1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,320 despite what society or the media or the people around you think it is impossible, impossible, impossible, 2 00:00:06,320 --> 00:00:10,000 to grieve everything about a loss immediately after the loss happens. 3 00:00:10,000 --> 00:00:11,600 Loss does not happen and then we grieve. 4 00:00:11,600 --> 00:00:14,080 Loss happens and then we grieve as much as we can, 5 00:00:14,080 --> 00:00:16,080 and then we live our lives and then we grieve some more, 6 00:00:16,080 --> 00:00:20,040 and then we have to live some more lives or deal with a crisis or do something else than we grieve some more. 7 00:00:20,040 --> 00:00:25,240 And it is more than okay for grief to arrive weeks or months or even years after a loss. 8 00:00:25,240 --> 00:00:31,000 The timing of grief's arrival in your life is not a judgment or a verdict on your ability to grieve. 9 00:00:31,000 --> 00:00:36,200 It is simply a snapshot of the circumstances of your life and where grief is able to fit in. 10 00:00:36,200 --> 00:00:42,520 So put simply grief that comes to you later is not a sign that you did something wrong or that you're bad at grieving. 11 00:00:42,520 --> 00:00:50,040 It is a sign that some part of you finally feels safe enough or settled enough to set the heavy things down and mindfully look at them. 12 00:00:50,040 --> 00:01:10,040 [Music] 13 00:01:10,040 --> 00:01:15,560 Hi there grief growers. I am so grateful to be here with you for another episode today, as always. 14 00:01:15,560 --> 00:01:20,200 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. 15 00:01:20,200 --> 00:01:24,760 Hello. My name is Shelby for Scythia. I am a grief coach, a three-time author, 16 00:01:24,760 --> 00:01:32,120 and the founder of Life after Loss Academy. And I have had the distinct honor of helping thousands of grieving people stop feeling lost, 17 00:01:32,120 --> 00:01:40,360 stuck, broken, and alone, and start building lives that they genuinely love from the lives lost, forced them to live. 18 00:01:40,360 --> 00:01:45,320 This includes, of course, not only death-related losses, but also losses like divorce and breakup, 19 00:01:45,320 --> 00:01:49,480 major diagnosis, and every other transition that changes your life. 20 00:01:49,480 --> 00:01:52,760 Here on grief grower, we believe that grief is not something we get over. 21 00:01:52,760 --> 00:01:57,240 It is something that we grow with and alongside, and that when we start treating grief, 22 00:01:57,240 --> 00:02:03,320 like an invitation to live more deeply, we create meaningful lives that are rich with the memories we carry, 23 00:02:03,320 --> 00:02:10,120 the struggles that we faced, and the preciousness of what it is to be here, right here, and right now. 24 00:02:10,120 --> 00:02:14,120 And today on the show, I want to get into the topic of delayed grief, 25 00:02:14,120 --> 00:02:19,640 or when grief shows up months or even years and years after a loss. 26 00:02:19,640 --> 00:02:25,640 Because for many griefers, myself included, you think you're doing some level of okay after a loss. 27 00:02:25,640 --> 00:02:29,480 You may not be great. The loss happened. It drastically radically changed your life. 28 00:02:29,480 --> 00:02:34,840 There are a lot of things that are no longer true, can no longer come to be because of this loss, 29 00:02:34,840 --> 00:02:38,360 but you are functioning in the world. You may have gotten through the funeral, 30 00:02:38,360 --> 00:02:41,880 the paperwork, the hospital appointments, the move, the custody schedule, 31 00:02:41,880 --> 00:02:47,160 the first holiday season after a loss, or even the first year after a loss. 32 00:02:47,160 --> 00:02:53,000 You did things like show up for work, or for your kids, or for an agent parent, or for a pet 33 00:02:53,000 --> 00:02:59,880 who still needed care several times a day. And then months or even years after your loss happened, 34 00:02:59,880 --> 00:03:06,520 whether that's a death divorce diagnosis or something else, grief absolutely walloped you out of nowhere. 35 00:03:07,080 --> 00:03:12,360 Maybe it happened for many griefers in the grocery store. Maybe it was at a friend's wedding, 36 00:03:12,360 --> 00:03:17,240 watching somebody else live out of life that you can no longer have or get to have. 37 00:03:17,240 --> 00:03:23,240 Maybe it was the day or the night that your youngest kid maybe left for college, 38 00:03:23,240 --> 00:03:29,800 and now you are empty nesting, or the first quiet Sunday that you've had in ages. 39 00:03:29,800 --> 00:03:35,640 And all of a sudden, you are crying harder than you did, or feeling more than you did, 40 00:03:35,640 --> 00:03:41,240 than when the loss actually happened. And you are probably wondering why on earth am I grieving now? 41 00:03:41,240 --> 00:03:48,040 Shouldn't this emotional experience have happened already? Is something wrong with me? 42 00:03:48,040 --> 00:03:53,320 And the thing I want you to hear first is that there is nothing wrong with you for having some 43 00:03:53,320 --> 00:03:57,880 kind of delayed grief, and you are not doing grief wrong. This is a big fear a lot of 44 00:03:57,880 --> 00:04:03,160 griefers have. I'm doing grief wrong. You are not doing grief wrong. Grief that shows up 45 00:04:03,160 --> 00:04:09,160 later than you expected it to is very common and very human. And it often makes perfect sense once 46 00:04:09,160 --> 00:04:14,120 you kind of take a step back and look at the holistic picture of your life and see and notice 47 00:04:14,120 --> 00:04:19,080 everything that was going on at the time that your loss happened. So today in the show, I'm going to 48 00:04:19,080 --> 00:04:23,560 talk about and define what delayed grief is and what it isn't because there's a lot of terms 49 00:04:23,560 --> 00:04:28,280 that get tossed around that people think mean delayed grief, but aren't actually. I will also 50 00:04:28,280 --> 00:04:34,280 talk about why grief often waits for us to feel safe and slow down enough to feel it at its full 51 00:04:34,280 --> 00:04:39,720 capacity. I'll also talk about how you've actually been grieving the entire time, even if it didn't 52 00:04:39,720 --> 00:04:46,120 look like it. And I will give you permission slips and practical ways to make time to grieve when 53 00:04:46,120 --> 00:04:51,240 you are ready. So no matter what is bringing you to this episode today, what I am officially calling 54 00:04:51,240 --> 00:04:57,480 the griefy late bloomers club, you are in the right place. So let's get started with some definitions. 55 00:04:57,480 --> 00:05:03,960 What on earth is delayed grief? Delayed grief is the term for when your emotional response to a loss 56 00:05:03,960 --> 00:05:10,120 arrives weeks or months or even years after the loss happens rather than right away. In other words, 57 00:05:10,120 --> 00:05:15,720 there's usually some sort of time lapse, some sort of delay, a time related gap between the loss 58 00:05:15,720 --> 00:05:21,160 and your emotional reaction to it. For many, many, many gravers, including the clients that I work with, 59 00:05:21,160 --> 00:05:26,360 this looks like living in survival mode or even being in a state of numbness or shock for a while, 60 00:05:26,840 --> 00:05:32,920 with heavier or more obviously like griefy feelings, what you might expect as grief coming later, 61 00:05:32,920 --> 00:05:39,800 sometimes much later, then they would like or expect them to. Delayed grief can follow any kind of 62 00:05:39,800 --> 00:05:44,520 loss we talk about all losses here on grief grower, the death of a person or pet, a divorce or breakup, 63 00:05:44,520 --> 00:05:50,840 a life changing diagnosis, a job loss, a statement, a geographic move, any other major life transition. 64 00:05:50,840 --> 00:05:55,640 And I think delayed grief is tricky for a lot of people to understand because other words, 65 00:05:55,640 --> 00:06:01,880 sometimes get used in its place. You may have come across other terms while searching for answers 66 00:06:01,880 --> 00:06:07,560 about why is grief coming on so late. So here's a quick breakdown for you. Delayed grief, the thing 67 00:06:07,560 --> 00:06:13,640 we're talking about today, means that your grief arrived later than desired or expected. It is emotions 68 00:06:13,640 --> 00:06:19,080 that were postponed usually or often because of circumstances, not because you were avoiding them. 69 00:06:19,080 --> 00:06:24,680 Absent grief, often conflated with delayed grief or mixed up with delayed grief, 70 00:06:24,680 --> 00:06:29,720 is an alter clinical term for when visible grief reactions seem to be missing entirely from your 71 00:06:29,720 --> 00:06:35,400 grieving experience. These can be rooted in shock or avoidance or denial or maybe grieving before 72 00:06:35,400 --> 00:06:40,200 your loss so you knew someone was going to die and you did a lot of your grieving before their death 73 00:06:40,200 --> 00:06:46,120 and so less or none showed up afterwards. Or maybe simply experiencing life events differently 74 00:06:46,120 --> 00:06:51,400 than other people. I'm thinking of neurodivergent grievers who may never visibly show heavy 75 00:06:51,400 --> 00:06:56,760 air quotes show or demonstrate that they are grieving but have a grief experience nonetheless. 76 00:06:56,760 --> 00:07:02,360 Suffice it to say absent grief is not a synonym for delayed grief. They are not the same thing 77 00:07:02,360 --> 00:07:08,600 and it will not be the subject of our podcast for today. The other term that often gets mixed up with 78 00:07:08,600 --> 00:07:15,000 or conflated with delayed grief is complicated or prolonged grief. This describes grief that stays 79 00:07:15,000 --> 00:07:19,480 intensely painful and interferes with daily life for a long time. You may have heard of prolonged 80 00:07:19,480 --> 00:07:25,960 grief disorder also known as PGD. It is a formal diagnosis in the DSM-5. Delayed grief is not 81 00:07:25,960 --> 00:07:32,120 automatically complicated or prolonged even though some articles and resources online lump them 82 00:07:32,120 --> 00:07:37,960 together. But I will say you can have delayed grief as a part of complicated or prolonged grief. 83 00:07:37,960 --> 00:07:44,600 They are not the same thing though. So TLDR too long didn't read for those who don't know internet 84 00:07:44,600 --> 00:07:50,760 jargon. Said another way, delayed grief, grief showing up late, is a matter of timing, 85 00:07:50,760 --> 00:07:57,080 not a sign that your grief is absent or missing or complicated or disordered or broken. 86 00:07:57,080 --> 00:08:01,800 Delayed grief simply means the loss happened and then the reaction to it or your emotional response 87 00:08:01,800 --> 00:08:09,720 to it arrived later. That is what delayed grief is. Here is the heart of what I have seen about 88 00:08:09,720 --> 00:08:14,360 delayed grief in more than 10 years of working with grieving people now. And 89 00:08:14,360 --> 00:08:20,360 what I really want you to hear if you are thinking something is wrong or bad or defective or broken 90 00:08:20,360 --> 00:08:27,960 or troubling about you for experiencing grief months or even years later. Most of us cannot 91 00:08:27,960 --> 00:08:35,320 deeply grieve and to believe feel safe enough and slow down enough to do it. Deep grieving, 92 00:08:35,320 --> 00:08:42,040 doing the work of grief involves a lot of emotional heavy lifting. It is exploring and releasing 93 00:08:42,040 --> 00:08:47,560 big feelings and taking full inventories of everything that you have lost. That includes the person, 94 00:08:47,560 --> 00:08:53,480 relationship, healthy loss, but also routines, roles, identities, rituals, imagined futures that 95 00:08:53,480 --> 00:08:59,480 went with it. And that is a heck of a lot to unpack all at one time. And you cannot always do that 96 00:08:59,480 --> 00:09:05,400 big heavy grief work right away immediately following a loss because sometimes the shock of the loss 97 00:09:05,400 --> 00:09:11,320 or the administrative tasks of grieving get to you first or demand to be done first. And you can't 98 00:09:11,320 --> 00:09:17,160 always grieve when you're good and ready because your nervous system is so wound up or burned out 99 00:09:17,160 --> 00:09:26,360 totally exhausted to take on the deeply energy taxing task of grieving. So in an attempt to bring 100 00:09:26,360 --> 00:09:31,400 compassion into your experience of delayed grief grieving months or years later, I invite you to 101 00:09:31,400 --> 00:09:36,760 consider what you might have been dealing with at the same time your loss happened. See if any of 102 00:09:36,760 --> 00:09:41,880 these are true for you. Were you the executor of an estate fielding calls from lawyers, banks, 103 00:09:41,880 --> 00:09:47,240 relatives, getting death certificates, cleaning out a house of memories? Were you the administrative 104 00:09:47,240 --> 00:09:52,840 legal or logistical driver or initiator of a divorce or breakup? So managing filings or talking 105 00:09:52,840 --> 00:10:00,680 to lawyers or doing mediation or doing the labor, literal physical, mental, emotional of dividing 106 00:10:00,680 --> 00:10:06,360 a shared life? Were you the person receiving treatment for a major diagnosis and your energy went 107 00:10:06,360 --> 00:10:11,640 toward surviving scans and fusion surgery side effects medical jargon? Were you caring for somebody 108 00:10:11,640 --> 00:10:16,520 else? Kids, a surviving parent, a sick partner, a pet with special needs, was anybody else depending 109 00:10:16,520 --> 00:10:23,240 on you during this time? Were you facing cumulative or back-to-back to back losses with no breathing room 110 00:10:23,240 --> 00:10:30,040 between one heartbreak and the next? Was life continuing to hand you big stressors like a job change 111 00:10:30,040 --> 00:10:35,000 or a job loss or having to move or getting married or having a new baby or constantly traveling, 112 00:10:35,000 --> 00:10:40,920 not being able to settle in one place? Or was the world around you in a state of collective grief? 113 00:10:40,920 --> 00:10:46,040 So this could be natural disasters, war, political upheaval, social justice, climate crisis, 114 00:10:46,040 --> 00:10:52,120 and yes, even the pandemic. Essentially, when you are in survival mode, your brain 115 00:10:52,120 --> 00:10:57,000 makes the best and smartest executive decision that it can at the time to protect you. We'll deal with 116 00:10:57,000 --> 00:11:04,040 the feelings later. This is not a failure on your part, the griever. It is an energy-conserving 117 00:11:04,040 --> 00:11:09,960 stopgap that helps you survive and stay alive in the midst of a difficult season. The brain decides 118 00:11:09,960 --> 00:11:15,640 this is all too much, we will grieve later. Example from my own life in the first six months after my 119 00:11:15,640 --> 00:11:21,880 mom died suddenly from cancer that returned very quickly. My long-term girlfriend and I broke up. 120 00:11:21,880 --> 00:11:27,160 At that same time, I also worked three demanding jobs. I researched and presented an honors thesis 121 00:11:27,160 --> 00:11:31,000 in the last semester of college because my mom's biggest wish was that I returned to school. 122 00:11:31,000 --> 00:11:36,360 I directed a play. I endured my college graduation. On Mother's Day, no less, I still hold a 123 00:11:36,360 --> 00:11:40,520 grudge against my college and I packed up my life and moved from North Carolina to Chicago. 124 00:11:40,520 --> 00:11:47,320 In six months, all of this happened in six months. That kind of back-to-back chaos and change 125 00:11:47,320 --> 00:11:52,360 was not an environment where I was capable of diving way deep into the depths of my grief. In fact, 126 00:11:52,360 --> 00:11:57,080 I did not meaningfully grieve my mother's death and this is my own account of my story so I can 127 00:11:57,080 --> 00:12:03,720 be the judge of this until years later when somebody stole my wallet in downtown Chicago and I finally 128 00:12:03,720 --> 00:12:09,800 had an emotional meltdown over everything that had been taken for me and everything that I lost 129 00:12:09,800 --> 00:12:15,000 when she died. You can read more about the day of the stolen wallet, which I talk about in detail 130 00:12:15,000 --> 00:12:20,040 on many podcasts, and also talk about on my website, ShelbyFersithia.com and you can find it in the 131 00:12:20,040 --> 00:12:26,280 My Story or about section of my grief if you've never heard that story before. If that sounds 132 00:12:26,280 --> 00:12:30,760 relatable, of just like a loss happened and there's a heck of a lot going on, I wonder if the same 133 00:12:30,760 --> 00:12:35,960 might be true for you too. So I hope that that list of like five or seven questions of like what 134 00:12:35,960 --> 00:12:42,760 else was going on in your life helps you see your own delayed grief not as a problem, but as an 135 00:12:42,760 --> 00:12:49,480 understandable and practical response to the circumstances that surrounded the timing of your 136 00:12:49,480 --> 00:12:55,400 particular loss. I do want to take a sidebar here and talk about the COVID-19 pandemic because this 137 00:12:55,400 --> 00:13:03,320 is something that I saw so so so so much during the immediate lockdowns when COVID was first discovered, 138 00:13:03,320 --> 00:13:11,240 announced taking over the world basically in March of 2020. When nationwide and worldwide shutdowns 139 00:13:11,240 --> 00:13:17,960 slowed life down, many many many people including people who were grieving were suddenly home with 140 00:13:17,960 --> 00:13:23,640 no commute, no packed calendar and nowhere else to be. And so for a lot of people it was the first time 141 00:13:23,640 --> 00:13:31,880 in years they had had to have the kind of stillness it takes to look at grief directly. And so a totally 142 00:13:31,880 --> 00:13:38,120 anecdotal example from my own life as a grief professional is that I had more one-on-one grief 143 00:13:38,120 --> 00:13:44,520 guidance coaching clients in 2020 and 2021 than I have ever had in my career. Over and over and over 144 00:13:44,520 --> 00:13:50,520 again an introductory calls, I heard the same version of the sentence I finally have time to feel this. 145 00:13:51,080 --> 00:13:57,880 The world has slowed down, life has slowed down enough for me to feel this. And I'm also sort of seeing 146 00:13:57,880 --> 00:14:05,240 now an inverse of that. Six years after the onset of COVID-19, I am seeing the next wave of grieving 147 00:14:05,240 --> 00:14:10,120 people experiencing delayed grief. There are people reaching out to me to grief people and relationships 148 00:14:10,120 --> 00:14:15,080 that they lost at the peak at the height of the pandemic. These are losses they could not fully tend 149 00:14:15,080 --> 00:14:21,560 to back then because work, school, home, relationships were all in a state of flux or a pevel or disarray. 150 00:14:21,560 --> 00:14:28,120 Not to mention everything that was going on with the pandemic. So now that those areas of life 151 00:14:28,120 --> 00:14:35,720 have settled in their own ways for them, their grief over what happened in 2020, 2021, 2021, 2022 152 00:14:35,720 --> 00:14:42,440 has room to step forward into the frontal focus of their life. So put another way for both groups 153 00:14:42,440 --> 00:14:47,880 of these grieving people. Grief did not skip over them. Grief was not missing in their experience or 154 00:14:47,880 --> 00:14:54,600 their story. It waited until the circumstances of their lives calmed down enough for them to address 155 00:14:54,600 --> 00:15:00,840 the fact that grief was in the room. The next thing I want to get into because the pandemic is one 156 00:15:00,840 --> 00:15:08,280 example, but it's not the only example is possible causes of delayed grief months or years after a loss. 157 00:15:08,280 --> 00:15:12,920 Because sometimes it arrives with an obvious cause and sometimes delayed grief does just seem to 158 00:15:12,920 --> 00:15:17,240 come out of nowhere and you're like, what the heck, why am I grieving now? So common activators of 159 00:15:17,240 --> 00:15:23,240 delayed grief could be finishing the to-do list phase of loss. The estate is settled. The divorce 160 00:15:23,240 --> 00:15:27,640 is final. The treatment is complete. You just do not have those things to contend with anymore. 161 00:15:27,640 --> 00:15:35,000 You might be entering a quiet season of life, a slow summer, a sabbatical, a retirement, 162 00:15:35,000 --> 00:15:40,200 an empty nest or as one of my favorite podcasters, Gretchen Rubin calls it an open door stage of life. 163 00:15:40,200 --> 00:15:46,200 Something that could be a very blatant activator for delayed grief is a milestone that your person 164 00:15:46,200 --> 00:15:51,000 or relationship or former health should have been a part of or allowed you to do. Something like a 165 00:15:51,000 --> 00:15:56,200 wedding or a graduation or a birth or a big promotion. I talked about this on another episode of 166 00:15:56,200 --> 00:16:01,240 Griefgroher, but sometimes quote unquote, happy events or happy occasions can have a lot of loss 167 00:16:01,240 --> 00:16:06,760 also embedded into them. And that's one worth going back and listening to. I believe the title is 168 00:16:06,760 --> 00:16:12,680 "Every gain comes with grief" or something akin to that. Another activator could be a new loss, 169 00:16:12,680 --> 00:16:17,880 even a seemingly very small one, like a friend moving away, even though you'll still be in touch 170 00:16:17,880 --> 00:16:22,600 and you're still good friends, or a beloved houseplant finally dying. For me, it was the day of the 171 00:16:22,600 --> 00:16:26,440 stolen wallet. I think a lot of people would look at a parent's death and a stolen wallet and 172 00:16:26,440 --> 00:16:32,120 rank those as one very significant loss and one insignificant loss, yet that wallet was the 173 00:16:32,120 --> 00:16:37,880 trapdoor to being able to feel my mother's death. Another one that has been coming up a lot, 174 00:16:37,880 --> 00:16:43,400 especially this year in 2026, is the death of a celebrity or a public figure. It might be a 175 00:16:43,400 --> 00:16:48,840 stranger's grief story on the news or a fictional character's death on a TV show you're watching 176 00:16:48,840 --> 00:16:53,960 or in a book that you're reading. Other activators of delayed grief could be a grief anniversary, 177 00:16:53,960 --> 00:17:00,360 maybe yourself or somebody else's. So maybe it's the anniversary of my mother's death, for example, 178 00:17:00,360 --> 00:17:05,800 but it could also be me reaching the age that my mom was when she died. That's a reason for delayed 179 00:17:05,800 --> 00:17:09,880 grief. It could be a birthday. It could be a holiday that you would have been like white 180 00:17:09,880 --> 00:17:13,800 knuckling or holding down the fort through for years and years, but for whatever reason no longer 181 00:17:13,800 --> 00:17:20,440 have the capacity or interest in resisting or avoiding or pushing away. Other activators could be 182 00:17:20,440 --> 00:17:25,480 feeling safe, a stable relationship, a steady job, a home that feels like you are sometimes when 183 00:17:25,480 --> 00:17:32,680 you are safe enough the grief can come forward. Another thing that could activate delayed grief is 184 00:17:32,680 --> 00:17:38,120 getting support for your loss. That could be starting therapy or joining a support group or taking 185 00:17:38,120 --> 00:17:43,560 a grief course. I think that last one surprises a lot of people, but when you finally have a safe 186 00:17:43,560 --> 00:17:49,240 container for grief or a place for grief to go, as I often call it, your feelings can sometimes 187 00:17:49,240 --> 00:17:53,080 take you up on the offer. It's like, oh, it's time to feel feelings now. You're scheduling this into 188 00:17:53,080 --> 00:17:58,360 the calendar. You've made an appointment. You joined a group. Let's go. Let's bring the delayed grief 189 00:17:58,360 --> 00:18:05,800 and everything I have to say or feel about this loss to the surface. I want to get into next, 190 00:18:05,800 --> 00:18:10,840 frequently asked questions about delayed grief. These are just sourced from grief support groups. 191 00:18:10,840 --> 00:18:15,080 I found online common questions that clients ask me. Some of these will have short answers. Some of 192 00:18:15,080 --> 00:18:18,680 them will have slightly longer answers. So thank you for bearing with me and I hope I answer one of 193 00:18:18,680 --> 00:18:25,800 your questions in this roundup. Number one, does delayed grief mean I'm going backwards? No. In fact, 194 00:18:25,800 --> 00:18:31,000 I would argue that experiencing delayed grief is actually a positive shift in your grieving process. 195 00:18:31,000 --> 00:18:35,720 It usually means that the circumstances of your life have stabilized enough, as I've said already, 196 00:18:35,720 --> 00:18:41,800 to accommodate the presence of deeper grief emotions and exploration. So while it may be difficult 197 00:18:41,800 --> 00:18:46,520 or painful to feel, you're like, why do I feel like garbage again suddenly with delayed grief? 198 00:18:46,520 --> 00:18:51,880 It does not mean you are regressing or going backwards in your growth through grief. You might even 199 00:18:51,880 --> 00:18:57,400 consider celebrating the emergence of delayed grief as a sign that you are ready to go there 200 00:18:57,400 --> 00:19:01,240 on an emotional level because that may or may not have been something you were able to do 201 00:19:01,240 --> 00:19:08,760 at the time that your loss happened. Number two, am I grieving the old loss or the new one? 202 00:19:08,760 --> 00:19:13,640 So for many of the clients I work with, they're grieving multiple losses and I notice that a new loss 203 00:19:13,640 --> 00:19:19,240 or a fresh loss can open the door or like a trap door into feeling an older one. So for example, 204 00:19:19,240 --> 00:19:24,200 maybe your dog died this year and you can't stop sobbing about your dad who died eight years ago, 205 00:19:24,200 --> 00:19:29,400 or maybe your recent breakup has you mourning your first marriage all over again. So often, 206 00:19:29,400 --> 00:19:34,840 your grieving both losses at once, along with everything those losses had in common. So maybe your 207 00:19:34,840 --> 00:19:41,640 dog and your dad both made you feel safe and loved, or maybe your fresh ex-partner encouraged you 208 00:19:41,640 --> 00:19:46,520 to practice the same hobby as your ex-spouse did and now both of those sources of support 209 00:19:46,520 --> 00:19:51,960 are missing in your life and that is grief. So in situations when you're grieving multiple losses, 210 00:19:51,960 --> 00:19:56,040 it makes a lot of sense that you might feel confused or distress about like which loss 211 00:19:56,040 --> 00:20:00,120 is getting the most of your heart and mind's precious grieving time because that is limited. Time 212 00:20:00,120 --> 00:20:06,360 is limited for all of us. Many, many, many beneficial therapeutic models encourage looking back at 213 00:20:06,360 --> 00:20:12,760 childhood or older losses and traumas to untangle or make sense of present struggles or even inner 214 00:20:12,760 --> 00:20:17,000 stories that are not helpful that you might be telling yourself. So I'll give you my take as a 215 00:20:17,000 --> 00:20:21,960 grief coach to this question of am I grieving the old loss or the new loss? While figuring out the 216 00:20:21,960 --> 00:20:26,520 answer to the question of which loss is at the root of your current grief might be helpful, 217 00:20:26,520 --> 00:20:31,000 it can be worth asking is this really a question I need to answer? So framed another way, 218 00:20:31,000 --> 00:20:35,480 does it really matter which loss you're grieving in this particular moment or season? 219 00:20:36,040 --> 00:20:40,920 As somebody who's worked with grievousia more than 10 years, my guidance for clients is usually 220 00:20:40,920 --> 00:20:46,840 to devote your energy to examining and naming exactly what is being grieved instead of trying 221 00:20:46,840 --> 00:20:52,520 to puzzle out which loss is getting the most grief air time on like the radio station in your head. 222 00:20:52,520 --> 00:20:58,600 It can be more helpful to discover, oh, I'm grieving feeling like I belong, then it might be to realize 223 00:20:58,600 --> 00:21:06,200 I'm grieving my dad's death 20 years ago, not the dog that just died. So this question is at the old 224 00:21:06,200 --> 00:21:11,400 loss or the new loss, this can be a really significant one. So I hope that with everything that I create, 225 00:21:11,400 --> 00:21:14,840 I hope you'll take what works for you and leave the rest. So if you really, really want to know, 226 00:21:14,840 --> 00:21:20,840 who am I grieving here? I hope you will keep digging for the answer to that question. If that question 227 00:21:20,840 --> 00:21:24,920 has you caught up and is keeping you from doing the work of grieving that you really want to do, 228 00:21:24,920 --> 00:21:30,600 I wonder asking what do these losses have in common or why does that question matter so much to me 229 00:21:30,600 --> 00:21:36,680 or what else might I be grieving that is a little harder to name? Those might be more helpful guided 230 00:21:36,680 --> 00:21:41,320 questions for you if you are struggling with this question of is it the old boss or is it the new one? 231 00:21:41,320 --> 00:21:46,120 And I always trust you to know which questions and which answers feel most helpful to you in your 232 00:21:46,120 --> 00:21:52,200 grief right now. Number three, why didn't I cry at the funeral but I am falling apart now? 233 00:21:52,840 --> 00:21:59,400 So in the early days, weeks and months after a loss, many people feel numb or foggy or eerily calm and 234 00:21:59,400 --> 00:22:04,040 many people do not cry at all. I was a person who did not cry at my mom's funeral and if that's you, 235 00:22:04,040 --> 00:22:08,360 I did another episode of grief grower about five reasons you may not be able to cry and you can find it 236 00:22:08,360 --> 00:22:13,720 in the back catalog of grief grower. If your loss was sudden and even if it wasn't, you might be in 237 00:22:13,720 --> 00:22:18,680 a state of shock. If you are in a leadership position in your family or workplace, you might feel 238 00:22:18,680 --> 00:22:23,640 pressure to be strong or unemotional for the benefit of other people. And if you're in a stressful 239 00:22:23,640 --> 00:22:30,760 season of life, you may be backburdering your emotions in favor of simply surviving the day today. 240 00:22:30,760 --> 00:22:35,560 And a lot of people think like I didn't cry at the funeral so why am I crying now? When delayed 241 00:22:35,560 --> 00:22:40,840 grief arrives, sometimes it looks like tears, but sometimes it's not tears. Tears are not the only 242 00:22:40,840 --> 00:22:46,200 measure of grief. So sometimes delayed grief appearing later can show up as exhaustion or fatigue that 243 00:22:46,200 --> 00:22:52,440 you can't improve with sleep or naps or irritability or short fuse over seemingly little things. 244 00:22:52,440 --> 00:22:57,880 Could also look like anxiety or restlessness or trouble concentrating seemingly out of nowhere. 245 00:22:57,880 --> 00:23:01,880 It could be headaches or stomach aches or heavy chest like grief could actually emerge in your 246 00:23:01,880 --> 00:23:06,280 body. It could look like pulling away from people or suddenly wanting to talk about your loss or 247 00:23:06,280 --> 00:23:10,920 research or loss or dive deep into your loss non-stop. So if any of these feel familiar to you and 248 00:23:10,920 --> 00:23:15,960 you can't quite explain them, it's worth asking yourself, could this be delayed grief showing up 249 00:23:15,960 --> 00:23:22,280 months or years later? Number four, and this one always makes me sad. Am I heartless if I haven't 250 00:23:22,280 --> 00:23:27,720 creved yet? I see many versions of this question and they often look like, am I an asshole for not 251 00:23:27,720 --> 00:23:33,960 falling apart? Am I cold or frigid or unfeeling? And is there something wrong with me? And my direct 252 00:23:33,960 --> 00:23:40,040 answer is no. Because being busy or numb or overwhelmed or focused on survival after a loss 253 00:23:40,040 --> 00:23:45,160 does not mean you didn't love your person or value your relationship or care about the life 254 00:23:45,160 --> 00:23:49,960 or the thing that you lost. It means that you had a ton on your plate at the time of your loss. 255 00:23:49,960 --> 00:23:54,600 You are not heartless or cold or an asshole and there is nothing wrong with you. 256 00:23:54,600 --> 00:23:58,600 When it comes to being alive, as I mentioned earlier in the episode, our brains and bodies usually 257 00:23:58,600 --> 00:24:04,360 prioritize survival over emotional expression. I'm thinking of Maslow's hierarchy of needs. We need 258 00:24:04,360 --> 00:24:09,080 to feel safe at the basis in most foundational levels first before we can even think about 259 00:24:09,080 --> 00:24:14,840 emotionally processing what we've been through. So if you were a person who feels guilty about 260 00:24:14,840 --> 00:24:20,520 not making your grief enough of a priority, I hope that you can extend yourself the same compassion 261 00:24:20,520 --> 00:24:25,080 that you would offer a friend. Essentially, you did what you were able to do at the time and felt 262 00:24:25,080 --> 00:24:30,840 what you were able to feel at the time with the capacity and the time and the energy and the money 263 00:24:30,840 --> 00:24:36,680 and the resources and the community and the support that you had in the moment that your loss happened? 264 00:24:38,120 --> 00:24:42,520 Number five, and this is our last one in the FAQ, is it too late to grieve my loss? No. 265 00:24:42,520 --> 00:24:48,680 It is never too late to grief. Not at six months, not at six years, and not at 60 years. 266 00:24:48,680 --> 00:24:53,480 Four, as long as you live, you will continue to lose. Sadly, sad truth for all of us. 267 00:24:53,480 --> 00:24:58,360 And the more life experiences you have, the more likely you are to encounter grief on some level. 268 00:24:58,360 --> 00:25:02,680 Whether that is grief over losses you've already faced or grief that comes with new losses. 269 00:25:02,680 --> 00:25:07,080 There is no expiration date on feeling grief over the losses you've experienced. 270 00:25:07,080 --> 00:25:12,040 And it is never too late to seek support from a therapist or a coach or support group. 271 00:25:12,040 --> 00:25:17,640 A lot of times I get emails about life after loss academy thinking that it is intended for the first year 272 00:25:17,640 --> 00:25:20,680 after a loss. And even though that is written nowhere, I'd say that nowhere. 273 00:25:20,680 --> 00:25:27,320 People think that joining groups or joining courses or getting support after a loss is only for 274 00:25:27,320 --> 00:25:31,560 the first year and only for death-related losses. And I say, no, it's called life after loss 275 00:25:31,560 --> 00:25:36,360 academy for a reason. It is life after loss, so it applies to all types of loss. And it is an 276 00:25:36,360 --> 00:25:41,400 academy because the courses and the materials are available at all times. You are learning these 277 00:25:41,400 --> 00:25:47,800 lessons at all times in your life with loss. And so I have people who join the community anywhere, 278 00:25:47,800 --> 00:25:54,440 I mean, two, three months after a loss all the way up to 30 years. And there there truly is no 279 00:25:54,440 --> 00:26:01,160 timeline for grief. You also don't have to wonder whether you have grieved fully or grieved correctly. 280 00:26:01,160 --> 00:26:06,760 Grief is not, as we've talked about on many episodes of Griefbrower before, a to-do list that you finish 281 00:26:06,760 --> 00:26:11,400 or a test that you pass or you fail. And I know I'm giving you a lot of resources for Griefbrower 282 00:26:11,400 --> 00:26:16,440 episodes in this episode today. But if you're curious about what healing actually looks like after a 283 00:26:16,440 --> 00:26:21,240 loss, there is a podcast about five ways to know you'll be okay again after a loss. And that's a 284 00:26:21,240 --> 00:26:26,360 worthwhile one to listen to. If you're looking for the closest thing I can give you to a checklist of 285 00:26:26,360 --> 00:26:34,360 like how do I know I'm doing okay after a loss? A thing I want to reassure you of as we continue 286 00:26:34,360 --> 00:26:41,800 diving deeper into this concept of delayed grief is that you have not been not grieving the entire 287 00:26:41,800 --> 00:26:48,680 time that you have been living after your loss. And I wish this is something that I could tell to 288 00:26:48,680 --> 00:26:54,600 every griever facing delayed grief. You haven't been not grieving. You have just been doing a different 289 00:26:54,600 --> 00:26:59,640 kind of grieving. There are a few researchers named Margaret Strobe and Hakeshoot and they describe 290 00:26:59,640 --> 00:27:04,200 this in something they call the dual process model of grief. We talked about this with Alex Mamadiara 291 00:27:04,200 --> 00:27:08,840 of in another episode of Griefbrower. But essentially the dual process model of grief argues that 292 00:27:08,840 --> 00:27:14,040 grievers move back and forth between two different kinds of coping. There is loss-oriented coping, 293 00:27:14,040 --> 00:27:19,000 which is facing the pain directly, crying, remembering, longing, creating rituals, feeling the absence 294 00:27:19,000 --> 00:27:24,120 of the loss or the person who's gone. And then there's what's called restoration-oriented coping. 295 00:27:24,120 --> 00:27:29,720 And this is adjusting to new reality by handling logistics, learning new roles, building a life 296 00:27:29,720 --> 00:27:35,400 that is possible for you where the loss is also true. Both of these things, both categories, 297 00:27:35,400 --> 00:27:40,120 are grief and I keep doing this with my hands because moving back and forth between them is considered 298 00:27:40,120 --> 00:27:45,240 healthy and normal grieving. So all of that time that you spent filing insurance claims, learning to 299 00:27:45,240 --> 00:27:50,440 pay the bills, going to work, renegotiating holidays with your ex, doing things alone that you used 300 00:27:50,440 --> 00:27:55,400 to do with a spouse, rearranging your life around medical appointments, all of that is grieving. 301 00:27:55,400 --> 00:28:00,200 You were in some way learning to live in a world where loss is real and that in and of itself 302 00:28:00,200 --> 00:28:06,120 is a kind of grief work. The other side of the process, the touchy-fuely side, may now be asking 303 00:28:06,120 --> 00:28:10,760 for its turn with you as the focus of your body heart and mind. Now that these tasks are complete or 304 00:28:10,760 --> 00:28:15,720 now that you've sort of learned how to survive day to day and life has settled down around it, 305 00:28:15,720 --> 00:28:20,760 this is the time often when the touchy-fuely side of the dual process model of grief emerges and 306 00:28:20,760 --> 00:28:25,000 say, "Hey, it's time to feel now. It's time to deal with emotions now. It's time to actually grieve 307 00:28:25,000 --> 00:28:29,400 what has been lost." So if this is where you're at, I would love to give you some permission slips 308 00:28:29,400 --> 00:28:34,440 for when you feel like you are grieving too late. So if you are a person, a griever who is 309 00:28:34,440 --> 00:28:39,880 pressuring yourself to grief faster or feel any sort of shame about your grief arriving 310 00:28:39,880 --> 00:28:45,800 now as opposed to earlier or at the time of the loss, I hope you will try one of these on for size. 311 00:28:45,800 --> 00:28:51,240 I'm just going to go down unless them. I am allowed to grieve on my own timeline, even if it's not 312 00:28:51,240 --> 00:28:57,320 the timeline anyone expected. My grief didn't skip over me. It waited until I had room for it. 313 00:28:57,320 --> 00:29:03,640 I was surviving then. I'm grieving now. Both were necessary for my survival. 314 00:29:05,000 --> 00:29:09,880 Handling logistics was a way of "insert your reason here, loving my person, honoring my loss." 315 00:29:09,880 --> 00:29:15,880 It's okay that I didn't cry at "insert your thing here at the funeral, the courthouse, the doctor's 316 00:29:15,880 --> 00:29:22,360 office." It's okay to cry now. My grief isn't late. It's arriving right on time for me. 317 00:29:22,360 --> 00:29:30,040 I don't owe anyone an explanation for why this hurts now. I can grieve the old loss and the new loss 318 00:29:30,040 --> 00:29:36,760 at the same time. Feeling this no doesn't mean I'm going backwards. It means I finally have space to feel it. 319 00:29:36,760 --> 00:29:43,640 I'm allowed to get support when I need it for my grief, not when I or others thought I should need it. 320 00:29:43,640 --> 00:29:50,360 Other people being over it doesn't mean I have to be. And of course with all these permission 321 00:29:50,360 --> 00:29:55,320 slips you are allowed to take them and make them your own as it relates to your own experience of 322 00:29:55,320 --> 00:30:02,680 delayed grief. If you have heard all this and you're like, "Okay, I am knowing now. I am certain 323 00:30:02,680 --> 00:30:06,760 that what I'm experiencing is delayed grief. How do I make time to grieve?" This is one of the 324 00:30:06,760 --> 00:30:10,760 biggest questions I get from students inside life after loss academy, from clients, even from 325 00:30:10,760 --> 00:30:16,440 Fenson family members who are like, "I know I'm grieving when on earth am I supposed to do this. 326 00:30:16,440 --> 00:30:22,120 Here are four ways to make a room for deeper grief work." Number one is to schedule a grief date 327 00:30:22,120 --> 00:30:26,920 on your calendar. You could set aside anywhere from 15 minutes to an hour each week to do 328 00:30:26,920 --> 00:30:30,840 anything related to grieving. You could journal and you could look through photos. You could visit 329 00:30:30,840 --> 00:30:34,200 a meaningful place. You could work through a grief course like life after loss academy. 330 00:30:34,200 --> 00:30:39,400 The reason I want you to schedule it into your calendar is that having a start and end time 331 00:30:39,400 --> 00:30:45,320 that is set reissures your brain that grieving time has an endpoint. When it is over you can go back 332 00:30:45,320 --> 00:30:49,400 to watching TV or cleaning or running errands or picking up the kids from school, whatever else you 333 00:30:49,400 --> 00:30:54,680 were doing before. It saves you from this story or this myth of, "Once I start grieving or once I 334 00:30:54,680 --> 00:31:00,040 start crying, I won't be able to stop." This is a fear that many grieving people have. If you would 335 00:31:00,040 --> 00:31:05,000 like an even bigger chunk of time to grieve, you might consider booking something like a grief 336 00:31:05,000 --> 00:31:09,720 retreat or a full weekend or week that is dedicated to processing your loss and you can do this in 337 00:31:09,720 --> 00:31:14,680 the company of other people or you can take like a solo vacation or staycation to do that with your 338 00:31:14,680 --> 00:31:20,680 grief. Number two is one of my favorites and that's to find a grief buddy. I find that hard things are 339 00:31:20,680 --> 00:31:25,080 often easier when someone does them alongside you. So you might invite a friend who is also grieving 340 00:31:25,080 --> 00:31:31,160 to work through a book or a course or a ritual program together. You can also use a free online 341 00:31:31,160 --> 00:31:35,560 service. There are things like focus made or I use personally shut up and write to journal 342 00:31:35,560 --> 00:31:39,960 to pair up virtually with an accountability partner while you journal or reflect you say what 343 00:31:39,960 --> 00:31:43,480 you're working on and then you literally shut up and do the thing and then you come back for the 344 00:31:43,480 --> 00:31:47,800 last couple of minutes to say what you learned or what you accomplished or just thank the other person 345 00:31:47,800 --> 00:31:51,160 for holding the space with you. That's a great resource to have when you're grieving. 346 00:31:51,160 --> 00:31:55,960 Number three and this is one of my favorites is to say no to something that is draining you in 347 00:31:55,960 --> 00:32:00,520 grief because a lot of times in grief there are a lot of commitments we had in life before 348 00:32:00,520 --> 00:32:05,560 that in life after are just not nourishing to us. So maybe you're in a book club that keeps choosing 349 00:32:05,560 --> 00:32:10,920 impossibly long books or you keep going to an after hours meeting at work that doesn't actually 350 00:32:10,920 --> 00:32:15,320 contribute to what you need to do for your job or maybe you have a standing coffee date with a friend 351 00:32:15,320 --> 00:32:20,040 who isn't really much of one or has no space to honor your grief. So letting working on your grief 352 00:32:20,040 --> 00:32:26,200 be the reason you step back from one of these things and using that time to reclaim your 353 00:32:26,200 --> 00:32:30,760 relationship to grief and to work on that to tend to your heart is a valid and worthwhile use of 354 00:32:30,760 --> 00:32:35,160 your time. So maybe the solution isn't to make more time is to say no to something that isn't 355 00:32:35,160 --> 00:32:41,000 really worth your time right now. The last one number four is to start thinking of yourself as a 356 00:32:41,000 --> 00:32:44,760 griever. So instead of telling yourself I have to get through this grief, I have to process all of 357 00:32:44,760 --> 00:32:49,880 this so I can get back to my normal life. You might try telling yourself grief is a part of me now 358 00:32:49,880 --> 00:32:55,400 and as a griever I make time for practices and communities and support that helps me heal. 359 00:32:55,400 --> 00:33:00,920 So when griever becomes a part of how you see yourself in the world it is easier to give your 360 00:33:00,920 --> 00:33:06,920 grief the time and attention that it deserves from you. And I'll just add this as a little bonus at 361 00:33:06,920 --> 00:33:11,960 the end. If the people around you think you should be over it by now a simple script can help. 362 00:33:11,960 --> 00:33:16,600 You can say I wasn't survival mode when it happened and I'm finally making room for my emotions now. 363 00:33:16,600 --> 00:33:21,960 I would really appreciate your patience and support. That is a clear and kind boundary to say 364 00:33:21,960 --> 00:33:30,040 you're judging me for grieving coming up months and years later. Don't stop. I'm okay with this 365 00:33:30,040 --> 00:33:36,200 and I would appreciate you being patient with me and supporting me as I finally move through the 366 00:33:36,200 --> 00:33:42,760 emotions of my grief. Yeah. I hope that helps. The thing I want to leave you with today is that um 367 00:33:42,760 --> 00:33:50,840 your grief is on time for you. Despite what society or the media or the people around you think it is 368 00:33:50,840 --> 00:33:56,920 impossible impossible impossible to grieve everything about a loss immediately after the loss happens. 369 00:33:56,920 --> 00:34:01,720 Loss does not happen and then we grieve. Loss happens and then we grieve as much as we can and then we 370 00:34:01,720 --> 00:34:05,080 live our lives and then we grieve some more and then we have to live some more lives or deal with a 371 00:34:05,080 --> 00:34:10,120 crisis or do something else and then we grieve some more and it is more than okay for grief to 372 00:34:10,120 --> 00:34:16,520 arrive weeks or months or even years after a loss. The timing of grief's arrival in your life is not 373 00:34:16,520 --> 00:34:21,560 a judgment or a verdict on your ability to grieve. It is simply a snapshot, a portrait of the 374 00:34:21,560 --> 00:34:26,760 circumstances of your life and where grief is able to fit in and what kind of room it has for it. 375 00:34:27,000 --> 00:34:33,480 At any given moment in that human picture. So put simply grief that comes to you later 376 00:34:33,480 --> 00:34:38,040 is not a sign that you did something wrong or that you're bad at grieving. It is a sign that some part 377 00:34:38,040 --> 00:34:44,360 of you finally feels safe enough or settled enough to set the heavy things down and mindfully look at them. 378 00:34:44,360 --> 00:34:51,320 If you would like to process delayed grief grief that is just now coming up in a community of people 379 00:34:51,320 --> 00:34:56,440 that really truly gets it. You can join at any time. It's always open to you. My online grief 380 00:34:56,440 --> 00:35:01,560 support course and community called life after loss academy. In it I teach something called the 381 00:35:01,560 --> 00:35:06,920 grief method, g-r-i-e-f, ground release, integrate, establish and foster and each of them has 382 00:35:06,920 --> 00:35:12,120 on demand video lessons and journaling prompts for working through grief. The second section 383 00:35:12,120 --> 00:35:18,120 release is all about exploring and letting yourself feel grief's biggest emotions and I help 384 00:35:18,120 --> 00:35:22,760 you in there take a full inventory of everything your loss changed and you get to do that in the 385 00:35:22,760 --> 00:35:28,040 company of other grieving people who are also doing this work and who also understand that grief 386 00:35:28,040 --> 00:35:32,840 has no timeline. So you will find no judgment for it's been how long I can't believe you're still 387 00:35:32,840 --> 00:35:36,760 grieving. Why is this coming up now? You didn't cry at the funeral, buh buh buh buh buh buh, none, 388 00:35:36,760 --> 00:35:42,200 zilch, none of that, inside life after loss academy. And as I said, this community, this course, 389 00:35:42,200 --> 00:35:46,360 this space is open to you whether you are grieving a death, a divorce, a breakup, a life changing 390 00:35:46,360 --> 00:35:52,600 diagnosis, any other transition and whether your loss happened last month or more than a decade ago. 391 00:35:53,000 --> 00:35:56,840 And if you are not sure if you're ready to join us in life after loss academy, that's okay. 392 00:35:56,840 --> 00:36:02,120 I created a free two-minute quiz to figure out, is it right for me right now? And even if it's not, 393 00:36:02,120 --> 00:36:07,720 I will give you best next steps for moving forward in the way that works best for you. And you can 394 00:36:07,720 --> 00:36:13,560 find the link in the show notes to access that quiz. Thank you so much for joining me today to talk 395 00:36:13,560 --> 00:36:20,680 about delayed grief. I hope this gives you so much support and tools and permission slips for wherever 396 00:36:20,680 --> 00:36:28,440 you are in the larger time spectrum, the space time continuum of your experience and relationship with grief. 397 00:36:28,440 --> 00:36:37,960 That's all for this episode of Griefgrower. If you are looking for support beyond this show, 398 00:36:37,960 --> 00:36:42,440 you can find free workshops, blog articles, and my new book, of course I'm here right now, 399 00:36:42,440 --> 00:36:47,720 three actually helpful things to say to someone grieving at shellbeefersithia.com/links. 400 00:36:48,200 --> 00:36:51,800 And if you'd like to get support and coaching from me for your unique loss experience, 401 00:36:51,800 --> 00:36:56,760 join us at any time in life after loss academy, which is my online course and community. 402 00:36:56,760 --> 00:37:02,120 As a student, I'll walk you through my five-step grief framework for rebuilding after loss, 403 00:37:02,120 --> 00:37:07,240 and you can get live coaching from me every single week to answer your questions. Replays are always 404 00:37:07,240 --> 00:37:12,520 available if you can't attend life. It's just $33 a month to join or $22 a month if you're 405 00:37:12,520 --> 00:37:17,720 marginalized or financially stressed griever. You pick the price that works best for you and you can 406 00:37:17,720 --> 00:37:23,720 cancel at any time. If this podcast felt validating, comforting, educational, or otherwise helpful to you, 407 00:37:23,720 --> 00:37:28,760 please subscribe and leave a review on Apple podcasts and be sure to share this show with a friend 408 00:37:28,760 --> 00:37:31,400 because you never know what somebody that you love is going through. 409 00:37:31,400 --> 00:37:36,680 Griefgrower is hosted by me Shelby for Scytheia with theme music by Addy Goldstein. 410 00:37:36,680 --> 00:37:41,640 Until next time, Griefgrower's I see you. I am so incredibly proud of you and the work that you're 411 00:37:41,640 --> 00:37:50,040 doing in the world and I love you because even through Grief, we are growing.