December 10, 2019 • 40 mins
Teddi shares with us the heartbreaking story of the loss of their family pet.
She breaks down and opens up about what happened to their beloved Khaleesi. Everyone experiences grief throughout their life and we lean on expert David Kessler to guide us through techniques to survive the grief.
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Episode Transcript
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Speaker 1 (00:02):
This is Teddy Teapot. Hi guys, welcome back to Teddy
te Pod. Um. I'm gonna start this week. I have
to kind of dedicate this teapod to like our little dog, Klisi. Um.
(00:28):
It's crazy because I have to kind of get in
the right mindset to even talk about what's happened the
past couple of weeks. But UM, this week's podcast, we're
going to talk about grief and how we process grief,
how we talk to our kids about grief. Um. And
I realized that I'm talking about a pet and so
(00:48):
many others are talking about a person. But I think
that there's a lot to talk about here and none
of us know how to process it. So I figured
I'd start by just telling my story for those of
you who don't know. Um, my kids and I have
(01:10):
we have a family dog. Her name was Kalisi. Um.
We loved her so very much. We still do. And
last maybe it was like two weeks ago, my husband,
kids and I were heading to Orange County for my
stepdaughter's birthday party. And you know, we have a dog,
and we were thinking what's the best thing for the dog,
(01:31):
Probably not to ride in the car with us, you know,
an hour and a half in traffic, try to figure
out what to do with her during the party. Blah
blah blah, you know, like all of those things that
you think about when you have a loved one. And
she had been to this doggie daycare place before, and
I was like, oh, she could have a fun play day.
Blah blah blah. The kids and I pack her up,
(01:52):
drop her off. We see the people there, we see
the other little doggies. It's not, you know, they're not
like locked up in crates. It's say, if you know,
we think everything's great. And right around the time we're
pulling into Orange County, pulling into my stepdaughter's birthday, I
get a hysterical phone call um from the woman who
(02:13):
owns the facility. I can't even make out what she's saying,
but I know it's her phone number, so i'm I
can hear that she's saying. I'm at the vet, so
I say, can you please put the vet on? I
talked to the vet and they say that Clissy's not breathing.
(02:34):
She's going to need to go on life support and
they don't know what happened to her. Um. So so
many things happen when you're in that moment, like, the
first thing is, holy crap, we're walking into my stepdaughter's
birthday party and I'm about to have to fake this
(02:55):
right now. Number two is you're dog gonna make it?
Number three? What this is all my fault? I should
have never dropped her off at this place. I should
have figured something else out. Number four, what am I
going to tell my kids? They know where she is,
you know, because when I was little and something happened
(03:16):
to your family petish, all of a sudden they were gone,
and then miraculously they you know, I don't remember even
what happened, but my kids knew where our dog was
because they were with me when we dropped her off.
So I figured out how to numb myself throughout the
birthday party, waiting for Vets to call, waiting for more information, um,
(03:43):
you know, trying to have the best time possible, praying
and hoping she was gonna be okay, you know, messaging
the vet, messaging the woman, trying to figure out details.
I can't get really any details. Long story short, what
they think happened is she either had brain or final
injury from a fall and she passed away. So that night,
(04:08):
you know, I asked, can I come in? They said,
there's no point. You can't touch her, you can't talk
to her. She's like in a you know, and like
a it's not a box, but she's like in you know,
on life support. That there's nothing you can do, and
she's not responsive. She won't hear you, she won't know
that you're there. And uh so then I just had
(04:28):
to wait and uh then three in the morning, the
vet called and they said, yeah, she's um, she passed.
Oh first before that, they sent a message if she
starts to pass, do you want to do? Um? Do
you want us to do life altering measures to resuscitate her?
(04:48):
And I said, you know, I want you to do
whatever you would do for your dog. You know, I
don't want to put her in more pain, but of
course I want her to live. So just you do
you know what I truy, you know, I'm trusting in
the pet. And so at three am they caught me
and like we're in the stage now where like my
son sleeps in the same room as me and my husband,
(05:10):
and you know, the girls are in the room next door,
and I don't know what to do. I don't know
how I'm going to tell the kids. I just started sobbing.
My husband is looking at me, and you know, I'm
also emotional. I'm six and a half months pregnant. I'm
not trying to make this about me. But I really
didn't know how to process this or even tell the kids.
(05:33):
So I started doing research online and how do you
tell your children when a loved one or a pet
or something passes away. I ended up finding this like
book about it, and I learned some of the key
things to do, and they said, you know, number one,
(05:54):
don't say that the don't lie to your kids. Number two,
don't say that your dog passed away randomly, because then
your children will fear just passing away randomly. Um, don't
say that your dog passed away or died in its sleep,
because then your kids will be scared to go to sleep.
(06:15):
And um. So I was like, okay, you know, now
I have the tools now. And then all of a sudden,
in your mind, You're like, well, maybe I should wait
throughout the weekend. Maybe I don't need to really tell
them yet, maybe I could just fake it. And then
I was like, I just can't. And so the next morning,
when the kids wake up. We told them, and they
all had very different reactions. Um Slate immediately started crying
(06:41):
and she had anger. She was mad at the place
I know how to take care of her. How could
this happen? How could this happen? Why would she do that?
Um Bella was quiet, not really asking anything. And then
Cruise was very you know, like he's too little, Like
(07:01):
he almost made a joke where he was like, well,
you know, Santa's got work to do, you know, Like
it's just so crazy how kids process it differently. So
we've spent the last week or so going through this
where sometimes we're crying, sometimes we're laughing, sometimes we're looking
at pictures and like remembering the good times. And then
(07:22):
sometimes I'm just numbing it because I am doing so
many things right now and I don't want I don't
want to bring my energy onto the kids or I also,
you know, I realized that I'm having to go to
work and do things like that and I can't bring
my sadness into it. But I also know I have
to be vulnerable and grieve. But you know what, I
(07:44):
don't really know how. So we're going to bring um
David Kessler on in a bit to kind of go
through the grieving process and give us some advice, because
I know there are so many of us going through
the holidays where maybe you're grieving a loved one, or
maybe somebody is sick, or you're not sure how to
(08:08):
talk to your kids about their grandparents passing or whatever
it may be. There's so many different topics on this point.
And you know, I did a something on my Instagram
and it just blew up with questions. So I really
just want to get his take on everything. So we're
gonna take a little break and then come back with him. Hi.
(08:36):
So now we're on with David Kessler. He is the
author of five best selling books, one of them being
The Needs of Dying, and his services have been used
by Elizabeth Taylor, Carrie Fisher, Jamie Lee Curtis, among many others.
And we are so grateful to have you here today
because we need some help around here on Teddy Teapot.
(08:58):
I'm glad to be with you. Thank you so much.
So um, I just recently shared a story about how
we just lost our family pet and kind of a
more we weren't ready for it, you know, like it
was just a random occurrence and accident that happened, and
(09:19):
why the dog was in somebody else's care and we
weren't able to say goodbye. And we're kind of going
through the where we're crying, then all of a sudden
we're laughing, then we're numb, then we're not talking about it,
then we're talking about it NonStop. Do we get a
new dog? So that's kind of where we are um
and then I also have a lot of listener questions
(09:40):
about grief as well, So I was kind of curious,
since you're professional for loss in regards to anyone, what
do you think the best way to tell your kids is? Well,
I think honesty and simplicity is the best way. I
think the kids know and we're not telling the truth.
(10:02):
And part of the problem is is they feel it,
and kids think it might be something they did wrong.
So I don't believe in giving too much information, but
I think in you know, whatever your beliefs are, whether
you believe your dog went to heaven, grandpa went to heaven,
or they died, whatever it may be, to tell them
(10:24):
the truth. I mean they understand this Sesame street other
you know, every Disney movie has a death in it,
So kids get the concept. And do you think that
grief can pop up at any time, like even years
down the road, or is there like a standard protocol
for how long someone grieves. I know that sounds crazy,
but I mean, I'm curious for myself. Well, people think
(10:48):
there's some timeline in grief and there isn't. But the
reality is grief changes. So first of all, I want
to just ask you, what's your dog's name. Her name's
Galici Gleasie Calisi, Calisi, because I don't want to talk
about her as a loss. She's more than a loss.
My rule on pet law says, if the love is real,
(11:09):
the grief is real. So when we talk about loss,
you're always going to remember her, You're always going to
love her, but in time, hopefully you'll grieve her with
more love than pain. Right now, it's all pain, but
in time that will change and be different. But you're
(11:31):
never going to forget her. You're never going to get
over her. And at some point you'll all know whether
it's time for a new dog and when that is.
And there's no there's no hard rule on any of this.
You know, you have to figure out what's right for
you and what's right for your best friend or your
neighbor might be completely different for you. Yeah, and then
(11:53):
if when it comes to loss and you start to
feel like almost anger or you like for me or
the kids, like we are we're trying to process through
the anger if this happened in somebody else's care, like,
we don't want to be angry. We want to practice forgiveness,
and but how do you move through that? Well, it's
(12:15):
interesting because our generation is one of the first generations
that we have feelings on feelings. We have anger, but
then we feel like we shouldn't be angry. We're sad,
but we shouldn't be sad. The reality is, if you're angry,
be angry, find healthy ways to get that out. You know,
have a two minutes scream in honor of your anger.
(12:39):
You know, go have a run in honor of your anger,
because you have to get that anger out. You can't
go to forgiveness too quick, you know. The new book
that I have is called Finding Meaning, And people want
to sometimes skip the anger and skip the pain and
just go to the we're done with it. But you
can't go right to forgiveness. You've got to let the
(13:01):
anger out and then how do you get past the guilt?
Like for for us, I'm you know, why did I
why did I drop her off? There? This is my fault.
I could have figured something else out, you know, it
was my responsibility. You know, I'm taking putting the bloom,
you know, I mean they're angry at her. I'm taking
all the blame, putting it all myself. So, first of all,
(13:24):
we can't fathom that death occurs. So we want to
something so uncontrollable like death. We want to blame ourselves
or the other person, and we flip fall back and
forth between both, and the reality is you, I'm sure
(13:45):
you dropping her off. You did not know this was
going to happen. And had you known, you wouldn't have. So,
you know, we blame ourselves for information we didn't have.
No one could have known she was going to die. Yeah,
and so you were taking care of her, thank you? Right?
(14:10):
Is that isn't that true? Could you like you didn't know?
You were like you know, doing something that you know
she was about to die. And it's so strange we
have this way that we blame ourselves for dropping our
pet off or for going to lunch, and then our
husband gets killed in a car accident, or we let
(14:31):
our kids out to play and something horrible happened to them.
We can't understand that death happens, and so the reality
is it does, and it's heartbreaking, and our body and
soul and psyche are built to take a number of
hits this lifetime. And part of your work for your
(14:54):
kids is to model grief is sad, Grief is anger,
Grief is painful, and grief is also living on and
finding ways to honor your dog, honor our loved ones.
It will take time, but you know, we just can
only stay present with whatever feelings we have. Do you
(15:17):
think there's a way to process grief before it even happens, Well,
we do. We have what we call um anticipatory grief,
like when your loved one has Alzheimer's or cancer or something,
or your dog. Does we anticipated or we think, you know,
someday our parents will die. So we do have that
(15:38):
grief that we process a little before someone dies, but
we still have grief afterwards. And I know, like in
my past, I whenever I would feel sadness or grief,
I would, you know, turn to food for comfort. Right?
Is this a common thing when it comes to grief
(15:59):
and how do people work on that when that starts
to happen. Well, like anything, you know, at first, first
of all, you know, food is comfort, so we all
go to that. We want to bring food to someone's house.
So you just want to know that. You know, when
things happen early on, you probably are going to turn
(16:20):
to food. It's not a good permanent strategy to deal
with grief, so we want to make sure at a
certain point we feel those feelings. It's interesting in this
new book, when I was doing research finding meaning I
read and I had no idea about this. I read
about how buffaloes when a storm is coming, the buffaloes
(16:44):
run into the storm, and because they run into the storm,
they minimize their time. And the hard part where the opposite.
When grief comes, we run from it and we are
like dealing with it for a longer period of time.
So I think, you know, we don't know how to
(17:06):
do what our great grandparents did and just how to
sit with these feelings. You know, we're such a productive,
get on with it society that when laws comes there
is nothing to do. We just have to be Yeah,
that makes sense. I'm gonna go into some listener questions, here,
do you mind if I just do some rapid fire
(17:28):
and you just said'd be great? Okay, great, So I'm
let's start with how can my husband and I help
each other cope with losing our grandparents? Ah? Well, first
of all, just knowing your grief is going to be different.
No two people have the same grief, so it may
feel like one of you is doing better, one of
(17:50):
you is moving forward faster, and just know that's normal.
And our job is to honor our grief and not
compare it to one another. That's a good point. Um
is grief psychological? My body, so this person said, is
the grief psychological? My body knows anniversaries without my brain
(18:10):
identifying the day. Absolutely. I do retreats with a man
named Paul Denniston. Paul does what's called grief yoga. People
can find out about him at grief yoga dot com
and it's interesting. He talks about grief gets stuck in
our body, and just like your listener knows, it's so true.
Even if you happen to forget the day, your body remembers.
(18:33):
So grief is in our heart, it's in our mind,
and it's in our body. Our mind works against us.
Our mind tells us that's our fault. Our heart knows
what to do. Our body will sometimes store the grief.
So your listener is very attuned to their body that
they know that. So what are some of the things
(18:53):
they do when they're starting to feel it or they're
starting to feel that pain and they're not sure why,
but then they identify it how it's the next step.
So the next step is your body needs motion. Go,
oh my gosh, I'm really missing my husband, my wife,
my pet, whoever it may be. I'm going to go
take a walk and feel this pain, or I'm going
(19:15):
to go to a yoga class and feel it, or
I'm going to take a run. But you need motion,
so it doesn't have to be a lot of motion,
but just a little. Yeah, that's truthfully. That's one of
the biggest thing that also helps me with anxiety as well,
is if you know, really feeling anxious, I'm like, I
have to go on a walk, i have to get
(19:36):
on the bike, I have to move because when I
just sit in my feelings, it gets so much worse
and almost feels like debilitating. Right of course, Um, okay,
how does someone deal? How does someone heal from losing
their whole family so all of a sudden they're alone. Well,
it's it's tragic. And people have losses in so many
(19:59):
different ways. And by the way, I tend to think,
it's always a death of something. A divorce is the
death of a marriage, A breakup is the death of
that relationship. A job loss is the death of that
work relationship. So and estrangement. People are estrange from their family.
So if you find yourself alone, obviously you want to
(20:21):
feel whatever feelings are coming up. And we have to
know it's up to us to build connections again with
other people with love ones. And for some people in grief,
like I have online classes with groups, sometimes it might
be just connecting with other people who are in the
same place at us at first. Yeah, because I know
(20:42):
sometimes when when you're grieving or when you're struggling, the
hardest thing in the world is to talk to somebody,
especially talk to somebody you don't know and open up.
And you know, sometimes you're in such a almost like
negative headspace. The thought of building a new relationship is
like no, thank you, right, And that's why sometimes you
have to start with someone who's in the same place
(21:03):
as you may be dealing with the same type of loss.
And then I have somebody's asking there's three years into
losing their parents and they're still not doing well. What
do I do? Gosh, I'd love to know what not
doing well? It looks like three years is still somewhat
early in grief. I mean, I think of early grief
(21:24):
as the first two years. So are they still missing them?
Because you're going to miss them forever? You know, people
ask me how long am I going to miss my spouse,
my child, my parents, And my response is always how
long are they going to be dead? Because if your
loved one is going to be dead a long time,
you're going to miss them a long time. You're always
(21:45):
going to love them. Hopefully, in time the pain will
change and you'll find ways to find meaning. The book
is really about helping people with that sixth stage of
grief to find that meaning. And this is hard work,
this is not easy. You know, what are the six
stages of Greece? So the first stage is denial. These
(22:07):
were done by Kubler Ross, my co author, Denial, anger, bargaining, depression,
and acceptance, And Elizabeth would have told you they're not linear,
they're not a map for grief. You don't have to
do them in order. I wrote this new book, Finding
Meaning the Sixth Stage because I believe we're a generation
that doesn't want to just stop at acceptance. You don't
(22:30):
want to accept the loss of your family. You don't
want to just accept the loss of your beloved pet.
You want to make meaning. We want to make their
life meaningful. We want to remember them and honor them
in ways. And people sometimes here meaning and they think,
are you talking about meaning in the death. No, there's
no meaning in how your loved one died, but there's
(22:52):
meaning in how you remember them. You know, when a
loved one dies, when a pet dies, a part of
us dies with them, but a part of them lives
on in us. And how can we honor some of
those memories, those traits, those qualities, So saying that, you know,
(23:13):
we're going into the holidays, so how do you honor
a loved one, and you know, without making it depressing,
like how are you honoring their presence and doing your
well holiday traditions or whatever it is, but without bringing
I'm not bringing it down. But what is there a
happy medium? Well, first of all, death is a downer.
(23:36):
I mean that we're not going to make it a
ha ha happy death. But the reality is people often
believe if I go to that support group, if I
go to that therapy, if I see the counselor if
I go here, I'm going to be sad. The truth
is the sadness is in us. So you know, as
we approach these holidays, they are going to be triggering.
(23:59):
They are going to be sad. For a lot of people,
this might be the first holiday without their loved one.
And sometimes I say to people early on, you have
to make peace with this holiday is going to suck.
You're just going to have to make peace with that.
You know, you can't have a spouse, a parent eye
months before the holidays and you always do the holidays
(24:21):
with them and it's just fine. It is going to suck,
and I think we have to let that be okay
for a while, right. And another thing, if if somebody
has lost a child, right and they're feeling alone and
they're not sure how to grieve the child because nobody's relating.
I know that you said that you can join support groups,
(24:44):
but if they're not even into to that place yet,
what is something they can be doing because nobody understands
they're just well isolating themselves. Even more then sometimes it
might be just connecting with their own pains. So, for
example this book, part of the story in this book
is also the story I have two kids and my
younger son died, so I relate to that unfortunately. So
(25:08):
along with my book, I have an online class that's
completely free for anyone who gets the book. Your listeners
can find out about that at six stage dot com
s I x T H stage dot com or just
go to my site grief dot com. Because sometimes it's
to just honor that pain, and the pain of losing
(25:28):
a child is horrendous, So until that person is ready
to connect with others, it might be just to feel
their own pain. Right, And how do you explain so
if if you have kids and you know another child
classes away, or if grandpa grandma passes away, Right, how
(25:49):
do you explain that to your kids? And I know
you said earlier to be honest and not too much information,
and don't use euphemisms, don't say you know dad's gone
on a long trip or Grandpa has gone on a
long sleep, but to actually say the word they died.
And you know what died means as different ages. It
(26:11):
may mean you know they've gone to heaven. They left
their body here, their spirit or sold is now in
heaven or the afterlife or whatever you believe. And you
know their body doesn't need to eat, drink anymore, and
you know they're they're no longer in our life, but
they're in our heart. And do you think that you
(26:33):
bring young kids to a funeral? Absolutely? What age does
that start? Is that always? I believe if you're old
enough to love, you're old enough to grieve. And so
I'll tell you bringing kids to a funeral makes us uncomfortable,
but not them uncomfortable. I mean, kids find all that
(26:54):
really interesting. But we project all our fears and as
a parent, I know I don't want my kids to
experience sadness, so we think we want to keep them
away from it. But the reality is all our kids
are going to deal with laws sometimes and it's our
place as our parents to teach them about loss. So
(27:15):
how would you how would you describe it to kids
that you're going to a funeral? Like? What is so great?
A question? Great? You've got good questions to think, So
I would say something like do you remember how we
went to Grandpa's house last year for his birthday? We
all sat around and we gave him a cake and
(27:38):
we sang Happy birthday. Happy birthday is another way we
say I love you. Now we're going to gather one
last time for Grandpa, and we called that gathering the
last one, a funeral, and we're going to say goodbye,
because goodbye is another way we say I love you.
(27:58):
I love that so and I truly never would have
thought about it like that. So I am so grateful
for that. And on that note of of close family
members dying, what if it's a suicide, how do you
explain suicide to kids? How do you explain suicide to
other family members? Right, So, the science around this has changed,
(28:20):
and we haven't kept up with it. Our culture hasn't
kept up with it. The science shows us now that addiction,
mental illness, death by suicide are real illnesses that occur
in our mind. They're not a choice. No one chooses
to be suicidal or chooses to be addicted. And so
(28:42):
when I explain it to kids, I might say, do
you know how you can die from something in your body?
Your heart is not working right, your kidneys aren't working right,
your lungs aren't working right. You can also die from
illnesses in your mind. And an illness in our mind
is called an addiction, it's called suicidal thoughts, it's called
(29:04):
mental illness or being mentally compromised. And we have to
help people understand that these are real illnesses that get
progressively worse, and people die from them even if they
get treatment sometimes, and we always have so much blame
(29:25):
around addiction and death by suicide, And I often think
of what we call the three CS for family members
to realize you didn't cause it, you couldn't control it,
and you couldn't cure it. Right. So i've when it
comes to somebody who is sick or somebody who's in
(29:49):
the hospital. I remember when I was younger and my
grandmother was dying. She was sick in the hospital, and
I remember going in to see her, but I don't
remember really why we were there, Like I didn't know
that she was dying, right, So how would you go
about explaining to your kids or to your loved ones
(30:11):
that somebody is dying but they're not dead yet, And
how do you how do you talk to the person
who's sick without right. So first of all, we always
want to start with the death of a person with
a child, but I think it's important that we begin
to just point out to our children, look how the
leaves change. For every spring, there's a summer. Every summer
(30:35):
there's a fall, every fall there's a winter. You know,
every flower that blooms dies, every plant that grows dies.
Our pets, unfortunately and time, will die, and so will we.
And we don't have control over that. But we have
control over how much love and how much fun and
(30:58):
how much care and how it's life we have while
we're here. So let's appreciate that flower while it's blooming.
Let's appreciate those brown leaves that are getting older. And
so I think we have to start with all that
stuff with our kids. And then when we go to
the hospital, we can go you know, the reality is
(31:21):
is that you know, Grandma is going to be dying soon.
And what we can do while we're there is we
can rub lotion on Grandma's hand. We can talk to
Grandma about some fun times we had with her, and
begin to teach them how to reminisce and how to
tell someone you love them and appreciate them. And what
(31:42):
if you're a parent and your child is sick, like
your child has pediatric cancer, and you're going to visit
them every day, is it best to just be strong
and happy every day or should you show your emotions?
Like well, I'll tell you I actually started at Children's
hospital in Los Angeles and I worked in the cancer
unit there, and I can tell you the kids like
(32:04):
knew they were dying, and the kids could talk about
it more than their parents could. You know, the parents,
of course, it's just so heartbreaking to have a child dying,
so it's going to be harder for the parent to
talk about it. That's why it's good, Like you know,
in children's hospitals, they have child life specialists and social
(32:26):
workers and people who are good at helping us with
those conversations so that we don't have to figure those
out right. And then for somebody who said they lost
the love of their life and they think they will
never love again, what are your thoughts on that? Well,
so here's the thing. So let's first start with breakups
(32:49):
and divorce. With breakups and divorce, part of the problem
is we grieve the person who's leaving us. Are divorcing us.
But the second part is we grieve the the idea
that they were the one and we think we've lost
the one. And I have to remind people because I
(33:09):
do retreats also on breakups and divorce and betrayal. We
have to remind people the one is not the person
who leaves you. That's not your one. So but we're
grieving because we think they are the one, and you
have to grieve the person. And the other thing is
I think we have lots of people in our lives.
(33:32):
I'm not a believer that there's one soul mate. I
mean I think sometimes there might be someone who we're
supposed to be within our twenties and someone else were
within our thirties and forties and fifties. I mean, life changes,
you know. I think we're different than our grandparents that
like every relationship was for life, no matter what right.
(33:55):
And also what we see often happen in breakups is
one person will send a text message or something saying
if you don't call me back, I'm going to kill myself,
or if you don't get back together with me, I'm
going to end my life. What are some ways to
handle when that happens if you're in a toxic relationship,
(34:16):
and if you're in a toxic relationship like that, it's
really so challenging. And what I'm going to say is
so hard to do. You have two text back, I'm
not equipped for this. Here is the number to the
suicide hotline. I wish you well, I I want you
(34:38):
to be happy. I want you to have a great life.
Please help yourself call this number right And because the
reality is sometimes it's a manipulation, sometimes it's not, and
you really need a professional to sort that out. But
I mean, obviously, if you're up to it, call that person,
(35:00):
text that person, But if you feel like you know
at some point you're not equipped for it, you just
have to be honest that I don't know how to
do this, but I want you to get care. I
want you to be happy. I care about you. Please
call this line to get some help or two a
(35:20):
three way conversation with them on the suicide hotline, because
you want to be there for them, you want to care,
but you also don't want to deal with something you
don't know how to deal with. And sometimes it's a
repeated thing and you almost get like a scab to
it because every tile And that's the thing I mean,
(35:40):
you know, suicide is such a serious thing. Uh, it
is not a great idea when people use it for
manipulation in a relationship. Because we want to make sure
everyone who's having suicidal thoughts gets care and love and
knows they are needed and uh and want to here.
And that's why we have to be careful not to
(36:03):
make those confusing messages. What is your personal experience with
grief and how did you get past it? You know,
I don't know that I get past and I think
you learned to live with it. And uh, you know, look,
I grew up with a mother who died when I
was thirteen and there was a mass shooting at the time.
And you know, I've had a child it's died. I've
(36:25):
had relationships that have gone sour, like most of us do.
I mean, at a certain point in life, stuff goes wrong.
And yet you realize everyone in this life gets something.
You know, I had a son who died, but someone
else got raped, someone else got assaulted, someone else's house
burned down. Everyone gets something. Our job is to find
(36:49):
healing in our something, whatever it may be. And part
of writing this book is actually my healing. And I
hope to people who read this new book find meaning,
they're going to find, you know, healing in it, reading
it the way I did in writing it. And do
you think do you have any kind of like closing
(37:10):
comments or anything you could say to our listeners who
are listening to this right now feeling emotional, feeling lost
and wanting to connect. Sure, you are not grieving wrong.
Your body knows how to do this, Your soul knows
how to do this. So honor what you're feeling. Let
(37:30):
go of all your should's if you're judging yourself that
you should be over it, or a family members telling
you to move on, to let go of all that
and really honor what you're feeling. I hope that people
will connect with me on social media my handles or
I am David Kessler. They can find me on Instagram
and Facebook under I am David Kessler. And to you know,
(37:55):
check out the book Finding Meaning the Sixth Stage. I
do lots of retreats around loved ones dying or breakups, divorce.
You can find them at grief dot com. Just look
under events and know that you're not alone. You are
not alone, and we can be here for each other.
Thank you so much for today. I truly appreciate it. Oh,
(38:17):
thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it too. Okay,
tux In take care, and before you guys go, a
big thank you to Tokaya Organica. The rapidly expanding fresh, casual,
modern Mexican restaurant chain and my kiddo's favorite. Tokaya creates
(38:38):
both the date worthy atmosphere and the perfect place to
grab a few tacos with friends at lunchtime, as each
location includes an upscale bar area featuring fresh, handmade cocktails
delicious Whish I could have one of those right now.
The menu is fully vegan forward, yet accommodates a variety
of other dietary preferences, using quality produce as its foundation.
(38:58):
Between now and the end of the year, for every
fifty dollar gift card you buy for someone on your
holiday shopping list, you'll receive a ten dollar bonus gift
card for yourself. Visit Tokaya Organica dot com to find
your nearest location. So I think in closing, there's no
right way or wrong way to grieve, you know, we
(39:21):
just have to feel our emotions, be honest with ourselves
and know that we're not alone. And if we remember
those things, it's going to make some days easier, and
you know what, some days it's not, but that's okay.
So I, you know, I hope that this podcast was
(39:41):
able to give you some tools but also just remind
you that you are supported and there are people that
you can talk to. So you can either reach out
to David Kessler um David Kessler dot org. He has
a lot of different ways that you can join a community,
or you, of course are welcome to email us at
Teddy T at I heart radio dot com or through
(40:02):
Teddy T Podcast on Instagram. We love your questions, we
want to get them answered. We feel you, we hear you,
and we're there for you. Thanks guys, thanks for listening.
Subscribe to Teddy T pot on I Heart Radio or
wherever you listen to podcasts.
This is Teddy Teapot. Hi guys, welcome back to Teddy
te Pod. Um. I'm gonna start this week. I have
to kind of dedicate this teapod to like our little dog, Klisi. Um.
(00:28):
It's crazy because I have to kind of get in
the right mindset to even talk about what's happened the
past couple of weeks. But UM, this week's podcast, we're
going to talk about grief and how we process grief,
how we talk to our kids about grief. Um. And
I realized that I'm talking about a pet and so
(00:48):
many others are talking about a person. But I think
that there's a lot to talk about here and none
of us know how to process it. So I figured
I'd start by just telling my story for those of
you who don't know. Um, my kids and I have
(01:10):
we have a family dog. Her name was Kalisi. Um.
We loved her so very much. We still do. And
last maybe it was like two weeks ago, my husband,
kids and I were heading to Orange County for my
stepdaughter's birthday party. And you know, we have a dog,
and we were thinking what's the best thing for the dog,
(01:31):
Probably not to ride in the car with us, you know,
an hour and a half in traffic, try to figure
out what to do with her during the party. Blah
blah blah, you know, like all of those things that
you think about when you have a loved one. And
she had been to this doggie daycare place before, and
I was like, oh, she could have a fun play day.
Blah blah blah. The kids and I pack her up,
(01:52):
drop her off. We see the people there, we see
the other little doggies. It's not, you know, they're not
like locked up in crates. It's say, if you know,
we think everything's great. And right around the time we're
pulling into Orange County, pulling into my stepdaughter's birthday, I
get a hysterical phone call um from the woman who
(02:13):
owns the facility. I can't even make out what she's saying,
but I know it's her phone number, so i'm I
can hear that she's saying. I'm at the vet, so
I say, can you please put the vet on? I
talked to the vet and they say that Clissy's not breathing.
(02:34):
She's going to need to go on life support and
they don't know what happened to her. Um. So so
many things happen when you're in that moment, like, the
first thing is, holy crap, we're walking into my stepdaughter's
birthday party and I'm about to have to fake this
(02:55):
right now. Number two is you're dog gonna make it?
Number three? What this is all my fault? I should
have never dropped her off at this place. I should
have figured something else out. Number four, what am I
going to tell my kids? They know where she is,
you know, because when I was little and something happened
(03:16):
to your family petish, all of a sudden they were gone,
and then miraculously they you know, I don't remember even
what happened, but my kids knew where our dog was
because they were with me when we dropped her off.
So I figured out how to numb myself throughout the
birthday party, waiting for Vets to call, waiting for more information, um,
(03:43):
you know, trying to have the best time possible, praying
and hoping she was gonna be okay, you know, messaging
the vet, messaging the woman, trying to figure out details.
I can't get really any details. Long story short, what
they think happened is she either had brain or final
injury from a fall and she passed away. So that night,
(04:08):
you know, I asked, can I come in? They said,
there's no point. You can't touch her, you can't talk
to her. She's like in a you know, and like
a it's not a box, but she's like in you know,
on life support. That there's nothing you can do, and
she's not responsive. She won't hear you, she won't know
that you're there. And uh so then I just had
(04:28):
to wait and uh then three in the morning, the
vet called and they said, yeah, she's um, she passed.
Oh first before that, they sent a message if she
starts to pass, do you want to do? Um? Do
you want us to do life altering measures to resuscitate her?
(04:48):
And I said, you know, I want you to do
whatever you would do for your dog. You know, I
don't want to put her in more pain, but of
course I want her to live. So just you do
you know what I truy, you know, I'm trusting in
the pet. And so at three am they caught me
and like we're in the stage now where like my
son sleeps in the same room as me and my husband,
(05:10):
and you know, the girls are in the room next door,
and I don't know what to do. I don't know
how I'm going to tell the kids. I just started sobbing.
My husband is looking at me, and you know, I'm
also emotional. I'm six and a half months pregnant. I'm
not trying to make this about me. But I really
didn't know how to process this or even tell the kids.
(05:33):
So I started doing research online and how do you
tell your children when a loved one or a pet
or something passes away. I ended up finding this like
book about it, and I learned some of the key
things to do, and they said, you know, number one,
(05:54):
don't say that the don't lie to your kids. Number two,
don't say that your dog passed away randomly, because then
your children will fear just passing away randomly. Um, don't
say that your dog passed away or died in its sleep,
because then your kids will be scared to go to sleep.
(06:15):
And um. So I was like, okay, you know, now
I have the tools now. And then all of a sudden,
in your mind, You're like, well, maybe I should wait
throughout the weekend. Maybe I don't need to really tell
them yet, maybe I could just fake it. And then
I was like, I just can't. And so the next morning,
when the kids wake up. We told them, and they
all had very different reactions. Um Slate immediately started crying
(06:41):
and she had anger. She was mad at the place
I know how to take care of her. How could
this happen? How could this happen? Why would she do that?
Um Bella was quiet, not really asking anything. And then
Cruise was very you know, like he's too little, Like
(07:01):
he almost made a joke where he was like, well,
you know, Santa's got work to do, you know, Like
it's just so crazy how kids process it differently. So
we've spent the last week or so going through this
where sometimes we're crying, sometimes we're laughing, sometimes we're looking
at pictures and like remembering the good times. And then
(07:22):
sometimes I'm just numbing it because I am doing so
many things right now and I don't want I don't
want to bring my energy onto the kids or I also,
you know, I realized that I'm having to go to
work and do things like that and I can't bring
my sadness into it. But I also know I have
to be vulnerable and grieve. But you know what, I
(07:44):
don't really know how. So we're going to bring um
David Kessler on in a bit to kind of go
through the grieving process and give us some advice, because
I know there are so many of us going through
the holidays where maybe you're grieving a loved one, or
maybe somebody is sick, or you're not sure how to
(08:08):
talk to your kids about their grandparents passing or whatever
it may be. There's so many different topics on this point.
And you know, I did a something on my Instagram
and it just blew up with questions. So I really
just want to get his take on everything. So we're
gonna take a little break and then come back with him. Hi.
(08:36):
So now we're on with David Kessler. He is the
author of five best selling books, one of them being
The Needs of Dying, and his services have been used
by Elizabeth Taylor, Carrie Fisher, Jamie Lee Curtis, among many others.
And we are so grateful to have you here today
because we need some help around here on Teddy Teapot.
(08:58):
I'm glad to be with you. Thank you so much.
So um, I just recently shared a story about how
we just lost our family pet and kind of a
more we weren't ready for it, you know, like it
was just a random occurrence and accident that happened, and
(09:19):
why the dog was in somebody else's care and we
weren't able to say goodbye. And we're kind of going
through the where we're crying, then all of a sudden
we're laughing, then we're numb, then we're not talking about it,
then we're talking about it NonStop. Do we get a
new dog? So that's kind of where we are um
and then I also have a lot of listener questions
(09:40):
about grief as well, So I was kind of curious,
since you're professional for loss in regards to anyone, what
do you think the best way to tell your kids is? Well,
I think honesty and simplicity is the best way. I
think the kids know and we're not telling the truth.
(10:02):
And part of the problem is is they feel it,
and kids think it might be something they did wrong.
So I don't believe in giving too much information, but
I think in you know, whatever your beliefs are, whether
you believe your dog went to heaven, grandpa went to heaven,
or they died, whatever it may be, to tell them
(10:24):
the truth. I mean they understand this Sesame street other
you know, every Disney movie has a death in it,
So kids get the concept. And do you think that
grief can pop up at any time, like even years
down the road, or is there like a standard protocol
for how long someone grieves. I know that sounds crazy,
but I mean, I'm curious for myself. Well, people think
(10:48):
there's some timeline in grief and there isn't. But the
reality is grief changes. So first of all, I want
to just ask you, what's your dog's name. Her name's
Galici Gleasie Calisi, Calisi, because I don't want to talk
about her as a loss. She's more than a loss.
My rule on pet law says, if the love is real,
(11:09):
the grief is real. So when we talk about loss,
you're always going to remember her, You're always going to
love her, but in time, hopefully you'll grieve her with
more love than pain. Right now, it's all pain, but
in time that will change and be different. But you're
(11:31):
never going to forget her. You're never going to get
over her. And at some point you'll all know whether
it's time for a new dog and when that is.
And there's no there's no hard rule on any of this.
You know, you have to figure out what's right for
you and what's right for your best friend or your
neighbor might be completely different for you. Yeah, and then
(11:53):
if when it comes to loss and you start to
feel like almost anger or you like for me or
the kids, like we are we're trying to process through
the anger if this happened in somebody else's care, like,
we don't want to be angry. We want to practice forgiveness,
and but how do you move through that? Well, it's
(12:15):
interesting because our generation is one of the first generations
that we have feelings on feelings. We have anger, but
then we feel like we shouldn't be angry. We're sad,
but we shouldn't be sad. The reality is, if you're angry,
be angry, find healthy ways to get that out. You know,
have a two minutes scream in honor of your anger.
(12:39):
You know, go have a run in honor of your anger,
because you have to get that anger out. You can't
go to forgiveness too quick, you know. The new book
that I have is called Finding Meaning, And people want
to sometimes skip the anger and skip the pain and
just go to the we're done with it. But you
can't go right to forgiveness. You've got to let the
(13:01):
anger out and then how do you get past the guilt?
Like for for us, I'm you know, why did I
why did I drop her off? There? This is my fault.
I could have figured something else out, you know, it
was my responsibility. You know, I'm taking putting the bloom,
you know, I mean they're angry at her. I'm taking
all the blame, putting it all myself. So, first of all,
(13:24):
we can't fathom that death occurs. So we want to
something so uncontrollable like death. We want to blame ourselves
or the other person, and we flip fall back and
forth between both, and the reality is you, I'm sure
(13:45):
you dropping her off. You did not know this was
going to happen. And had you known, you wouldn't have. So,
you know, we blame ourselves for information we didn't have.
No one could have known she was going to die. Yeah,
and so you were taking care of her, thank you? Right?
(14:10):
Is that isn't that true? Could you like you didn't know?
You were like you know, doing something that you know
she was about to die. And it's so strange we
have this way that we blame ourselves for dropping our
pet off or for going to lunch, and then our
husband gets killed in a car accident, or we let
(14:31):
our kids out to play and something horrible happened to them.
We can't understand that death happens, and so the reality
is it does, and it's heartbreaking, and our body and
soul and psyche are built to take a number of
hits this lifetime. And part of your work for your
(14:54):
kids is to model grief is sad, Grief is anger,
Grief is painful, and grief is also living on and
finding ways to honor your dog, honor our loved ones.
It will take time, but you know, we just can
only stay present with whatever feelings we have. Do you
(15:17):
think there's a way to process grief before it even happens, Well,
we do. We have what we call um anticipatory grief,
like when your loved one has Alzheimer's or cancer or something,
or your dog. Does we anticipated or we think, you know,
someday our parents will die. So we do have that
(15:38):
grief that we process a little before someone dies, but
we still have grief afterwards. And I know, like in
my past, I whenever I would feel sadness or grief,
I would, you know, turn to food for comfort. Right?
Is this a common thing when it comes to grief
(15:59):
and how do people work on that when that starts
to happen. Well, like anything, you know, at first, first
of all, you know, food is comfort, so we all
go to that. We want to bring food to someone's house.
So you just want to know that. You know, when
things happen early on, you probably are going to turn
(16:20):
to food. It's not a good permanent strategy to deal
with grief, so we want to make sure at a
certain point we feel those feelings. It's interesting in this
new book, when I was doing research finding meaning I
read and I had no idea about this. I read
about how buffaloes when a storm is coming, the buffaloes
(16:44):
run into the storm, and because they run into the storm,
they minimize their time. And the hard part where the opposite.
When grief comes, we run from it and we are
like dealing with it for a longer period of time.
So I think, you know, we don't know how to
(17:06):
do what our great grandparents did and just how to
sit with these feelings. You know, we're such a productive,
get on with it society that when laws comes there
is nothing to do. We just have to be Yeah,
that makes sense. I'm gonna go into some listener questions, here,
do you mind if I just do some rapid fire
(17:28):
and you just said'd be great? Okay, great, So I'm
let's start with how can my husband and I help
each other cope with losing our grandparents? Ah? Well, first
of all, just knowing your grief is going to be different.
No two people have the same grief, so it may
feel like one of you is doing better, one of
(17:50):
you is moving forward faster, and just know that's normal.
And our job is to honor our grief and not
compare it to one another. That's a good point. Um
is grief psychological? My body, so this person said, is
the grief psychological? My body knows anniversaries without my brain
(18:10):
identifying the day. Absolutely. I do retreats with a man
named Paul Denniston. Paul does what's called grief yoga. People
can find out about him at grief yoga dot com
and it's interesting. He talks about grief gets stuck in
our body, and just like your listener knows, it's so true.
Even if you happen to forget the day, your body remembers.
(18:33):
So grief is in our heart, it's in our mind,
and it's in our body. Our mind works against us.
Our mind tells us that's our fault. Our heart knows
what to do. Our body will sometimes store the grief.
So your listener is very attuned to their body that
they know that. So what are some of the things
(18:53):
they do when they're starting to feel it or they're
starting to feel that pain and they're not sure why,
but then they identify it how it's the next step.
So the next step is your body needs motion. Go,
oh my gosh, I'm really missing my husband, my wife,
my pet, whoever it may be. I'm going to go
take a walk and feel this pain, or I'm going
(19:15):
to go to a yoga class and feel it, or
I'm going to take a run. But you need motion,
so it doesn't have to be a lot of motion,
but just a little. Yeah, that's truthfully. That's one of
the biggest thing that also helps me with anxiety as well,
is if you know, really feeling anxious, I'm like, I
have to go on a walk, i have to get
(19:36):
on the bike, I have to move because when I
just sit in my feelings, it gets so much worse
and almost feels like debilitating. Right of course, Um, okay,
how does someone deal? How does someone heal from losing
their whole family so all of a sudden they're alone. Well,
it's it's tragic. And people have losses in so many
(19:59):
different ways. And by the way, I tend to think,
it's always a death of something. A divorce is the
death of a marriage, A breakup is the death of
that relationship. A job loss is the death of that
work relationship. So and estrangement. People are estrange from their family.
So if you find yourself alone, obviously you want to
(20:21):
feel whatever feelings are coming up. And we have to
know it's up to us to build connections again with
other people with love ones. And for some people in grief,
like I have online classes with groups, sometimes it might
be just connecting with other people who are in the
same place at us at first. Yeah, because I know
(20:42):
sometimes when when you're grieving or when you're struggling, the
hardest thing in the world is to talk to somebody,
especially talk to somebody you don't know and open up.
And you know, sometimes you're in such a almost like
negative headspace. The thought of building a new relationship is
like no, thank you, right, And that's why sometimes you
have to start with someone who's in the same place
(21:03):
as you may be dealing with the same type of loss.
And then I have somebody's asking there's three years into
losing their parents and they're still not doing well. What
do I do? Gosh, I'd love to know what not
doing well? It looks like three years is still somewhat
early in grief. I mean, I think of early grief
(21:24):
as the first two years. So are they still missing them?
Because you're going to miss them forever? You know, people
ask me how long am I going to miss my spouse,
my child, my parents, And my response is always how
long are they going to be dead? Because if your
loved one is going to be dead a long time,
you're going to miss them a long time. You're always
(21:45):
going to love them. Hopefully, in time the pain will
change and you'll find ways to find meaning. The book
is really about helping people with that sixth stage of
grief to find that meaning. And this is hard work,
this is not easy. You know, what are the six
stages of Greece? So the first stage is denial. These
(22:07):
were done by Kubler Ross, my co author, Denial, anger, bargaining, depression,
and acceptance, And Elizabeth would have told you they're not linear,
they're not a map for grief. You don't have to
do them in order. I wrote this new book, Finding
Meaning the Sixth Stage because I believe we're a generation
that doesn't want to just stop at acceptance. You don't
(22:30):
want to accept the loss of your family. You don't
want to just accept the loss of your beloved pet.
You want to make meaning. We want to make their
life meaningful. We want to remember them and honor them
in ways. And people sometimes here meaning and they think,
are you talking about meaning in the death. No, there's
no meaning in how your loved one died, but there's
(22:52):
meaning in how you remember them. You know, when a
loved one dies, when a pet dies, a part of
us dies with them, but a part of them lives
on in us. And how can we honor some of
those memories, those traits, those qualities, So saying that, you know,
(23:13):
we're going into the holidays, so how do you honor
a loved one, and you know, without making it depressing,
like how are you honoring their presence and doing your
well holiday traditions or whatever it is, but without bringing
I'm not bringing it down. But what is there a
happy medium? Well, first of all, death is a downer.
(23:36):
I mean that we're not going to make it a
ha ha happy death. But the reality is people often
believe if I go to that support group, if I
go to that therapy, if I see the counselor if
I go here, I'm going to be sad. The truth
is the sadness is in us. So you know, as
we approach these holidays, they are going to be triggering.
(23:59):
They are going to be sad. For a lot of people,
this might be the first holiday without their loved one.
And sometimes I say to people early on, you have
to make peace with this holiday is going to suck.
You're just going to have to make peace with that.
You know, you can't have a spouse, a parent eye
months before the holidays and you always do the holidays
(24:21):
with them and it's just fine. It is going to suck,
and I think we have to let that be okay
for a while, right. And another thing, if if somebody
has lost a child, right and they're feeling alone and
they're not sure how to grieve the child because nobody's relating.
I know that you said that you can join support groups,
(24:44):
but if they're not even into to that place yet,
what is something they can be doing because nobody understands
they're just well isolating themselves. Even more then sometimes it
might be just connecting with their own pains. So, for
example this book, part of the story in this book
is also the story I have two kids and my
younger son died, so I relate to that unfortunately. So
(25:08):
along with my book, I have an online class that's
completely free for anyone who gets the book. Your listeners
can find out about that at six stage dot com
s I x T H stage dot com or just
go to my site grief dot com. Because sometimes it's
to just honor that pain, and the pain of losing
(25:28):
a child is horrendous, So until that person is ready
to connect with others, it might be just to feel
their own pain. Right, And how do you explain so
if if you have kids and you know another child
classes away, or if grandpa grandma passes away, Right, how
(25:49):
do you explain that to your kids? And I know
you said earlier to be honest and not too much information,
and don't use euphemisms, don't say you know dad's gone
on a long trip or Grandpa has gone on a
long sleep, but to actually say the word they died.
And you know what died means as different ages. It
(26:11):
may mean you know they've gone to heaven. They left
their body here, their spirit or sold is now in
heaven or the afterlife or whatever you believe. And you
know their body doesn't need to eat, drink anymore, and
you know they're they're no longer in our life, but
they're in our heart. And do you think that you
(26:33):
bring young kids to a funeral? Absolutely? What age does
that start? Is that always? I believe if you're old
enough to love, you're old enough to grieve. And so
I'll tell you bringing kids to a funeral makes us uncomfortable,
but not them uncomfortable. I mean, kids find all that
(26:54):
really interesting. But we project all our fears and as
a parent, I know I don't want my kids to
experience sadness, so we think we want to keep them
away from it. But the reality is all our kids
are going to deal with laws sometimes and it's our
place as our parents to teach them about loss. So
(27:15):
how would you how would you describe it to kids
that you're going to a funeral? Like? What is so great?
A question? Great? You've got good questions to think, So
I would say something like do you remember how we
went to Grandpa's house last year for his birthday? We
all sat around and we gave him a cake and
(27:38):
we sang Happy birthday. Happy birthday is another way we
say I love you. Now we're going to gather one
last time for Grandpa, and we called that gathering the
last one, a funeral, and we're going to say goodbye,
because goodbye is another way we say I love you.
(27:58):
I love that so and I truly never would have
thought about it like that. So I am so grateful
for that. And on that note of of close family
members dying, what if it's a suicide, how do you
explain suicide to kids? How do you explain suicide to
other family members? Right, So, the science around this has changed,
(28:20):
and we haven't kept up with it. Our culture hasn't
kept up with it. The science shows us now that addiction,
mental illness, death by suicide are real illnesses that occur
in our mind. They're not a choice. No one chooses
to be suicidal or chooses to be addicted. And so
(28:42):
when I explain it to kids, I might say, do
you know how you can die from something in your body?
Your heart is not working right, your kidneys aren't working right,
your lungs aren't working right. You can also die from
illnesses in your mind. And an illness in our mind
is called an addiction, it's called suicidal thoughts, it's called
(29:04):
mental illness or being mentally compromised. And we have to
help people understand that these are real illnesses that get
progressively worse, and people die from them even if they
get treatment sometimes, and we always have so much blame
(29:25):
around addiction and death by suicide, And I often think
of what we call the three CS for family members
to realize you didn't cause it, you couldn't control it,
and you couldn't cure it. Right. So i've when it
comes to somebody who is sick or somebody who's in
(29:49):
the hospital. I remember when I was younger and my
grandmother was dying. She was sick in the hospital, and
I remember going in to see her, but I don't
remember really why we were there, Like I didn't know
that she was dying, right, So how would you go
about explaining to your kids or to your loved ones
(30:11):
that somebody is dying but they're not dead yet, And
how do you how do you talk to the person
who's sick without right. So first of all, we always
want to start with the death of a person with
a child, but I think it's important that we begin
to just point out to our children, look how the
leaves change. For every spring, there's a summer. Every summer
(30:35):
there's a fall, every fall there's a winter. You know,
every flower that blooms dies, every plant that grows dies.
Our pets, unfortunately and time, will die, and so will we.
And we don't have control over that. But we have
control over how much love and how much fun and
(30:58):
how much care and how it's life we have while
we're here. So let's appreciate that flower while it's blooming.
Let's appreciate those brown leaves that are getting older. And
so I think we have to start with all that
stuff with our kids. And then when we go to
the hospital, we can go you know, the reality is
(31:21):
is that you know, Grandma is going to be dying soon.
And what we can do while we're there is we
can rub lotion on Grandma's hand. We can talk to
Grandma about some fun times we had with her, and
begin to teach them how to reminisce and how to
tell someone you love them and appreciate them. And what
(31:42):
if you're a parent and your child is sick, like
your child has pediatric cancer, and you're going to visit
them every day, is it best to just be strong
and happy every day or should you show your emotions?
Like well, I'll tell you I actually started at Children's
hospital in Los Angeles and I worked in the cancer
unit there, and I can tell you the kids like
(32:04):
knew they were dying, and the kids could talk about
it more than their parents could. You know, the parents,
of course, it's just so heartbreaking to have a child dying,
so it's going to be harder for the parent to
talk about it. That's why it's good, Like you know,
in children's hospitals, they have child life specialists and social
(32:26):
workers and people who are good at helping us with
those conversations so that we don't have to figure those
out right. And then for somebody who said they lost
the love of their life and they think they will
never love again, what are your thoughts on that? Well,
so here's the thing. So let's first start with breakups
(32:49):
and divorce. With breakups and divorce, part of the problem
is we grieve the person who's leaving us. Are divorcing us.
But the second part is we grieve the the idea
that they were the one and we think we've lost
the one. And I have to remind people because I
(33:09):
do retreats also on breakups and divorce and betrayal. We
have to remind people the one is not the person
who leaves you. That's not your one. So but we're
grieving because we think they are the one, and you
have to grieve the person. And the other thing is
I think we have lots of people in our lives.
(33:32):
I'm not a believer that there's one soul mate. I
mean I think sometimes there might be someone who we're
supposed to be within our twenties and someone else were
within our thirties and forties and fifties. I mean, life changes,
you know. I think we're different than our grandparents that
like every relationship was for life, no matter what right.
(33:55):
And also what we see often happen in breakups is
one person will send a text message or something saying
if you don't call me back, I'm going to kill myself,
or if you don't get back together with me, I'm
going to end my life. What are some ways to
handle when that happens if you're in a toxic relationship,
(34:16):
and if you're in a toxic relationship like that, it's
really so challenging. And what I'm going to say is
so hard to do. You have two text back, I'm
not equipped for this. Here is the number to the
suicide hotline. I wish you well, I I want you
(34:38):
to be happy. I want you to have a great life.
Please help yourself call this number right And because the
reality is sometimes it's a manipulation, sometimes it's not, and
you really need a professional to sort that out. But
I mean, obviously, if you're up to it, call that person,
(35:00):
text that person, But if you feel like you know
at some point you're not equipped for it, you just
have to be honest that I don't know how to
do this, but I want you to get care. I
want you to be happy. I care about you. Please
call this line to get some help or two a
(35:20):
three way conversation with them on the suicide hotline, because
you want to be there for them, you want to care,
but you also don't want to deal with something you
don't know how to deal with. And sometimes it's a
repeated thing and you almost get like a scab to
it because every tile And that's the thing I mean,
(35:40):
you know, suicide is such a serious thing. Uh, it
is not a great idea when people use it for
manipulation in a relationship. Because we want to make sure
everyone who's having suicidal thoughts gets care and love and
knows they are needed and uh and want to here.
And that's why we have to be careful not to
(36:03):
make those confusing messages. What is your personal experience with
grief and how did you get past it? You know,
I don't know that I get past and I think
you learned to live with it. And uh, you know, look,
I grew up with a mother who died when I
was thirteen and there was a mass shooting at the time.
And you know, I've had a child it's died. I've
(36:25):
had relationships that have gone sour, like most of us do.
I mean, at a certain point in life, stuff goes wrong.
And yet you realize everyone in this life gets something.
You know, I had a son who died, but someone
else got raped, someone else got assaulted, someone else's house
burned down. Everyone gets something. Our job is to find
(36:49):
healing in our something, whatever it may be. And part
of writing this book is actually my healing. And I
hope to people who read this new book find meaning,
they're going to find, you know, healing in it, reading
it the way I did in writing it. And do
you think do you have any kind of like closing
(37:10):
comments or anything you could say to our listeners who
are listening to this right now feeling emotional, feeling lost
and wanting to connect. Sure, you are not grieving wrong.
Your body knows how to do this, Your soul knows
how to do this. So honor what you're feeling. Let
(37:30):
go of all your should's if you're judging yourself that
you should be over it, or a family members telling
you to move on, to let go of all that
and really honor what you're feeling. I hope that people
will connect with me on social media my handles or
I am David Kessler. They can find me on Instagram
and Facebook under I am David Kessler. And to you know,
(37:55):
check out the book Finding Meaning the Sixth Stage. I
do lots of retreats around loved ones dying or breakups, divorce.
You can find them at grief dot com. Just look
under events and know that you're not alone. You are
not alone, and we can be here for each other.
Thank you so much for today. I truly appreciate it. Oh,
(38:17):
thank you for doing this. I really appreciate it too. Okay,
tux In take care, and before you guys go, a
big thank you to Tokaya Organica. The rapidly expanding fresh, casual,
modern Mexican restaurant chain and my kiddo's favorite. Tokaya creates
(38:38):
both the date worthy atmosphere and the perfect place to
grab a few tacos with friends at lunchtime, as each
location includes an upscale bar area featuring fresh, handmade cocktails
delicious Whish I could have one of those right now.
The menu is fully vegan forward, yet accommodates a variety
of other dietary preferences, using quality produce as its foundation.
(38:58):
Between now and the end of the year, for every
fifty dollar gift card you buy for someone on your
holiday shopping list, you'll receive a ten dollar bonus gift
card for yourself. Visit Tokaya Organica dot com to find
your nearest location. So I think in closing, there's no
right way or wrong way to grieve, you know, we
(39:21):
just have to feel our emotions, be honest with ourselves
and know that we're not alone. And if we remember
those things, it's going to make some days easier, and
you know what, some days it's not, but that's okay.
So I, you know, I hope that this podcast was
(39:41):
able to give you some tools but also just remind
you that you are supported and there are people that
you can talk to. So you can either reach out
to David Kessler um David Kessler dot org. He has
a lot of different ways that you can join a community,
or you, of course are welcome to email us at
Teddy T at I heart radio dot com or through
(40:02):
Teddy T Podcast on Instagram. We love your questions, we
want to get them answered. We feel you, we hear you,
and we're there for you. Thanks guys, thanks for listening.
Subscribe to Teddy T pot on I Heart Radio or
wherever you listen to podcasts.
Hosts And Creators
Teddi Mellencamp
Tamra Judge
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