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#HURDLEMOMENT: An Expert On How to Navigate Grief · Hurdle with Emily Abbate

0:00
Speaker 1: It's really hard to feel like you can move through
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Speaker 1: something that feels hard, impossible, painful, lonely if you don't
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Speaker 1: feel like there's at least one other person in the
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Speaker 1: world who was saying, yeah, this is hard, I see
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Speaker 1: you in this.
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Speaker 2: Hey, Hey, Emily Abadi here coming to you from the
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Speaker 2: AG studio.
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Speaker 3: You are listening to Hurdle a While.
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Speaker 2: On this focused podcast where I connect with everyone from
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Speaker 2: your favorite athletes to top experts and industry CEOs about
0:44
Speaker 2: their highest highs, toughest moments, and everything in between. We
0:48
Speaker 2: all go through hurdles in life, and my goal through
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Speaker 2: these discussions is to empower you to better navigate yours
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Speaker 2: and move with intention so that you can stride towards
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Speaker 2: your own big potential and of course some fun along
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Speaker 2: the way. Today, for Hurdle Moment, I am chatting with
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Speaker 2: Rebecca Sofer. She's the co founder of Modern Loss, a
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Speaker 2: website offering candid content, resources, and community on loss and grief.
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Speaker 2: She's also the author of the upcoming book, The Modern
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Speaker 2: Lost Handbook, an interactive guide to moving through grief and
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Speaker 2: building your resilience. I know the topic is that the
1:22
Speaker 2: most sexy, but talking about grief is really important. I
1:28
Speaker 2: saw a statistic that I cited in today's episode that
1:31
Speaker 2: was fifty seven percent of Americans reported experiencing a major
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Speaker 2: loss over the last three years, And as Rebecca says
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Speaker 2: in today's episode, that can be death, but it can
1:41
Speaker 2: also be the dissolving of relationships, whether they're botonic or
1:46
Speaker 2: something more intimate. Rebecca gets really open and shares her
1:49
Speaker 2: personal story of losing both of her parents by her
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Speaker 2: mid thirties and how she came to creating a space
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Speaker 2: to help individuals process their own grief as she was
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Speaker 2: navigating her She also offers up her best practice tips
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Speaker 2: for navigating grief, ranging from journaling and specific thought prompts
2:07
Speaker 2: to movement and talk therapy, and we.
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Speaker 3: Get into the ins and outs of all of that.
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Speaker 2: Really, really, I mean, this is an important conversation, like
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Speaker 2: I said, and I feel as though, especially after the
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Speaker 2: last couple of years and COVID, we have all gone
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Speaker 2: through the thick of it in our own way, on
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Speaker 2: our own time, and now it's so critical for us
2:31
Speaker 2: to have these open, honest conversations about smart ways to
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Speaker 2: move forward.
2:37
Speaker 3: And as Rebecca says today.
2:39
Speaker 2: Reclaim your joy because you are worthy of good things.
2:44
Speaker 2: Make sure you're following along with kurnel Over on Socialism's
2:47
Speaker 2: at Little podcast.
2:48
Speaker 3: I am over at Emily Abodi.
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Speaker 2: I am also recording this shortly before hopping up to Boston.
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Speaker 2: So much going on this week, ranging from the live
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Speaker 2: show with Puma to my sit down with Dez and
3:01
Speaker 2: Inside Tracker.
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Speaker 3: Also our Hurdler run this coming Friday.
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Speaker 2: I'm going to link to all of the things that
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Speaker 2: you need to know in the show notes, So if
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Speaker 2: you're going to be local to the area, I hope
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Speaker 2: that we can cross paths.
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Speaker 3: That's it for now. With that, let's get to hurtling Today.
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Speaker 2: I am sitting down with Rebecca Sofer. She's the co
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Speaker 2: founder and CEO of Modern Loss. She's also an author.
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Speaker 2: Her new book coming out, The Modern Lost Handbook and
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Speaker 2: Interactive Guides and moving through grief and building your resilience.
3:35
Speaker 3: It's come in. How you doing today, Rebecca?
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Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm here, and I think that, in fact, that
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Speaker 1: says a lot for human beings at this moment in
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Speaker 1: the pandemic. I'm here, I'm upright. I brushed my teeth
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Speaker 1: this morning, so I think I'm doing pretty well.
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Speaker 2: I think I'm doing pretty well well Small wins. I'm
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Speaker 2: all about that approach. Sometimes you got to go micro.
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Speaker 2: I'm also just really excited to have you on here
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Speaker 2: today to talk about something that does come up a
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Speaker 2: lot in the conversations I have on the show, and
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Speaker 2: that is grief, something that you personally know a lot about,
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Speaker 2: especially because it is the foundation for your community, modern loss.
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Speaker 2: So why don't we start off by you telling us
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Speaker 2: a little bit about what modern loss is and then
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Speaker 2: giving us some insight into your journey to building modern loss.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, first of all, thanks so much for having me.
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Speaker 1: I'm such an enormous admirer of what you've built, so congratulations. Yeah,
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Speaker 1: I'm here talking about something that I never thought that
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Speaker 1: I would be talking about on a daily basis, right,
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Speaker 1: which is grief and loss and dealing with the mess
4:45
Speaker 1: and dealing with the fallout and specifically figuring out how
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Speaker 1: to build resilience and live well in the face of
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Speaker 1: all of it. I started something called Modern Loss more
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Speaker 1: than eight years ago with my co founder Gabby good
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Speaker 1: friend of mine who I met because of our personal
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Speaker 1: grief stories. And it wasn't my life plan, you know,
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Speaker 1: this was not something that I grew up dreaming of doing.
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Speaker 1: I didn't grow up thinking that one day I'd like
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Speaker 1: to start a grief community or publish personal essays around
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Speaker 1: the experience or speak about it. I wanted to be
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Speaker 1: a journalist. I ended up going to Columbia Journalism School.
5:24
Speaker 1: I worked for Stephen Colbert. Right afterwards, I worked for
5:27
Speaker 1: The Colbert Report, where I was a producer, and that
5:30
Speaker 1: was kind of my chosen path. That was my intended path.
5:33
Speaker 1: When I turned thirty and I was working in daily television,
5:36
Speaker 1: I was, you know, a single woman. I was living
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Speaker 1: in New York. I felt like I was really starting
5:41
Speaker 1: to kind of start my life. Really. I mean, I
5:44
Speaker 1: think that you're a New Yorker. You get it when
5:46
Speaker 1: you're single, you're thirty, you're a New Yorker. You're basically
5:50
Speaker 1: like eighteen anywhere else in the country, right you're still
5:54
Speaker 1: like building up your life. You feel like you're starting out.
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Speaker 1: And I really felt like I was in serious build mode,
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Speaker 1: you know. I was really excited for everything that might
6:06
Speaker 1: be waiting, you know. And I also kind of thought
6:09
Speaker 1: that certain people would be around to witness anything that
6:14
Speaker 1: would happen and support me through it and you know,
6:18
Speaker 1: enjoy it with me. But my mother was killed in
6:22
Speaker 1: a car accident. When I was thirty, I was again
6:25
Speaker 1: working at this television show. I was very much focused
6:29
Speaker 1: on building up my career, and we went on a
6:32
Speaker 1: family vacation. We went camping in upstate New York in
6:36
Speaker 1: the Adirondacks, and the night that we finished that trip,
6:40
Speaker 1: my parents dropped me off at my apartment in New
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Speaker 1: York City and they continued on to Philadelphia, which is
6:46
Speaker 1: that's my hometown. Less than an hour later, my mom
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Speaker 1: died on the New Jersey Turnpike. There was a terrible accident.
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Speaker 1: She didn't survive. My dad was in the car with her.
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Speaker 1: And I went from being I felt like almost like
7:03
Speaker 1: a girl who was, you know, sitting there thinking about
7:08
Speaker 1: going back to work the next day and thinking about
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Speaker 1: whether she was going to go on a blind date
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Speaker 1: with someone, and you know, worrying about things that were
7:16
Speaker 1: legitimately you know, big things to consider. I went from
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Speaker 1: being that person to two seconds later, wondering how I
7:25
Speaker 1: was going to get through anything ever again without the
7:30
Speaker 1: woman who had been the foundation of my life. And
7:34
Speaker 1: we were very very close. I mean, she was my
7:36
Speaker 1: best friend. And by the way, people lose people all
7:41
Speaker 1: the time who are not their best friends and are
7:43
Speaker 1: still as foundationally altered because of that loss. It's just
7:48
Speaker 1: in my particular case, we were really close. I'm an
7:51
Speaker 1: only child between my parents, and I just was kind
7:56
Speaker 1: of ejected into the after from one second to the next.
8:00
Speaker 1: And so modern loss was born out of the experience
8:05
Speaker 1: of everything changing in my life, of me realizing very
8:10
Speaker 1: quickly how isolating the grief experience can be, even when
8:15
Speaker 1: you're you know, in a room of people who were laughing,
8:17
Speaker 1: which was my job was to go in and work
8:20
Speaker 1: at a comedy show, and it can be so incredibly isolating,
8:24
Speaker 1: even when you're surrounded by people who really want to
8:26
Speaker 1: help you and really care about you and are trying
8:29
Speaker 1: their best to make a difference, like to provide meaningful support.
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Speaker 1: But I realized very quickly how we really suck it
8:36
Speaker 1: talking about this stuff in our culture in casual conversation,
8:42
Speaker 1: and it's just not something that we do any favors
8:47
Speaker 1: for each other over because we keep promoting this stigma
8:51
Speaker 1: that is, you know, grief is something we shouldn't talk about,
8:55
Speaker 1: or it should be better after a year, or it
8:57
Speaker 1: should be fixable or ease with platitudes, and you know,
9:02
Speaker 1: I was just out there, a grieving daughter going to
9:06
Speaker 1: work every day, figuring out how to build my life
9:10
Speaker 1: while also navigate deep loss and modern loss. Really came
9:14
Speaker 1: out of that feeling of isolation, of wanting to kind
9:17
Speaker 1: of normalize the conversation.
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Speaker 2: Yeah wow, Well, thank you so much for sharing that
9:22
Speaker 2: with me in the community. And I'm sure there are
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Speaker 2: so many people listening to this right now that can
9:27
Speaker 2: really relate to the struggle that goes hand in hand
9:30
Speaker 2: with navigating such a traumatic event associated with so much grief.
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Speaker 2: Give us an idea of what the weeks, months, maybe
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Speaker 2: years that followed really looked like for you when it
9:44
Speaker 2: came to navigating and understanding.
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Speaker 3: How to move forward with your grief.
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Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, I think that I had lost people before
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Speaker 1: my mom died, but they were not My grandfather died
10:00
Speaker 1: and I loved him. I was eleven. He had been
10:03
Speaker 1: sick for a very long time, so I never really
10:05
Speaker 1: knew him when he was well. My mom dying was
10:08
Speaker 1: a real jolt to me, and I think that the
10:13
Speaker 1: first year, for the most part, I was in such
10:17
Speaker 1: an enormous state of shock and trauma because of the
10:19
Speaker 1: way in which she died as well, you know, there
10:22
Speaker 1: were no anticipated goodbyes. There were no you know, there
10:26
Speaker 1: was no space for like tell me everything I need
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Speaker 1: to know about being an adult, like before you go,
10:31
Speaker 1: like tell me where the money is, tell me what
10:33
Speaker 1: you know, like you know what I mean, like just
10:35
Speaker 1: getting all the answers to mostly just like emotional things
10:40
Speaker 1: that I would have really hoped that she could guide
10:45
Speaker 1: me through as I moved through adulthood, as I moved
10:48
Speaker 1: up in my career, as I maybe got a partner
10:51
Speaker 1: or had kids and got a mortgage and got a dog.
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Speaker 1: And it was really hard for me that first year
10:58
Speaker 1: because the shock really paralyzed me and I was very numb.
11:04
Speaker 1: I could not listen to music for the better part
11:08
Speaker 1: of a calendar year, which to me, you know, for me,
11:12
Speaker 1: is actually crazy because I played violin for sixteen years
11:15
Speaker 1: and I always have music on, Like I'm always dancing,
11:18
Speaker 1: I'm always listening to music. I love, you know, stimulation,
11:23
Speaker 1: I love being around people who were telling stories and
11:26
Speaker 1: laughing and connecting and did so much of it felt
11:29
Speaker 1: like almost like abrasive to my senses for so long,
11:38
Speaker 1: and so I would say that, yeah, I was numb
11:40
Speaker 1: for most of the year. I kind of went through
11:42
Speaker 1: the motions. I tried to fill any white space that
11:46
Speaker 1: existed in terms of free time or silence with things
11:53
Speaker 1: to do. You know, I traveled a lot. I was
11:56
Speaker 1: working for a TV show that went on hiatus like
11:58
Speaker 1: eleven weeks of the year, so I mean I went everywhere.
12:02
Speaker 1: I went to Venezuela, I went to Spain, I went
12:05
Speaker 1: to South Africa for two weeks, like I really went everywhere.
12:08
Speaker 1: I love traveling, so it was you know, it was
12:10
Speaker 1: actually really wonderful for me, but at the same time,
12:13
Speaker 1: I was clearly trying to escape the things, all the things.
12:19
Speaker 1: After the first year, I would say that things felt worse,
12:24
Speaker 1: and that's where kind of the joke felt like it
12:28
Speaker 1: was on me, Like everybody would put their hand on
12:29
Speaker 1: my shoulder and say, it takes a year, it gets better.
12:33
Speaker 1: Like they kind of suggested that it was this linear
12:36
Speaker 1: process that you just had to hang on, right and
12:40
Speaker 1: just like hang on, like go through all the rungs
12:42
Speaker 1: and they would get slightly more manageable. And in my
12:47
Speaker 1: experience now as I have like hindsight, they do get
12:50
Speaker 1: more manageable and then they get less manageable because this
12:53
Speaker 1: isn't a linear process. This is like two steps forward,
12:57
Speaker 1: a thousand steps back and vice versa. And so year
13:00
Speaker 1: two for me was even harder because that's when like
13:03
Speaker 1: the permanence of it really hit me, like, oh, like,
13:08
Speaker 1: it's not just one Mother's Day that I can pretend
13:11
Speaker 1: that she's not here. Like it's not just one Mother's
13:14
Speaker 1: Day that I'm just going to like go to the
13:16
Speaker 1: Jersey Shore and pretend that, you know, I can't go
13:19
Speaker 1: to Philly. It's every Mother's Day for the rest of time.
13:23
Speaker 1: Or it's not just every Honika or New Year's or
13:27
Speaker 1: any or Tuesday night. It's it's forever. It's a forever thing.
13:31
Speaker 1: And for me, that was really really intense. And that's
13:34
Speaker 1: why I say that year two was harder. The kicker,
13:36
Speaker 1: which is not a short kicker, but germane to this
13:41
Speaker 1: conversation in my story is that my dad died four
13:44
Speaker 1: years after my mom died from a heart attack. So
13:48
Speaker 1: I was thirty when my mom died, thirty four when
13:50
Speaker 1: my dad died. And you know, if there's anything to
13:54
Speaker 1: send you reeling, it's.
13:56
Speaker 2: That, Yeah, I can't the multiple losses in such a
14:00
Speaker 2: short amount of time. I can totally understand why you
14:04
Speaker 2: use the word reeling. I'm sure it was extremely traumatic,
14:08
Speaker 2: and like I said earlier, so many people listening to
14:11
Speaker 2: this can really relate. I read a study that said
14:14
Speaker 2: that fifty percent of Americans have experienced a major loss
14:18
Speaker 2: within the last three years, and thirty two percent of
14:22
Speaker 2: those where the loss of a family member or close friend.
14:26
Speaker 2: So literally everywhere you go on the street, no matter
14:31
Speaker 2: where you are, look around, and there are people grieving everywhere.
14:36
Speaker 2: So I am sure that your experience as we're about
14:39
Speaker 2: to get into really informed the way that you moved
14:43
Speaker 2: forward talk to us about first starting modern loss.
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Speaker 1: Yeah, and by the way, I kind of want to
14:50
Speaker 1: commend you on realizing this stuff, because you know, I
14:54
Speaker 1: think that we're in year three of COVID, right, so
14:56
Speaker 1: I think that we're all highly aware that grief is everywhere,
15:00
Speaker 1: permeating everything right now. I mean, you can't open your
15:04
Speaker 1: newsfeed without seeing something really tragic, be it what's going
15:07
Speaker 1: on in Ukraine. We're about to hit the million death
15:10
Speaker 1: mark in the United States from COVID alone. We're in
15:14
Speaker 1: a grief pandemic. But when I started Modern laws, I
15:20
Speaker 1: always said that I wish that I could put a
15:22
Speaker 1: microchip into someone's brain just for like two seconds so
15:27
Speaker 1: that they could feel what I felt, and I didn't
15:31
Speaker 1: want them to suffer. I just was so exhausted of
15:35
Speaker 1: trying to explain how I was feeling, and then I
15:37
Speaker 1: was even more exhausted trying to go out of my
15:40
Speaker 1: way to seem totally fine, because most people made it
15:43
Speaker 1: clear that they didn't really want to know the answer
15:46
Speaker 1: to how are you, And especially when it was like
15:48
Speaker 1: how are you, I was like, Ah, this person doesn't
15:50
Speaker 1: want to know. They just like they don't know what
15:53
Speaker 1: else to say, so they're just asking. They don't want
15:56
Speaker 1: to know the real answer. And I appreciated that the
15:59
Speaker 1: concern a lot of this was offered, like you know,
16:02
Speaker 1: people care. I still shockingly believe in the inherent good
16:06
Speaker 1: of humanity. But the reason I started Modern Loss with
16:11
Speaker 1: Gabby is because I got so sick of feeling like
16:16
Speaker 1: the conversation about grief and loss and the long arc
16:19
Speaker 1: of it all had to be kind of like othered.
16:22
Speaker 1: It had to be siloed into something that was like
16:25
Speaker 1: at a therapist's office or maybe you know, in your
16:29
Speaker 1: religious circle of choice, or you know, with like two
16:32
Speaker 1: close friends who were the safe friends. And I was like, God,
16:37
Speaker 1: I mean I'm thirty years old. I spend ten hours
16:39
Speaker 1: a day at work with really cool people. I go
16:42
Speaker 1: home and I crash at night, and then I have
16:44
Speaker 1: like a few hours of social time during the weekends.
16:47
Speaker 1: Like why can't this is folded? Grief is folded into
16:50
Speaker 1: my every single day, Like it doesn't respect working hours.
16:53
Speaker 1: It doesn't like start at the end of the business
16:56
Speaker 1: day and end at nine in the morning the next day.
16:59
Speaker 1: It's every grief is all. It's how I'm looking at
17:02
Speaker 1: the world. It's how I'm maybe choosing my next career step.
17:07
Speaker 1: It's how I might decide who I want to date
17:10
Speaker 1: or if I want to have kids, or what financial
17:13
Speaker 1: decisions I want to make, or how I'm feeling physically.
17:16
Speaker 1: And I realized, like, really, when you're living with loss,
17:20
Speaker 1: that can mean everything. That loss really does foundationally alter
17:26
Speaker 1: your life and it can affect everything. And I just
17:29
Speaker 1: wanted to feel like I could talk about whatever I
17:34
Speaker 1: was going through, like you know, a hard anniversary, or
17:39
Speaker 1: just like how I was feeling extra sensitive after a
17:42
Speaker 1: conversation at work, maybe about like a creative project that
17:46
Speaker 1: made me feel extra sensitive because I was feeling very
17:48
Speaker 1: sad that day, or having you know, a feeling of
17:51
Speaker 1: a bit of trauma like PTSD. I wanted to feel
17:54
Speaker 1: like I could bring that up without feeling like the
17:56
Speaker 1: record had to come to a scratching halt and that
17:59
Speaker 1: it had to just like just be a grief conversation.
18:02
Speaker 1: I was still a person who loved laughing, who wanted
18:05
Speaker 1: to live a great life, who loved her friends, who
18:08
Speaker 1: loved a good joke, like I loved music. I loved
18:11
Speaker 1: all those things. I also was living with loss, and
18:14
Speaker 1: so I just wanted to feel like I could talk
18:17
Speaker 1: about that stuff in the same breath as I was
18:19
Speaker 1: talking about all the other stuff, and it didn't have
18:22
Speaker 1: to be something that, like, you know, all of a
18:24
Speaker 1: sudden you heard crickets. So modern LUSS really came out
18:27
Speaker 1: of that because Gabby and I were really tired of
18:32
Speaker 1: what had existed up until that point, which we were finding.
18:35
Speaker 1: We were like desperately looking for fora and communities to
18:41
Speaker 1: kind of storytell, and we found a lot of religious conversations.
18:44
Speaker 1: We found a lot of clinical conversations, you know, like,
18:48
Speaker 1: you know, I'm sure we all know the DSM five,
18:50
Speaker 1: you know, I would like self diagnose and go down
18:52
Speaker 1: the rabbit hole late at night and I thought something
18:54
Speaker 1: was so wrong with me, and then eventually I figured
18:57
Speaker 1: out that there was literally nothing wrong with me than
19:00
Speaker 1: that I was grieving, you know. And so we came
19:03
Speaker 1: up with modern loss as a way to fill the
19:04
Speaker 1: void that existed in like communal, very casual, let it
19:10
Speaker 1: all hang out, conversation, in peer to peer support, and
19:13
Speaker 1: stuff that wasn't anchored within platitudes or the pressure to
19:17
Speaker 1: fix something, you know, or assure someone that it takes
19:20
Speaker 1: a year or that it gets better or they're in
19:23
Speaker 1: a better place. We just wanted to create a space
19:25
Speaker 1: for storytelling and especially a place for people to show
19:32
Speaker 1: and not tell people of examples of what loss looked
19:36
Speaker 1: like and what resilience looked like, because this is a
19:39
Speaker 1: very life affirming thing that we wanted to do. This
19:41
Speaker 1: is not like a death project. To me, Modern loss
19:45
Speaker 1: is very much a life affirming thing. It's very much
19:48
Speaker 1: about helping people to live well, but giving them examples
19:51
Speaker 1: instead of just like giving them directives.
19:54
Speaker 3: Right, Yeah, there's so much more out there for you.
19:57
Speaker 2: Let's come together to talk about this that we can
19:59
Speaker 2: help another move forward in a productive and helpful way.
20:03
Speaker 2: I was so interested in what you said before and
20:06
Speaker 2: I would co sign it. For the most part, the
20:08
Speaker 2: idea of someone asking how are you and that person
20:12
Speaker 2: not knowing what to do with an honest answer to
20:16
Speaker 2: that question. I feel as though, in today's society, navigating
20:20
Speaker 2: grief can be, as you said, such an uncomfortable situation
20:25
Speaker 2: that we do almost everything we can destroy away for
20:29
Speaker 2: when these topics would arise. So kudos to you for
20:34
Speaker 2: creating this community space where it can be a little
20:37
Speaker 2: bit more normalized to have these conversations and what feels
20:41
Speaker 2: like a safe space without that judgment and without some
20:44
Speaker 2: of the paralysis that otherwise comes hand in hand with this. Now,
20:48
Speaker 2: I think what would be really helpful here is for
20:52
Speaker 2: those individuals that are dealing with grief on their own terms,
20:56
Speaker 2: regardless of how long they have been grieving, there are
21:00
Speaker 2: some helpful suggestions recommendations that you can make for them
21:05
Speaker 2: to help them on their journey. So where do we
21:09
Speaker 2: even start when it comes to trying to figure out
21:13
Speaker 2: how to navigate grief?
21:15
Speaker 1: Look, and I want to say in response to what
21:17
Speaker 1: you just said, is like, you know, some of the
21:21
Speaker 1: conversations that existed before modern laws came into the mix
21:25
Speaker 1: do help people, and some of them actually help me.
21:28
Speaker 1: They just don't all only help me, you know, like
21:32
Speaker 1: do you know what I mean, Like, they don't all Sorry,
21:35
Speaker 1: let me say that again, not one of them is
21:39
Speaker 1: the only thing that I go to. You know, I
21:43
Speaker 1: just really felt like I needed a space, and Gabby
21:46
Speaker 1: needed a space for people to be able to go
21:49
Speaker 1: and fly whatever flag they needed to fly, as long
21:53
Speaker 1: as they weren't hurting themselves or anybody else, you know,
21:55
Speaker 1: like really wanted this safe, warm conversational. We use a
22:00
Speaker 1: lot of humor, not because we're being disrespectful, but because
22:04
Speaker 1: grief is really messy and sometimes you have to laugh
22:07
Speaker 1: about it because it's totally ludicrous. And also, loss is
22:11
Speaker 1: a forever thing. So if you can't find moments of
22:14
Speaker 1: joy and laughter and levity what you have, you know,
22:17
Speaker 1: as you move through life, you have every reason to
22:20
Speaker 1: feel like you have a community of people who are
22:22
Speaker 1: giving you an ongoing invitation to say whatever you need
22:25
Speaker 1: to say. And I also believe that, yes, kudos to me,
22:30
Speaker 1: kudos to Gabby. But also you know, selfishly, we were
22:34
Speaker 1: just getting really tired of feeling like we had to
22:37
Speaker 1: put on all of these facades to the world saying,
22:40
Speaker 1: you know, it's totally fine. We don't have to talk
22:42
Speaker 1: about anything. Like to do something like this, to launch
22:46
Speaker 1: this project felt like more of an exhale and more
22:48
Speaker 1: of a relief than to keep on spinning our wheels
22:51
Speaker 1: and pretending like all this stuff wasn't going on underneath
22:55
Speaker 1: the surface. Because you know, what I have come to
22:58
Speaker 1: learn is that or is And this is one of
23:01
Speaker 1: my first you know, specific points for your listeners is
23:07
Speaker 1: that there really is no healing without acknowledgment. It's really
23:13
Speaker 1: hard to feel like you can move through something that
23:16
Speaker 1: feels hard, impossible, painful, lonely if you don't feel like
23:23
Speaker 1: there's at least one other person in the world who
23:27
Speaker 1: is saying, yeah, this is hard, I see you in
23:29
Speaker 1: this and not trying to fix it for you and
23:31
Speaker 1: not try and not trying to, you know, brush it
23:34
Speaker 1: aside or say it'll get better. But you know what,
23:36
Speaker 1: this is a hard thing you're dealing with. And I
23:39
Speaker 1: think that that is like the very first thing that
23:42
Speaker 1: I would tell anybody who's who is grieving right now,
23:45
Speaker 1: and it's so many of us is and and grief.
23:48
Speaker 1: You know, it could be grief from the loss of
23:49
Speaker 1: a marriage, from the loss of a friendship, like grief.
23:52
Speaker 1: You know, I modern loss is mostly grief as it
23:55
Speaker 1: stems from a death loss, but feelings of grief are
23:58
Speaker 1: very similar. You can find these threads in so many
24:00
Speaker 1: different life experiences. And so just think about the last
24:04
Speaker 1: time you maybe worked really hard on a project at
24:07
Speaker 1: work and you sent it to your manager and maybe
24:10
Speaker 1: they weren't so appreciative of the fact that you worked
24:12
Speaker 1: all weekend and you gave up all this time, and you'll,
24:16
Speaker 1: you know, you're just like running yourself into the ground
24:18
Speaker 1: and you did this and they were like, Okay, thanks,
24:20
Speaker 1: how did that make you feel?
24:21
Speaker 3: Right?
24:22
Speaker 1: So it just feels like even that much worse if
24:25
Speaker 1: we don't feel seen and acknowledged and appreciated in what
24:28
Speaker 1: we're actually going through when it comes to grief. I'm
24:31
Speaker 1: a big believer in the right grief therapy. I truly believe,
24:35
Speaker 1: you know, I'm I'm luck we're chatting. I'm an Upper
24:39
Speaker 1: West Side New York jewess, So clearly I believe in therapy.
24:47
Speaker 1: But I also believe, especially for grief therapy. I feel
24:50
Speaker 1: like it's so important to find somebody who has not
24:56
Speaker 1: only a vested interest, like a personal interest, but a
24:59
Speaker 1: professional interest and the professional training to give you a
25:03
Speaker 1: dedicated place to talk about your grief and a place
25:08
Speaker 1: that's really safe that is removed from anybody else who
25:12
Speaker 1: might have biases, like maybe another family member or a
25:16
Speaker 1: friend if you're grieving the same friend, Like you really
25:19
Speaker 1: need to give yourself the gift of your own dedicated
25:23
Speaker 1: space to explore whatever you're going through and have somebody
25:27
Speaker 1: who is trained to give you things that you can
25:30
Speaker 1: try out that may help you, and if they don't,
25:34
Speaker 1: then suggest something else. And so I just want to
25:37
Speaker 1: start by saying, huge believer in formal therapy that said,
25:44
Speaker 1: I don't think it's the only thing. I think that
25:47
Speaker 1: when it comes to grief, you know, there's no like
25:51
Speaker 1: you know, here's the solution. Like my book is called
25:54
Speaker 1: the Modern Lost Handbook. There's a reason it's like two
25:57
Speaker 1: hundred and thirty pages long because there's a lot of
26:00
Speaker 1: stuff that you should be trying. And I think that
26:03
Speaker 1: the key when you're faced with a loss that feels
26:09
Speaker 1: so notable to you, and if it feels notable to you,
26:15
Speaker 1: then it is it's a big one. I don't care
26:18
Speaker 1: who it is that you lost, then you really need
26:21
Speaker 1: to figure out a way to stay connected with your person.
26:25
Speaker 1: I think that's really important. I think that people forget
26:29
Speaker 1: that just because somebody died, it doesn't mean that you
26:31
Speaker 1: don't still have a relationship with them. I still very
26:35
Speaker 1: much have a relationship with my mom. She's just not alive.
26:38
Speaker 1: I mean, it sucks. I wish she were alive. It
26:40
Speaker 1: would be a lot more enjoyable for me. I can't
26:43
Speaker 1: pretend that, like, oh, it's great now, I wish you
26:47
Speaker 1: were here every day. But I have figured out ways
26:50
Speaker 1: to stay connected to her, especially as I moved through
26:53
Speaker 1: life and my life shifts, you know, and I got
26:57
Speaker 1: married and I had kids, and when I lost her,
27:01
Speaker 1: I didn't have any of that. So I view her
27:04
Speaker 1: differently with each passing year. And in a way, it's
27:07
Speaker 1: very rich for me. It's like getting to know her
27:09
Speaker 1: in a different way because I'm like relating to her
27:13
Speaker 1: in a different way. So I think that figuring out
27:15
Speaker 1: how to stay connected with your person through like memory,
27:19
Speaker 1: through creating really meaningful and creative rituals that make you
27:23
Speaker 1: feel connected to them, like figuring out ways to get
27:25
Speaker 1: through the big days like the death aversaries and the
27:29
Speaker 1: you know, I call them anniversary season, which is everybody
27:33
Speaker 1: everyone knows what I'm talking about. Who has this. There's
27:36
Speaker 1: always this like insulting stretch of the calendar where it
27:39
Speaker 1: seems like all the important dates happen at once, right,
27:44
Speaker 1: like it's someone died, someone was diagnosed, and then it's
27:47
Speaker 1: like all the holidays, and then it's like your birthday,
27:50
Speaker 1: and then it's like Arbor Day. And somehow that feels
27:53
Speaker 1: really hard to so like, you know, like you need
27:56
Speaker 1: to figure out ways to kind of like as time
27:59
Speaker 1: moves on farness these days and either just like let
28:01
Speaker 1: the day be the day and kind of move through
28:04
Speaker 1: it somehow, or like try and craft it into something
28:07
Speaker 1: that feels like meaningful to you instead of just like
28:11
Speaker 1: suffering through it because you don't deserve that. And I
28:14
Speaker 1: think that you really need to figure out ways to
28:16
Speaker 1: stay connected with yourself, not just with your person, because
28:20
Speaker 1: like I was saying beforehand, grief is like an all
28:22
Speaker 1: encompassing thing. It takes charge of our physicality, of our anatomy.
28:28
Speaker 1: In the first like six months alone after losing my mom,
28:31
Speaker 1: I got like a brain MRI because I had vertigo,
28:35
Speaker 1: I had stomach issues. I couldn't sleep a full night
28:38
Speaker 1: for months and months and months, like grief just like
28:41
Speaker 1: took hold of me, like I was like this marionette
28:43
Speaker 1: that it was yanking around the room and I did
28:47
Speaker 1: not realize that it was grief. Like that is how
28:50
Speaker 1: ignorant I was, And that is also how abnormalized. The
28:53
Speaker 1: conversation was that not even one doctor was like, well,
28:57
Speaker 1: you know, your mom just died in a really bad
28:59
Speaker 1: car accident. It could be that you're just having a
29:03
Speaker 1: hard time. Not even one doctor said that to me.
29:07
Speaker 1: So figuring out ways to like, you know, what do
29:10
Speaker 1: you need for you that, like, you know, in terms
29:13
Speaker 1: of therapy, in terms of your mind, your body, like
29:16
Speaker 1: what coping mechanisms make your body feel better? You know?
29:19
Speaker 1: Is it physical? Like I know you're a runner, right,
29:22
Speaker 1: is it running a marathon? Is it just running? If
29:25
Speaker 1: you're not a runner, then please, by all means, do
29:27
Speaker 1: not make yourself do like team in training in someone's
29:30
Speaker 1: memory just because they were a runner and died from leukemia.
29:34
Speaker 1: You know, figure out what works for you. Is it
29:37
Speaker 1: some other physical activity? Is it like mindfulness? Is it
29:41
Speaker 1: doing more nature therapy? Is it art therapy? There's so
29:44
Speaker 1: many amazing things that you can do. Figuring those out
29:47
Speaker 1: and chances are it's a lot of those things all together.
29:51
Speaker 1: And then the third thing that you need to do
29:53
Speaker 1: in addition to staying connected to your person staying connected
29:56
Speaker 1: to yourself is figure out a way to ground yourself
29:58
Speaker 1: and stay connected to the world around you. So I
30:01
Speaker 1: feel like those are like the three goals when it
30:04
Speaker 1: comes to moving through a really profound loss, because you
30:07
Speaker 1: still have to deal with your friends and deal with
30:12
Speaker 1: maybe your intimate relationships, or find some or figure out
30:17
Speaker 1: ways to get through the workday and build something meaningful
30:20
Speaker 1: because you deserve it, you know. But the world, just
30:24
Speaker 1: at the very least our culture has not done a
30:26
Speaker 1: really good job of like serving up what we need
30:29
Speaker 1: and intuiting what we need when we're grieving and providing
30:33
Speaker 1: it to us. So the reality is is that it
30:36
Speaker 1: does fall on our shoulders as the grievers, to figure
30:40
Speaker 1: out how we can kind of level up and ask
30:45
Speaker 1: for what we need. It's not, by the way, not fair,
30:48
Speaker 1: I just want to clarify, but it kind of is
30:51
Speaker 1: what it is.
30:56
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34:26
Speaker 2: So many great tips in there, starting with acknowledging what's
34:29
Speaker 2: going on, being honest with yourself about how you're feeling.
34:33
Speaker 2: I love what you said, the note of understanding that
34:36
Speaker 2: someone in your life that may be grieving, they're not
34:39
Speaker 2: necessarily at any given moment looking for your advice on
34:44
Speaker 2: how to move forward with their grief, but rather just
34:46
Speaker 2: looking for someone to hold a safe space for them
34:49
Speaker 2: and I think that that is such a really beautiful
34:52
Speaker 2: and important point. Also the recommendation of seeking out a
34:55
Speaker 2: therapist and understanding that you want someone that is going
34:58
Speaker 2: to be able to hold that same space for you
35:01
Speaker 2: and come to you with an unbiased point of view.
35:04
Speaker 2: And I really really appreciated the idea of reframing experiences
35:10
Speaker 2: or moments that maybe you had with that person and
35:13
Speaker 2: perhaps even starting new traditions. I think that that's a
35:17
Speaker 2: really beautiful opportunity. Is Yes, you can feel some kind
35:21
Speaker 2: of way upset, frustrated, what have you about things needing
35:25
Speaker 2: to shift going forward, But to your point of the
35:28
Speaker 2: necessity of having to live your life, that life is
35:32
Speaker 2: going to go on. So you have it within your
35:34
Speaker 2: power to make the decision of how you do that.
35:38
Speaker 2: Starting new traditions, thinking of things a different way, it
35:41
Speaker 2: can make all the difference it can.
35:44
Speaker 1: And I want to say that, like, I'm not saying
35:47
Speaker 1: that you need to figure this out like the first
35:51
Speaker 1: month after a loss, right, Like I it took me
35:55
Speaker 1: a really long time to even find the right grief therapist.
36:00
Speaker 1: I mean, I don't think I found the right person
36:02
Speaker 1: for me, which this is an excusable for two years,
36:04
Speaker 1: like two. I mean, it took me so long, and
36:07
Speaker 1: then it took me a really long time to figure
36:09
Speaker 1: out my social supports and so it just took me
36:11
Speaker 1: a really long time. But that's because I was just
36:14
Speaker 1: I didn't have any roadmap whatsoever, and so many people
36:17
Speaker 1: weren't talking about this. And so what modern loss is
36:20
Speaker 1: trying to do is like just put hanging out there,
36:22
Speaker 1: you know, like we don't have anything to be embarrassed about.
36:24
Speaker 1: Let's let it all hang out so that you can
36:26
Speaker 1: see examples of what other people are going through and
36:29
Speaker 1: you can be exposed to other ways of thinking ritual
36:32
Speaker 1: ideas that you might not have thought of right or
36:35
Speaker 1: or venting, or you know, hearing what other people are
36:37
Speaker 1: struggling with and you know, seeing how they're moving through it,
36:41
Speaker 1: and maybe that's kind of going to help you as
36:43
Speaker 1: you move through your own thing. And I do want
36:46
Speaker 1: to say, like just with a very specific thing, like
36:48
Speaker 1: when you talk about creating new rituals, you know that
36:51
Speaker 1: is that can be so amazing. And I think that
36:55
Speaker 1: we all look at holidays right it's like, oh, like
36:59
Speaker 1: the person is or the tradition is missing, and you
37:03
Speaker 1: don't necessarily have to take like Christmas or like, you know, Birthday.
37:08
Speaker 1: You don't have to, you know, say okay, what new
37:10
Speaker 1: tradition are we going to do at Christmas? You can
37:12
Speaker 1: create your own bespoke holiday in somebody's memory. And I'll
37:17
Speaker 1: give you an example. My friend Amanda's she's great, we
37:21
Speaker 1: went to Emory together. She's one of my favorite people.
37:24
Speaker 1: Her dad died right after she graduated college. His name
37:29
Speaker 1: is Dave, and I always say is because like people's
37:32
Speaker 1: names are still their names, by the way, And she
37:37
Speaker 1: had a really hard time with his death day. I mean,
37:39
Speaker 1: who wouldn't for a long time, and she was finally like, god, man,
37:46
Speaker 1: I would like to turn this into something that feels
37:51
Speaker 1: other than a day that I need to like muscle
37:53
Speaker 1: through somehow emotionally. And so she thought, well, my dad,
37:57
Speaker 1: you know, he really loved a good Bombay sapphiretail. He
38:01
Speaker 1: really loved filet of fish. And she started a holiday
38:04
Speaker 1: called the Dave John's Memorial Big Mac Day, and she
38:09
Speaker 1: sent out an email I think it was an email
38:12
Speaker 1: or early Facebook days and she was like, listen, this
38:14
Speaker 1: day in December, this is my dad's death day, and
38:18
Speaker 1: we're turning it into a holiday. And he loved this stuff.
38:22
Speaker 1: So I would love for you to go eat something decadent.
38:26
Speaker 1: Oh my god, just get whatever, like the worst possible
38:28
Speaker 1: thing is for you that you can really enjoy and
38:31
Speaker 1: just do it in my dad's name, like toast him,
38:35
Speaker 1: you know. And so as social media became more low
38:38
Speaker 1: touch and like more connected, every single year we all
38:42
Speaker 1: post photos of what we're eating. It's like some like
38:44
Speaker 1: awful crap for our bodies, and it's like so good
38:47
Speaker 1: and we say we're like, well, it's for Dave, you know,
38:50
Speaker 1: and it's just so amazing because we really do feel connected.
38:54
Speaker 1: Like I will never meet her dad, but I know
38:57
Speaker 1: that he was like a bomb vivont who I really loved,
39:00
Speaker 1: like relish life and was this larger than life personality.
39:05
Speaker 1: And I honor his memory for her by doing concrete
39:10
Speaker 1: things that she can see. So like I'm witnessing her loss.
39:15
Speaker 1: She feels like people are witnessing this day for her,
39:19
Speaker 1: but they're also creating a community to catch her. And
39:22
Speaker 1: it's just this. I just love that example, because you know,
39:27
Speaker 1: I love eating Big Max and I do it once a.
39:29
Speaker 2: Year, and I do it once a year for Dave.
39:33
Speaker 2: I really I love that example. I think it's really
39:36
Speaker 2: it's really beautiful, and I mean I'm always up for
39:39
Speaker 2: an excuse to load up on something good like that.
39:42
Speaker 2: I also really appreciate, beyond the idea of just going
39:47
Speaker 2: to therapy, and thank you for sharing your experience that
39:50
Speaker 2: it took a couple of years for you, because I
39:52
Speaker 2: think that's really helpful for people to hear. I also
39:55
Speaker 2: know that within the Modern Lost Handbook there are a
39:58
Speaker 2: lot of really helpful prompts for the readers to check out.
40:03
Speaker 2: So talk to us a little bit about why writing
40:06
Speaker 2: and why perhaps visiting some of these topics and you
40:10
Speaker 2: can feel free to share a few of them, why
40:13
Speaker 2: that exercise can be really helpful when it comes to
40:17
Speaker 2: navigating grief.
40:19
Speaker 1: Yeah. Well, so the book it's called the Modern Lost Handbook,
40:24
Speaker 1: But there's a reason it's not called the Modern Lost Workbook, right,
40:27
Speaker 1: which is it's not just a book where it's like
40:30
Speaker 1: full of just prompts. It's actually heavily written, but there
40:33
Speaker 1: are a lot of sections in which you can write.
40:36
Speaker 1: Because I truly believe, you know, modern laws was founded
40:41
Speaker 1: on the tenet that storytelling is a change agent and
40:44
Speaker 1: that if you can't figure out a way to reflect
40:49
Speaker 1: on and share your own narrative, then somebody else is
40:53
Speaker 1: going to be more than happy to like tell you
40:57
Speaker 1: what they think it should be, right, your boss, your friends.
41:01
Speaker 1: You know. I went through so so many months like
41:05
Speaker 1: walking into parties and thinking that like everybody was saying, oh,
41:09
Speaker 1: that's the girl with dead parents, and like I think
41:10
Speaker 1: some of them actually did to each other, but like
41:14
Speaker 1: some of that was also in my mind. And I
41:17
Speaker 1: was very nervous to start talking about what I was
41:20
Speaker 1: going through because I felt like I didn't want to
41:22
Speaker 1: be the Debbie Downer. I didn't want to scare people away.
41:27
Speaker 1: I didn't want them to think that grief was contagious,
41:29
Speaker 1: which it's not, but a lot of people think it is.
41:32
Speaker 1: And the more I realized that like nothing bad was
41:35
Speaker 1: happening if I was candid about what I was going through,
41:38
Speaker 1: If I felt like I wanted to share a memory
41:41
Speaker 1: of my mom on a given day, or tell my
41:43
Speaker 1: friend like, listen, I'm having a really hard time. I
41:46
Speaker 1: really think that I need somebody to just like come
41:48
Speaker 1: and sit with me tonight and watch Grey's Anatomy and
41:51
Speaker 1: like please don't talk, but just like be a physical
41:53
Speaker 1: presence next to me. It took me a while to
41:56
Speaker 1: figure out how to do all that stuff and not
41:59
Speaker 1: feel nervous or shy or embarrassed about it. And then
42:02
Speaker 1: I realized that like it felt so much more powerful.
42:06
Speaker 1: I felt so much more resilient, I felt so much
42:09
Speaker 1: more capable. I felt like I really was leveling up
42:12
Speaker 1: for myself during tough times, when I could get to
42:15
Speaker 1: the point where I could voice my needs and maybe
42:17
Speaker 1: they wouldn't be met, but at least I was voicing them,
42:19
Speaker 1: and then I wasn't like feeling resentful that they weren't
42:22
Speaker 1: being met. And so the prompts are, they're they're very varied,
42:26
Speaker 1: you know, throughout the book, but there are a lot
42:28
Speaker 1: of exercises that helped you to kind of examine where
42:32
Speaker 1: you're at with your loss. One of them is called
42:34
Speaker 1: a six word memoir, which I love this practice so much.
42:38
Speaker 1: It's basically like coming up with your story wherever you're at,
42:41
Speaker 1: in six words, you know, and I do these a
42:44
Speaker 1: lot at live storytelling events for modern loss. You know.
42:47
Speaker 1: Some examples are, she never got to see Paris and
42:52
Speaker 1: now I'm an only child, I would say mine. One
42:56
Speaker 1: of mine is Jay Daters don't like dead moms, you know,
43:00
Speaker 1: so It could be like as simple as sitting down
43:03
Speaker 1: and writing a list of like six words of what
43:05
Speaker 1: you're feeling, or as fleshed out as you know. The
43:10
Speaker 1: section on friendship in which I try and guide you
43:14
Speaker 1: through kind of taking stock of who is in your
43:17
Speaker 1: circle right and who are the friends who you can
43:20
Speaker 1: go to for particular things, and how you can build
43:23
Speaker 1: up a network of people who really can catch you
43:26
Speaker 1: with whatever you're going through on any given day. And
43:29
Speaker 1: that does take writing and reflecting on who's in your life.
43:33
Speaker 1: It does take writing down what you might respond to
43:37
Speaker 1: somebody who says something that really hits you the wrong way.
43:40
Speaker 1: People say really dumb things to people who are grieving.
43:44
Speaker 1: It doesn't mean that the people are dumb. It just
43:46
Speaker 1: means they say dumb things like I don't know one
43:49
Speaker 1: person who has ever been comforted by you know it
43:51
Speaker 1: takes a year, or like at least you weren't super close,
43:55
Speaker 1: or at least they met your husbands like I, you know,
43:58
Speaker 1: or you can always get pregnant. And again, I mean,
44:00
Speaker 1: like the list goes on and on. These are always
44:03
Speaker 1: offered with the best intentions, but they ring hollow. I guarantee,
44:07
Speaker 1: even things that are maybe faith based that are offered
44:11
Speaker 1: to somebody who has a lot of faith may ring
44:13
Speaker 1: hollow because you know, grief levels so much and it
44:16
Speaker 1: really may shake your faith for a period of time.
44:19
Speaker 1: And so you know, there's a whole section on like
44:22
Speaker 1: figuring out writing through like when people say certain things
44:25
Speaker 1: like how would you like to respond to them? How
44:27
Speaker 1: would you like to say, like this isn't helpful in
44:29
Speaker 1: a way that rings true to you. How would you
44:31
Speaker 1: like to speak up for what you need? How would
44:33
Speaker 1: you like to talk to your manager about like different
44:36
Speaker 1: things that you might need regarding maybe flexible schedules, time off,
44:41
Speaker 1: stuff like that. And so I do find writing to
44:44
Speaker 1: be an incredibly healing activity, and it doesn't have to
44:47
Speaker 1: be penning the next year of magical thinking.
44:50
Speaker 2: That's why you're trying to say. I do think it's
44:52
Speaker 2: super helpful, and I also love your point. The things
44:56
Speaker 2: that may not be the most comforting, they're very early,
45:00
Speaker 2: if ever delivered with the wrong intention, right, So it's
45:06
Speaker 2: just that these individuals they don't know what could be
45:10
Speaker 2: quote unquote the right thing to say. So it's not
45:14
Speaker 2: your responsibility to educate them necessarily. But I do think
45:19
Speaker 2: that at least knowing that while you're going through these
45:22
Speaker 2: troubling times, it helps you kind of navigate forward in
45:26
Speaker 2: whatever way you have to navigate forward. Having a little
45:28
Speaker 2: bit extra compassion for yourself and how you hear these
45:32
Speaker 2: things can be super, super valuable. I do have one
45:36
Speaker 2: more question for you, and I'm really curious about this
45:39
Speaker 2: because I feel as though someone listening to this they
45:43
Speaker 2: hear a strong woman, a mother, a wife who has
45:48
Speaker 2: truly gone through some really devastating loss and now at
45:51
Speaker 2: the forefront of this community talking about grief so regularly.
45:56
Speaker 2: Do you ever feel as though perhaps the or that
46:00
Speaker 2: you use to help others is one that you have
46:04
Speaker 2: to fall on navigating your own personal grief journey.
46:08
Speaker 1: Wow, Oh, such a poetic thought to ponder at two
46:16
Speaker 1: forty eight pm. So so yeah, I mean, look, it's
46:22
Speaker 1: a fair question. As I said at the beginning of
46:25
Speaker 1: the conversation, this is absolutely not the path that I
46:28
Speaker 1: would have chosen for myself in life, right Like, first,
46:33
Speaker 1: I wouldn't have chosen to have two dead parents by
46:35
Speaker 1: the age of thirty four, That much is clear. But
46:38
Speaker 1: I never thought that I would turn like my personal
46:42
Speaker 1: grief into a mission. And I absolutely do not believe
46:46
Speaker 1: that everything everybody has to turn their hard thing into
46:50
Speaker 1: a mission. I think that's like suggested in our society
46:54
Speaker 1: that like, oh, it's like you need to run a
46:55
Speaker 1: marathon in their name, or you need to create a founder.
46:57
Speaker 1: You don't have to do anything. The only thing that
46:59
Speaker 1: you need to do is figure out how to live
47:02
Speaker 1: and how to live well, because you've made a choice
47:05
Speaker 1: to stick around, and you deserve to figure out how
47:08
Speaker 1: to live the best life that you can possibly live
47:11
Speaker 1: with the hand that you have been dealt. Every single
47:13
Speaker 1: person deserves that chance. It's just that, in my crazy reality,
47:19
Speaker 1: I did choose to turn this grief into this particular mission,
47:23
Speaker 1: mostly because you know, I'm a writer, I'm a producer,
47:27
Speaker 1: I'm a journalist, I'm a storyteller. So like all of
47:30
Speaker 1: this stuff already kind of aligned with what I do
47:33
Speaker 1: naturally and professionally. I mean, I built communities. You know,
47:36
Speaker 1: this was like kind of already like a very natural
47:40
Speaker 1: thing for me to do. And I understood the content.
47:43
Speaker 1: I understood what needed to be said in the conversation,
47:48
Speaker 1: not just because of my own experience, but because of
47:50
Speaker 1: the experience of so many of our community members, which
47:53
Speaker 1: are all over the world now, and so yes, like
47:56
Speaker 1: a lot of people did say, you know, you should
47:57
Speaker 1: be careful because this night really hold you back, This
48:01
Speaker 1: might prevent you from moving through something and getting to
48:05
Speaker 1: a better place. I found quite the opposite, because so
48:09
Speaker 1: many people have asked me like how can you When
48:12
Speaker 1: I started Modern Loss, everybody looked at me and Gabby
48:15
Speaker 1: as though we were super morbid. People like why do
48:18
Speaker 1: you want to do a death project? Why do you
48:19
Speaker 1: want to talk about grief? And I was like, have
48:24
Speaker 1: you met me? Like I just worked at Comedy Central,
48:27
Speaker 1: Like this isn't this isn't a morbid project. This is
48:31
Speaker 1: a very life affirming thing. I'm trying to help people
48:35
Speaker 1: feel like they can share their stories with others, and
48:38
Speaker 1: then by extension, I'm trying to help them build community
48:41
Speaker 1: with others. And then by extension, we're trying to teach others,
48:45
Speaker 1: just through really good storytelling, what it must feel like
48:48
Speaker 1: to go through something like this. And then maybe we're
48:51
Speaker 1: making it easier for the next person that goes through it,
48:54
Speaker 1: because slowly we're changing how we approach a conversation in
48:59
Speaker 1: this culture. So I feel very motivated, I feel very grateful.
49:03
Speaker 1: I feel like this was in some ways, like a
49:06
Speaker 1: very selfish project that was started to answer some questions
49:10
Speaker 1: that I had about my own loss and what my
49:15
Speaker 1: own path, but ended up teaching me exponentially more than
49:21
Speaker 1: I ever thought it could. And to see people connect
49:28
Speaker 1: with each other and pull each other through this darkness
49:34
Speaker 1: stemming from some of the worst things that have ever
49:36
Speaker 1: happened in their lives. I feel incredibly lucky to go
49:41
Speaker 1: through that. And I do have moments where, yeah, I
49:45
Speaker 1: wish I could take a break from loss. I mean,
49:48
Speaker 1: of course I do. I'm a human person, right, and
49:51
Speaker 1: I have had a lot of hard moments over the
49:55
Speaker 1: last couple of years because the grief has been so
50:00
Speaker 1: oh palpable in the world.
50:03
Speaker 2: You know.
50:03
Speaker 1: It's like I've already been working in grief, and now everybody,
50:07
Speaker 1: you know, it's like the first time in eight years
50:10
Speaker 1: that no one says, oh, like what you were what
50:15
Speaker 1: you do is kind of interesting, you know, And by
50:17
Speaker 1: interesting they mean like sounds kind of weird. Everybody understands
50:21
Speaker 1: why we have to be talking about this stuff out
50:23
Speaker 1: loud right now, And so it is a lot to hold.
50:26
Speaker 1: It's a lot to hold, and so I just continually
50:30
Speaker 1: have to figure out ways to treat myself kindly. I
50:34
Speaker 1: have to take my own advice as it were in
50:36
Speaker 1: the book and listen to my body, you know, listen
50:39
Speaker 1: to my needs and feed them.
50:42
Speaker 2: I was just going to say, I mean, this is
50:43
Speaker 2: like your last tip, right asking yourself what is it
50:46
Speaker 2: that you need so that you can better show up
50:48
Speaker 2: in the day to day. And I will also add
50:50
Speaker 2: to that that I'm so sure that your community is
50:55
Speaker 2: indebted and forever grateful for the work that you put
50:58
Speaker 2: into creating this space and everyone that comes to the
51:01
Speaker 2: space better for having stumbled upon it. So thank you
51:06
Speaker 2: so much for both what you do and also for
51:09
Speaker 2: sharing your tips with the hurdlers. I know, again, we
51:13
Speaker 2: gave that huge statistic earlier. More than fifty seven percent
51:16
Speaker 2: of Americans reported experience and maging loss over the last
51:19
Speaker 2: three years. That stat is from the very beginning of
51:22
Speaker 2: the pandemic. So now, well, do you know where.
51:25
Speaker 1: We're at now? There's something called a bereavement multiplier, which
51:29
Speaker 1: suggests that for every person who has died from COVID,
51:36
Speaker 1: and we're kind of at hovering around the million person
51:39
Speaker 1: mark right now in this country. By the way, that
51:42
Speaker 1: number could very well be two hundred thousand more than
51:45
Speaker 1: that because of their they look at like what the
51:48
Speaker 1: death rate normally is versus what it actually is, and
51:50
Speaker 1: it's actually two hundred thousand more than it should be.
51:54
Speaker 1: And it could be from lingering symptoms or things stemming
51:57
Speaker 1: from the pandemic. For every person who dies from COVID,
52:02
Speaker 1: nine people are directly affected by that death. It could
52:07
Speaker 1: be a dependent dependence, It could be a partner, it
52:12
Speaker 1: could be a business partner, it could be a friend,
52:15
Speaker 1: It could be so many people. So just do the math.
52:18
Speaker 1: I mean this. We are living with so much loss
52:22
Speaker 1: right now, and we are in a grief pandemic that
52:26
Speaker 1: is going to way outlast the viral pandemic, and we
52:32
Speaker 1: have to figure out a way to pull each other
52:37
Speaker 1: through this. We have to because what more do we
52:40
Speaker 1: have but each other. Sorry to sound pollyannish, but it's true.
52:44
Speaker 3: Yeah.
52:44
Speaker 2: To finish off here, really the idea of as you
52:48
Speaker 2: just kind of touched on, putting your own oxygen mask
52:50
Speaker 2: on so that you can make sure that you are
52:52
Speaker 2: in a good place to help other people. It starts
52:55
Speaker 2: with doing that internal audit and going from there and
52:58
Speaker 2: perhaps getting into some of those journaling that we mentioned,
53:01
Speaker 2: and so much more so. Again, thank you so much
53:04
Speaker 2: for your help your insight.
53:06
Speaker 1: Rebecca.
53:07
Speaker 2: How do the hurdlers follow along with you? How do
53:09
Speaker 2: they keep up with you? Give us the info?
53:13
Speaker 1: So if you do at Modern Loss anywhere, you'll find
53:16
Speaker 1: us on Instagram, Twitter, or on Facebook. I'm at Reboke. Sorry,
53:21
Speaker 1: I'm at Rebecca Sofer everywhere. Soffer Modern laws dot Com
53:26
Speaker 1: is the publication. Everything is open and free to the public.
53:29
Speaker 1: And also I have a newsletter on substack, which is
53:33
Speaker 1: like a monthly deep dive in which I talk to
53:36
Speaker 1: different like notable figures.
53:38
Speaker 2: You know.
53:38
Speaker 1: I've spoken with Cynthia Nixon and Stacy London. It's just
53:41
Speaker 1: been this incredible experience of kind of like doing a
53:44
Speaker 1: deep dive into grief and resilience that really kind of
53:47
Speaker 1: lets people kind of pull the curtain back into someone
53:49
Speaker 1: else's experience. And of course, now this book, The Modern
53:53
Speaker 1: Lost Handbook and Interactive Guide to Moving through Grief and
53:57
Speaker 1: Building Your Resilience, is available wherever books are sold for
54:01
Speaker 1: pre order and out in the world. May seventeenth.
54:05
Speaker 2: I will make sure to link the book in the
54:09
Speaker 2: show notes. Is the Substackmodernlass at substock dot com. Yes, yes, awesome,
54:14
Speaker 2: all right, I'll link.
54:15
Speaker 3: That as well.
54:15
Speaker 1: Rebecca, thanks so much.
54:16
Speaker 2: I'm over at Emily a Body and at Hurdle Podcast
54:20
Speaker 2: Another hurdle conquered.
54:22
Speaker 3: Catch you guys next time.