. And it it it really has deep meaning for me. Yeah. speaker-1: I mean, I can I can relate to that because when I w lost my job ⁓ in 2020, that was kind of one of the things that I I did, you know. Like you, I was fairly successful. I enjoyed it to some degree. it was sort of the the kick in the pants that I needed to think about what do I want to do next? Because I don't know if I can do that for another 40 years. And so, like you, I was reflecting on what do I enjoy? And it was the people part of my job. It was helping people do hard things, see possibilities that they couldn't see for themselves. ⁓ and then over the course and then the parade of horribles happened, and then the skill came of like being able to sit with people in their their own big emotions, because I had done the work myself to deal with my own emotions. So ⁓ so we have a a bit of that parallel path ⁓ around, you know, f shifting to more of a people focused ⁓ role. And so I think the question that I ask sort of in this theme of curiosity then is when you're first s establishing a relationship with a patient and they're, you know, getting a cadence in therapy, you know, I remember being really resistant to kind of talking about my feelings, even though I under that like that's kind of the whole point of therapy. So how do you how do you get people curious about their feelings? Well speaker-0: I'm so glad you brought up the the resistance, because that's something as therapists that that we have to be aware of. That we might people might come into therapy wanting to get something, wanting to feel something, but there's a resistance to being vulnerable and being vulnerable with a new person, and especially when we haven't experienced ourselves being very vulnerable. in our family relationships, in our friendships. So it's there is going to be resistance. And I think ⁓ the working with the resistance is really important, really understanding ⁓ what coping mechanisms got put in place to protect ourselves. Right? So being strong and and and not being too vulnerable protects us. So there's going to be resistance to looking at patterns that we formed early on that actually protected us. And so those patterns are important to honor. We we had to protect ourselves in in ways. And and maybe they weren't the best ways, but that's what we had to learn to feel safe. So so letting go of those coping strategies that that are our resistance it takes some time and I think that's really important in the work when ⁓ when coming into therapy is is to knowing like, yep, there's gonna be resistance to allowing ourselves to be completely vulnerable with another person. So in that relationship, like this doesn't feel comfortable. Right. So there's that's gonna happen. speaker-1: So it it's almost I don't know if this is an an accurate way to talk about it, but it's like coming in sideways a little bit by starting with some of the coping mechanisms and exploring those before you get into the underlying feelings behind it. speaker-0: think it's important to o honor that because those coping mechanisms kept you safe. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah. So you said something earlier about, you know, externally, looking externally to keep ourselves away from the grief. So let's talk about coping mechanisms. So certainly, you know, external validation is one sort of coping mechanism. What el and I think of like substance use, other types of things, but what other types of coping mechanisms do you see with your clients? speaker-0: Okay, so coping mechanisms specifically to stay away from the grief. ⁓ like to to not be vulnerable in the grief. speaker-1: I'm carrying Is there a difference? Is there a different type of coping mechanism? speaker-0: ⁓ we have all kinds of Kobe microbiome. speaker-1: Maybe start generally and then focus on green. speaker-0: I If we start with early childhood grief and children who didn't feel safe to be getting their needs met the way they need to, the guidance, the emotional safety. And a lot of, a lot of children, good meaning parents who were doing the best they could might not be attuned to the emotional needs of a child. And a child starts trying to find their way to be safe. And there might be maladaptive coping skills. and so bringing that into adults, you know, going through life with not being aware of wow, there was something I was really missing in my childhood, with the not getting the guidance or the emotional attunement I needed. ⁓ you know, we start to just realize like all the ways that we try to stay away from feeling the vulnerability of sadness, loneliness, ⁓ abandonment. And so what can happen over time is when we don't want to sit with the feeling, we don't want to sit with a loss with a grief, ⁓ we start developing habits to take us away from it. And that could be our work. And putting our throwing ourselves into our career and feeling better. It could be perfectionism, like if I do everything right, then I won't feel this. And sadly, it's a lot of times addictions. I don't want to feel this pain that keeps coming up in me. It's, it's, it's, it's a lot of times untouched grief or sadness that makes us feel sometimes not good enough. And we start using skills or it might be people pleasing skills, it might be addictions, it might be drinking, smoking, gambling, and it moves us away from that deep sadness that we haven't had a chance to really explore or get curious about. And that's what's happening in our culture. And it can be overeating, overdrinking. over being ⁓ just climbing to the top in our careers and and trying to be people pleasers and perfectionism. Yeah. And so really kind of when we see that going on, it's important to understand when we are, you know, maybe looking at it at other people and even looking at it in ourselves is like, ⁓ what's the what's the unresolved, unattended to deep sadness and grief inside myself that I haven't wanted to feel. Mm-hmm. And sometimes that can be grief and sometimes it can be shame. It can be the shame of I don't feel good enough. Yeah. That keeps coming up. Yeah. speaker-1: Hmm, there's so many questions I want to ask. let's start with going back to sort of the some of the the behaviors that you talked about. Because I think, you know, you you touched on maladaptive behaviors. And I think a lot of people understand like drinking, smoking, gambling, sex addiction, all of those types of things. But one of the one of the things that I learned through my own experience that was kind of eye-opening was this idea of some of the things that I was doing, the ways that I was going about my life were really maladaptive coping behaviors. And you touched on them like the the working really hard, the people pleasing. I see this with clients a lot too. And it always sort of stands out to me of I wonder if there's something here that they need to explore in therapy. ⁓ there's a lot of narrative around, you know, I get my value out of achievement, or if I don't make waves at work or in my relationship, then it Then I'm keeping myself if it's a safety mechanism, essentially. It's a way of keeping ourselves safe. And so I'm curious, you know, how do you and I think for me, there was a moment where it was like, I realized what was happening. And it was kind of like I just got knocked over the head. And so I was kind of stunned by that. So do you see that a lot with your patients in terms of like this big re realization, and then they don't know what to do with it? speaker-0: Absolutely positively, yes. Okay. So what speaker-1: Yeah. Why do we have? I don't remember I you know, when I was in the in the in the patient chair, I don't even remember what I did. But like what do you do as a clean speaker-0: think, ⁓ I mean, honestly, Jen, it's it's the willingness to stay in the relationship, in the therapeutic relationship. And this is a hard one for people. it's the relationship with the therapist and feeling like I have a place where I can trust this relationship that that that ⁓ That trust has been established and safety has been established. And and sometimes therapists don't always get it right, that's for sure. But in that relationship, there even has to be a place where the the patient can let the therapist know, like, you know, you screwed up, you didn't get it right. And that the in that relationship, there's a place to start being. Having some vulnerability and experiencing that. So there's trust in the relationship to say, I trust this relationship, and this person cares about my feelings and is here for me and wants the best for me. And then that's the avenue to start really being vulnerable, to look at some of these really painful histories of, you know, where these coping strategies came from. Yeah. And so that safety has to be created and literally having experience like, ⁓ I can be safe in relationship and I can talk about ⁓ ways in which I can start realizing that's all I knew how to cope with some of this stuff. And now I can start going down a different path of how I take care of myself. Yeah. speaker-1: Yeah. ⁓ it's interesting that, you know, sometimes the relationship with a therapist is one of the first sort of trusting relationships that someone encounters. speaker-0: Yes, I I I think that's I think that's really important. Mm. Just to honor that. That have I really felt safe in relationship before? Because if I didn't feel it in my own family, if I didn't feel protected, or if I didn't feel like, you know, someone was there for me. Mm-hmm. Right. I wasn't sure if someone was gonna be there for me. ⁓ I love the author Sue Johnson who was from the ⁓ developed the emotionally focused therapy and she worked with so many couples. And she says the disconnect and and and you know the fighting and when people separate under all that separation is the same fear is and the same desire, which is, are you there for me? Are you there for me? And when children didn't know if their parents were there for them, they start developing ways to feel okay and safe. And then we bring that into our personal relationships. And then when conflict comes up, it's the fear of, you know, is someone here? Can someone see me? Does someone know me? Is someone here for me? And so much of our dysfunction of trying to feel like we're gonna be okay and safe is not knowing or not experiencing ourselves being safe in some relationships. So so that that is the that is the process. and we're actually creating safety in ourselves, right? We're we're we're we're learning how how do we sit with these strong emotions. And not push them away or distract ourselves. There's so many ways to distract ourselves. And and that's we want to distract ourselves from fear. We want to distract ourselves from from sadness. ⁓ and so it's learning how to allow ourselves to to be with our emotions and know, like, okay, especially, you know, if we go back to the grief, it's painful. Heartbreak is painful. We feel it in our body. ⁓ and so it's like, how do we sit with this pain? Well, we learn how to be with it. And then it's not pushing the feelings away, it's learning like I can sit and be accepting of the loss of of of whatever the grief is, and I'm gonna be okay. And I and I'm gonna be okay. speaker-1: Yeah. Yeah, I'm just I'm still kind of hung up on this idea of some of the maladaptive behaviors ⁓ that we develop in childhood as a ⁓ reaction or response to fear. Let's talk about some of the others that maybe are kind of not as obvious. You talked about people pleasing, you talked about perfectionism. I think for me, a big one was like that really critical self-judgment. So what other ways do we develop some of those maladaptive coping strategies to protect ourselves from fear and this idea of like, this person is not not there for me. speaker-0: The saddest one, I think, and the hardest one is isolation. Like if we don't feel good enough, we can develop anxiety around showing up and being scared of being in relationship. And so we pull away. Like we pull away from close relationships. We only let parts of ourselves be seen. ⁓ it's scary. And and I think a lot of anxiety when people get anxiety. disorders. It's I am really scared that I'm how I'm gonna be seen. How how am I gonna connect? I might not be able to connect. And so the anxiety is really kind of a fear of am I going to be enough? And if we're stuck in it some of that anxiety, we're gonna pull away from letting people see us and letting people really know us. Yeah. And so so you know, isolation, just just pulling it back and and staying away from any kind of ⁓ anything to make us vulnerable, even trying something new, you know, getting out of a job that is a maybe a really not bringing us any happiness or joy or we're not going anywhere, but we stay in it because we are so afraid of being vulnerable again and showing ourselves and taking risk. So I I just think it's ⁓ I I think it takes us away from connection and it also takes us away from ⁓ really showing up in in ways that we want to, trying new experiences. ⁓ people get afraid to, you know, travel or you know, the isolation piece, they they get afraid to try new things and our life becomes more small. speaker-1: Mm-hmm. Yeah. I mean, you talking about like applying for a new job, that was kind of a light bulb for me just now in terms of ⁓ you know, like not taking risks seems logical. ⁓ but you know, staying in a job that is miserable and sucking out your soul as a form of isolation because you're sticking with sort of the known and the safe rather than the putting yourself out there that's kind of like, ⁓ I guess I've never really thought of it that way. speaker-0: I think that's important that you notice that because the other places we stay stuck is in in our relationships. We might be we might stay stuck in a relationship that's that's not fulfilling us, that's not enriching us, we're not growing. ⁓ we might even accept emotional abuse, we might accept neglect because it's what we know. And it's too scary or too just terrifying to think about leading something that we know to try to go towards something that could be more meaningful or fulfilling to us. And and and we stay stuck in a lot of areas. We stay stuck in accepting one level of growth. We we, you know, when you talked about curiosity, we stopped getting curious. Like that would be, you know, even curious to try new things or to meet new people or really to be around different cultures of people. I mean, that's a big one. It's like we we stay with what we know and we stay around people that are like us. So it's like, ⁓ it might be scary to be around different ethnicity and race and cultures. And so we stay stuck in our little bubble. speaker-1: Yeah, and and when we don't understand, it's really easy to judge. ⁓ and that's very ⁓ and judgment gets us in trouble a lot. ⁓ I you know, I I I see this idea of stuckness with my coaching clients as well. And and one of the things that, you know, comes out of it is, you know, coaching is what can you what one step can you make, right? To ⁓ try and move forward. And so when you have clients who are really stuck, ⁓ speaker-0: Very easy to judge. Yeah. speaker-1: What do you tell them? speaker-0: the the practice, it's a practice. And so it's like I ⁓ what I tell ⁓ is really starting with what keeps us stuck is when we shut off parts of ourselves and our emotions. So we have to start with how do we allow the difficult emotions and what we're talking about which separates us is is our fear. And fear is one of the most painful emotions to sit with. So so what we're learning how to do when we want to be ⁓ connect into our full potential and our full self is we have to make space for our full range of emotions. We we can't bypass. We wanna again going back to our culture of happiness, it's like can't we just be happy all the time? That's that's a pleasurable emotion. speaker-1: Well, speaker-0: I know, but actually, Jen, you probably know this. Happiness is a greater amount of happiness is when we can also experience our sadness and our grief because we're gonna level up out of our happiness. We don't go into allowing our sadness and and connecting into this is a human emotion that nobody can bypass. And it's an emotion that comes and goes. So it's the practice of learning. How to be with all of our emotions. And one thing I I go back to in therapy is I say, Do you know the four primary emotions? speaker-1: Is that a question to me? speaker-0: Kind of but I I was like waiting, but do you I bet you know him, Jet. speaker-1: I I do. I it's happiness, sadness, ⁓ anger and wait, happiness, sadness, anger and what's the fourth one? Fear. Fear. speaker-0: Yeah. Fear. Yeah. Happy, sad, mad fear. Okay. And so if we can make it easy on ourselves, because a lot of people are like, I don't know what I'm feeling. I don't know what I'm feeling. And of course we don't know what we're feeling sometimes when we've been taught to push away most feelings. And and in the culture of men and women, it's you think about women, young girls being able to ⁓ learn how to be sad together and have a space and be vulnerable with sadness and cry with each other and talk to each other and men are just taught just the opposite that it's not okay to cry and big boys don't cry. And I just think about little kids, ⁓ especially boys, you know, playing sports. And, you know, kids start playing sports now at three years old and four and five. And they're sad when they don't win a game. And somehow boys get taught not to cry to be sad, you know, like it'll there'll be another game. Don't don't worry about it. Like that's the message. Girls have more permission to be like, okay, that's a soft quality, and you can cry. And so that is where shame comes in a lot, is like if I have an emotion of sadness and I'm not allowed. speaker-1: Yeah. speaker-0: I haven't been taught in my family that it's okay to cry. It's okay for a boy to cry. A boy can cry at five, at ten, at fifteen, a man can cry. That is a response to sadness. speaker-1: Okay, everyone. I hope today's conversation resonated with you because we're Michelle and I are going to leave you on a bit of a cliffhanger here. We had such a great conversation, we couldn't fit it all in one episode. Part two will drop next, so be sure to subscribe and tune in when it's available. We're just getting started. In part two, Michelle and I talk about some of the tough questions that so many of us wrestle with, but rarely say out loud. Questions like: why is it that some losses linger longer than others? And how do you know the difference between honoring your grief? And being stuck in it. Or if someone you love is hurting, what do you actually say when there really don't seem to be any words? We also talk about the role that shame and self-compassion and trust play in healing and why the goal isn't just to get over it, but to move through it with a little more grace and a lot less judgment. Whether you're carrying a loss of your own or trying to show up for someone else, I think you'll walk away with some practical tools and maybe even more importantly, a little more hope. Listeners, as always, thanks for listening and we'll see you on the flip side. That's it for this episode of Through the Shit. Thanks for listening. If you liked this podcast, like, share, and subscribe, and maybe send it to someone who needs a boost because they're going through the shit. While you're at it, tell them how important they are to you. If you have a story of shit to share or you're in the shit now, I'd love to hear from you. Email me at through the shitpodcast at gmail.com or go to our website at throughthe shit.com. I'll see you on the flip side.