Latest / Turning Grief into Growth: The Journey of Transformation / Episode #37-Andy McNiel

Transcript

Episode #37-Andy McNiel · Turning Grief into Growth: The Journey of Transformation

• 0:00
  SPEAKER_04: Welcome to this episode of Turning Grief into Growth: The Journey of Transformation.
• 0:04
  SPEAKER_04: This is a podcast that's hosted by Greg Jacobs and Don Lipstein.
• 0:08
  SPEAKER_04: Well, good morning, Don.
• 0:10
  SPEAKER_04: How are you doing?
• 0:11
  SPEAKER_02: I'm doing awesome.
• 0:12
  SPEAKER_02: Beautiful day here on the island.
• 0:14
  SPEAKER_02: Oh, are you on an island?
• 0:17
  SPEAKER_04: Oh man, did you walk around your lighthouse today?
• 0:20
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I I've been meaning to tell you that my island doesn't actually have a lighthouse.
• 0:27
  SPEAKER_01: It's the island next door.
• 0:29
  SPEAKER_04: Oh.
• 0:30
  SPEAKER_04: After 37 episodes, now it comes out that it's not actually your lighthouse on your island.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: No.
• 0:36
  SPEAKER_01: Okay.
• 0:38
  SPEAKER_01: I feel like all the wildlife that's here, uh, that's lighthouse enough.
• 0:43
  SPEAKER_04: There you go.
• 0:44
  SPEAKER_04: Don, I decided to put on a nice button-down dress shirt today.
• 0:47
  SPEAKER_04: I just felt it.
• 0:49
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, you know, I I suffer with chronic insomnia where I'm up usually every single morning at 2 or 3 a.m.
• 0:55
  SPEAKER_04: for about two hours.
• 0:56
  SPEAKER_04: And uh this morning I woke up and it was 7 a.m.
• 0:59
  SPEAKER_04: and the sun was uh up, and I was like, oh my gosh, I slept through the night.
• 1:03
  SPEAKER_04: So I felt good.
• 1:04
  SPEAKER_04: I thought I'm gonna put on a button-down shirt and look uh presentable for this.
• 1:07
  SPEAKER_04: For all those YouTubers that see this, for everybody else, you probably think I'm still wearing a t-shirt, but that's okay.
• 1:13
  SPEAKER_04: So it's a good morning.
• 1:14
  SPEAKER_04: I'm excited.
• 1:15
  SPEAKER_04: Don, do you have a joke for us to start off?
• 1:17
  SPEAKER_04: You're you've got all these traditional dad jokes there.
• 1:20
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, let uh I want to see how this one lands.
• 1:24
  SPEAKER_01: Oh boy.
• 1:26
  SPEAKER_01: I used to have a fear of speed bumps, but I'm slowly getting over it.
• 1:33
  SPEAKER_04: You don't want to go fast over them, that's for sure.
• 1:35
  SPEAKER_04: You hurt your axles on that.
• 1:37
  SPEAKER_04: So I'd tell you, you and your dad jokes.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_04: I love it.
• 1:40
  SPEAKER_04: They're never ending.
• 1:41
  SPEAKER_04: Well, Don, we're gonna jump right into this.
• 1:43
  SPEAKER_04: We have a special guest with us today, Andy McNeil.
• 1:46
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, I want to turn it over to you, Don.
• 1:47
  SPEAKER_04: Let you introduce Andy.
• 1:49
  SPEAKER_01: You know, I uh I had the good fortune of working with Andy for probably uh four years, maybe, um uh at TAPS Tragedy Assistance Program for Survivors, which our listeners have have uh heard that mentioned uh quite a bit.
• 2:09
  SPEAKER_01: But um Andy uh ran the uh children's good grief program and and uh just the the children's program and did an amazing job.
• 2:22
  SPEAKER_01: I was always so impressed with uh the the thought and the love and the care that he put into that.
• 2:30
  SPEAKER_01: Um and uh so now I know he's working uh as an exec, I think the executive director of compassionate friends, is that correct?
• 2:40
  SPEAKER_01: Um and um and I'm certain that you know the work that he was doing at TAPS um is going to be uh coming out and at Compassionate Friends.
• 2:56
  SPEAKER_01: And uh I'm just grateful to know you and to have had the opportunity to work with you, Andy.
• 3:02
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I remember one particular uh seminar where you and I sat down and and just talked and and I learned so much and I was like, oh gosh.
• 3:12
  SPEAKER_01: Uh so when Greg told me that you were gonna be on as a guest, I was like, yes.
• 3:17
  SPEAKER_01: Um so welcome.
• 3:19
  SPEAKER_00: Absolutely welcome, Andy.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 3:21
  SPEAKER_00: Thanks, Don and Greg.
• 3:23
  SPEAKER_00: I I I appreciate it.
• 3:24
  SPEAKER_00: I I've been looking forward to this uh this conversation.
• 3:27
  SPEAKER_00: Don, um, you know, uh right back at you.
• 3:30
  SPEAKER_00: It was uh uh an honor to to serve at TAPS uh with you and um uh appreciate what uh you know what what you brought there and and what you're continuing to bring.
• 3:43
  SPEAKER_00: And and Greg, um, you know, thank thank you again for doing what the two of you are doing.
• 3:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um it's important that um people in general, but even very specifically um that we have men who are talking about what you're talking about.
• 4:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um it it's it's breaking stereotypes and taboos in our society that I think will also aid in in wellness and good mental health for for men to see other men addressing and talking about um uh grief uh and and its impact on our lives.
• 4:25
  SPEAKER_00: So appreciate what you're doing.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: Well said.
• 4:27
  SPEAKER_00: I agree.
• 4:28
  SPEAKER_00: Thank you.
• 4:29
  SPEAKER_04: Andy, tell us a little bit about uh how did you get started into the grief field?
• 4:36
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, it's it's a it's a great question.
• 4:38
  SPEAKER_00: Um you know, we all have our own story of of how we ended up ended up in this but very particular field because it is a it it's a niche, you know, it's it's very specific.
• 4:50
  SPEAKER_00: Um for for me, uh you know, I've had I've had many losses in my life, as as many of us have.
• 4:57
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, had a number of family members who have died.
• 5:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I don't know that any of those are are what propelled me into this field.
• 5:04
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I did have a couple of of significant losses in my early 20s.
• 5:09
  SPEAKER_00: Uh I have a cousin, uh Scott.
• 5:12
  SPEAKER_00: I believe he was uh he was 19 and I was 18 when he died from suicide.
• 5:18
  SPEAKER_00: Um almost a year to the date, almost a year to that date later, uh my grandfather was murdered um by actually a battle buddy by uh someone he served with in World War II.
• 5:34
  SPEAKER_00: I I only knew the gentleman by the name of Major.
• 5:36
  SPEAKER_00: That's what we called him.
• 5:38
  SPEAKER_00: And uh, you know, Major came back from from the war uh in a wheelchair, and um back then they called it shell shock, uh, if you're you know the language.
• 5:50
  SPEAKER_00: Uh you know, we obviously uh uh you know call it something different today, but um he was having an episode and uh some flashbacks and and mixed with alcohol and uh ended up killing my grandfather.
• 6:05
  SPEAKER_00: Um and that all kind of happened in my early 20s, but when I think about me being in this field, I don't ever necessarily connect those events to why I'm in the bereavement field.
• 6:19
  SPEAKER_00: I um, you know, I grew up, my dad was a Southern Baptist minister and um uh kind of grew up in that in that environment in a helping home where that was kind of what you did.
• 6:32
  SPEAKER_00: You you cared about other people, uh their circumstances.
• 6:36
  SPEAKER_00: I also have a my younger sister, I have two siblings, an older brother and a younger sister.
• 6:40
  SPEAKER_00: And my younger sister had serious physical, mental um uh disabilities.
• 6:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um and just I watched how my parents struggled with that throughout her life.
• 6:54
  SPEAKER_00: She's still alive.
• 6:55
  SPEAKER_00: Uh both of my parents have died.
• 6:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um and uh I think that probably had the biggest impact on me caring about people walking through profound loss in life.
• 7:09
  SPEAKER_00: And though my sister didn't die, it was a huge the only word for it, is a huge loss.
• 7:15
  SPEAKER_00: It was a profound loss for my parents to have to recalculate what the rest of their lives look like um as a result of of you know of my sister and and her struggles.
• 7:27
  SPEAKER_00: So um probably those are the things that had the greatest impact, but I think more than anything, um I kept finding in my early 20s uh my work as a youth pastor, and then my my clinical work uh for a master's in counseling, I kept finding myself in in spaces with people who were experiencing profound loss.
• 7:54
  SPEAKER_00: Um my uh my clinical placement for my master's in counseling was at a place called the Amelia Center, which is in Birmingham, Alabama.
• 8:05
  SPEAKER_00: It's named after Amelia Elliott, who died in a train car collision with several of her friends when she was 17 years old.
• 8:12
  SPEAKER_00: And her parents, along with several of the parents in that situation, um, worked with Children's Hospital of Alabama and opened a bereavement center because they said, you know, we don't know where to go.
• 8:24
  SPEAKER_00: Where do parents go when a child dies?
• 8:26
  SPEAKER_00: So I was placed there.
• 8:28
  SPEAKER_00: That was my placement.
• 8:29
  SPEAKER_00: And um I can remember the first child I ever sat with at that center.
• 8:35
  SPEAKER_00: His sister was washed away in flood waters.
• 8:38
  SPEAKER_00: I sat there with him and I was humbled and I thought, I don't I don't hold his answers, but there's something that's happening in this space and I'm humbled by it.
• 8:50
  SPEAKER_00: And um and he in that space was able to to to work through some guilt and things that he had.
• 9:00
  SPEAKER_00: Um later that afternoon, I sat with a mom who both of her children had died in a car accident and she had witnessed it, and I remember her saying to me, Um, sir, I am in pain from the top of my head to the tips of my toes.
• 9:15
  SPEAKER_00: And and I just um and it impacted me.
• 9:18
  SPEAKER_00: I went home that night and I told my wife, I think this is what I'll do the rest of my life.
• 9:23
  SPEAKER_00: I this is it.
• 9:24
  SPEAKER_00: I really believe, I feel a strong calling to do this.
• 9:28
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, the rest is kind of history.
• 9:30
  SPEAKER_00: I I I very quickly went into this type of work.
• 9:34
  SPEAKER_00: I ran a hospice program as their director of counseling.
• 9:36
  SPEAKER_00: I went back to the Amelia Center as their executive director.
• 9:39
  SPEAKER_00: I've been the CEO of the comp of National Alliance for Children's Grief.
• 9:43
  SPEAKER_00: I've worked with TAPS, I've worked with American Foundation for Suicide Prevention.
• 9:47
  SPEAKER_00: I think life chooses us sometimes.
• 9:49
  SPEAKER_00: We don't choose it.
• 9:51
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 9:52
  SPEAKER_01: You know, Tuck, it what you just said really resonates with me.
• 9:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um that space, uh, holding that space for people.
• 10:02
  SPEAKER_01: And, you know, when I worked for TAPS, uh, I felt like that's was my responsibility to to do that.
• 10:10
  SPEAKER_01: And I felt like I I did pretty good.
• 10:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, but I wanted to get on the other side of of suicide and prevent.
• 10:21
  SPEAKER_01: So I left thinking that I was going to um work with people that were in recovery, uh, and families that had uh you know children or loved ones that were trying to get into recovery.
• 10:35
  SPEAKER_01: And I kept having people come into my space that were needing grief support.
• 10:45
  SPEAKER_01: Like it, you know, the recovery piece wasn't wasn't coming to me.
• 10:49
  SPEAKER_01: It was the grief people.
• 10:51
  SPEAKER_01: So I decided, hey, I better stay with the stay with grief, uh, because that's where I felt comfortable.
• 10:58
  SPEAKER_01: Um and it it just, you know, that space, creating that space is so vitally important um for somebody to find their own path.
• 11:10
  SPEAKER_04: Don, I think it's wild that you say that's where you felt comfortable in the grief.
• 11:15
  SPEAKER_04: I I think that talking about grief is so commonplace for the three of us.
• 11:20
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but I think that there's such a facade out there.
• 11:23
  SPEAKER_04: Andy, wouldn't you agree that there's just this kind of um naivety in life where people just go along and if they've never experienced trauma or grief or loss, when it hits, it's the end of the world.
• 11:37
  SPEAKER_04: And and I loved what you said.
• 11:39
  SPEAKER_04: I didn't hold his answers.
• 11:41
  SPEAKER_04: Um so many people think that we have all the answers we don't.
• 11:44
  SPEAKER_04: You know what I like to say?
• 11:46
  SPEAKER_04: I hold the flashlight in the dark for you.
• 11:48
  SPEAKER_04: I come along, people, and I just hold the flashlight.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_04: That's it.
• 11:51
  SPEAKER_04: I I've got maybe a little few more months down the road or a few more years down the road.
• 11:55
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but I also love what you said about your sister with special needs because uh Don and I are gonna host a um uh a very special woman on here in a few uh in another month or so, Heidi, um, who her and her husband basically have a special needs son and just the aspect and the trauma and the difficulties that come along with that.
• 12:15
  SPEAKER_04: So there's all different types of grief out there.
• 12:18
  SPEAKER_00: There is, yeah.
• 12:19
  SPEAKER_00: No, I I I agree wholeheartedly.
• 12:21
  SPEAKER_00: I think I think uh people who experience, you know, I I like to use the word profound loss.
• 12:29
  SPEAKER_00: We've been experiencing losses most of our lives from the moment we were born.
• 12:33
  SPEAKER_00: We've experienced losses, and there are those just kind of losses that are just sort of part of life.
• 12:38
  SPEAKER_00: There are certain losses though that are more profound than others.
• 12:41
  SPEAKER_00: And the person that gets to define that is the person who's living it, not the expert who decides, well, well, this is profound, but that's not profound.
• 12:50
  SPEAKER_00: It's really in the eye of eye of the beholder.
• 12:52
  SPEAKER_00: And so for me, yeah, a person who experiences what they would term a profound loss for the first time ever, are often taken back.
• 13:02
  SPEAKER_00: I think for a couple of reasons.
• 13:03
  SPEAKER_00: One, our society has some constructs around what it means to grieve profound loss that are that do not adequately reflect the experience of grieving people.
• 13:14
  SPEAKER_00: I would say that's one issue.
• 13:17
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we we we've turned grief into into we've given grief a definition of what we think it should be, not what it is.
• 13:28
  SPEAKER_00: Because what it is is is hard, it's enduring, it's disruptive, uh, it's not an easy uh process.
• 13:38
  SPEAKER_00: And and and who who would want who would want to have to walk through that, right?
• 13:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I I think I think that's part of it.
• 13:47
  SPEAKER_00: And then as far as us holding people's answers, I always I say this all the time.
• 13:53
  SPEAKER_00: We don't hold other people's answers.
• 13:56
  SPEAKER_00: What we can hold is space for them.
• 13:59
  SPEAKER_00: And so our society as a result yeah, as a result of our our constructs around grief being, you know, it's 12 months, you get over it, you move on, all of those things.
• 14:12
  SPEAKER_00: As a result of that, I think a lot of people just go into hiding, they stop talking to people about their grief and they just they just internalize it.
• 14:21
  SPEAKER_00: And I I've just met so many people, and me including at times in my life, where I I'm just I'm not well.
• 14:29
  SPEAKER_00: And when I really stop to think about it, I'm not well because I haven't done anything with the pain that's in my life.
• 14:36
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I haven't addressed it, I haven't uh leaned into it in any way, and I haven't found ways to be, you know, to be well.
• 14:44
  SPEAKER_00: And uh I think we have in our society a lot of people who are walking around unwell and don't relate it to a profound loss in their life.
• 14:53
  SPEAKER_04: And it's a taboo topic a lot of times.
• 14:55
  SPEAKER_04: I remember I was in year one.
• 14:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I hadn't even crossed over to year two yet.
• 14:59
  SPEAKER_04: And the closest friend uh has been a lifelong mentor to me as a Vietnam vet.
• 15:05
  SPEAKER_04: I was talking with him about losing David, and he goes, Oh, you're still dealing with that?
• 15:10
  SPEAKER_04: And I don't say that to besmirch him, I say it because he was just naive.
• 15:14
  SPEAKER_04: And then it was a couple months later, his best friend died.
• 15:18
  SPEAKER_04: And uh I remember talking with him, and he's like, What are these feelings I'm feeling in these tears that are coming down?
• 15:25
  SPEAKER_04: And he had never experienced loss or grief.
• 15:28
  SPEAKER_04: He he had in Vietnam, but he had compartmentalized it and decided not to deal with it and confront it.
• 15:33
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but some people get all the way to their 70s and 80s, and then all of a sudden it just hits them uh because America does a piss poor job at uh explaining what grief is and walking alongside people and helping them uh like I said, hold the flashlight.
• 15:51
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, yeah, for sure.
• 15:53
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, you think about um just physical conditions that are impacted by grief.
• 15:59
  SPEAKER_00: We hold grief in our bodies just as much as it's a mental issue, uh grief is grief is not compartmentalized to our brains.
• 16:11
  SPEAKER_00: Grief is mental, emotional, physical, spiritual, social.
• 16:16
  SPEAKER_00: It really disrupts every part of our lives.
• 16:19
  SPEAKER_00: I I love that I love the title of of your podcast and that you have the word transformation in there.
• 16:25
  SPEAKER_00: Because I I you know after over 30 years of of holding space for people, when people ask me, well, well, then what is grief?
• 16:35
  SPEAKER_00: My explanation is we need to stop trying to put grief into a box that fits really perfect.
• 16:42
  SPEAKER_00: Grief is a personal uh experience that is enduring, that is disruptive, that is integral to the who the person is becoming, and that is a that is transitional, and it is a transformation.
• 16:56
  SPEAKER_00: We we don't we don't go back to something, we land in a new place when we walk through profound loss.
• 17:05
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you're never gonna be the person you were after that profound loss.
• 17:10
  SPEAKER_01: You um you were talking um oh gosh, I just lost my train of thought.
• 17:17
  SPEAKER_01: Sorry.
• 17:18
  SPEAKER_04: Why while you're thinking of that train of thought, think think about it, Don.
• 17:22
  SPEAKER_04: We're gonna come right back to that.
• 17:23
  SPEAKER_04: I you know, I've made the comment, Andy, that if possible that my DNA could be changed, it did.
• 17:30
  SPEAKER_04: Um, because I think that people think on the outside looking in that, oh, it's old Greg, he's back, or that no, I'm a totally new, transformed person.
• 17:42
  SPEAKER_04: And that scares a lot of people.
• 17:44
  SPEAKER_04: Um, because it's just different from what they've known, whether it's family or friends or whatever.
• 17:49
  SPEAKER_04: Don, did you think about that thought?
• 17:50
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, no, I it's it was something that Andy said that I wanted to um uh expound on, and I just lost it.
• 17:59
  SPEAKER_04: So it's all good.
• 18:00
  SPEAKER_04: When you get to be as old as I am, Don, you'll know what it's like to have those fleeting moments where things just pass and go by.
• 18:06
  SPEAKER_04: So yeah.
• 18:08
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I I will say this when it comes to trans uh transformation, we actually it's counter to a lot of what we teach in our society.
• 18:17
  SPEAKER_00: Our society, we we focus a lot on restoration, on trying to restore things back to the way they were, and it's just not the way life works.
• 18:27
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, we don't go, you know, we don't go back.
• 18:30
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I you know, I I think I'll I think I'm accurate.
• 18:35
  SPEAKER_00: I I turned 54 this year.
• 18:36
  SPEAKER_00: It's funny, I get my age wrong all the time, but I turned 54 this year.
• 18:40
  SPEAKER_00: I'll never be 53 again, right?
• 18:42
  SPEAKER_00: I don't go back to that.
• 18:44
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm telling you, I'm being transformed.
• 18:46
  SPEAKER_00: I, you know, I've I'm at the age now where I can I can go to bed at night with no injury, sleep.
• 18:52
  SPEAKER_00: I'm just sleeping, and I wake up in the morning and I've got an injury.
• 18:55
  SPEAKER_00: Like how how that happens, that is that is different, and you know, we transform.
• 19:00
  SPEAKER_00: But think about the shows.
• 19:01
  SPEAKER_00: Like you've seen the shows on HG TV where they're going to restore a house back to its original condition.
• 19:06
  SPEAKER_00: We've all seen these shows.
• 19:07
  SPEAKER_00: Um, I always stop on them because I like to see the before and after.
• 19:11
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, um they don't they don't ever rest restore the house to its original condition, it's never restored, it's always transformed.
• 19:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's and that's the truth about about grief.
• 19:25
  SPEAKER_00: We're not trying to get back to something, we're trying to figure out what now.
• 19:30
  SPEAKER_00: Now, how do I, in the midst of profound loss, still have meaning and purpose and hope and uh connection?
• 19:39
  SPEAKER_00: How do I still live life?
• 19:41
  SPEAKER_00: How do I have relationships?
• 19:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I'll just say this last thing, I you know, about this.
• 19:46
  SPEAKER_00: I have had a dad years ago who said it to me this way.
• 19:49
  SPEAKER_00: He said, Don't get me wrong.
• 19:51
  SPEAKER_00: I would give anything to have my my son back.
• 19:53
  SPEAKER_00: This this so this is this has nothing to do with with you know my feelings on wanting my son back.
• 19:59
  SPEAKER_00: He said, But I am actually I like the person I am now better than the person I was before my son died, but not the same person, you know, and and I get what he's saying.
• 20:09
  SPEAKER_01: I'm like, yeah, I hear that I say that all the time.
• 20:13
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and we had a guest on, you may know her, Joanne Harpel.
• 20:17
  SPEAKER_03: Um yeah, Joanne Well, yeah.
• 20:19
  SPEAKER_01: She she was on, and she um she said, you know, we don't step forward, we evolve.
• 20:26
  SPEAKER_01: We're it's an evolution, right?
• 20:28
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, and and that's uh so true, and I think that's what you're talking about here, that you know, it we evolve and transform is is also a good word.
• 20:40
  SPEAKER_04: But you know, Don, in in that uh we've talked about this on this podcast before.
• 20:45
  SPEAKER_04: Um earlier on, I'm I'm only five and a half years out, and uh Andy, I'm 52 years old, uh, so just a couple years younger than you, but so I could relate.
• 20:54
  SPEAKER_04: I'm I'm still dealing with a fractured arm.
• 20:55
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, how in the world did that happen?
• 20:57
  SPEAKER_04: Um but uh you know, earlier on in years one, two, and maybe two and a half, three going into it, um, I would make the comment that I'm a better man and a worse man than I was before David died.
• 21:10
  SPEAKER_04: And people would be like, well, you can't be both.
• 21:12
  SPEAKER_04: You have to reconcile the two.
• 21:13
  SPEAKER_04: And I'm like, no, no, it's it's kind of a mixture.
• 21:16
  SPEAKER_04: Now that I'm five and a half years out, um, and I feel like I'm 15 years out because I put the grief work in so strong every day.
• 21:23
  SPEAKER_04: Not that there's a measuring stick to any of that, um, but I would just say that I'm I've dropped the whole conversation of I'm a worse man, I'm a better man.
• 21:33
  SPEAKER_04: Uh when I look back, there is no way that I could have transformed into the person I am today at 52 years old if David hadn't died.
• 21:40
  SPEAKER_04: That's not an endorsement for his death.
• 21:42
  SPEAKER_04: That's not saying that I'm so glad he died.
• 21:45
  SPEAKER_04: I absolutely wish I that I could have it the other way and that I was just stupid, dumb, and naive.
• 21:50
  SPEAKER_04: Um, but I love harder, I empathize harder, and um, I come alongside a lot more people with a lot more compassion.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 21:58
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, for for sure.
• 22:00
  SPEAKER_00: I mean it's what we're talking about is I mean the terms post-traumatic growth, right?
• 22:04
  SPEAKER_00: This um uh Tedesky and Calhoun are the originators of that term.
• 22:11
  SPEAKER_00: And and this is what they were talking about.
• 22:13
  SPEAKER_00: You know, they gave it a term, but we've been people have been experiencing it since human beings walked the earth and have had losses.
• 22:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um the reality that uh you know that our profound loss impacts our lives.
• 22:29
  SPEAKER_00: And I've actually talked to many people who who they start to realize that there's some personal growth that's happening, who actually can struggle with that and even feel guilty for even experiencing that.
• 22:41
  SPEAKER_00: And how how can I carry and my grief and honor my person's death, and at the same time connect with life and living and other people and and see the world in a deeper, more meaningful way?
• 22:57
  SPEAKER_00: How can those coexist?
• 22:59
  SPEAKER_00: It almost seems contrary, and and I think there's a a part of grief where people have to reconcile that I can hold space for both of these things.
• 23:11
  SPEAKER_00: I can carry my pain and I can carry uh meaning and purpose and um compassion and empathy and and all of those things that are part of it too.
• 23:22
  SPEAKER_00: And I can love the people who I still love who are still here with me.
• 23:26
  SPEAKER_00: I can love them deeply, and I can still love my person who died deeply.
• 23:31
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it it's it's I think that's part of the growth, really.
• 23:35
  SPEAKER_04: I remember the first time I took my local group out of dads who have lost children, children, your dad forever, um, to uh bowling uh night.
• 23:43
  SPEAKER_04: And I remember us laughing so hard, and I remember a couple of them looking at each other and looking at me and saying, Are we allowed to do this?
• 23:50
  SPEAKER_04: And and it was a struggle.
• 23:51
  SPEAKER_04: It was like, I don't, I we were having so much fun, and then the guilt set in.
• 23:56
  SPEAKER_04: And it was like, no, we are.
• 23:58
  SPEAKER_04: We give ourselves this permission, this space uh to be able to do that.
• 24:01
  SPEAKER_04: Now we go out.
• 24:03
  SPEAKER_04: We I'm telling you, we've gotten kicked out of restaurants laughing so hard.
• 24:07
  SPEAKER_04: I mean, it's just we just have a really good time, but it's what we need, and it's counterintuitive to what you would think.
• 24:13
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 24:15
  SPEAKER_01: I can recall many times after Tap seminars going out with uh you know team members and just like laughing so hard at you know some of the things that may have occurred at a grief conference, right?
• 24:30
  SPEAKER_01: And and you know, it's kind of um it's kind of ironic.
• 24:36
  SPEAKER_04: I remember I remember Rebecca Melani uh when we had her on as a guest talking about that too, where uh she did that nationals and went to uh a restaurant and they were laughing so hard that they got kicked out.
• 24:47
  SPEAKER_04: And and I remember that story.
• 24:49
  SPEAKER_04: You know, Andy, I'll tell you, when you talk about post-traumatic growth, that was just the first time I ever heard that term was out of your mouth in Columbus, Ohio at a TAFS conference in 2021.
• 24:58
  SPEAKER_04: I remember I could still see the slide and and the PowerPoint up on the screen.
• 25:04
  SPEAKER_04: And at that point, I had just overcome my PTSD from the notification officer ringing the doorbell and what I went through with that.
• 25:13
  SPEAKER_04: So um I've come a long way uh since then.
• 25:16
  SPEAKER_04: And I also wanted to mention I really appreciate all your work you do and have done with children.
• 25:21
  SPEAKER_04: Um, so my eight-year-old grandson lost his dad, my son, and he was three years old.
• 25:27
  SPEAKER_04: And uh it's just been heartbreaking, honestly, uh to see him grow up without a dad.
• 25:33
  SPEAKER_04: And I've tried to fill that role as best I can, but uh more than anything, I'm just so proud of my daughter, who has just come up alongside him and is just an incredible aunt to him.
• 25:43
  SPEAKER_04: And it's it's interesting to watch how everybody handles their grief journey differently.
• 25:47
  SPEAKER_04: Hannah handles her brother's loss by pouring into her nephew and coming alongside him.
• 25:53
  SPEAKER_04: And uh we've got him for vacation Bible school all week, uh taking him to church.
• 25:58
  SPEAKER_04: And it's just uh it's been really neat just to kind of see him grow into his own.
• 26:02
  SPEAKER_01: Uh you know, well, and it's oh glad, Don.
• 26:05
  SPEAKER_01: I'm glad you brought that up, Greg, because one of the things I wanted to ask you about, Andy, is I know that children, you know, need um special different types of of care and and then adults.
• 26:20
  SPEAKER_01: Um, and you've had a lot of experience with that.
• 26:23
  SPEAKER_01: Is there anything you can can speak to uh regarding that?
• 26:28
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, I definitely I you know children, so you know, my my career has been working with I I always say, you know, providing creating space for people ages two to 102.
• 26:42
  SPEAKER_00: Um that's the range uh of of my my experience.
• 26:47
  SPEAKER_00: Um if you're 103, you're out of luck, by the way.
• 26:50
  SPEAKER_00: Well, that's true.
• 26:51
  SPEAKER_00: Well, I'm just saying I've never seen anyone who was 103 as far as they've come to me for support, but it could happen.
• 26:58
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I won't turn them away.
• 26:59
  SPEAKER_00: Uh nor would I turn away a one-year-old, but they're pretty young.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 27:03
  SPEAKER_00: Um but uh so uh but with kids, um, I think the main thing to think about, and which is also true for adults, by the way, um, is that um profound loss is not a one-time experience that happened in our past.
• 27:24
  SPEAKER_00: Because we don't we are not we don't live linear lives.
• 27:28
  SPEAKER_00: You know, I said earlier I'll never be 53 again, you know, once I turn 54.
• 27:33
  SPEAKER_00: I understand that there's a timeline, but we are cyclical human beings because we have memory and we have love.
• 27:41
  SPEAKER_00: And and and we we travel around a sun and on a on a planet that that rotates night and day.
• 27:51
  SPEAKER_00: Uh we revisit every year anniversaries, birthdays.
• 27:56
  SPEAKER_00: Um we live in a we live in a cycles.
• 28:00
  SPEAKER_00: And so uh your your eight-year-old grandson uh you know lost his father, but it wasn't just a moment in time, it's loss is an ongoing thing that that we we live with.
• 28:16
  SPEAKER_00: And so he's growing and developing as a as a human being, um, and at different developmental stages, he will revisit that loss in different ways.
• 28:27
  SPEAKER_00: Because you know, a child who's under the age of five, um, their brain does not work the same as a child who's six, seven, eight, nine years old.
• 28:38
  SPEAKER_00: A child who is 10 or older, their brain starts to work in a different way.
• 28:43
  SPEAKER_00: They can think more abstractly about things.
• 28:46
  SPEAKER_00: And then as they become teenagers, they find themselves in this place where they have this adult type of mind, but also sort of a child mind, but they're beginning to think about things in different ways.
• 28:57
  SPEAKER_00: Um, loss, there's a long arc to loss, and and we can grieve, we can have new grief over an old loss because now we see it and we understand it in a different way.
• 29:11
  SPEAKER_00: Um uh there's a a book um by Hope Edelman.
• 29:16
  SPEAKER_00: Um, it's a really great book on it.
• 29:18
  SPEAKER_00: She calls it um the after grief, the long arc of loss.
• 29:23
  SPEAKER_00: And hope, hope is most known for writing a book when she was younger about her her mom's death.
• 29:29
  SPEAKER_00: I think Hope was a teenager when that happened, and it's called Motherless Daughters.
• 29:34
  SPEAKER_00: And in this new book, she wrote it in her 50s and she said, Look, I have new grief about my mom because now I'm I'm in my 50s.
• 29:42
  SPEAKER_00: I've raised my own kids, and I understand my relationship with my mom in a different way than I did.
• 29:48
  SPEAKER_00: And so I'm grieving her in new ways than than you know ever before.
• 29:54
  SPEAKER_00: And so I think if we can think of it that way, we'll better understand what it's like for kids.
• 29:59
  SPEAKER_00: Kids grieve, they just grieve differently at different ages.
• 30:03
  SPEAKER_00: What they need from us in their lives stays very similar, though.
• 30:07
  SPEAKER_00: They need us to to um to be open to their questions, they need us to not minimize their pain by saying things like, oh, well, let's think about something else, or you know, uh thinking about that all the time is not good for you.
• 30:25
  SPEAKER_00: Let's let's go over here and do this.
• 30:26
  SPEAKER_00: That minimizes their pain.
• 30:28
  SPEAKER_00: They need us to validate whatever it is they're experiencing at that moment, and they need us to demonstrate that you can have your grief, you can carry your grief, and you can also live life, and you can still do those things.
• 30:44
  SPEAKER_00: They need us to demonstrate that because that's that's really people say, Well, what what is you know getting through grief?
• 30:53
  SPEAKER_00: It it's learning to do both.
• 30:56
  SPEAKER_00: And you know, that that's the space that I've tried to create for kids and any opportunity that I've had to lead programs for kids, or just to just to sit in a counseling room with a kid.
• 31:07
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not in there as an adult who who holds their answers.
• 31:12
  SPEAKER_00: They hold their answers, they just don't know what they are at that moment.
• 31:17
  SPEAKER_00: I hold the space.
• 31:19
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah, yeah.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_03: Yeah.
• 31:20
  SPEAKER_04: I I think that uh modeling it uh for them, like for my grandson Thomas, uh, I talk about his dad all the time.
• 31:27
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I'll you know, I'll show him pictures, we'll go down to the cemetery, but I I talk about it and I try to model my grief journey the best I can.
• 31:35
  SPEAKER_04: And you know, I you were talking about how you were uh a pastor's son.
• 31:39
  SPEAKER_04: Uh my wife is also a pastor's uh daughter.
• 31:43
  SPEAKER_04: And um, you know, born-again Christian, I I tend to equate a lot of times when you talk about grief journey, the journey part gets left out.
• 31:52
  SPEAKER_04: Just like as a Christian, if you come up to somebody and you say, Hey, tell me your testimony, uh, what do they do?
• 31:58
  SPEAKER_04: They go back to you know, church camp or the time they were baptized.
• 32:01
  SPEAKER_04: Well, February 19th, 1992, uh, which is when I you know surrendered my life to the Lord.
• 32:07
  SPEAKER_04: I when somebody asks me, tell me your testimony, I very rarely ever go back to that.
• 32:11
  SPEAKER_04: I start it last week uh because this is what is going on modern in my life.
• 32:17
  SPEAKER_04: This is what's happening, this is a transformation that's going on where I'm surrendering a little more each day or whatever it might be.
• 32:23
  SPEAKER_04: And I think it's the same way when you're looking at grief journey, as the title of this podcast, Turning Grief into Growth, the journey of transformation.
• 32:33
  SPEAKER_04: There has to be this conversation about this morphing and this metamorphosis, like you were saying, Don, the evolution that we go through in the change.
• 32:42
  SPEAKER_04: It can't be about December 23rd, 2020, when my son died in an auto accident.
• 32:47
  SPEAKER_04: And it's a point in time and it stops there.
• 32:49
  SPEAKER_04: It's a beginning point, but that's that's very rarely where I go back to.
• 32:55
  SPEAKER_00: Well, it started something, yes.
• 32:57
  SPEAKER_00: You know, we're we're not we're not you know robots, we're we're flesh and blood and and uh heart and mind and a soul, and and we're shaped by the experiences that we have, and grief is an experience.
• 33:12
  SPEAKER_00: Probably if we probably it just um instead of the constructs about grief that somehow it's time limited, and if you don't get over it a certain amount of time, then you have a mental disorder and you all these things.
• 33:25
  SPEAKER_00: If we could instead adopt a construct about grief, just seeing grief as a an experience that uh that we live, not a moment in time, it's an experience that we live that is shaping who we are becoming in our lives.
• 33:43
  SPEAKER_00: And I add to it, and the choices we make while we're grieving matter.
• 33:48
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah, like you know, uh, right?
• 33:50
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, we all know people who have been transformed by loss that wake up one day and go, you know, how the hell did my life become become this?
• 33:59
  SPEAKER_00: And and they don't say, you know, oh I've I've really grown.
• 34:03
  SPEAKER_00: They actually might find that they have gone backward in their lives.
• 34:07
  SPEAKER_00: So there is this thing called personal agency that matters in the midst of our grief, what we choose to do with ourselves.
• 34:17
  SPEAKER_00: It's not about choosing to grieve or not to grieve.
• 34:20
  SPEAKER_00: Grief happens.
• 34:21
  SPEAKER_00: Um, but we can choose to lean into it a little more.
• 34:24
  SPEAKER_00: You can also choose uh, you know, behavior, uh, behaviors and activities and things that produce wellness, even if we don't feel connected to that at the moment.
• 34:35
  SPEAKER_00: Um Victor Frankel in his book Man's Search for Meaning that really drove this point home, um, based on his experiences in the death camps in World War II.
• 34:47
  SPEAKER_00: You know, the idea of um that even in circumstances that we can't control, we still have choices.
• 34:56
  SPEAKER_00: We can choose our attitude, we can choose uh you know what we do with ourselves to some degree.
• 35:03
  SPEAKER_00: He he went as far as saying he knew in those death camps that the Nazis could come in at any point and just drag him out and kill him.
• 35:11
  SPEAKER_00: And he knew that was a reality because he watched it happen.
• 35:13
  SPEAKER_00: And what he said is he said, they can do that, but I decided that they didn't get to choose the attitude I had when they did it.
• 35:22
  SPEAKER_00: And that's that's powerful, really.
• 35:24
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah, you know, that uh we had an episode that we talked about choice um and how how impactful the choices that we make are in you know in our grief journey.
• 35:39
  SPEAKER_01: So um I'm glad you're talking about this now.
• 35:42
  SPEAKER_04: You know, there's uh there's a interesting phenomena to me, and that is those that are going through really traumatic, um, profound loss, like you know, the loss of a child for sea, for example, very rarely do they see the growth in themselves.
• 36:00
  SPEAKER_04: Um, it has to be pointed out to them majority of the time.
• 36:04
  SPEAKER_04: So, Don, for example, would come alongside me earlier on and still to this day, and he'd be like, Greg, I don't think you realize how far you've come.
• 36:12
  SPEAKER_04: I don't think you realize even day one when I first you know met you, you were like three, four weeks out, how you were inquisitive, you were asking questions, you were, you know.
• 36:23
  SPEAKER_04: So I I have learned that.
• 36:25
  SPEAKER_04: And when I come alongside people, I I affirm them.
• 36:29
  SPEAKER_04: And I remind them of kind of where they were.
• 36:32
  SPEAKER_04: I'm like, hey, you remember a year ago in this peer support group?
• 36:35
  SPEAKER_04: You weren't even able to open your mouth, you weren't even able to talk about your loss, and now you're one of the main people that's speaking up.
• 36:44
  SPEAKER_04: And he's like, Yeah, but I just don't feel asking.
• 36:46
  SPEAKER_04: No, no, no, that is progress.
• 36:48
  SPEAKER_04: So I'm a firm believer in supporting progress.
• 36:51
  SPEAKER_04: Uh when you're talking about that evolution, Don, when you're talking about that transformation, we don't see it in ourselves.
• 36:57
  SPEAKER_04: So make sure that uh if you're not receiving that, uh that you find somebody that can pour into you and give you affirmation uh out there to encourage you because otherwise we just look in the mirror every single day and see ourselves the way we were.
• 37:11
  SPEAKER_00: I I agree with that wholeheartedly.
• 37:13
  SPEAKER_00: I I think in some ways, one of the reasons for that is that the grief itself is still so painful.
• 37:21
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 37:22
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it again, we live in a society that tr wants to solve the pain.
• 37:27
  SPEAKER_00: And and the issue with grief is it it's painful.
• 37:31
  SPEAKER_00: It it remains painful that my child died, that my spouse died, that my my parents died, that that remains painful.
• 37:40
  SPEAKER_00: The grief is still there.
• 37:41
  SPEAKER_00: Um, the part of of um you know the journey of grief is not to get rid of the grief, it's to learn how to carry it.
• 37:53
  SPEAKER_00: And it's and it's you know, and it's it's being able to get our feet under us and what that looks like.
• 37:59
  SPEAKER_00: And that means a lot of different things to a lot of different people.
• 38:02
  SPEAKER_00: I had a lady in one of our years ago, I I uh facilitated a group for for women in their 70s and 80s who had had a spouse die.
• 38:12
  SPEAKER_00: I was in my 20s, I was in my late 20s.
• 38:14
  SPEAKER_00: Imagine what they thought when they walked in the first time.
• 38:16
  SPEAKER_00: Who is this yahoo?
• 38:18
  SPEAKER_00: And what is he doing for us?
• 38:19
  SPEAKER_00: I mean, I at that point have been married maybe a few years, I don't know, you know, and I'm like, what does this guy know?
• 38:25
  SPEAKER_00: Um and like, but again, I had by that time in my life, I had learned my my role is just to hold space, not to not to be the expert of their grief.
• 38:34
  SPEAKER_00: I ran that group for about four years every Wednesday night, four years, and those ladies came religiously.
• 38:40
  SPEAKER_00: Um and one night one of the ladies said, Um I'm just tired, I'm tired of this.
• 38:47
  SPEAKER_00: I'm tired.
• 38:48
  SPEAKER_00: I haven't, I I'm I am no better off than I was two years ago when my husband died.
• 38:53
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and I'm just tired.
• 38:55
  SPEAKER_00: And that was her statement.
• 38:57
  SPEAKER_00: And so one of the one of the other ladies said to her, well, you know, I've known you for two years, and actually I don't think you're in the same place.
• 39:06
  SPEAKER_00: And she said, um she said, Andy, can we talk about this tonight?
• 39:10
  SPEAKER_00: Like, let's all talk about where what it was like when our child first died and what it's like for us now.
• 39:16
  SPEAKER_00: And we talked, and what was interesting is the pain of the loss was very, very similar.
• 39:23
  SPEAKER_00: What was different was how folks had learned to carry it and how they had leaned into life and developed new relationships and how they had grown personally.
• 39:33
  SPEAKER_00: And we we spent it might have been one of the best groups that I we ever conducted because by the end of the group, people had said things like, Well, yeah, I I can drive in the car now and not cry every time the radio comes on.
• 39:44
  SPEAKER_00: And I can, you know, all of a sudden they were seeing these things that were different about them.
• 39:50
  SPEAKER_00: And the end of the evening, the the lady who brought it up at the beginning, she said, she said, you know, this was very helpful.
• 39:55
  SPEAKER_00: You're right.
• 39:56
  SPEAKER_00: I'm not in the same place that I was, and I'm leaving here with a little more hope than I walked in tonight.
• 40:00
  SPEAKER_00: Right.
• 40:01
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:04
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 40:05
  SPEAKER_01: I uh the the way we grieve and and the the differences.
• 40:11
  SPEAKER_01: Um and Joshua's birthday is tomorrow, he'd be 39.
• 40:18
  SPEAKER_01: Um, I hear so many people say forever, like he died at the age of 23, and people would say forever 23.
• 40:27
  SPEAKER_01: Well, I carry every every birthday I make him a year older because he is a year older.
• 40:35
  SPEAKER_01: He may not be living, but um so and I find ways to to celebrate his life, uh, especially on his birthday.
• 40:44
  SPEAKER_01: The the anniversary or the day of remembrance is not a day that I give as much attention to, but his birthday I do because it was a one of the happiest days of my life.
• 40:56
  SPEAKER_01: And um I decided just the other day that uh you know he's turning 39.
• 41:03
  SPEAKER_01: What can I do to honor his birthday?
• 41:05
  SPEAKER_01: And I haven't done a push-up in I don't know how many years, but I'm doing 39 push-ups tomorrow.
• 41:11
  SPEAKER_01: Nice.
• 41:12
  SPEAKER_04: Can you can you can you record that?
• 41:16
  SPEAKER_01: I somebody actually said they were going to, and and I think I'm gonna have my family do it, uh do it with me too.
• 41:22
  SPEAKER_01: I'm not gonna sit there and do 39 push-ups all at once, but uh I will do 39 push-ups.
• 41:29
  SPEAKER_04: Spread out over 24 hours.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_04: I believe in you.
• 41:31
  SPEAKER_04: You've got it.
• 41:32
  SPEAKER_04: You can do this, Don.
• 41:33
  SPEAKER_04: That's no, I think that's awesome.
• 41:35
  SPEAKER_04: And I tell you, I think everybody grieves differently when it comes to that memor that memory of that date.
• 41:41
  SPEAKER_04: Uh, my son was 21 when he died.
• 41:44
  SPEAKER_04: You see forever 21 everywhere.
• 41:47
  SPEAKER_04: Um, I've never uh embraced that personally for me.
• 41:50
  SPEAKER_04: It's just, you know, David uh would have been 27.
• 41:55
  SPEAKER_04: And I think that because I bring him along with me everywhere I go, every day, I keep him alive, I talk to him.
• 42:04
  SPEAKER_04: He can't stay 21 uh for me to do that.
• 42:08
  SPEAKER_04: So that's that's what I choose.
• 42:10
  SPEAKER_04: It's the way that I handle it, it's the way that I grieve, and uh everybody's different.
• 42:15
  SPEAKER_01: Yeah.
• 42:17
  SPEAKER_01: Josh looks pretty good for being 39.
• 42:19
  SPEAKER_01: 39.
• 42:21
  SPEAKER_04: He hasn't aged at all.
• 42:22
  SPEAKER_01: Not at all.
• 42:24
  SPEAKER_04: That's awesome.
• 42:25
  SPEAKER_01: Not since 23.
• 42:26
  SPEAKER_01: Um, Andy, uh, as we uh begin to wrap this up, um, just wondering, uh, do you have any whiz uh nuggets of wisdom that you can share with our listeners?
• 42:38
  SPEAKER_01: Um, just something to that they can uh take take back with them and hold on to.
• 42:45
  SPEAKER_00: Yeah.
• 42:46
  SPEAKER_00: Um so I will say this.
• 42:49
  SPEAKER_00: Um just maybe a couple of comments.
• 42:52
  SPEAKER_00: One is no matter wherever it is that you are in your grief, it it's okay wherever you are, whatever that that might be.
• 43:03
  SPEAKER_00: Grief is messy, it's hard, it's all of those things.
• 43:07
  SPEAKER_00: Uh as we said today, it's also transformational.
• 43:10
  SPEAKER_00: So if you're finding yourself at a place where there have been parts of your lives that life that has been transformed, that's okay too.
• 43:18
  SPEAKER_00: Uh, and that's not an insult to your person or or to their memory.
• 43:22
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and we live in a society that does like to just leave things behind and move forward.
• 43:29
  SPEAKER_00: And the reality is we can take our person forward with us, um, as the two of you so eloquently laid out there.
• 43:37
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and and many people who have found that when they when they begin to do that, instead of trying to figure out how they can get far away from the loss, they they realize that um you know the person who died, they they don't want to be far away from that person.
• 43:56
  SPEAKER_00: And and holding that person close to them and bringing them along.
• 44:00
  SPEAKER_00: Long can be helpful.
• 44:02
  SPEAKER_00: And if you're if you're early in your grief and and all you can do is just kind of maybe get out of the bed and maybe breathe, do that.
• 44:12
  SPEAKER_00: Those are choices that you're making.
• 44:15
  SPEAKER_00: They're hard ones, but keep making them.
• 44:20
  SPEAKER_00: I personally have had my own losses.
• 44:23
  SPEAKER_00: And I also have walked with a lot of people.
• 44:25
  SPEAKER_00: I've witnessed a lot of loss, but also a lot of transformation and a lot of growth.
• 44:33
  SPEAKER_00: And I and I I can I can say from my vantage point and what I have viewed, it's it's worth the struggle.
• 44:45
  SPEAKER_00: It's worth hanging in there, it's worth making those hard choices, whatever they are.
• 44:52
  SPEAKER_00: Again, the hard choice could be just to get your feet on the floor that morning or to take the next breath, whatever it is.
• 45:00
  SPEAKER_00: It's worth it.
• 45:01
  SPEAKER_00: Um and then the last thing I'd say is find your community.
• 45:06
  SPEAKER_04: Yeah.
• 45:07
  SPEAKER_00: Connect, find some folks like these guys, like people who have had a similar experience to you, who are your peers, who you can, if nothing else, just call and say, I just need another person on the other end of the phone at this moment, or I need another human being to sit in the room with me who gets it that I don't have to explain myself.
• 45:32
  SPEAKER_00: Find a community that you that you can connect with.
• 45:37
  SPEAKER_00: You know, it's an honor, a sacred honor to serve the organizations I've served.
• 45:42
  SPEAKER_00: Sacred honor to serve compassionate friends right now.
• 45:45
  SPEAKER_00: And, you know, TAPS, the compassionate friends, uh, gosh, so many different organizations that do peer support, they do it because it works.
• 45:55
  SPEAKER_00: So if you haven't plugged into a peer support network, uh do that.
• 46:00
  SPEAKER_00: Uh connect up.
• 46:02
  SPEAKER_00: Uh it doesn't cost you anything.
• 46:04
  SPEAKER_00: Most of these programs are free.
• 46:06
  SPEAKER_00: You know, you might get a donation solicitation, but that's what nonprofits do.
• 46:10
  SPEAKER_00: It's how we fund ourselves.
• 46:12
  SPEAKER_00: But you don't have to donate, you don't have to do anything.
• 46:15
  SPEAKER_00: You just have to show up and be there and be supported.
• 46:19
  SPEAKER_00: So um thank you both for the opportunity to be on part of this podcast and um and to share.
• 46:26
  SPEAKER_00: It's been a great conversation.
• 46:28
  SPEAKER_00: Um, and uh, you know, anything I can do moving forward to continue this conversation, I'm glad to glad to do that and support it.
• 46:36
  SPEAKER_01: Thank you, Andy.
• 46:37
  SPEAKER_04: Yes, thank you, Andy.
• 46:39
  SPEAKER_04: And we look forward to partnering with you more in the future.
• 46:41
  SPEAKER_04: And uh I couldn't agree more with what you just said.
• 46:44
  SPEAKER_04: So find your group and your tribe and uh don't do life alone.
• 46:49
  SPEAKER_04: So all right.
• 46:50
  SPEAKER_04: Well, thank you.
• 46:51
  SPEAKER_04: And uh folks, until next time.
• 46:54
  SPEAKER_04: Thank you so much for taking time out of your day to listen.
• 46:57
  SPEAKER_04: We hope turning grief into growth spoke to your heart and becomes a part of your own journey of healing and transformation.
• 47:04
  SPEAKER_04: If you know someone who could use a little hope, please share this episode with them.
• 47:09
  SPEAKER_04: And don't forget to follow, like, or subscribe on your favorite platform so you don't miss what's coming next.
• 47:16
  SPEAKER_04: Don and I can't wait to share more conversations to help you keep turning your grief into growth.
• 47:22
  SPEAKER_04: Until next time.