May 16, 2022 • 25 mins
You ever feel like there’s not enough love and support to go around? Like, there’s a severe shortage of compassion in the world, both for you and well, everyone? Me too, friends. This episode is basically my TED talk, if I had one, on how we create that support-filled world we all want (and deserve). It’s my personal favorite episode of season one.
In this episode we cover:
- Why comparing divorce to death, or pet loss to child loss, is a Very. Bad. Idea. (usually)
- Is it ok to be sad about a musician or actor’s death, even if you never met them?
- How to treat compassion like an abundant resource AND have good boundaries all at the same
- The path to the love-filled, support-rich world we all want (it’s not easy, but it’s worth it)
Want your questions answered on the show? To submit your questions by voicemail, call us at (323) 643-3768 or visit megandevine.co
Notable quote:
“It sounds pretty woo but compassion really is an expandable resource. Practicing inclusion and validation means people feel heard, and heard people hear people, which means the whole culture starts to change from one of vindictive “how dare you feel that way!” to at worst, a neutral, impartial kindness, and at best - well, being generous like this creates a world built and sustained by love.” - Megan Devine
Questions to Carry with you:
- Fun ideas to help you seed love and compassion in the world, plus the one habit to break and re-make
Resources:
Love in action! Check out this exceptionally non-extensive list of people to learn from as we grow the love filled world we all want: Rachel Cargle, Alok Menon, Alice Wong, Free Mom Hugs, Farmer Veteran Coalition, Natalie Weaver, & Resting Waters
Terminology update: in this episode, I use the term “gender fluid,” but the term gender-expansive is more accurate.
The “is there love available here?” question comes from Mark Silver.
Get in touch:
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of Here After with Megan Devine. Tune in, subscribe, leave a review, send in your questions, and share the show with everyone you know. Together, we can make things better, even when they can’t be made right.
To submit your questions by voicemail, call us at (323) 643-3768 or visit megandevine.co
For more information, including clinical training and consulting, visit us at www.Megandevine.co
For grief support & education, follow us at @refugeingrief on IG, FB, & TW
Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s Okay That You're Not Okay and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed - at refugeingrief.com/book
See omnystudio.com/listener for privacy information.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
This is here After, and I'm your host, Megan Divine.
Each week we tackle your big questions about life and
love and loss, basically all the messy parts of being human.
We're currently on break between seasons, so this week it's
a rerelease of my favorite episode so far, The Love
Filled World. Now, this show came out on Valentine's Day originally,
(00:22):
and you will hear me reference said made up holiday
in the show itself. But seriously, the message in this
show should not be stuck on the shelf just for
use in one lousy month of the year. It's really
meant for year round listening. So how do we get
the love filled world? We all want the one where
there's enough love and support for your stuff and for
(00:44):
everybody else's too. Find out in this week show coming
up right after this first break. Before we get started,
one quick note, While I hope you find a lot
of useful information in our time here together, this show
is not a substitute for skilled support with a licensed
(01:06):
mental health provider or for professional supervision related to your work.
Hey friends, it is time for Februaries made up holiday.
Whether you celebrate Valentine's Day or not, all that gushy,
pink love imagery is pretty inescapable. Now disclosure for me
a bit of a weirdo. But February fourteenth is a
(01:26):
children's holiday. My mom loved any excuse to give us
little presents, and Valentine's Day was no exception. I associated
with childhood. Bulk packs of cartoon Valentine's Day cards, cupcakes
for class, that sort of thing I can totally see,
like those mid eighties cartoon Valentine's School packs. Anyway, dating
myself as I always do as with most commercial holidays,
(01:49):
I honestly wouldn't notice Valentine's Day as a grown up
if it weren't for social media and advertising and my
Netflix queue. But here we are. It's February fourteenth. I
you know what day it is. It's a day assigned
to love. And since we've already got this date assigned
as something special, I would personally like to claim February fourteenth,
(02:09):
not for romance, but for all love. Just capitalize on
that love element. A day to claim love wherever and
whenever it can be found. I mean, if we've got
a day dedicated to love already, let's make it a
real sacred occasion. One that helps create the love filled
world we all want. That is a tall order, So
how are we going to do that? I have given
(02:32):
it some thought and I have a plan. Now. Grief
is part of love, so of course we are going
to talk about grief today. No surprises there. I can
make anything about grief, everybody. We're also going to talk
a little bit about navigating clinical concerns as they relate
to love. And we're going to throw in a little
bit of social justice here too, because what is justice
(02:53):
but love in action? That Uh, we have got an
episode suitable for February fourteenth, and we won't even need
converse station hearts to do it. Although I really like
conversation hearts, especially the purple ones. Do not at me.
The purple ones are delicious. Okay, listener question number one
everybody to get us into this big, messy juggernaut of love.
(03:16):
So this listener wrote, I work with a lot of
clients in the middle of divorces and other separations. I
also have a few clients whose partners died, so I
get to hear both kinds of loss, death and divorce.
Most of my divorcing clients have compared their losses to
death at least once, while the widowed people have all
complained that way too many people compare death to divorce,
(03:36):
and I feel like I have this weird split vision
going on. Death isn't the same as divorce. But is
it okay that the people facing divorce think they're the same.
They like talk about them as though they're the same.
Should I be saying something about this to any of
my clients or should I just let it be okay?
I love this question. This is an exceptionally sticky and
(03:59):
multi layered, calm plicated question, and I love questions like that.
So comparing losses happens all the time with all kinds
of loss. If your partner died, it's pretty much guaranteed
that somebody will say, hey, I got divorced, I know
exactly how you feel. If you're getting divorced, it is
pretty much guaranteed that someone else will have their own
divorce story, which, although it is absolutely nothing like your
(04:20):
own experience, will cause them to say I know just
how you feel. Comparing and conflating losses is so common.
If you're a therapist or a doc or somebody else
in a help a role, you've probably fielded a complaint
like this, people feeling like their loss gets downgraded in
some kind of weird emotional competitive one upmanship. Unsolicited comparisons
(04:44):
happen all the time, and they turn ugly really really fast.
So for this listener, they've got clients who are divorcing
comparing their divorces to death, and people who are living
through the death of their partner feeling piste off that
people keep comparing their death to divorce. It's probably not
the same people, though, right. I Mean, this listener didn't clarify,
(05:05):
but I feel like comparing divorce and death is so common.
I'm assuming this clinicians clients don't all know each other
and they're all just like complaining about each other and
their individual sessions. That would be weird and probably have
some ethical concerns to it. But before we talk about
whether this listener should bring this thing up with our clients,
we should really talk about comparing losses in general and
(05:28):
why that's a bad idea. Might not be immediately clear
why this death divorce thing is a problem. I'm going
to give you another example using losses that get compared
badly all the time, animals versus people. So let's say
that you learned that a colleague's baby died at thirty
(05:49):
nine weeks with no known cause, and you want to
comfort them. You want to let them know it's okay
to feel sad, help them feel less alone, all the
good supportive person things. So you say, I know exactly
how you feel. My dog died a few years ago
and it was awful. Okay. So for the person whose
baby just died, they don't hear that comment as supportive.
(06:11):
They hear that your dog is just as important as
their child. I will tell you that dog baby comparisons
are never going to turn out okay. Ever, But if
we point that out to the person whose dog died,
like we say something like, hey, that's not a comparison
that really helps here, it's kind of apples and oranges.
The person who's grieving the loss of their dog gets defensive, like,
(06:33):
wait a minute, you're saying that a loss of my
dog isn't as important as their baby, And my dog
was my family. How dare you say my loss wasn't important?
Do you see how terrible this gets in like less
than a minute. Whenever I describe this, I see that
old Bugs Bunny cartoon, where like somebody pulls out a gun,
and the other one pulls out a bigger gun, and
then a bigger gun, and a bigger like it just
gets bad fast. The death of a pet is an
(06:59):
under valued, frequently dismissed, even ridiculed loss. So if we
even suggest that maybe it's not so cool to compare
the loss of a dog with a loss of a child,
we are stepping into battle. And what is that battle?
Over compassion? We undervalue grief of all kinds in this culture,
(07:23):
which means most people feel like they have to defend
their grief. And by grief here I mean all of it.
Everyday stressors, divorces, breakups, death of humans, death of not humans,
job loss, illness, injury, all of it. Because we undervalue
grief and emotional pain of all kinds, most people feel
under supported just on a regular basis. There's not enough
(07:49):
compassion to go around. Compassion is a scarce resource. And
what do we do with a scarce resource? We fight
over it. We fight over oil, we fight over water,
we fight over clean air, and we fight over compassion.
(08:11):
Your divorce can't possibly be as bad as my death.
The death of your dog isn't as bad as the
death of my friend, your diagnosis isn't as bad as
my diagnosis. You think you're having a bad day, Mine
is so much worse. We get this almost like, how
dare you approach to other people's pain? You don't get
to be sad about this thing, because if we start
(08:31):
allocating support to you, there won't be enough support left
for me, and I already feel alone in all this.
If we have to start talking about your pain, then
we have to stop talking about my pain, and I
already feel like I'm getting by with scraps from the
people I care about. I mean, that kind of sounds bleak,
like maybe I'm overreacting here, But if you think about it,
if you really think about it, we do actually treat
(08:55):
compassion like pie, like a finite resource. You give away
too much and you get nothing. The stakes are a
little bit higher here than they are with your favorite
coconut cream pie. But still, it's not just when somebody
compares their loss to our loss that we freak out
like this. It's a general way of life. A lot
of the time we make fun of the way people
(09:17):
react to the death of a musician or an actor.
We get all huffy when people are stressed out over
not fitting into their favorite genes. When there are people
starving in the world, how dare they be upset about
something so little. There are important issues and losses to
focus on. We can't waste compassion on these things that
don't count. We've got so little compassion and tolerance for
(09:39):
other people's pain, it's no wonder we fight over who
deserves it. Here's the thing. Compassion is an abundant resource.
We just don't treat it that way. There's actually plenty
of love and compassion to go around if we just
stop hoarding it. There's more than enough love and acceptance
(10:05):
and compassion for everybody. If we treat compassion like the
abundant resource it already is, it's not pie. We won't
run out. And that means getting back to our theme
of the day here, that we have to start being
generous with love. If you want a world where there
(10:27):
is enough love and compassion for your losses for your life,
you have to start creating that world by extending love
and compassion for all losses, even the ones you don't understand,
even the ones you don't think are important, even the
ones you don't see as valid. If we're able to
(10:47):
offer compassion to everyone without asking them to prove that
their pain is good enough or valid. Then we start
to get the world that we all want, which is
a world where there is enough compassion and love and
understanding for everybody. If compassion is freely available, no one
needs to fight over it. That is the end goal,
(11:09):
That is my personal plan for world domination. No one
needs to defend their right to exist and to feel
because there is no shortage of love and compassion. My
goofy example, no one fights over toothpaste, do they. There
is toothpaste everywhere, no one fights over it. I want
that for compassion and love. Now I realized I didn't
(11:35):
actually answer this listener's question yet I went on a
rant instead, a compassion and resource guarding love based rant.
So to briefly answer this clinician's question, I don't think
you need to bring all of this up in session
in order to point out the not so cool conflation
of losses. However, it is something to keep in mind
as a possible line of self inquiry for your clients.
(11:58):
Do your clients facing divorce feel like comparing it to
death makes their loss more legitimate? Somehow, do your widowed
clients feel like these comparisons take away from the already
scarce resource of love and support they feel like they
have around them. All good questions, not solutions, but good
questions with the side benefit of some subtle education around
(12:22):
the mechanisms underneath these comparisons we make without really thinking
about them. That is kind of my job here to
make you look under the surface of things you don't
even pay attention to and see what's really driving the
emotional relational bus, so to speak. Love is a lot.
It is not exactly the simplistic, soft, focused, pink pastel
(12:43):
thing the marketers use this time of year, but love
is ferocious. Coming up next, everybody, I will tell you
what to do when somebody tries to conflate their loss
with yours. Since you are now all newly deputized to
be less defensive and more inclusive in the service of
a more abundantly compassionate world, we'll be right back after
(13:03):
this break. Welcome back, friends. Hopefully you have taken a
minute to adjust and settle down if you were personally
feeling defensive with all of my talk about grief comparisons
and treating compassion as an abundant resource, It's important to
(13:27):
remember here that all loss is valid, all personal experience
is valid, and no matter what the loss is, everybody
gets to have their own loss be the worst loss
in the world because for them it is. If we're
doing this new thing that I've been talking about, where
(13:48):
we seed compassion in the world, you can let other
people's losses be the worst loss in the world for
them because it is. Actually I have another dog related
metaphor that I just thought up in my head, so
I have the best dog in the world. My co
producer Tanya here also has the best dog in the world.
(14:08):
We are not going to fight about who is correct,
because we are both correct. This is what I'm talking
about with all loss being valid. Everybody gets to have
their own loss be the worst loss in the world
because for them it is true. We can even extend
this whole compassion thing to inclusion and social justice issues.
You don't have to understand the experience of systemic racism
(14:30):
if you aren't a person of color in order to
extend love and compassion to others. If you don't quite
get the whole rigamarole around the gender spectrum, you can
extend love and compassion to the trans and gender fluid communities,
supporting them through the challenges of being alive in different bodies.
You see where I'm going with this, Everybody, If you
hoard compassion, you get a world of scarcity where you
(14:54):
are always on the lookout for wasted support, wasted in
air quotes. You're always on the lookout for inappropriate uses
of compassion just to ensure there's enough left over for you.
There will never be enough in that kind of world.
You'll always end up insisting that somebody else should be
left out. We have to compete like that when there
(15:16):
can only be one winner, one winner of the love
and Support prize. That is a small and ungenerous world
to live in. Everybody, If you want a beautiful world
where compassion is everywhere and you get to have enough
for your own needs, where your own compassion cup runneth over,
(15:36):
you have to help build that world. You have to
treat compassion like the abundant resource it is and share
it widely, broadcast that stuff like frog eggs, like more
than enough to ensure the continuation of the species. You
don't have to agree with somebody in order to believe
in their right to love and care. It sounds pretty
(15:57):
woo woo, but compassion actually is an expandable resource. Practicing
inclusion and validation means that people feel heard and heard
people here people, which means the whole culture starts to
change from one of that vindictive how dare you feel
that way? To at worst, I mean, worst case scenario
if we start seeding this kind of compassion and love.
(16:19):
Worst case scenario is we get a world built on neutral,
impartial kindness. Best case scenario being generous like this creates
a world built and sustained by love. Happy Valentine's Day.
I'm not saying you just need to smile and nod
when somebody tells you that their loss is exactly the
(16:39):
same as yours. That conflation of personal experience is never helpful,
not across types of loss, and not even in the
same kind of loss. This whole loss comparison conflation compassion
thing is a frustration point a lot of you share.
So if you need to come back to a grief
comparison of any kind, you can always go with something
like I appreciate a gesture, but comparing losses doesn't feel
(17:01):
useful to me at this time, or whatever it sounds
like you and not like me, but something clear and
kind to change the subject or end the conversation. Being
compassionate doesn't mean that you still have to participate in
unhelpful comparisons or other rude behavior. My point here with
this little tangent is that you don't need to conflate
(17:23):
compassion with permission for somebody to be shitty. You can
start treating compassion like an abundant resource and have stellar
boundaries at the same time. Just because you understand where
somebody is coming from does not mean you have to
go there with them. Advocate for yourself where you need
to self love. Self advocacy actually increases the amount of
(17:47):
compassion in the world too, and clear boundaries are an
act of love. That's a whole episode for another day.
But don't conflate compassion with letting somebody just be a jerk.
Those two things are not the same. Show yourself some
compassion too. That's part of building that world that we want.
(18:08):
So as we start winding down this particular episode on love,
with all of its messiness and it's combat zones and
it's skirmishes over resources, none of that stuff makes it
onto the hallmark cards. I want to bring in one
more love related concept suitable for Valentine's Day and every day,
(18:28):
looking for love in all the right places, and by
right places, I mean all of them, all of the places.
One of my teachers has this core practice of asking,
in any difficulty, is their love available here? He doesn't
ask it like an admonishment like look on the bright
side or look for the like not that stuff, but
(18:50):
as an actual, true question, is their love available here
in this moment? If we're talking about compassion as a
force for good in the world old, what we're really
talking about is love. Is there love available here in
our own losses, in these conflict zones between humans, in
(19:12):
the impossible things we face every day? Is there love
available here? I mean, I say, I'm kind of anti
Valentine's Day, but I'm actually very into love, So maybe
that makes me a romantic. Honestly, I think love is
the only thing big enough to face this world, with
(19:32):
all of its bullshit and stress and difficulty and beauty.
As Carl Sagan said, for small creatures such as we,
the vastness is bearable only through love. I mean, I
make myself cry all the time. How can I not
be a romantic? Sapp about love. Truly. I am a
romantic and I love quoting cool people, so I can
(19:54):
keep bringing you quotes at questions on love all day long.
Even though I just gave you a new question to
help you lean into love wherever you find yourself that
whole is love available here question, I haven't even given
you the official questions to carry with you for this week.
Stay tuned, everybody, Those love related questions are coming right
(20:16):
up after this break. Each week I leave you with
some questions to carry with you until we meet again.
It's part of this whole This weird stuff gets easier
with practice thing this week? Where is the love for
(20:38):
your homework this week or your practice if you'd rather
not think about it as homework, you're not getting graded
seed some love in the world, Like it doesn't always
have to be this grand gesture, this building the whole
world we want thing, even though I just talked that
up for the last twenty five minutes, Like it doesn't
have to be the grand gesture. What small actions can
(20:59):
you take this week to make the world the kind
of loving, inclusive, supportive place you want to live in.
If you're stuck, think about what you want for yourself
and then go give some of that to the world.
Acknowledge somebody's sadness, Acknowledge somebody's recent accomplishments, hold the door
for the person behind you. Catch yourself when you hear
(21:21):
someone saying they're upset about something you would normally think
is no big deal, and replace that judgment with a
more compassionate, inclusive thought. I'm sticking that one in there
because that's the really hard one to practice. It means
you have to pay attention to your sort of unconscious,
impulsive judgments. So I'm going to read it to you again,
(21:42):
because that's the real homework assignment. Catch yourself when you
hear someone saying they're upset about something you would normally
think is no big deal, and replace that judgment with
a more compassionate, inclusive thought. Try treating compassion as the
abundant resource it is and see what happens. Be a
good scientist. Run the experiment. You can even play with
(22:05):
that question. My teacher asks, is their love available here?
Give it a go. Let me know how it works.
I mean, with everything everybody I am in this experiment
with you, I am asking myself these same questions and
doing these same homework assignments right alongside you. This is
part of why I love this show and part of
(22:27):
why I love Questions. This is also the part of
the show where I remind you that I love questions
so much. I want to hear your questions. If you
want to submit your question for me to possibly address
on the air about love or boundaries or anything at all,
Remember that this show is nothing without your questions. I
mean it's literally a Q and a show. You can
ask me anything you'd like. Let's talk it out. Call
(22:53):
us at three to three six four three three seven
six eight and leave a voicemail. If you missed it,
you can find that number in the show notes or
visit Megan Divine dot c O. If you'd rather send
an email, you can do that to write on the
website Megan Divine dot co. We want to hear from you.
This show, this world needs your questions. Together, we can
(23:19):
make things better even when we can't make them right.
You know how most people are going to scan through
their podcast app looking for the next thing to listen to,
and they get to the show description for here after
and think I don't want to talk about that stuff.
This is where you come in my friends your reviews,
let people know it really isn't all that bad in here.
We talk about heavy stuff, sure, but it's in the
(23:40):
service of making things better for everyone. So everyone needs
to listen. Spread the word in your workplace, in your
social world on social media and click through to leave
a review. Subscribe to the show, download episodes, listen to
the back catalog, and send in your questions I want
more or here after. Grief education doesn't just belong to
(24:03):
end of life issues. Life is full of losses, from
everyday disappointments to events that clearly divide life into before
and after. Learning how to talk about all that without
cliches or platitudes or simplistic think positive posters or pink,
fluffy Valentine hearts. That's an important skill for everyone. Find trainings, workshops,
(24:25):
books and resources for every human trying to make their
way in the world after something goes horribly wrong at
Megan Divine dot c. O Hereafter with Megan Divine is
written and produced by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is
Amy Brown, co produced by Tonya Juhas and Elizabeth Fasio,
Edited by Houston Tilly, with studio support by Chris Urine
(24:46):
music provided by Wave Crush. I'm getting better at my pacing,
yea yea yea I'm getting better at my pace in
pulled on little brake because my headphones are fallen off
my head. You'd think that wouldn't happen with a head
as big as mine. Ha ha ha. Getting my comic relief
(25:10):
in early
This is here After, and I'm your host, Megan Divine.
Each week we tackle your big questions about life and
love and loss, basically all the messy parts of being human.
We're currently on break between seasons, so this week it's
a rerelease of my favorite episode so far, The Love
Filled World. Now, this show came out on Valentine's Day originally,
(00:22):
and you will hear me reference said made up holiday
in the show itself. But seriously, the message in this
show should not be stuck on the shelf just for
use in one lousy month of the year. It's really
meant for year round listening. So how do we get
the love filled world? We all want the one where
there's enough love and support for your stuff and for
(00:44):
everybody else's too. Find out in this week show coming
up right after this first break. Before we get started,
one quick note, While I hope you find a lot
of useful information in our time here together, this show
is not a substitute for skilled support with a licensed
(01:06):
mental health provider or for professional supervision related to your work.
Hey friends, it is time for Februaries made up holiday.
Whether you celebrate Valentine's Day or not, all that gushy,
pink love imagery is pretty inescapable. Now disclosure for me
a bit of a weirdo. But February fourteenth is a
(01:26):
children's holiday. My mom loved any excuse to give us
little presents, and Valentine's Day was no exception. I associated
with childhood. Bulk packs of cartoon Valentine's Day cards, cupcakes
for class, that sort of thing I can totally see,
like those mid eighties cartoon Valentine's School packs. Anyway, dating
myself as I always do as with most commercial holidays,
(01:49):
I honestly wouldn't notice Valentine's Day as a grown up
if it weren't for social media and advertising and my
Netflix queue. But here we are. It's February fourteenth. I
you know what day it is. It's a day assigned
to love. And since we've already got this date assigned
as something special, I would personally like to claim February fourteenth,
(02:09):
not for romance, but for all love. Just capitalize on
that love element. A day to claim love wherever and
whenever it can be found. I mean, if we've got
a day dedicated to love already, let's make it a
real sacred occasion. One that helps create the love filled
world we all want. That is a tall order, So
how are we going to do that? I have given
(02:32):
it some thought and I have a plan. Now. Grief
is part of love, so of course we are going
to talk about grief today. No surprises there. I can
make anything about grief, everybody. We're also going to talk
a little bit about navigating clinical concerns as they relate
to love. And we're going to throw in a little
bit of social justice here too, because what is justice
(02:53):
but love in action? That Uh, we have got an
episode suitable for February fourteenth, and we won't even need
converse station hearts to do it. Although I really like
conversation hearts, especially the purple ones. Do not at me.
The purple ones are delicious. Okay, listener question number one
everybody to get us into this big, messy juggernaut of love.
(03:16):
So this listener wrote, I work with a lot of
clients in the middle of divorces and other separations. I
also have a few clients whose partners died, so I
get to hear both kinds of loss, death and divorce.
Most of my divorcing clients have compared their losses to
death at least once, while the widowed people have all
complained that way too many people compare death to divorce,
(03:36):
and I feel like I have this weird split vision
going on. Death isn't the same as divorce. But is
it okay that the people facing divorce think they're the same.
They like talk about them as though they're the same.
Should I be saying something about this to any of
my clients or should I just let it be okay?
I love this question. This is an exceptionally sticky and
(03:59):
multi layered, calm plicated question, and I love questions like that.
So comparing losses happens all the time with all kinds
of loss. If your partner died, it's pretty much guaranteed
that somebody will say, hey, I got divorced, I know
exactly how you feel. If you're getting divorced, it is
pretty much guaranteed that someone else will have their own
divorce story, which, although it is absolutely nothing like your
(04:20):
own experience, will cause them to say I know just
how you feel. Comparing and conflating losses is so common.
If you're a therapist or a doc or somebody else
in a help a role, you've probably fielded a complaint
like this, people feeling like their loss gets downgraded in
some kind of weird emotional competitive one upmanship. Unsolicited comparisons
(04:44):
happen all the time, and they turn ugly really really fast.
So for this listener, they've got clients who are divorcing
comparing their divorces to death, and people who are living
through the death of their partner feeling piste off that
people keep comparing their death to divorce. It's probably not
the same people, though, right. I Mean, this listener didn't clarify,
(05:05):
but I feel like comparing divorce and death is so common.
I'm assuming this clinicians clients don't all know each other
and they're all just like complaining about each other and
their individual sessions. That would be weird and probably have
some ethical concerns to it. But before we talk about
whether this listener should bring this thing up with our clients,
we should really talk about comparing losses in general and
(05:28):
why that's a bad idea. Might not be immediately clear
why this death divorce thing is a problem. I'm going
to give you another example using losses that get compared
badly all the time, animals versus people. So let's say
that you learned that a colleague's baby died at thirty
(05:49):
nine weeks with no known cause, and you want to
comfort them. You want to let them know it's okay
to feel sad, help them feel less alone, all the
good supportive person things. So you say, I know exactly
how you feel. My dog died a few years ago
and it was awful. Okay. So for the person whose
baby just died, they don't hear that comment as supportive.
(06:11):
They hear that your dog is just as important as
their child. I will tell you that dog baby comparisons
are never going to turn out okay. Ever, But if
we point that out to the person whose dog died,
like we say something like, hey, that's not a comparison
that really helps here, it's kind of apples and oranges.
The person who's grieving the loss of their dog gets defensive, like,
(06:33):
wait a minute, you're saying that a loss of my
dog isn't as important as their baby, And my dog
was my family. How dare you say my loss wasn't important?
Do you see how terrible this gets in like less
than a minute. Whenever I describe this, I see that
old Bugs Bunny cartoon, where like somebody pulls out a gun,
and the other one pulls out a bigger gun, and
then a bigger gun, and a bigger like it just
gets bad fast. The death of a pet is an
(06:59):
under valued, frequently dismissed, even ridiculed loss. So if we
even suggest that maybe it's not so cool to compare
the loss of a dog with a loss of a child,
we are stepping into battle. And what is that battle?
Over compassion? We undervalue grief of all kinds in this culture,
(07:23):
which means most people feel like they have to defend
their grief. And by grief here I mean all of it.
Everyday stressors, divorces, breakups, death of humans, death of not humans,
job loss, illness, injury, all of it. Because we undervalue
grief and emotional pain of all kinds, most people feel
under supported just on a regular basis. There's not enough
(07:49):
compassion to go around. Compassion is a scarce resource. And
what do we do with a scarce resource? We fight
over it. We fight over oil, we fight over water,
we fight over clean air, and we fight over compassion.
(08:11):
Your divorce can't possibly be as bad as my death.
The death of your dog isn't as bad as the
death of my friend, your diagnosis isn't as bad as
my diagnosis. You think you're having a bad day, Mine
is so much worse. We get this almost like, how
dare you approach to other people's pain? You don't get
to be sad about this thing, because if we start
(08:31):
allocating support to you, there won't be enough support left
for me, and I already feel alone in all this.
If we have to start talking about your pain, then
we have to stop talking about my pain, and I
already feel like I'm getting by with scraps from the
people I care about. I mean, that kind of sounds bleak,
like maybe I'm overreacting here, But if you think about it,
if you really think about it, we do actually treat
(08:55):
compassion like pie, like a finite resource. You give away
too much and you get nothing. The stakes are a
little bit higher here than they are with your favorite
coconut cream pie. But still, it's not just when somebody
compares their loss to our loss that we freak out
like this. It's a general way of life. A lot
of the time we make fun of the way people
(09:17):
react to the death of a musician or an actor.
We get all huffy when people are stressed out over
not fitting into their favorite genes. When there are people
starving in the world, how dare they be upset about
something so little. There are important issues and losses to
focus on. We can't waste compassion on these things that
don't count. We've got so little compassion and tolerance for
(09:39):
other people's pain, it's no wonder we fight over who
deserves it. Here's the thing. Compassion is an abundant resource.
We just don't treat it that way. There's actually plenty
of love and compassion to go around if we just
stop hoarding it. There's more than enough love and acceptance
(10:05):
and compassion for everybody. If we treat compassion like the
abundant resource it already is, it's not pie. We won't
run out. And that means getting back to our theme
of the day here, that we have to start being
generous with love. If you want a world where there
(10:27):
is enough love and compassion for your losses for your life,
you have to start creating that world by extending love
and compassion for all losses, even the ones you don't understand,
even the ones you don't think are important, even the
ones you don't see as valid. If we're able to
(10:47):
offer compassion to everyone without asking them to prove that
their pain is good enough or valid. Then we start
to get the world that we all want, which is
a world where there is enough compassion and love and
understanding for everybody. If compassion is freely available, no one
needs to fight over it. That is the end goal,
(11:09):
That is my personal plan for world domination. No one
needs to defend their right to exist and to feel
because there is no shortage of love and compassion. My
goofy example, no one fights over toothpaste, do they. There
is toothpaste everywhere, no one fights over it. I want
that for compassion and love. Now I realized I didn't
(11:35):
actually answer this listener's question yet I went on a
rant instead, a compassion and resource guarding love based rant.
So to briefly answer this clinician's question, I don't think
you need to bring all of this up in session
in order to point out the not so cool conflation
of losses. However, it is something to keep in mind
as a possible line of self inquiry for your clients.
(11:58):
Do your clients facing divorce feel like comparing it to
death makes their loss more legitimate? Somehow, do your widowed
clients feel like these comparisons take away from the already
scarce resource of love and support they feel like they
have around them. All good questions, not solutions, but good
questions with the side benefit of some subtle education around
(12:22):
the mechanisms underneath these comparisons we make without really thinking
about them. That is kind of my job here to
make you look under the surface of things you don't
even pay attention to and see what's really driving the
emotional relational bus, so to speak. Love is a lot.
It is not exactly the simplistic, soft, focused, pink pastel
(12:43):
thing the marketers use this time of year, but love
is ferocious. Coming up next, everybody, I will tell you
what to do when somebody tries to conflate their loss
with yours. Since you are now all newly deputized to
be less defensive and more inclusive in the service of
a more abundantly compassionate world, we'll be right back after
(13:03):
this break. Welcome back, friends. Hopefully you have taken a
minute to adjust and settle down if you were personally
feeling defensive with all of my talk about grief comparisons
and treating compassion as an abundant resource, It's important to
(13:27):
remember here that all loss is valid, all personal experience
is valid, and no matter what the loss is, everybody
gets to have their own loss be the worst loss
in the world because for them it is. If we're
doing this new thing that I've been talking about, where
(13:48):
we seed compassion in the world, you can let other
people's losses be the worst loss in the world for
them because it is. Actually I have another dog related
metaphor that I just thought up in my head, so
I have the best dog in the world. My co
producer Tanya here also has the best dog in the world.
(14:08):
We are not going to fight about who is correct,
because we are both correct. This is what I'm talking
about with all loss being valid. Everybody gets to have
their own loss be the worst loss in the world
because for them it is true. We can even extend
this whole compassion thing to inclusion and social justice issues.
You don't have to understand the experience of systemic racism
(14:30):
if you aren't a person of color in order to
extend love and compassion to others. If you don't quite
get the whole rigamarole around the gender spectrum, you can
extend love and compassion to the trans and gender fluid communities,
supporting them through the challenges of being alive in different bodies.
You see where I'm going with this, Everybody, If you
hoard compassion, you get a world of scarcity where you
(14:54):
are always on the lookout for wasted support, wasted in
air quotes. You're always on the lookout for inappropriate uses
of compassion just to ensure there's enough left over for you.
There will never be enough in that kind of world.
You'll always end up insisting that somebody else should be
left out. We have to compete like that when there
(15:16):
can only be one winner, one winner of the love
and Support prize. That is a small and ungenerous world
to live in. Everybody, If you want a beautiful world
where compassion is everywhere and you get to have enough
for your own needs, where your own compassion cup runneth over,
(15:36):
you have to help build that world. You have to
treat compassion like the abundant resource it is and share
it widely, broadcast that stuff like frog eggs, like more
than enough to ensure the continuation of the species. You
don't have to agree with somebody in order to believe
in their right to love and care. It sounds pretty
(15:57):
woo woo, but compassion actually is an expandable resource. Practicing
inclusion and validation means that people feel heard and heard
people here people, which means the whole culture starts to
change from one of that vindictive how dare you feel
that way? To at worst, I mean, worst case scenario
if we start seeding this kind of compassion and love.
(16:19):
Worst case scenario is we get a world built on neutral,
impartial kindness. Best case scenario being generous like this creates
a world built and sustained by love. Happy Valentine's Day.
I'm not saying you just need to smile and nod
when somebody tells you that their loss is exactly the
(16:39):
same as yours. That conflation of personal experience is never helpful,
not across types of loss, and not even in the
same kind of loss. This whole loss comparison conflation compassion
thing is a frustration point a lot of you share.
So if you need to come back to a grief
comparison of any kind, you can always go with something
like I appreciate a gesture, but comparing losses doesn't feel
(17:01):
useful to me at this time, or whatever it sounds
like you and not like me, but something clear and
kind to change the subject or end the conversation. Being
compassionate doesn't mean that you still have to participate in
unhelpful comparisons or other rude behavior. My point here with
this little tangent is that you don't need to conflate
(17:23):
compassion with permission for somebody to be shitty. You can
start treating compassion like an abundant resource and have stellar
boundaries at the same time. Just because you understand where
somebody is coming from does not mean you have to
go there with them. Advocate for yourself where you need
to self love. Self advocacy actually increases the amount of
(17:47):
compassion in the world too, and clear boundaries are an
act of love. That's a whole episode for another day.
But don't conflate compassion with letting somebody just be a jerk.
Those two things are not the same. Show yourself some
compassion too. That's part of building that world that we want.
(18:08):
So as we start winding down this particular episode on love,
with all of its messiness and it's combat zones and
it's skirmishes over resources, none of that stuff makes it
onto the hallmark cards. I want to bring in one
more love related concept suitable for Valentine's Day and every day,
(18:28):
looking for love in all the right places, and by
right places, I mean all of them, all of the places.
One of my teachers has this core practice of asking,
in any difficulty, is their love available here? He doesn't
ask it like an admonishment like look on the bright
side or look for the like not that stuff, but
(18:50):
as an actual, true question, is their love available here
in this moment? If we're talking about compassion as a
force for good in the world old, what we're really
talking about is love. Is there love available here in
our own losses, in these conflict zones between humans, in
(19:12):
the impossible things we face every day? Is there love
available here? I mean, I say, I'm kind of anti
Valentine's Day, but I'm actually very into love, So maybe
that makes me a romantic. Honestly, I think love is
the only thing big enough to face this world, with
(19:32):
all of its bullshit and stress and difficulty and beauty.
As Carl Sagan said, for small creatures such as we,
the vastness is bearable only through love. I mean, I
make myself cry all the time. How can I not
be a romantic? Sapp about love. Truly. I am a
romantic and I love quoting cool people, so I can
(19:54):
keep bringing you quotes at questions on love all day long.
Even though I just gave you a new question to
help you lean into love wherever you find yourself that
whole is love available here question, I haven't even given
you the official questions to carry with you for this week.
Stay tuned, everybody, Those love related questions are coming right
(20:16):
up after this break. Each week I leave you with
some questions to carry with you until we meet again.
It's part of this whole This weird stuff gets easier
with practice thing this week? Where is the love for
(20:38):
your homework this week or your practice if you'd rather
not think about it as homework, you're not getting graded
seed some love in the world, Like it doesn't always
have to be this grand gesture, this building the whole
world we want thing, even though I just talked that
up for the last twenty five minutes, Like it doesn't
have to be the grand gesture. What small actions can
(20:59):
you take this week to make the world the kind
of loving, inclusive, supportive place you want to live in.
If you're stuck, think about what you want for yourself
and then go give some of that to the world.
Acknowledge somebody's sadness, Acknowledge somebody's recent accomplishments, hold the door
for the person behind you. Catch yourself when you hear
(21:21):
someone saying they're upset about something you would normally think
is no big deal, and replace that judgment with a
more compassionate, inclusive thought. I'm sticking that one in there
because that's the really hard one to practice. It means
you have to pay attention to your sort of unconscious,
impulsive judgments. So I'm going to read it to you again,
(21:42):
because that's the real homework assignment. Catch yourself when you
hear someone saying they're upset about something you would normally
think is no big deal, and replace that judgment with
a more compassionate, inclusive thought. Try treating compassion as the
abundant resource it is and see what happens. Be a
good scientist. Run the experiment. You can even play with
(22:05):
that question. My teacher asks, is their love available here?
Give it a go. Let me know how it works.
I mean, with everything everybody I am in this experiment
with you, I am asking myself these same questions and
doing these same homework assignments right alongside you. This is
part of why I love this show and part of
(22:27):
why I love Questions. This is also the part of
the show where I remind you that I love questions
so much. I want to hear your questions. If you
want to submit your question for me to possibly address
on the air about love or boundaries or anything at all,
Remember that this show is nothing without your questions. I
mean it's literally a Q and a show. You can
ask me anything you'd like. Let's talk it out. Call
(22:53):
us at three to three six four three three seven
six eight and leave a voicemail. If you missed it,
you can find that number in the show notes or
visit Megan Divine dot c O. If you'd rather send
an email, you can do that to write on the
website Megan Divine dot co. We want to hear from you.
This show, this world needs your questions. Together, we can
(23:19):
make things better even when we can't make them right.
You know how most people are going to scan through
their podcast app looking for the next thing to listen to,
and they get to the show description for here after
and think I don't want to talk about that stuff.
This is where you come in my friends your reviews,
let people know it really isn't all that bad in here.
We talk about heavy stuff, sure, but it's in the
(23:40):
service of making things better for everyone. So everyone needs
to listen. Spread the word in your workplace, in your
social world on social media and click through to leave
a review. Subscribe to the show, download episodes, listen to
the back catalog, and send in your questions I want
more or here after. Grief education doesn't just belong to
(24:03):
end of life issues. Life is full of losses, from
everyday disappointments to events that clearly divide life into before
and after. Learning how to talk about all that without
cliches or platitudes or simplistic think positive posters or pink,
fluffy Valentine hearts. That's an important skill for everyone. Find trainings, workshops,
(24:25):
books and resources for every human trying to make their
way in the world after something goes horribly wrong at
Megan Divine dot c. O Hereafter with Megan Divine is
written and produced by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is
Amy Brown, co produced by Tonya Juhas and Elizabeth Fasio,
Edited by Houston Tilly, with studio support by Chris Urine
(24:46):
music provided by Wave Crush. I'm getting better at my pacing,
yea yea yea I'm getting better at my pace in
pulled on little brake because my headphones are fallen off
my head. You'd think that wouldn't happen with a head
as big as mine. Ha ha ha. Getting my comic relief
(25:10):
in early
Host
Megan Devine
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