grief and sleep are deeply intertwined together.
So whether you are lying awake at 2 a.m.
with a racing mind or waking up after 13 hours of sleeping
and still feeling tired,
this is all normal in the landscape of grief,
but that does not mean that you'd have to suffer
through sleeplessness or oversleeping
without some kind of support.
(gentle music)
- Hi, New Grief Growers, and welcome back to Grief Grower.
I am so grateful to be here with you today, as always.
If you've been growing alongside me in my work for a while,
welcome back, and if you are new to me and my work.
Hello.
My name is Shelby Farsithia.
I am a grief coach, three time author,
and the founder of Life After Loss Academy,
which is an online course in community
that has helped dozens of greeting people stop feeling lost,
stuck, broken, and alone,
and start building lives that they genuinely love
from the lives that loss forced them to live.
And we just surpassed more than 65 students in life
after loss academy.
On this podcast and across all of my work,
we include an honor not only death-related losses,
but also losses like divorce and breakup,
major diagnosis, and every single other type of loss
that changes your life.
Here we believe that grief is not something we get over.
It is something that we grow with and alongside,
and that when we stop treating grief like a problem
to be solved and start treating it like an invitation
to live more deeply, we create meaningful lives
that are rich with the memories that we carry,
all of the struggles that we faced,
and the preciousness of what it is to be here right now.
Before we get into this episode,
just a quick reminder that released day for my third book,
which is called, of course, I'm here right now.
It is that giant poster behind me.
It is this book in my hand.
It is coming up in less than three months on March 31st.
This little guidebook, this is a skinny book,
teaches you how to support a grieving person
in your life with the best free tool
that any of us has at our disposal.
And that is words.
So that you will never enter into another conversation
with a grieving person, whether you're supporting a friend,
a family member, a coworker, a neighbor,
a client in some form of your work,
wondering what on earth do I say to support them?
As an author, pre-orders are very helpful to me.
So if you have not pre-ordered the book,
please do so at the link in the show notes.
If you have already pre-ordered the book,
and I know so many of you have,
because I'm getting Instagram messages and emails
every single day, thank you so much.
You can submit your receipt number
from Bookshop, Amazon, Barnes and Noble,
wherever you have ordered the book,
your local indie bookstore.
On my website, at shallbeforsithia.com to access
the free six week book club where we will read,
of course I'm here right now,
in its entirety as a group together,
and discuss it as a group.
This book club kicks off in the first early part of April,
so make sure that you have your copy of the book before then.
And last thing before we get into today's episode,
if you would like to celebrate the launch of this book with me,
I am hosting two launch parties
that I would be so honored if you would attend.
The first one is taking place,
the eve before the book actually comes out
on March 30th here in Chicago.
So if you wanna get your hands on a copy of the book,
before it's released to the rest of the world
on March 30th, I hope you'll join me in Chicago.
The second one is the day that the book comes out,
which is March 31st here on YouTube,
so no matter where in the world you live,
you can tune in to hear more about the clients
and interactions that inspired the phrases
that are in this book,
and also what to say to support the people
who are grieving in your own life.
I'll be reading excerpts from the book,
I'll be taking your questions, we'll be doing it all.
And yes, as per usual, the replay will be available
if you cannot attend that launch party live.
You can find tickets for both of those events,
again at ShelbyFersidia.com or at the link in the show notes.
Okay, today's podcast is one that is very near and dear
to my heart because it is about sleep.
One of my favorite things, one of the hardest things
after both of my losses, the loss of my mom,
in 2013, the death of my best friend in 2022,
and across other seasons of loss in my life,
being diagnosed with a chronic illness,
the breakup of an engagement, the world being what the world is.
Right now, job loss, other things,
any other season where sleep has been difficult,
grief and sleep are deeply intertwined together.
And no matter in what way,
loss is tearing through your life right now.
Your relationship to sleep can radically change,
sometimes seemingly overnight.
Either you can't fall asleep,
no matter how exhausted you feel,
or you can't get enough sleep.
Sometimes both are true in the same week,
or in the same day.
So whether you are lying awake at 2 a.m.
without bracing mind or waking up after 13 hours of sleeping
and still feeling tired,
this is all normal in the landscape of grief,
but that does not mean,
and I wanna drive this home today,
that you do have to suffer through sleeplessness
or over sleeping without some kind of support.
So today on the show,
I wanna cover 11 grief-informed ways
from a grief coach, hi, hello. (laughs)
To sleep better, divided into three sections
so that you can help yourself be able to rest again,
even if nothing else in your world feels restful right now.
So the first category that I wanna get into,
I'm gonna give you three sort of phases or stages
of things you can do with sleep is what to do during the day
to help you sleep at night.
I think a lot of people make the mistake of thinking
that sleep prep happens in the hour,
maybe the half hour before you go to sleep,
but a lot of preparing to sleep is made up
of what the hell is happening during your day.
And if you have been grieving for more than one night,
you know that a grieving brain and a grieving body
do not automatically switch to off at bedtime
as much as you might like it to.
So if your days are filled with things
that are chaotic and overstimulating
or on the other side of that spectrum,
your days are filled with things that are numb
and motionless as one client of mine said,
stuck in a frozen mode,
your nervous system is likely still jittering
on some level or hopping around on some level
when your head hits the pillow at night.
So these are daytime practices that you can do
that help regulate your body and your nervous system
and your brain so that you are not carrying
so much into the night when you are trying to sleep.
The first one is to move your body even a little bit.
And this is not about weightlifting or burning calories.
This is things like walking or yoga
or dancing to a song in your kitchen.
All of these things are really helpful for releasing
the griefy stress and restlessness
that can build up during the day.
This is about shifting your focus
from the mind spinning, the anxiety, the remination,
the things to do and the heart aching
the emotional aspects of grief into the biological
of your physical body to be soothed
and regulated in the face of grief.
And something that I like to offer clients
and students a lot is this,
if you consider how you might physically comfort
a suffering or a wounded animal or a crying baby
and then picture yourself as that living creature in need,
what would you do to comfort them?
You might rub your arms and legs,
you might pat your chest lightly like super gently,
even bouncing in place.
Sometimes I do this at the train.
I'll just bounce from foot to foot
to get stress out from the day on my way to work
on my way home from work after reading the news.
There's all kinds of reasons to be bouncing from foot to foot
while you are waiting for something else or doing something else.
These are all beautiful ways to relieve stress
and to settle your nerves during the day.
And I'll say, of course,
I will use invalidating language here.
Of course, if you want to run, if you want to go climbing,
if you want to do jumping jacks,
if you want to lift heavy weights at the gym,
you can certainly do this.
In 2024, I was featured in an article by Pop Sugar
about running to cope with grief.
It was something that I instinctually just started doing
when we got the news that my mom was dying.
I would just run up and down my street
and then after she died, I kept running
to get the stress of grief out of my body.
But that level, that intensity of vigorous exercise
is not the only movement that can tuck or you out
and settle your nerves.
Movement of any kind can help your body
calm itself down during the day
so that it can recognize that it's safe enough to rest later.
And I'll give you a little asterisk bonus points here.
If you can exercise outdoors, do it.
Natural light movement, both of these things married together,
can help reset your internal sleep weight clock,
especially if you're able to move in the morning
or like when the sun goes down and as a transition
to nighttime.
So like any time of day is fantastic,
but especially in sort of like those dawn dusk hours
when the world is making its own transitions
your body can be making those transitions
from brain to body or from waking to sleeping as well.
Number two in the section of things to do during the day
is to set small and repeatable rituals.
We talk about this all the time here on grief grower.
Grieving people, me, you, often feel unmoored
and untethered disconnected from daily life.
Like the world has turned upside down
and they're just floating out in outer space.
Does that sound familiar?
So anchoring yourself with any sort of small,
repeatable action, whether it's related to your grraver
or not, always having to eat 10 a.m.,
checking the male at 4 p.m.
creates rhythm and groundedness
and a sense of order to your day,
especially when grief makes everything feel out of order.
So the more grounded and consistent your day feels,
the more your body believes that it can let go safely at night.
You are welcome to fold grief,
if you like, into your small, repeatable ritual.
Inside Life After a Lost Academy,
which is my online course in community,
I mentioned at the top of this show,
I teach at the very beginning something I call the 1% rule
where we devote literally 1% of your day,
which is about 10 minutes to spending time with grief.
This could look like lighting a candle or journaling
or looking at a picture of your loved one
or talking to them.
It could be listening to a couple of songs
or engaging with a grief book or a podcast like this one.
Once your 10 minutes is up,
once your 1% of your day with grief is done,
you are free to go about the rest of your day,
knowing that you will literally see your grief again tomorrow.
If you would like to learn more about the 1% grief rule,
and I can help you design your own,
if that's interesting to you,
you can join Life After a Lost Academy
at the link in the show notes.
But yes, any sort of small, repeatable ritual,
especially if you're setting a timer for yourself
where you do it at literally the same time every day,
is really helpful for your nervous system
when it seems like everything is disconnected from everything else.
Give yourself some measure of small foundation to stand on.
Okay, the third one is to take naps
and this might seem counterintuitive,
but if your body is begging for rest during the day,
it's not lazy, I'm of the belief that laziness did not exist.
I'm of the belief that grief is really grueling work.
And so short naps around 20 to 30 minutes
can help you restore your energy
and keep your body going until bedtime.
The key is when your grieving is to not punish yourself
for needing naps.
If you have thoughts like,
"Geez, why am I so tired, why am I so lazy?"
I should be able to power through the day.
Consider reframing this kind of rest,
these little bursts of rest by saying,
or thinking to yourself,
I am doing everything I used to do,
now with the added weight of grief.
That is heavy, and it is okay to need more rest right now.
That's a really validating thing to say to yourself
or to any other member of your family
or friend group who's finding themselves
needing more rest than usual in this season.
Number four, and the last one in this section
is things to do during the day is a thing to not do.
(laughs)
And that is to limit digital overstimulation,
things like social media TV movies.
I think we're in an era right now
where a lot of people are demonizing social media
and being on screens.
I'm hesitant to write things off entirely
because the way that I connected to grief support,
especially after my mom's death
and the way that so many people find my work now,
is online.
And so I think that you do not need to avoid
the world entirely or like write off phones
and television entirely to get better sleep.
But it does help, I think, to avoid specific flavors
of overstimulation on any of those platforms.
So things like doom scrolling or getting into fights
on social media about politics or cooking or otherwise
or binge watching loud, intense, or violent things.
These all can serve as temporary escapes from grief,
but they can also rev up your nervous system
for long after you turn off the phone
or turn off the TV or put the device away for the night.
So as much as you can while you're grieving,
and this can feel like a bigger project
beyond like the early days of grief and loss
is to balance social connection and entertainment,
which we need both of as humans to continue existing.
We need to connect with other people
and we like and enjoy feeling entertained.
I feel like art is a necessity in our world.
TV movies that qualifies as art, music as well.
Try to balance those things with quiet time
or things that are soothing to your nervous system.
Many grieving students inside life after loss academy
report limiting social media after loss and re-watching
lighthearted comfort shows, for example.
So things like shits, creek, or friends
or the golden girls, which is my personal favorite
are all really helpful in the face of grief.
And so kind of not necessarily saying
I'm never watching TV now that I'm grieving,
but what can I watch that might be more comforting,
them violent or a cliff hangary or things
that are going to like remind me of my person
who died in a negative way.
These are always to support your nervous system
during the day so that you can sleep at night.
Okay, let's move on to our second category.
And this is what to do right before bed
to help you sleep.
This is what most people think of when they think of sleep tips.
Night time is often the hardest time for grieving people.
This was very true for me after my mom died
because the distraction and the to-do's of work
and the day that I just lived kind of fade into the background.
And the world becomes very quiet.
And the ache of grief sort of sneaks up from below
and becomes its loudest cranked up volume
that it is of all the times you are consciously awake
of all the times that you are present in your life
and having thoughts go through your head.
And nighttime rituals, things that far folded
into your time getting ready for bed
can help signal to your body that now
even though grief is louder than it is
most times during the day, it is also time to rest.
The first one in this section is to say goodnight
to your person who died or to your grief.
If you are grieving a non-death loss,
I'll get to you in just a second.
But, and this involves a little bit of imagination,
but it is a ritual that I call tucking your grief into bed.
So just like a childhood bedtime prayer
or kind of a ritual of tucking someone else into bed,
a creature or a child, you can say goodnight
to a loved one who died or to your grief,
out loud or silently as you are going to bed.
You can tell them what happened in your day.
You can ask to be protected during the night.
You can talk about the dreams that you might like to have
or the type of rest that you would like to get
in order to get through tomorrow.
You can certainly talk about your dreams
for the future in waking life,
things that you would like to see happen in the future
or talk about upcoming grief milestones.
You can literally use this time to talk about anything.
And an example that I can give
for my experience grieving my mom is before I would go to bed.
I would just talk to her.
I would say things like, hey mom, as they head to bed,
please keep me safe from nightmares
and show up in my dreams and my sleep
in ways that feel beautiful and restful.
I miss being able to talk to you so much.
And I thought of you today
when I found a penny on the ground at the train station.
I love you so much and I will talk to you again tomorrow.
That is a way that I very much have spoken to.
People I love who have died right before bed,
almost like a prayer or a blessing
like people might pray to God,
but talking to a loved one,
whether or not you believe they can hear you and respond,
it is still a way to get these emotions
out of your mind, out of your heart,
give them somewhere to go
and also feel more connected to your person who died.
If you were grieving a non-death loss
and you like the metaphor of tucking your grief into bed,
consider what you might be able to do
to make your grief comfortable in that moment
and say something like, do your grief.
Thank you for another day spent together,
whether I wanted you around or not.
You can be totally sassy with grief
if that resonates with you.
I know you never really sleep,
but I hope you can find your own kind of rest
as I find mine.
If you choose to show up in my dreams,
please let the memories you bring be kind and gentle.
I would especially like to dream of
and then illustrate a dream scenario
that you would like to have here.
I'll see you again tomorrow.
And whether you're talking to a person who died
or to the figure, the personified image of grief,
this small ritual can bring you so much peace
in your heart and in your nervous system
and give your grief a metaphorical place to rest for the night.
And that can be like, okay, it's almost like
I'm taking off the suit of grief and setting it down
or I am plugging in to recharge for the night
with a person who I love very much
and now I am going to sleep.
And so either one of those visuals,
whichever one resonates with you
of like taking off grief and setting it down somewhere
or plugging it in like an electric car charger
to a person you love or multiple people you love
or a horrid of ancestors who are watching over you,
those are really beautiful rituals
for winding down into bed.
The second one in this section is to journal with intention
and this is one of my favorites
because it's a huge thing I did at least for the first four
or five years after my mom's death is journal on and off
but pretty religiously about my loss
and a bunch of different things.
So if your mind is racing when you lie down,
if you're still wired and tired, give your grief
another place to go and that is paper.
So trying a five to 10 minute journaling practice,
answering a single prompt can be really, really helpful.
You might answer something like,
what do I need to get out of my brain before bed?
That is very generic and cover just about everything.
(laughs)
And gives you a lot of opportunity to be like,
well, you could talk about things that happened during the day,
you could talk about fears during the future,
you could talk about an interaction you had with a friend,
you could talk about this philosophical thing
you were thinking about, you could talk about the show,
you were watching, you could write about so many things
in a journal under the umbrella of what I need to get
out of my brain before bed.
The second one, and this is tied to grief dreams,
which we talked about on a previous episode of grief girl
with Dr. Joshua Black is, if I could dream about my person
or my grief tonight, what would I want that dream to be like?
And really writing down what sort of dream would I like to have?
And you can go to ShelbyFurst@thia.com to listen to that episode
and to look at the journaling prompts that we listed there
for invoking your own positive grief dream
before you go to bed.
Joshua's research has shown that the thing that helps you
have positive grief dreams more than anything else
is simply thinking about dreams more often
and also considering the types of dreams you would like to have
and thinking of those before you go to bed.
Another great journaling prompt is,
what is one interaction today I would like to release?
And another one is, what small, beautiful thing did I see today?
So if any of those four prompts resonates with you,
take it, grab it and go.
You're also welcome to come up with your own.
Some people do gratitude journals.
Not everybody can do gratitude in the face of grief.
Some people do bullet journaling where they write down
one memory or one thing that stuck out to them during the day
and then you have a year's worth of small moments to look back on.
You might even use your moments before bed
to practice something that I call 2S is journaling,
which is another tool that I teach in Side Life After Loss Academy.
And it is a way of tracking your progress and your growth
and grief without needing success to be linear.
And if you're watching on YouTube, you can kind of see
how progress and growth and grief I'm kind of doing
little star dots all over the screen without needing progress
to be linear, drawing a straight line up into the right.
Society often insists we grow in a straight line
that we only ever be getting better in life after loss.
And that simply is not how growth in grief works.
And so being able to use this tool called 2S is journaling,
which I teach in Life After Loss Academy,
you can notice these two areas of your life and sort of monitor them
and see how they change and how they grow and how they evolve over time.
And it's not necessarily, "Am I doing better than I was yesterday?"
It's "Am I growing?"
And because you're a human being who is still alive
on this earth, the answer is always going to be "Yes."
But what's very cool is that as your 2S is change over time
and you can see weeks and months of data add up in a journal,
you can see what areas of your life you're focusing on
or the things you're trying to release
or the things that you're moving towards in Life After Loss.
And it can help you feel like, "Yes, I am growing."
Just in a way that is different than what society insists of me.
This is the thing that I folded into my journaling practice,
whether I did it once a week or I remember to do it once a month
after my mom died and looking back on four or five years
of 2S is journaling, absolutely changed how I measured.
"Am I growing? How am I growing? Is it good the ways in which I'm growing?
Do I like the path that I'm on?"
All these sort of larger existential questions in Life After Loss.
So again, if you would like to learn 2S is journaling,
come learn with us in Life After Loss Academy.
It is always open. You're around.
Okay, the next one I'm going to give you in this section
is to use Insight Timer or any other meditation app
for gentle sleep support.
Insight Timers, though when I always recommend this is not an ad,
because it's free.
It is a free app that offers hundreds of thousands of meditations
and sleep stories and podcasts and music tracks
from mindfulness experts and teachers all over the world.
You might try searching for grief sleep meditation
or body scan for sleep or music for falling asleep
or soothing sleep stories
and you can even set timers inside of the app
to help you drift off to sleep
without worrying about your phone staying on
or playing something all night.
So if you're into the apps, if you're into the technology,
you can find all of these things
and so much more on Insight Timer.
And if you'd like to go listen to old episodes of grief grower,
grief seeds coming back my very first podcast,
you can find all of those on Insight Timer for free
and they're kind of all located in one place.
To my knowledge, there are no ads.
It's very calming and soothing.
You can upgrade to do things like take courses and go on retreats
but I never use it for that.
I use Insight Timer just to have someone talk me down to sleep
or to play soothing cello music as I fall asleep
and to set a timer for 10 to 15 to 30 to 60 minutes
so that my phone turns off before bed.
The last one in this section is my all time favorite
and one I do almost daily.
(laughs)
And that is to take a hot shower or bath.
I don't know why, but I almost always get cold before bed
and so sitting in the shower for 10 minutes,
my wife and I call it baking.
I just go in and like cook myself basically.
She can't handle it.
I just lobster or find myself.
And then to cool down as I lie in bed overnight
is one of my favorite things.
And I also preheat the bed before I get into it.
We have an electric mattress pad
and so I heat only my side of the bed
and turn it off as soon as I get in at night.
And so I'm literally just like so warm
and then it's like my bed is a cooling rack.
I am a loaf of bread.
(laughs)
My bed is a cooling rack.
But cooling down for me helps me fall into sleep faster
and then stay asleep during the night.
This may not be you.
You might be team cool sheets club, which is totally fine.
But even if you are a team cool sheets club
taking a bath or taking a shower is a great way
to indicate to your nervous system
that like now it is time for bed.
There's the ritual of it, there's the lighting of it,
there's the smells of it.
You can even sing or hum or do deep breathing
while you're in the shower.
A lot of like eucalyptus soaps and smells
are made for things like that
or other sense that you enjoy.
Perhaps things that remind you of a person who died.
These are wonderful ways to again,
signal to your body to your nervous system
that a ritual for bedtime is happening.
And so the thing that follows this is obviously sleep
and you can almost train yourself too.
I take a hot shower and then I get into bed
and slide into that space of sleep a little bit more easy.
Just by putting a hot bath or a hot shower
between like watching Netflix and going to sleep
or brushing your teeth and going to sleep
or packing up dinner leftovers and going to sleep.
Putting something else that's calming to your literal body
in between those two things can help make the transition
into sleep a whole lot easier.
Alrighty, the last category
and the one that's sort of like an SOS part
is what to do if you wake up in the middle of the night
and this is something that is true
for so many grieving people.
If you wake up in the dark, whether you're heart's pounding
or you're mind is spinning,
know that this is a very normal part of grief
and it doesn't mean that something is wrong with you
for not being able to sleep.
These are all ways to take care of your grief
and your nervous system when you are somehow magically
unfortunately up at three in the morning.
The first one in this section is to try ASMR videos
for insomnia specifically.
These are videos on YouTube on other platforms
and ASMR stands for Autonomous Sensory Meridian Response.
This is like what a lot of people would call having chills
or tingles or a sense of being comforted or cared for.
A lot of people get them like during real life massages
or like getting their hair cut or things like that.
ASMR videos are sleep savers for so many people
who are grieving.
YouTube comments are flooded with people of like,
I've been listening to this ever since I started
caregaking for my mom or I've been watching your videos
ever since my dad died or been listening to this ever since
my sister died by suicide.
They're just filled with comments of people
who are navigating grief on some level,
whether it's job loss, whether it's world events,
whether it's personal losses like a divorce
or a breakup, things like that heartache.
ASMR videos are ways that so many people get through them
and in the videos you can expect very slow,
very non-jarring movements and soft sounds
so things like whispering or tapping
or keyboard clacking or brushing or gentle affirmations
and the purpose of them is to calm down your nervous system
and help you drift back to sleep.
I'll give you three of my favorite creators,
the first one is called gentle whispering,
her name is Maria and she is known for soft spoken
appointment based role play videos
so things like visiting a hair salon,
getting your makeup done or participating in a sleep study
is very funny, you literally watch a video of you
participating in a sleep study with Maria,
essentially pretending to be the person
who's doing your intake and putting like electrodes
on you as you sleep and then she turns the lights down
and then there's sleep music and it's like,
oh my gosh, it's very cool,
it's like it's own sort of transition into sleep.
The next one is chill with me Hannah B, her name is Hannah
and she does interaction based videos
so it's usually her and another person
getting pretend Ricky sessions or chakra balancing
or muscle testing exams and massages,
they're all pretend, they're all fake,
she's not a medical provider
but just pretending to do these sorts of sessions
with people that are intentionally soothing
is a really lovely way to kind of
soothe your own nervous system back and sleep.
The last one I'll recommend is GBA ASMR
and this one is kind of sillier
if you're a person who's like,
the chill stuff doesn't necessarily resonate with me
because I'm not interested in like going to a video spa
or video massage or getting my video makeup done.
GB does some silly ASMR
and I call it in consequential ASMR
like it doesn't matter if she gets it wrong
or it doesn't matter if it applies to your life
so she does things like tracing tattoos
or playing games and you just watch her play games
or creating new fonts on an iPad
which is a thing I didn't even know you could do
but the sounds are quiet
and the narration is soft
and it's one of those things where it's like
it doesn't really matter what she's doing
but it sounds lovely and looks appealing
and then pretty soon my eyelids are slamming shut
and I know the same is true for so many grieving people.
So if you've never heard of ASMR before you can try it
and see what works for you
there's so many different flavors of ASMR
there's so many different creators online
and to be fair, if you don't want like the blue light
of a screen totally valid
you can listen to ASMR with the screen
face down and the volume turned down low
or you can do what I do get like Bluetooth headphones
that operate as an i-mask as well.
I will say for some people ASMR is like a huge note
for their nervous systems and that is a okay
sometimes the sounds of keyboard clacking
or whispering or hair brushing are agitating to people
more than they are soothing.
So if that's the case for you
you might try listening to very boring soft spoken podcast
like the podcast sleep with me
my best friend Tammy loved listening to that
especially the night before she would go do a long run
and marathon training.
It's like a man talking about historical facts
or boring books or information
just like on and on and on for hours and hours and hours
and it doesn't matter it's inconsequential
and so she'd be out like a light.
You could also tune into an audiobook or meditation
that you've listened to before you go back to insight timer
and look up some meditations
or you could read a book without a lot of high stakes
or plot twists.
I will say that a lot of people turn to my book
your grief your way which is a short daily devotional
when they wake up in the middle of the night
you can read the passage of the day
you can read it on the death day or the birthday
if somebody that you know or love
you can flip to a random page and see what resonates
with you you can journal with it whatever the case may be
just anything that kind of keeps your nervous system
at a calm and even level.
And I will never forget the day
how to client walk up to me and tell me
that they loved my podcast and I was so flattered
as I'm so excited to meet you in real life
we are at a grief event together
but then she said but I never listened to an episode
all the way through I have no idea what your grief tips are
and I said what do you mean.
(laughs)
And she said hearing my voice helped her sleep
for the first year after her husband died.
So if you would like to go back and find episodes
of grief grower as well as grief seeds coming back
you can find all of those podcasts wherever you listen
here on YouTube Apple podcasts, Spotify
wherever podcasts are found as well as insight timer.
So whatever platform you are on
you can search shall be for city and chances are
you will find my podcast as well if my voice is one
that you find personally soothing
but I will never forget that and a lot of people
like your voice is just so soothing
and I'm like that's such a nice compliment
especially in the face of grief is to not
be an additional agitator to people's nervous systems
but if you're still listening this far
thank you so much and now you do know some of my grief tips
(laughs)
for getting through life after loss.
Okay, the next one in this section is when I invented
with a client and it is to leave an imaginary voicemail
for a loved one.
So if you wake up in the middle of the night
this can be helpful for your grieving heart
your grieving brain your grieving body.
A few years back, I worked with a client
who was grieving her best friend who died from cancer.
They were close by neighbors and they were very used
to talking regularly and my client was struggling
to sleep through the night.
She'd go to bed fine and then she'd be up at like
two, three, four in the morning.
So together we created an exercise called
leaving a voicemail which she would pretend
to call her friend and tell her about her day
and say everything that was on her heart
and after talking it out with her friend
and imagining her message was received
she was able to fall asleep again.
So you could try this by speaking aloud
or recording a voicemail if you live alone
or sleep in your own bedroom or by talking
air quotes here to a loved one in your mind.
And if you are grieving a loss other than death
like a divorce or a life changing diagnosis
you might imagine someone else who is dead
that you could speak to an artist, a historical figure,
a spiritual guy, a public figure
as the person who is receiving your voicemail.
But it's a really lovely thought to think of like
their spiritual or their metaphorical inbox
receiving your message.
And again, you don't necessarily have to believe
that they are alive after death
like there's a distinct connection there
but just this sense of like what if
what if there was a world in which I don't know,
I'll go back to the Golden Girls Betty White had an inbox
for everyone who spoke to her from planet Earth in her death.
And she would listen to your message
and she may not be able to respond
in ways that we can understand from where we are here
right now on planet Earth in the year 2026
but wouldn't it be so cool if you could go
leave her a voicemail?
There's actually I'm gonna go on a tangent really quick
but there's a practice surrounding this
that's very real that happens in real life
called Windphones, W-I-N-D phones, P-H-O-N-E-S
where people set up phones in all different corners
of the world and they're kind of like ghost phones.
You pick up the phone, no one is on the other line
but you imagine that they are a loved one
who's died normally is the recipient of the phone call
and you say everything that's on your heart
that you wish you could say to them.
And the sense of the phone is that it's carried
by the wind to wherever they are.
If you'd like to learn about windphones more,
one of my favorite authors in grief named Colin Campbell
whose two children died in a car accident
set up a wind phone, I believe somewhere in California
but he speaks regularly about windphones
on his social media platforms
and where the wind phone has been relocated to.
I also have a friend and past podcast named Morgan Brown
who came on coming back I think in 2018 or 2019
to talk about a wind phone that she set up
as part of a grief installation.
So this is literally taking the idea of a wind phone,
the concept of a wind phone
and putting it in your bedroom in the middle of the night.
You could even if you wanted to go the extra mile
get a disconnected phone from the thrift store
like like an old school rotary phone
or something fun hamburger phone, banana phone
and set it up next to your bedside
and pretend to make phone calls in the middle of the night
when you can't sleep.
If that sounds fun or interesting or helpful to you.
Okay, this last one here is one that I discovered recently
but I knew it needed to be on this list
and it is called doing the cognitive shuffle
and it is an exercise that's sort of a mindfulness brain trick
that gets you back to sleep.
The reason I was so excited about this is
because I am not a breathing exercise person.
I lose track of seconds while I'm doing breathing exercises
and then I end up holding my breath for longer
than I need to which is more stressful than relaxing
and then I'm more focused on the numbers
and am I breathing right?
Then I am in the practice of actually being soothed.
If I'm doing any sort of mindfulness exercise
I like to do my own breathing but we breathe for myself.
(laughs)
And my body will figure out how to rest from there.
So recently I read about an alternative mindfulness exercise
that helps your brain wind down for sleep
without involving your breath and it really helps.
I have tried this so many times in seasons of insomnia
in my life and it's so helpful.
It takes your brain from this like wired and linear thinking
of I've got to make that appointment tomorrow
and never get back to sleep or like random music
that stuck in your head to unrelated and scrambled thinking
which is more what our brain does when we're sleeping.
So when our brains are dreaming we are picking
and pulling things, things we saw today, things we did 10 years ago.
Metaphorical concepts like this and organizing seemingly
random items of information in the brain
is what our brain does when dreaming.
And that process is called cognitive shuffling.
And the guy who invented it is a doctor named Dr. Luke P.
I'm going to pronounce this as best I can.
Bojuan, B-E-A-U-D-O-I-N.
And he is a Canadian cognitive scientist.
So the process goes like this.
Step one is to pick out a word you can easily spell
like the word beauty.
Begin with the first letter B and think of a word
that starts with a letter B for example,
broom and then bring up the mental image of a broom if you can.
I'm thinking like a traditional wooden handle
with like golden, what's it called?
Golden sweepers.
Is what I'm going to call it, but like a cartoon broom
is what I would picture.
For me, when I do cognitive shuffling,
I will usually repeat the word in my head four times.
So I will have my eyes closed.
I will think of a broom and I'll go broom, broom,
broom, broom and sort of pulse that image in my head.
And then think of another word that begins with a letter B
and visualize that word.
Keep going until you run out of words that begin with a letter B.
And for me, I find that it's helpful if the words are
as absolutely unrelated as possible.
They're all nouns, but they're all unrelated.
So like broom, bogonia, battleship, bagel, bracelet.
Like those words aren't immediately
and directly tied to each other in any sort of way for me.
And so it forces my brain to jump around
to these different categories of things.
Like one is a household cleaning object,
one is a plant, one is a war machine,
one is an article of food, the other is an article of jewelry.
Like these are not related things in my brain.
They would not go in the same category.
But they all start with a letter B.
And so sort of forcing my brain to picture
these different nouns, these different objects
and shuffle them around in ways that are mindful,
but intentional, mimics what my brain is doing in sleep.
When you run out of B words, move on to the next letter
in beauty, which is E.
And now start to think of nouns that begin with E.
Visualize all the words.
You can do that for repetition pulsing,
if you want, as you think of them.
And then continue at your own pace.
But just keep going to the end of the word
until you fall asleep.
If you get to the end of the word and run out of why words,
for example, go back to being start again,
but challenge yourself to think of different words.
And Dr. Bodhawin recommends, if stressful thoughts come
you way, I have this appointment tomorrow.
I can't believe they're still dead.
This random music that is popping into my head,
just acknowledge them, say yes, that is true.
And then go back to the most recent word that you chose.
Bracelet, bracelet, bracelet, bracelet.
And if thinking of words yourself is too exhausting,
griever, I hear you, I have done the homework for you.
Try searching anywhere for cognitive shuffling meditation
online.
In your favorite meditation app, I have found a few.
There's some on YouTube.
There are some on Insight Timer.
And you can find them and listen to them yourself.
And they choose the words for you.
They choose the pictures in your head for you,
so you do not have to invent them yourself.
Because that is something that I imagine
can be so exhausting when you are grieving.
The last bit of this episode is for the people who
are afraid that they're sleeping too much.
Because a lot of sleeping in life after the last people are like,
ah, I can't get back to sleep.
I'm struggling with insomnia.
Most of the fears that I hear from my clients
are I can't get good sleep at night.
I am not sleeping enough hours.
My sleep is very poor quality.
I wake up and then I can't get back to sleep.
It's things of I have too few hours in my night.
And I know how crucial sleep is to dealing with all the things
you have to deal with when you're navigating loss.
So I want to flip the script on that and talk to the people
who are afraid that they're sleeping too much.
The truth of it and what I know from my own experience
is that sleeping more than usual after loss
is exactly what your body needs.
Grief, as you know, is not just emotional.
It is physical.
Your brain and your body are working over time to process
things like shock and pain and heartbreak
and your new reality, being alive in this world
where loss has blown right through it.
So it makes perfect sense if you feel
that you are sleeping too much, that your brain
and your body want to stay in bed.
After my mom died and I've talked about this
on previous episodes of Grief Grower,
I had to grieve my identity as a morning person.
I used to get up with the sun and just be so full of energy
and song and just a hot spot to just like get up
and go through the day.
After she died though, my body would not get up before 10am.
Unless I had the pressure of a class
I was gonna miss or flunk out of to get up for.
And it took months before it felt like I had energy
and the capacity to wake up early in the morning again.
So if you are sleeping later,
if you are taking tons of naps
or if you feeling like your body is constantly made of lead
you are just always exhausted,
that is okay, that is a normal part of grief
and it is not a flaw.
It is your brain and body doing their best to take care of you
as you negotiate life after loss.
I will say, if changes in your sleeping routines
have you feeling anxious and you are telling yourself
this story of I am sleeping too much this is not okay.
Consider using the phrase right now,
which I talk about more in my book of course I am here right now,
to frame this season of your life as a temporary one.
For example, right now I need more sleep than I used to
or it is okay for me to prioritize rest right now.
Well it is just two words, adding them to any thought
that you have about your sleep
or any conversation that you are having
can help you remember that this sleep heavy season
that you are living in right now
is just that a season of your life
and that things can change and probably will change
as you continue to live.
Here's when you should be concerned.
There are a handful of moments when sleeping too much
could be a sign to reach out for more support
than I can give you here on grief grower.
The first one is if you're missing work school
or important responsibilities on a regular basis.
The second is if you are withdrawing
from all relationships or daily tasks
in order to get more sleep.
The third is if you are sleeping
to avoid the pain of grief
but not feeling more rested when you wake up
and the last one if you have had thoughts of
I wish I could sleep and not wake up.
You do not have to know what kind of support that you need.
I just recommend that you start by telling somebody
that you trust ideally someone who specializes
in helping people navigate grief and sleep
like a doctor or therapist, especially after a loss
the last thing I want for you is for sleep
to be a source of further suffering.
If anything sleep should be one of the few things
in our life after devastating loss where we get a little bit
of relief.
Here's what I wanna leave you with today.
Rest is important, especially in grief.
I hope you treasure sleep.
And grief changes our relationship with everything
in our lives including the way that we sleep,
that we go to bed and what we do during the day
that impacts what happens at bedtime.
But when you have helpful rituals and tools and support
you can find if you don't have it right now
your way back to resting soundly again.
Whether you are giving yourself permission to nap
or experimenting with insomnia inspired mindfulness practices
like cognitive shuffling or journaling about your ideal dreams
before you go to bed.
I know that your body and brain will be so grateful
that you are taking time and energy and effort
to prioritize sleep.
And if you would like even more support
navigating grief during the day,
coping with heavy emotions, creating rituals
for bedtime that support your healing,
I would so, so love to see you inside of life
after loss academy where you will find a weekly coaching
and helpful tools and loving community
for rebuilding your life after loss.
You can learn more about the course and the community
and join us at any time.
It is open year round at the link in the show notes.
May you rest so easy tonight.
(gentle music)
That's all for this episode of Great Prower.
Thank you so very much for joining me today.
If you're looking for grief support beyond the show,
you can find free workshops, blog articles,
and my brand new, what's your grief supporter's strength quiz
at shallbeforsethea.com/links.
And if you'd like to get support from me
for your unique loss, join us in life after loss academy,
my online course and community.
As a student, I will walk you through my five step grief
framework for rebuilding after loss
and you can get live coaching from me every single week
to answer your questions and to help you
through life's obstacles.
Replays are always available if you can't attend
the live coaching sessions.
It is just $33 a month to join or $22 a month
if you're a marginalized or financially stressed griver
and you can cancel at any time.
If this podcast felt validating, comforting,
educational or helpful to you, please subscribe
and leave a review on Apple podcasts or Spotify.
And be sure to share grief grower with a friend
because you never know what someone you love is going through.
Grief grower is hosted by me, shallbeforsethea,
and theme music is by Addy Goldstein.
Until next time, grief growers, I see you.
I am so proud of you and the work that you're doing
in the world and I love you.
Because even through grief, we are growing.
[Music]