Latest / 🎙️ Rebuild & Fulfill Real conversations on burnout, rebuilding, and becoming stronger than before. / Grief Isn't Just About Death: Learning to Let Go and Move Forward | Episode 17
Transcript
- Kelsey Dunbar Co-Founder S2T: When you hear the word grief, what comes to mind? For most people, it's death. The loss of a parent, a spouse, a child, a friend. And those losses are real. They're devastating. They deserve to be grieved. But what if grief is bigger than that? What if you've been grieving something for years and never even called it grief? A relationship that ended. A marriage that fell apart, a career that didn't work out, a business that failed. Your health? Your youth? The future you thought you were going to have? What if grief isn't just about losing someone? What if grief is the emotional response to losing anything that mattered? Because if that's true, then a lot more people are grieving than we realize. And maybe, just maybe. Some of us are carrying grief we haven't even identified yet. Welcome back to Rebuild and Fulfill. I'm Kelsey Dunbar, and I'm used to hearing Mark Regala say, and I'm Mark Regala, but today is going to be a little bit different. Usually you hear me with my co-host andor one of our incredible guests. But today, it's just you and me. And I just want to talk about something that every single one of us will face at some point in our lives. Grief. Now before you decide this episode isn't for you because no one close to you has died recently. I want to encourage you to stay with me, because this conversation isn't only about death, it's about loss. And loss shows up in more places than most people realize. Maybe you've lost a loved one. Maybe you lost a relationship. Maybe you've lost your health, or maybe you've lost a dream. Maybe you've lost a version of yourself you thought you'd always be. Whatever it is, loss leaves a mark. And that mark is often called grief. The problem is that we only seem to recognize certain kinds of grief. If a person loses a spouse, people understand. If someone loses a parent, people understand. If someone loses a child, whew, people understand. We bring food, we send flowers, we attend services, we give people permission to hurt. But what about the entrepreneur who spent 10 years building a business that collapses? What about the athlete whose body can no longer do what it once could? What about the person who poured their heart into a relationship only to watch it slowly come apart? What about the parent who imagined one kind of relationship with their child and finds themselves living a very different reality? Those losses are real too. But they often happen quietly. Without ceremonies, without support groups, without people checking in. And because of that, many people convince themselves they shouldn't be hurting. They say things like It wasn't a death. I should be over this by now. Other people have it worse. I shouldn't still feel this way. But grief doesn't care what category your loss falls into. Loss is loss. And the heart doesn't always distinguish between what society says you're allowed to grieve and what you're actually grieving. So we're going to start by talking about the grief no one talks about. One of the things I've noticed over the years as a coach is that many people are carrying grief they haven't even identified. They don't realize what it is. They just know they're tired, disconnected, angry, stuck, maybe restless. Something feels off, but they can't quite put their finger on it. Sometimes they're grieving a person, but sometimes they're grieving a version of themselves, like the younger version, the healthier version, the version that had more energy, more confidence, more possibilities. Sometimes they're grieving the future they imagined, and it just never happened. Maybe the marriage they thought that would last forever, the retirement that they pictured, the career they expected to have, the dream they built up in their mind. And when reality doesn't match that picture, something inside us mourns. Not because we're weak, not because we're broken, but because something mattered. And when something matters, Losing it hurts. That's what grief is. It's not weakness. It's evidence of significance. It's proof that something touched your life deeply enough to leave a mark. It's proof that something had value. And the deeper the value, the deeper the loss can feel. So why we get stuck? I think one of the biggest reasons people stay stuck in grief is because they're trying not to feel it. We distract ourselves. We stay busy. We throw ourselves into our work. We bury ourselves in responsibilities. We tell ourselves we're fine. We tell everyone else we're fine. And maybe for a little while we even believe it. But grief has a way of waiting. It doesn't disappear because we ignore it. It doesn't leave because we pretend it's not there. It simply changes shape. Sometimes it becomes anger, sometimes bitterness, sometimes anxiety, sometimes depression or emotional numbness. Sometimes a life that feels smaller than one we were we were meant to live. Because part of us is still standing in yesterday, still holding on to what was. Still wishing reality would become something different. And listen, that's human. We've all done it. I've done it. I've experienced grief from death, sure. I've stood in funeral homes. I've said goodbye to people I loved. I've felt the weight of losing someone who can never be replaced. But if I'm being honest, some of the deepest grief I've ever imagined wasn't tied to a funeral. It was tied to expectations. It was tied to the life I thought I was gonna have. The outcome I expected. The future I had pictured in my mind. Sometimes we don't just grieve people, sometimes we grieve possibilities. And that's a difficult thing to talk about because there isn't a ceremony for it. No one sends flowers when a dream dies, nobody brings casseroles when a relationship slowly falls apart. Nobody gathers around you when you realize a chapter of your life is ending. Life just keeps moving. The bills still need to be paid. The responsibilities are definitely still there. The world keeps spinning, and somehow you're expected to do the same. But the pain is real nonetheless. And if you've experienced that, I want you to know something. You're not crazy, you're not weak, you're not alone. You're grieving. And grief is what happens when something important leaves a space in your life. One of the biggest misconceptions about grief is the idea that healing means forgetting. That moving forward means leaving something behind. That if you're still thinking about it, still missing it, still feeling it years later, then somehow you failed. I don't believe that. I don't think moving forward means moving on. I think moving forward means learning how to carry something differently. Because the truth is, some losses stay with us forever. Person may be gone, the relationship may be over, the opportunity may have passed, the dream may never happen, but that doesn't mean the impact disappears. And honestly, why would we want it to? The people we loved helped shape us. The dreams we chased taught us something. The chapters that ended became part of our story. The goal isn't to erase them, the goal is to stop allowing them to. prevent us from writing the next chapter. That's the difference. Moving on sounds like forgetting. Moving forward sounds like growing. One asks us to leave the past behind, the other asks us to bring the lessons with us. And that's something entirely different. One thing grief has taught me is that life is constantly changing. And sometimes that's beautiful. And sometimes it's heartbreaking. Usually it's both. The older I get, the more I realize that nearly every season of life requires some form of letting go. Parents watch their children grow up, athletes watch their bodies change, friendships evolve, careers shift, people move away. Loved ones pass, chapters close, and then new chapters begin. And every transition asks something of us. Every transition requires us to release something in order to embrace something else. The problem is that most of us want the new chapter without losing the old one. We want growth without discomfort, or change without loss, new beginnings without endings. But life doesn't work that way. Every new chapter costs something. And grief is often part of the growth. Not because growth is bad, but because growth requires change. And change requires letting go. Now before anyone misunderstands me, I'm not saying grief is a gift. Pain is pain. Loss is loss. And some losses are devastating. But I do believe there's something grief can give us if we're willing to listen. Perspective, clarity, compassion, patience, gratitude, a deeper appreciation for the people who are still here, a deeper understanding of what truly matters. Not because the loss was good, but because we refuse to let the loss be meaningless. And maybe that's one of the bravest things a person can do. To take something painful and allow it to deepen them rather than harden them. To let it make them wiser rather than bitter. To let it shape them without defining them. Because grief may become part of your story, but it doesn't have to become your identity. Maybe you're listening to this and you're grieving someone you lost. Maybe you're grieving a relationship or grieving your health. Maybe you're grieving a dream. Maybe you're grieving a version of yourself that no longer exists. Whatever it is. I want you to hear this. You don't need permission to grieve. You don't need to compare your loss to someone else's. You don't need to justify why it hurts. If it mattered to you, it mattered. If losing it changed your life, your grief is real. And healing doesn't happen because someone tells you to move on. Healing happens when you allow yourself to acknowledge what you've lost while remaining open to what comes next. That's the balance. Honor what was, stay open to what can be. Both things can exist at the same time. You can miss someone and still laugh again. You can mourn a dream and still pursue a new one. You can carry sadness and still experience joy. You can grieve and still grow. That's often what healing looks like, not the absence of pain, but the presence of hope alongside it. So if there's one thing I hope you take away from today's conversation, it's this. Grief isn't a sign that you're broken. It's a sign that you cared. It's evidence that something mattered. It's proof that something touched your life deeply enough to leave a mark. And while loss may be a part of your story, it doesn't have to be the end of your story. You can carry the memories, you can carry the lessons, you can carry the The love and and still keep moving forward. One step at a time, one day at a time, one chapter at a time. So thank you for spending this time with me today. If this epino episode resonated with you, I'd encourage you to share it with someone who may need to hear it. Someone who's grieving, someone who's struggling, someone who needs to know that they're not alone. And if that someone is you, know this. You don't Have to have it all figured out. You don't have to be over it. You don't have to pretend you're okay. You just have to keep taking the next step. Because healing isn't about forgetting. Healing is about learning how to live again. So until next time, keep rebuilding, keep growing, and keep moving forward. And remember, you're not broken. You may just be carrying more than people can see. We'll see you next time on Rebuild and Fulfill. Take care.