1 00:00:00,000 --> 00:00:06,060 When a loss happens, you don't just lose a person, a relationship, a dream, your health, whatever the thing is that you lost. 2 00:00:06,060 --> 00:00:09,700 Loss can also rob you of your sense of meaning. 3 00:00:09,700 --> 00:00:15,860 It is extremely disorienting, and especially if you had a firmly rooted sense of meaning or purpose in life before a loss, 4 00:00:15,860 --> 00:00:20,240 it can be truly life-altering, like worldview rearranging. 5 00:00:20,240 --> 00:00:26,080 For many people, the answer to the question, "What is your why?" isn't just a fun fact about them. 6 00:00:26,080 --> 00:00:30,720 It is literally what gets them up in the morning, so when loss takes your reason for being, 7 00:00:30,720 --> 00:00:36,800 it can feel like a very real identity crisis on top of a major loss. 8 00:00:36,800 --> 00:00:56,800 [Music] 9 00:00:56,800 --> 00:01:00,720 Hi there, grief growers. I am so honored to be with you today, as always. 10 00:01:00,720 --> 00:01:05,200 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. 11 00:01:05,200 --> 00:01:12,240 Hello, my name is Shelby Farsetia. I am a grief coach, a three-time author, and the founder of Life After Loss Academy, 12 00:01:12,240 --> 00:01:17,120 which is an online support community where I have helped dozens of grieving people stop feeling lost, 13 00:01:17,120 --> 00:01:25,360 stuck, broken, and alone, and start building lives that they truly love from the lives that lost, forced them to live. 14 00:01:25,360 --> 00:01:30,160 This includes, of course, not only death-related losses, but also losses like divorce and breakup, 15 00:01:30,160 --> 00:01:34,240 major diagnosis, and any other loss that changes your life. 16 00:01:34,240 --> 00:01:37,360 Here on grief growers, we believe that grief is not something we get over. 17 00:01:37,360 --> 00:01:42,080 It is something that we grow with and alongside, and that by treating grief less like a problem to be 18 00:01:42,080 --> 00:01:47,280 solved, and more like an invitation to live deeply, we create meaningful lives that are rich with 19 00:01:47,280 --> 00:01:52,960 the memories we carry, the struggles that we faced, and the precious awareness of what it means to 20 00:01:52,960 --> 00:01:59,600 be right here and right now. And speaking of meaning, everything about this episode is related to 21 00:01:59,600 --> 00:02:05,680 how to find meaning and purpose again after loss. I'm just going to jump right into it. Recently, 22 00:02:05,680 --> 00:02:10,800 a student in my online support group Life After Loss Academy wrote, "This is truncated for the show, 23 00:02:10,800 --> 00:02:17,120 but essentially this." She says, "I came to Life After Loss Academy in 2024, shortly after the death 24 00:02:17,120 --> 00:02:23,520 of my mom. She lived with me for 18 years, and I was her sole caregiver." Taking her into my care 25 00:02:23,520 --> 00:02:29,120 changed the course of my life, physically, emotionally, and financially. My personal life was put on 26 00:02:29,120 --> 00:02:35,120 hold as I balanced caregiving, working two jobs, and maintaining the home we shared. My mom was my 27 00:02:35,120 --> 00:02:41,920 daily companion. Caring for her gave my day's purpose, particularly after retiring. Now, it feels 28 00:02:41,920 --> 00:02:46,640 strange and disorienting to be struggling with meaning and purpose when, for much of my life, 29 00:02:46,640 --> 00:02:52,400 I never did, and through my work, I helped so many others find theirs. I've experienced tons of 30 00:02:52,400 --> 00:02:57,520 losses, including my dad's death when I was six, the suicide of a close friend and former partner, 31 00:02:57,520 --> 00:03:02,080 many invasive surgeries, and the endings of significant relationships and friendships I once 32 00:03:02,080 --> 00:03:07,440 considered cornerstones of my life. As a professional, I've supported many people through grief, 33 00:03:07,440 --> 00:03:13,520 yet I am struck by how different my mother's death feels. Despite journaling, reading, listening 34 00:03:13,520 --> 00:03:18,080 to grief, podcast, allowing myself to feel and release emotions and communicating thoughtfully, 35 00:03:18,080 --> 00:03:23,280 in hopes of bridging the gap and understanding with others, the loneliness and isolation remain. 36 00:03:24,320 --> 00:03:30,080 I'm struggling to regain a sense of purpose and meaning in my life. How? Or maybe where? 37 00:03:30,080 --> 00:03:36,240 Do I start looking for meaning again? Is it even possible after a loss like this? 38 00:03:36,240 --> 00:03:44,320 So I have to tell you as a grief coach, I actually love hearing this question. Because underneath 39 00:03:44,320 --> 00:03:51,280 the six words, how do I find meaning again? Is always, always, always something very precious and 40 00:03:51,280 --> 00:03:58,800 genuinely important. It is a grieving person racked by loss, asking, who am I? What am I here for? 41 00:03:58,800 --> 00:04:05,040 Why did this happen to me? What does this all mean for my life? And what am I supposed to do now? 42 00:04:05,040 --> 00:04:09,840 So if you have asked yourself any variation of these questions related to purpose or meaning, 43 00:04:09,840 --> 00:04:14,480 whether your loss happened literally last week or decades ago, what I want to cover on the show 44 00:04:14,480 --> 00:04:21,120 today is how loss changes your relationship with meaning? Why purpose can be such a sticky subject 45 00:04:21,120 --> 00:04:25,920 in grief? And why no one, even the people in your life who you care about the most and who 46 00:04:25,920 --> 00:04:31,760 care about you the most, can make your meaning for you. So the first thing I want to get into is how 47 00:04:31,760 --> 00:04:38,240 loss shakes and changes your sense of meaning. The thing I want to cover is that like, when a loss 48 00:04:38,240 --> 00:04:43,360 happens, you never lose just the one thing. I am known for saying grief never happens in a vacuum. 49 00:04:43,360 --> 00:04:47,920 You don't just lose a person, a relationship, a dream, your health, whatever the thing is that you 50 00:04:47,920 --> 00:04:55,680 lost. Loss can also rob you of your sense of meaning. And this overnight, like instantaneous or 51 00:04:55,680 --> 00:05:02,160 gradual collapse of purpose, can leave you feeling sort of adrift or unanchored in a world where everything 52 00:05:02,160 --> 00:05:07,200 used to feel solid. It is extremely disorienting. This is a word that this life after loss academy 53 00:05:07,200 --> 00:05:11,920 student chose. And especially if you had a firmly rooted sense of meaning or purpose in life before 54 00:05:11,920 --> 00:05:18,880 the loss, it can be truly life altering like worldview rearranging. For many people, the answer to 55 00:05:18,880 --> 00:05:24,640 the question, what is your why isn't just a fun fact about them. It is literally what gets them 56 00:05:24,640 --> 00:05:31,360 up in the morning. So when loss takes your reason for being, it can feel like a very real identity crisis 57 00:05:31,360 --> 00:05:37,120 on top of a major loss. And my most recent book, of course, I'm here right now, three actually 58 00:05:37,120 --> 00:05:42,880 helpful things to say to someone grieving. I talk about the four types of loneliness that show up 59 00:05:42,880 --> 00:05:47,920 after loss. And one of them, the one most tied to meaning, is called spiritual loneliness. And this 60 00:05:47,920 --> 00:05:53,280 is the feeling of being abandoned by God or the universe or by whatever sense of order or meaning 61 00:05:53,280 --> 00:06:00,160 that you used to trust or have faith in. It is the why me flavor of loneliness or the one that tells you 62 00:06:00,160 --> 00:06:05,520 you have been left to fend for yourself out here. Or there is no higher order or explanation. Or 63 00:06:06,240 --> 00:06:10,320 probably the most devastating to me after my mom died. No one's coming to save you. 64 00:06:10,320 --> 00:06:17,200 Spiritual loneliness, this sense of the world having no meaning, does not require you to have any 65 00:06:17,200 --> 00:06:21,840 sort of religion. You do not have to believe in God or an afterlife or fate in order to feel 66 00:06:21,840 --> 00:06:28,640 spiritually or purposely or meaningfully lonely. You just have to have lost your sense that life 67 00:06:28,640 --> 00:06:33,120 makes sense. That things happen for a greater purpose. That your days add up to something, 68 00:06:33,120 --> 00:06:39,600 that there is a why underneath the what of your life. For this life after loss academy student who 69 00:06:39,600 --> 00:06:45,360 wrote to me, this shows up for her as a cruel irony. She spent decades of her work life giving other 70 00:06:45,360 --> 00:06:50,400 people a sense of purpose and meaning and helping them through grief. Only to find herself unmoored 71 00:06:50,400 --> 00:06:57,120 and adrift, the one time in her life that she needed that same gift for herself. And to be 72 00:06:57,120 --> 00:07:03,760 clear, this is not a failure on her part. This is simply the nature of loss. Grief loss do not care 73 00:07:03,760 --> 00:07:10,320 how much expertise or insight or practice or grief literacy that you have. They still have the 74 00:07:10,320 --> 00:07:17,040 power to take your sense of meaning and just knock it right out of your hands. And the thing that I 75 00:07:17,040 --> 00:07:24,480 wish people who haven't lived through grief but who are observing grievers knew, probably more 76 00:07:24,480 --> 00:07:32,240 than a lot of other things is that meaning after loss rarely rarely rarely looks like it used to. 77 00:07:32,240 --> 00:07:37,440 Here's something that I teach inside life after loss academy that I learned after my mom died in 78 00:07:37,440 --> 00:07:44,560 2013 and through 10 years now of supporting people through grief. Your old versions of meaning and 79 00:07:44,560 --> 00:07:51,440 purpose are not coming back, at least not in their original form, not as you knew them. While this 80 00:07:51,440 --> 00:07:56,240 statement might feel like a slap in the face when you're grieving, it can also ring with a kind of 81 00:07:56,240 --> 00:08:00,560 weirdly comforting truth. You're like, "Yeah, actually, that feels true. That hurts, but it feels true." 82 00:08:00,560 --> 00:08:07,520 Because think about it this way. You've experienced a loss. So your sense of meaning has experienced 83 00:08:07,520 --> 00:08:13,200 loss too. Framed a little more bluntly, and this is how I describe it in my after-loss academy, 84 00:08:13,200 --> 00:08:19,280 you've seen some shit. So your sense of meaning has seen some shit too. Meaning has been through 85 00:08:19,280 --> 00:08:24,160 something, just like you. And meaning that has been cranked through the ringer of life often comes out 86 00:08:24,160 --> 00:08:29,120 the other side of that experience looking different than it used to. Maybe meaning is more fragile 87 00:08:29,120 --> 00:08:35,120 or more quiet or less enormous or less clear. And for you, meaning might not present with the same 88 00:08:35,120 --> 00:08:41,760 confidence or certainty that it once had. It might feel like a question mark or a temporary 89 00:08:41,760 --> 00:08:48,000 stand-in or like a bandaid meaning, then a definitive "I have my flat planted firmly in the ground" 90 00:08:48,000 --> 00:08:53,360 sort of meaning. Your sense of meaning or purpose in the world may be shredded in tatters 91 00:08:53,360 --> 00:08:58,560 in the exact spot where it was torn apart by your loss or meaning and purpose may have left the 92 00:08:58,560 --> 00:09:04,640 building of your life entirely. I want to give you some examples of what changes in meaning can 93 00:09:04,640 --> 00:09:11,280 often look like after a loss. Number one is intensity. You might cling to meaning drastically less 94 00:09:11,280 --> 00:09:15,360 or feel less attachment to meaning as a part of your identity or like what gives you up in the 95 00:09:15,360 --> 00:09:21,360 morning. Clarity might change. Number two, you might struggle to articulate a clear sense of purpose 96 00:09:21,360 --> 00:09:26,000 or why, especially if you are asked to write it down or speak it aloud. I'm thinking like in a job. 97 00:09:26,000 --> 00:09:31,600 And if you're already see yourself in five years, I have no fucking idea. Number three is strength. 98 00:09:31,600 --> 00:09:37,280 Your relationship with meaning may be delicate or hanging on by a thread or totally nonexistent. 99 00:09:37,280 --> 00:09:42,640 That can be a very fragile relationship now. And finally, number four is priority. You might see 100 00:09:42,640 --> 00:09:49,760 meaning or purpose as much less important to daily life as you'd used to. As an example, 101 00:09:49,760 --> 00:09:53,360 the life after loss academy student who wrote this question at the beginning of the podcast 102 00:09:53,360 --> 00:10:02,160 held caregiving for her mom as a clear daily undeniable purpose of her life for 18 years. That kind 103 00:10:02,160 --> 00:10:08,000 of meaning is extraordinarily loud and extraordinarily clear. It wakes you up in the morning and it 104 00:10:08,000 --> 00:10:15,120 hands you a job or a mission or a thing to do. Losing that kind of meaning doesn't just leave you with 105 00:10:15,120 --> 00:10:20,480 an empty afternoon on your calendar. It leaves you with an empty architecture of your life. 106 00:10:20,480 --> 00:10:27,680 Essentially, the bones of a hollowed out house where a rich and lively mosaic of a home used to be. 107 00:10:27,680 --> 00:10:34,480 It is no wonder that rebuilding your relationship with meaning does not happen quickly after a loss 108 00:10:34,480 --> 00:10:41,920 and no wonder it cannot look the same as it did before. It has been through the same loss that you have. 109 00:10:41,920 --> 00:10:45,760 You have seen some shit, so your sense of meaning has seen some shit too. 110 00:10:45,760 --> 00:10:51,440 If your sense of meaning feels smaller, quieter, more tentative than what you had in life before, 111 00:10:51,440 --> 00:10:56,160 just like this life after loss academy student, that does not mean you are failing at finding your 112 00:10:56,160 --> 00:11:01,200 purpose. It might just mean that it's early in your loss experience to try to hunt for meaning 113 00:11:01,200 --> 00:11:07,280 again or it might mean that you know this inescapable aspect of grief, the meaning that you hold after 114 00:11:07,280 --> 00:11:14,400 loss is built differently than the meaning you held before loss. So that brings us to the question, 115 00:11:14,400 --> 00:11:21,200 how on earth shall we? Do I start finding meaning again after loss? Inside life after loss academy, 116 00:11:21,200 --> 00:11:27,840 one of the final modules, sections of lessons that I teach, is how to leave the door of your life open 117 00:11:27,840 --> 00:11:34,880 metaphorically to meaning purpose joy and hope again. Similar to other visualizations or metaphors 118 00:11:34,880 --> 00:11:39,360 that I've used to categorize life with grief as a never-ending experiment, so for example, 119 00:11:39,360 --> 00:11:43,840 the involuntary scavenger hunt from my first book Permission to Grieve or the dressing room 120 00:11:43,840 --> 00:11:50,080 from my article about some of my favorite medic force for grief. My visualization for meaning 121 00:11:50,080 --> 00:11:57,440 making that I teach in life after loss academy is all about treating purpose and meaning. As a trial-size 122 00:11:57,440 --> 00:12:04,560 sample or as an audition instead of needing to commit to a meaning forever right away. I'm not going 123 00:12:04,560 --> 00:12:09,280 to reveal the exact metaphor in this podcast. I hope you will join us in life after loss academy, 124 00:12:09,280 --> 00:12:13,040 but hopefully what I'm going to tell you next will get you started. It will get you to get what I 125 00:12:13,040 --> 00:12:17,760 mean. If you'd like to access the full lesson, you can join me for guided grief support every single 126 00:12:17,760 --> 00:12:22,640 week and on demand lessons, including this one, inside life after loss academy, and you can find a 127 00:12:22,640 --> 00:12:27,200 link to do that in the show notes. It is open year round all the time because grief never rests. 128 00:12:27,760 --> 00:12:34,720 Ah, okay, here's the essence of this tool that I teach. The best way that you can start to find 129 00:12:34,720 --> 00:12:41,120 meaning and purpose again after a loss is to use the words maybe and perhaps as you experiment with 130 00:12:41,120 --> 00:12:47,760 potential meanings after a loss. You are auditioning them. You are trying them on. This temporary and 131 00:12:47,760 --> 00:12:52,400 considering language may be perhaps makes the weight of these statements a little bit lighter, 132 00:12:52,400 --> 00:12:58,400 takes the pressure off a little less set and stone and they turn a heavy or a permanent sounding 133 00:12:58,400 --> 00:13:04,720 statement into something you're allowed to try on. Take off, set back down. So for instance, I'm going 134 00:13:04,720 --> 00:13:10,400 to add maybe in front of a whole bunch of meanings. Maybe this means I'm still connected to him. 135 00:13:10,400 --> 00:13:17,200 Maybe this is a sign I should look for work in a different field. Perhaps this is teaching me 136 00:13:17,200 --> 00:13:22,080 something about life or death that I don't have words for yet. Maybe this disease was always a 137 00:13:22,080 --> 00:13:28,480 part of me. I just didn't know it. Perhaps we were always destined to break up. Maybe this doesn't 138 00:13:28,480 --> 00:13:34,160 mean anything at all and that's allowed too. As you experiment with your own maybe and perhaps 139 00:13:34,160 --> 00:13:40,160 statements, a few questions can help you notice how each one actually sits with you. Does this 140 00:13:40,160 --> 00:13:46,640 statement feel true in your body or does it feel forced? Does it bring you a sense of relief or does 141 00:13:46,640 --> 00:13:52,320 it make you feel tense or dreadful? Would you want to hear someone else say this kind of meaning to 142 00:13:52,320 --> 00:13:58,160 you or does it only work in your own voice? Is this a meaning you are choosing for yourself or 143 00:13:58,160 --> 00:14:03,920 one that you've absorbed from someone else or from society at large? Are you open to this meaning 144 00:14:03,920 --> 00:14:10,320 changing later or does it need to stay exactly like it is? And to be clear, there is no 145 00:14:10,320 --> 00:14:16,240 right or wrong answer to any of these questions. The point is not to land on a final meaning today 146 00:14:16,240 --> 00:14:20,960 as we are speaking together. It is simply to notice with curiosity instead of 147 00:14:20,960 --> 00:14:26,480 vice-cogger pressure. What is true for you right now in this season of your life with grief? 148 00:14:26,480 --> 00:14:32,240 Now I'm sure you kind of picked up on this when I did the maybe and perhaps statements, 149 00:14:32,240 --> 00:14:37,440 but something I also make clear to grieving people inside life after loss academy and beyond 150 00:14:37,440 --> 00:14:44,000 is that your sense of meaning can be good but can also be bad or neutral. Most conversations about 151 00:14:44,000 --> 00:14:49,440 finding meaning after loss assume that meaning is automatically good like a warm comforting thing, 152 00:14:49,440 --> 00:14:54,240 a sign from someone who died, a silver lining, a sense of why you're here. Sometimes it is, a lot of 153 00:14:54,240 --> 00:14:59,280 times it is, but meaning, what we derive from loss is not always good. Sometimes it's bad, sometimes 154 00:14:59,280 --> 00:15:05,440 it's neutral and all three types of meaning are really normal when you're grieving and all three 155 00:15:05,440 --> 00:15:11,440 deserve your attention. I'm going to give you some examples of meanings you might make after loss 156 00:15:11,440 --> 00:15:16,480 sorted into good, bad and neutral based on how they ultimately make you feel and how they might 157 00:15:16,480 --> 00:15:21,120 impact your future actions for the better, for the worse, and for the in between. Each of them 158 00:15:21,120 --> 00:15:25,920 includes a maybe at the beginning, just so we're continuing the exercise, the experimentation 159 00:15:25,920 --> 00:15:31,760 from what I just said before. So for instance, a good or positive meaning might sound like, 160 00:15:31,760 --> 00:15:36,240 maybe this loss is teaching me how to be more present with the people I still have around me. 161 00:15:36,240 --> 00:15:41,360 Maybe I can still talk to her spirit and we're still able to communicate in ways I can't 162 00:15:41,360 --> 00:15:47,680 fully explain. Maybe this loss is helping me develop more compassion or stop working so much or be 163 00:15:47,680 --> 00:15:52,560 more mindful about money, something beneficial to your life. Maybe that hard season happened so I could 164 00:15:52,560 --> 00:15:59,040 eventually meet insert person here or join insert group community that positively changed your life. 165 00:15:59,040 --> 00:16:04,080 Maybe they died, so they didn't have to live through that painful surgery or that awful world 166 00:16:04,080 --> 00:16:10,640 event or seeing other people in our family die. Maybe this loss is inviting me to think about my own 167 00:16:10,640 --> 00:16:16,560 death so I don't leave others unprepared in the same way that I was. Maybe getting this inheritance 168 00:16:16,560 --> 00:16:21,440 means he would want me to follow my dreams and go back to school or buy a house or travel the world, 169 00:16:21,440 --> 00:16:28,560 something that positively impacts your life. Examples of bad or negative meanings might sound like, 170 00:16:28,560 --> 00:16:33,280 maybe this means I wasn't meant to have children or get married or start a business or move to 171 00:16:33,280 --> 00:16:39,040 ex location or apply to that job. Maybe I'm the kind of person that bad things happen to. 172 00:16:40,080 --> 00:16:43,920 Maybe this means there's no such thing as God or an afterlife and I'll never see him again. 173 00:16:43,920 --> 00:16:50,640 Maybe the rest of my life is nothing but suffering. Maybe this friend or family group or relationship 174 00:16:50,640 --> 00:16:57,360 was never meant to last. And a neutral meaning might sound something like, maybe this just means 175 00:16:57,360 --> 00:17:02,400 life is hard and complicated and that's simply true. Maybe there isn't a bigger reason, 176 00:17:02,400 --> 00:17:07,760 this just happened and now I get to decide what I do with it. Maybe meaning isn't about why it 177 00:17:07,760 --> 00:17:15,040 happened but about what I build next. See how each of those kind of land in your own life or apply to 178 00:17:15,040 --> 00:17:21,200 you and then notice how they resonate in your heart, mind, body, soul, spirit, wherever, wherever 179 00:17:21,200 --> 00:17:28,000 messaging or meaning tends to make a home for you. See how any of those resonates with you and notice 180 00:17:28,000 --> 00:17:34,480 where in your life you can find already what meanings have you made that are positive, negative, 181 00:17:34,800 --> 00:17:39,840 or neutral. Have you made any meanings in any of those categories? Do you have more in some categories 182 00:17:39,840 --> 00:17:45,520 versus others? I would love to know and to hear from you. So do get in touch. Before we continue, 183 00:17:45,520 --> 00:17:53,840 I want to circle around and like really kind of toss a dart in the bullseye of the very worst 184 00:17:53,840 --> 00:17:57,840 kind of meaning making and this is something that I don't see a lot of Greek professionals talking 185 00:17:57,840 --> 00:18:03,680 about. So I want to make sure that I talk about it here. This is the type of meaning that believes 186 00:18:03,680 --> 00:18:08,480 I manifested my loss and I might cry in this section. So like bear with me. 187 00:18:08,480 --> 00:18:16,720 One especially painful version of bad or negative meaning deserves its own spotlight. Again, 188 00:18:16,720 --> 00:18:21,680 I'm throwing a dart at the bullseye because this is something that I hear constantly from grieving people 189 00:18:21,680 --> 00:18:26,720 and it doesn't get addressed out loud in a lot of grief support spaces and this is the belief that 190 00:18:26,720 --> 00:18:33,200 you manifested or somehow attracted your loss to you. If you have spent any time around something 191 00:18:33,200 --> 00:18:38,560 called the law of attraction teachings, manifestation culture or the broader like you create your 192 00:18:38,560 --> 00:18:44,400 reality messaging that is everywhere in our society. You may have wondered, did I cause this loss 193 00:18:44,400 --> 00:18:49,200 or bring this pain upon myself? Did I think about this? Their death, the end of this relationship, 194 00:18:49,200 --> 00:18:55,040 this diagnosis having cancer too much? Did some part of me manifest my person or my pet's death, 195 00:18:55,040 --> 00:19:02,480 my divorce breakup, my diagnosis? These beliefs, these doubts that creep into our brain, 196 00:19:02,480 --> 00:19:09,040 these meaning makings that are for the worst do not come from nowhere. We live in a deeply individualist 197 00:19:09,040 --> 00:19:14,320 and bootstraps obsessed culture, one that loves to hand people all the credit for their successes 198 00:19:14,320 --> 00:19:20,160 and heap on all the blame for their suffering. It is the same societal belief system that endorses 199 00:19:20,160 --> 00:19:26,400 the story that someone gave themselves cancer through stress or cured it by changing their diet. 200 00:19:27,040 --> 00:19:34,240 That is all about individual actions. It is not about society or sometimes just there is a random 201 00:19:34,240 --> 00:19:39,680 order of the universe and bad things do happen to good people. This is also a society that believes 202 00:19:39,680 --> 00:19:45,440 that poverty is simply a failure of mindset and that wealth is purely the result of working hard. 203 00:19:45,440 --> 00:19:51,600 These beliefs of like you are entirely in control of your actions and how well you're doing all the time 204 00:19:52,880 --> 00:20:00,800 sort of forms a small sneaky leap from you create your reality to you caused your loss. 205 00:20:00,800 --> 00:20:08,400 If there is any part of you that has ever believed that your fear or your worry or your negative 206 00:20:08,400 --> 00:20:14,400 thinking or your intrusive thoughts somehow attracted magnetized a death, a breakup, a diagnosis, 207 00:20:14,400 --> 00:20:19,200 another major loss into your life, it makes sense to me based on the society that we are all 208 00:20:19,200 --> 00:20:25,520 marinating in that you would feel that that belief is everywhere and in our society it is designed to 209 00:20:25,520 --> 00:20:32,320 feel true. What's that what's that phrase? You attract what you focus what you focus on multiplies. 210 00:20:32,320 --> 00:20:40,560 There's all these different kinds of phrases. This belief though is not a reflection of your power 211 00:20:40,560 --> 00:20:47,840 over the universe or your own life path. What it is is a reflection of how badly we as human beings 212 00:20:47,840 --> 00:20:53,920 want lost to make sense and how quick our society our culture is to assign blame to the individual 213 00:20:53,920 --> 00:21:00,400 instead of compassion even and especially to the person who is suffering the loss. I will say this 214 00:21:00,400 --> 00:21:09,840 very simply you did not think your loss into existence and your grief did not cause it. I'm going to 215 00:21:09,840 --> 00:21:16,800 say that one more time you did not think your loss into existence and your grief did not cause it. 216 00:21:17,680 --> 00:21:22,480 Your negative thinking, your ruminating thoughts, your worries, your what ifs they did not cause it. 217 00:21:22,480 --> 00:21:26,960 So if this is you today and I'm speaking directly to you through this microphone, 218 00:21:26,960 --> 00:21:34,720 I hope that you can release this particular awful heavy meaning fully and without guilt and kind 219 00:21:34,720 --> 00:21:40,240 of see it for all that it is through the layers of how our society operates and beyond. 220 00:21:42,640 --> 00:21:48,960 The next thing that I want to talk about in another vein of giving you your power back as you grieve, 221 00:21:48,960 --> 00:21:56,400 no one can make meaning for you. If you've ever been on the receiving end of other people's meaning 222 00:21:56,400 --> 00:22:02,960 making you already know that it is acutely uncomfortable. So for example she's with the angel 223 00:22:02,960 --> 00:22:08,880 snail or everything happens for a reason or X happened so Y could happen. He died for a greater 224 00:22:08,880 --> 00:22:13,680 purpose. God doesn't close one door without opening another. They're gone now so you can finally travel 225 00:22:13,680 --> 00:22:18,960 or get a tattoo or sell the house or go back to school or have a social life. If she hadn't died, 226 00:22:18,960 --> 00:22:24,480 you never would have met insert person here. He would want you to be happy or move on or date 227 00:22:24,480 --> 00:22:30,240 again or try for more kids or insert dead loved ones hypothetical wishes here. These meaning making 228 00:22:30,240 --> 00:22:35,040 statements generated by others are usually well intentioned but they're also someone else's 229 00:22:35,040 --> 00:22:41,040 meaning dressed up and handed to you like it is a garment that it's supposed to fit and oftentimes 230 00:22:41,040 --> 00:22:47,200 absolutely not it does not. You are more than allowed to reject meanings that aren't yours even 231 00:22:47,200 --> 00:22:53,520 kind ones, even hopeful ones, even ones that other grieving people swear by. You do not have to adopt 232 00:22:53,520 --> 00:22:58,720 a meaning just because it comforted somebody else in their loss and you don't have to defend your 233 00:22:58,720 --> 00:23:04,160 own meaning making process to anyone who is uncomfortable with how long yours is taking. So here are 234 00:23:04,160 --> 00:23:09,360 a few short scripts that might help when someone tries to foist their meaning on top of you instead of 235 00:23:09,360 --> 00:23:14,960 simply letting you find your own. So you might say that may be true for you but I'm still deciding what 236 00:23:14,960 --> 00:23:21,360 this loss means for me and you can insert loss here. It's okay that you believe that I just need you 237 00:23:21,360 --> 00:23:28,080 to not ask the same of me. I'm not looking for a reason why right now I'm just trying to get through 238 00:23:28,080 --> 00:23:33,920 today or I appreciate you trying to help me make sense of this. I'm going to keep sitting with it 239 00:23:33,920 --> 00:23:40,720 a little while longer. Suffice it to say meaning making is not a group project. It is yours to build 240 00:23:40,720 --> 00:23:47,920 at your own pace and your own words and most importantly on your own timeline. Before we go I want to 241 00:23:47,920 --> 00:23:53,840 weave in some wisdom from two grief professionals that I love and whose work I admire. This is Alex 242 00:23:53,840 --> 00:23:59,920 Mamadiarov and David Kessler and they get a lot of things right about meaning. So if you feel 243 00:23:59,920 --> 00:24:03,760 you are like the only griever in the world who is wrestling with meaning after loss, let me assure 244 00:24:03,760 --> 00:24:09,440 you you are not. You will not be the last either. I'm going to start with therapist and author Alex 245 00:24:09,440 --> 00:24:13,840 Mamadiarov. She joined me on a previous episode of grief growers. You can go back and find that 246 00:24:13,840 --> 00:24:20,160 and we talked a lot about why grief waves keep showing up long after a loss and she opens her book 247 00:24:20,160 --> 00:24:24,320 growing through grief. Let me find it. Hey huh. For people watching on YouTube it's that a yellow 248 00:24:24,320 --> 00:24:29,760 cover. Yellow is my favorite color so I'm showing it to you here. She opens her book with a story 249 00:24:29,760 --> 00:24:40,000 about what on earth does loss mean. She says creating purpose after loss answers the question what am I 250 00:24:40,000 --> 00:24:47,360 going to do now? This is my favorite line. The loss doesn't serve a purpose. We do. When my mother was 251 00:24:47,360 --> 00:24:52,960 dying my sister asked her how am I going to do this? How am I going to live without you? She was only 252 00:24:52,960 --> 00:24:58,800 25 years old and preparing to be my Alex's legal guardian. My mother told her that I would give her 253 00:24:58,800 --> 00:25:04,000 purpose. My mother wasn't telling my sister that becoming my guardian was the reason she was dying 254 00:25:04,000 --> 00:25:09,360 that it was some grand lesson concocted by her illness. Caring for me was simply what my sister 255 00:25:09,360 --> 00:25:16,880 was going to do with this loss. Once again loss doesn't serve a purpose. We do. And I love this 256 00:25:16,880 --> 00:25:21,680 distinction so much because it separates two things that people often accidentally fuse together. 257 00:25:21,680 --> 00:25:26,880 One, the reason the loss happened and two, the purpose we choose to build afterward. Your particular 258 00:25:26,880 --> 00:25:32,560 loss doesn't need to have a reason for you to build meaning from it. In other words once again your 259 00:25:32,560 --> 00:25:39,200 loss doesn't have to serve a purpose. You get to. You get to decide what that purpose is. If you would 260 00:25:39,200 --> 00:25:44,560 like to go even deeper into why grief waves resurface even years and years into meaning making and 261 00:25:44,560 --> 00:25:51,360 grieving, you can read or watch, listen to my conversation with Alex at grief grower. You can find it 262 00:25:51,360 --> 00:25:55,680 back in the archives. Just look for Alex Mamadiarov or you can find it by searching. She'll be 263 00:25:55,680 --> 00:25:59,840 for Scythea Alex on Google and you will find the blog that I wrote based on that episode. 264 00:25:59,840 --> 00:26:04,880 I will also point you toward my friend and fellow grief educator David Castler's book 265 00:26:04,880 --> 00:26:08,960 Finding Meaning, the Sixth Stage of Grief. I have it somewhere in my house just not near my desk 266 00:26:08,960 --> 00:26:14,400 so I can't show you the cover. But day that's work has shaped grief education for years and his 267 00:26:14,400 --> 00:26:20,560 central idea of this book that meaning can become a genuine healing sixth stage of grief alongside 268 00:26:20,560 --> 00:26:25,280 the traditional five stages that he studied with Elizabeth Gugler Ross is worth exploring. 269 00:26:25,280 --> 00:26:32,000 If you are itchy for more language and structure on how to find purpose after loss it is a resource 270 00:26:32,000 --> 00:26:38,240 that I very much recommend if the subject of your grief studies right now is finding purpose and 271 00:26:38,240 --> 00:26:43,200 meaning a wonderful book for that one more time finding meaning the sixth stage of grief. 272 00:26:43,200 --> 00:26:50,960 The thing I want to leave you with today is that meaning is a sticky and evolving and lifelong 273 00:26:50,960 --> 00:26:56,720 project. At the end of the day meaning after loss is not something that you find once like oh you 274 00:26:56,720 --> 00:26:59,600 just covered it out in the woods and then you have it and now you've checked it off the list 275 00:26:59,600 --> 00:27:07,360 of life with grief. Meaning making is folded into some of the biggest and oldest most 276 00:27:07,360 --> 00:27:13,200 unanswerable questions that human beings carry questions about purpose or why and about what being 277 00:27:13,200 --> 00:27:21,360 alive is even for. Questions like this do not resolve in a week or a year or sometimes ever and 278 00:27:21,360 --> 00:27:27,120 that is not a failing of your grief process or your inability to look on the bright side. That is 279 00:27:27,120 --> 00:27:32,960 just what these existential questions are like particularly for those of us who have faced one or more 280 00:27:32,960 --> 00:27:40,800 significant life changing losses. Living with the questions of grief and the uncertainties in the long 281 00:27:40,800 --> 00:27:48,160 term is literally exactly what I teach in the last piece of my five step grief method. The section 282 00:27:48,160 --> 00:27:53,280 in life after loss academy is called foster and it is about fostering a lifelong relationship with 283 00:27:53,280 --> 00:27:57,280 grief instead of trying to figure out how to race towards a finish line if I'm done grieving 284 00:27:57,280 --> 00:28:04,720 that like doesn't ever exist to begin with. This part of the course is where meaning and purpose 285 00:28:04,720 --> 00:28:10,560 get to stay unfinished and flexible and open to revision because you keep living and life keeps 286 00:28:10,560 --> 00:28:18,080 handing you new losses, new experiences and new information. The on-demand video lessons that are 287 00:28:18,080 --> 00:28:23,920 inside the foster module that I pre-recorded for you do not insist that you land on one set meaning 288 00:28:23,920 --> 00:28:30,320 and defend it with your life forever. Instead all of the videos the journaling prompts the exercises 289 00:28:30,320 --> 00:28:35,600 show you how to keep the door propped open to experiment to sample to change your mind to let your 290 00:28:35,600 --> 00:28:41,440 sense of purpose evolve as many times it needs to over the course of your life alongside grief. 291 00:28:41,440 --> 00:28:48,560 Because healing is never about getting over it as we say in the intro to grief grower it is about 292 00:28:48,560 --> 00:28:56,160 growing alongside it. What I have to tell you is that meaning is literally what you make it. 293 00:28:56,160 --> 00:29:00,560 So to the student who wrote to me in life after loss academy and to you every other 294 00:29:00,560 --> 00:29:07,440 grower asking is it even possible to feel purpose again after a loss like this? Yes it is possible 295 00:29:07,440 --> 00:29:13,840 but it will not arrive on a deadline. No one can hand it to you and it will definitely not look 296 00:29:13,840 --> 00:29:20,320 or feel like it used to. You do not have to find meaning inside of your grief today. 297 00:29:20,320 --> 00:29:28,000 You also do not have to find it alone. Inside that foster section of life after loss academy we 298 00:29:28,000 --> 00:29:33,280 sit with and work through life and griefs tough as questions surrounding meaning and purpose 299 00:29:33,280 --> 00:29:39,920 and spiritual loneliness and what it looks like to foster a life long relationship with grief together. 300 00:29:39,920 --> 00:29:45,120 I have even created an entire video lesson called What If I have lost my sense of purpose in meaning. 301 00:29:45,120 --> 00:29:48,960 I call them What If workshops and there's a whole bunch of them in the course. You can watch these 302 00:29:48,960 --> 00:29:54,000 on demand and after you watch them and have thoughts about them and want to process them with 303 00:29:54,000 --> 00:29:59,040 other people. You will be surrounded by a community of people who can relate to what you're 304 00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:03,440 carrying. Grievers who get it and you get weekly grief support and coaching with me. 305 00:30:03,440 --> 00:30:07,840 You can find the link to join life after loss academy in the show notes for this episode. 306 00:30:07,840 --> 00:30:12,560 And if you're not sure if joining this community is the right fit for you right now 307 00:30:12,560 --> 00:30:17,200 in the season of your grief, you can watch my free growth or grief workshop to get a taste of 308 00:30:17,200 --> 00:30:21,280 everything that you will learn inside the course and get an overview of the grief method. 309 00:30:21,280 --> 00:30:26,000 The GRIEF ground release integrate establish and finally foster that one in the end. 310 00:30:26,000 --> 00:30:29,520 You can see the whole grief method laid out plus everything you'll get in the course 311 00:30:29,520 --> 00:30:34,320 and regardless of whether you join or not, you will come away with three easy compassionate tools 312 00:30:34,320 --> 00:30:39,280 to start growing through a grief today. Thank you so much for joining me on grief, 313 00:30:39,280 --> 00:30:46,560 grower, whatever that means to you. I am wishing you so much grace and love as you rebuild purpose 314 00:30:46,560 --> 00:30:53,920 again in the wake of whatever loss you are facing. 315 00:30:53,920 --> 00:31:00,000 That's all for this episode of grief, grower. Thank you so much for joining me today. 316 00:31:00,000 --> 00:31:03,920 If you're looking for grief support beyond this show, you can find free workshops, 317 00:31:03,920 --> 00:31:06,720 blog articles, and my new book, of course I'm here right now, 318 00:31:06,720 --> 00:31:12,000 three actually helpful things to say to someone grieving at shallbeforcitya.com/links. 319 00:31:12,000 --> 00:31:15,680 And if you'd like to get support for me for your uni-gloss experience, 320 00:31:15,680 --> 00:31:20,480 you can join us anytime inside my FactorLoss Academy, my online course, and community. 321 00:31:20,480 --> 00:31:25,360 As a student, I will walk you through my five step grief framework for rebuilding after loss, 322 00:31:25,360 --> 00:31:30,000 and you can get live coaching from me every week to answer your questions. Replays are always 323 00:31:30,000 --> 00:31:35,520 available if you can't attend life. It's just $33 a month to join or $22 a month if you're 324 00:31:35,520 --> 00:31:40,240 marginalized or financially stressed, grieber. If this podcast felt validating, comforting, 325 00:31:40,240 --> 00:31:44,480 educational, or otherwise helpful to you, please subscribe and leave a review on Apple podcasts 326 00:31:44,480 --> 00:31:49,040 or Spotify. And be sure to share a grief grower with a friend because you never know what someone 327 00:31:49,040 --> 00:31:54,240 you love is going through. Grief grower's hosted by me shallbeforcitya and the theme music is 328 00:31:54,240 --> 00:32:00,080 composed by Adi Goldstein. Until next time, grief growers, I see you. I am so proud of you and the 329 00:32:00,080 --> 00:32:07,040 work that you're doing in the world, and I love you. Because even through grief, we are growing. 330 00:32:07,040 --> 00:32:10,040 [Music]