February 27, 2023 • 24 mins
In this final episode of season two, we answer the central question from episode one: is there any hope? Okay, well we don’t answer it. But we do review what we’ve learned. Turns out, everyone has an opinion about hope - from the creative to the bleak to the functional. Maybe one of these versions speaks to you.
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About our guest:
Megan Devine is a best-selling author, psychotherapist, grief advocate and podcast host. Her book It’s OK that You’re Not OK is the go-to resource for over half a million people. Her animated short, “How to Help a Grieving Friend,” is used in training programs around the world. She’s been published in GQ, The New York Times, and The Washington Post, and has served as a grief expert for major media outlets including NPR, iHeartRadio, and the PBS documentary, Speaking Grief.
For the full episode from each of the guests you heard from in the show:
Check out Megan’s best-selling books - It’s OK That You’re Not OK and How to Carry What Can’t Be Fixed.
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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,
author of the best selling book It's Okay that You're
Not Okay. This week, the last episode of season two,
is upon us. Everybody. Find out what I've learned, what
the guests have learned, and what's in store for season
three right after this first break, before we get started,
(00:26):
one quick note. While we cover a lot of emotional
relational territory in each and every episode, this show is
not a substitute for skilled mental health support or for
professional supervision related to your work. Hey, friends, we have
had twenty seven amazing episodes, twenty seven whoa twenty seven episodes,
(00:50):
and season two is coming to a close with this
one episode twenty eight. I get so caught up in
the preparation and the conversations and the production element so
the show. I don't often get to look back at
where we've been, or where I've been, or the fact
that we've done twenty seven episodes already. Here's what I
want to do with our time together today. I want
(01:11):
to share some reflections on what this season has been
like for me. It is my show, and I want
to share some of the highlights of the last twenty
seven weeks, and then I want to tell you some
exciting things that are in store for us coming up
in season three. So there's my overview of today's episode.
It is me sharing my thoughts, and then some highlights
(01:34):
of season two, and then what's coming up ahead. Yeah. Now,
if you have been with me since season one, you
might hear me say we're going on season break and
you're like, oh, dear, it's gonna be six months before
we hear from you again. But this break between season
two and season three is not like the break between
seasons one and two for a whole bunch of reasons.
(01:58):
I feel like we're really just hitting our stride in
the podcast right now. And this season's exploration of hope
has been so powerful for me. I hope it has
been for you two, And I'm going to use the
word hope so much in this episode today. But whatever,
it's what we're doing right we're exploring hope. I opened
(02:20):
this season by sharing with you all that I had
lost my hope, Hope for the world, hope for the
work that I've done and continue to do, Hope that
we could make this show into a vehicle of love
and connection and conversation that I always wanted it to be.
If you haven't listened to episode one, that would be
kind of cool. Actually, right after you listen to this episode,
pop into the archives and listen to season two, episode one,
(02:43):
and here what's changed. I'll probably do that myself. We've
come a long way together everybody over these last several months.
The state of the world has not changed. The grief
inherent in everyday life, the difficulty we each face as individuals,
as families, as communities and cultures, none of that has
(03:05):
gone anywhere. But in exploring this, in having all of
these conversations with interesting people about difficult things, I feel
like my own hope has come back online a little bit.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I
keep remembering this story. So a dear friend of mine
years ago was having some health issues and her acupuncture
(03:28):
has told her that her gate of hope was broken. Now,
I am not an acupuncturist, so I'm not entirely sure
what that means, but I think if anybody had checked
on my own hope gait acupuncture point in the last
few years, it probably would have been hanging off of
its hinges too. And while this season hasn't actually answered
(03:49):
the issue of hope for me, it has made me
increasingly curious, And as a by product of becoming increasingly curious,
I think I've actually become increased hopeful, which is really cool. Now.
We have covered some rather intense territory this season, from
Nelba Marquez Green discussing the aftermath of Sandy Hook and
(04:11):
her work with survivors of tragedy, to Nlsony Nor helping
us understand what's happening in Iran, to writers and activists
covering everything from pet loss to the grief inherent in
daily life for people of color. I really did get
my wish this season that I would just spend all
of my time talking with interesting people about difficult things.
(04:32):
Achievement unlocked. I'm really glad that this happened organically, because
something happened in one of the very first conversations I
had that gave me the question that I ask in
every single episode. Right at the close of every conversation,
I ask each guest the same question, and I got
twenty seven different answers. You know the closing question by
(04:54):
now right, friends, the question I ask everybody knowing what
you know? Living what you've lived, What does hope look
like for you right now? I love that question. It
turned out to be such a beautiful and useful question,
(05:14):
and it got us into some beautiful, useful and complicated territory.
I want to give us some reminders of the kinds
of hope we've been exploring the season, So let's go
through some clips. This isn't exactly a best of episode,
because I love every single one of my episode children,
but it is meat to hear a bunch of different
(05:36):
versions of hope to sort of remind me and remind
you or introduce you to it if you haven't heard
these before. The stuff we've been exploring, it's kind of
like a big unfolded map of the territory of hope,
with each guest its own city, their own city. I
don't know you'll get the metaphor when we go through
(05:58):
it now. I told you that this question sort of
arose organically, and it came up the very first time
with one of my very first guests for the season,
Melba Marquez Green. Our conversation about living such public grief
in the wake of Sandy Hook and her daughter's death
was so powerful. Here's Nelba on hope for me. Hope
(06:21):
lives in every moment I reclaim my voice. Hope lives
in every moment I can use my privilege to make
space for someone who has also lost but maybe has
never gotten an opportunity to tell their story. And I
have so many of those moments. Hope comes meeting people
(06:45):
that say I get it and show me they do,
or meeting people that say I didn't get it, but
damn I heard that interview and I can do better,
and here's what I'm trying. Hope comes and every person
that is grieving that has reached out to me and
said thank you for speaking my truth too. It made
(07:11):
me more courageous in not feeling like I had to
just be one way. Hope comes in every moment that
my husband still thinks like I'm his sweetheart, you know,
Hope comes. And every moment I look at my son
and he's excited about something. My son was eight when
(07:32):
his sister was murdered. He has every reason to not hope.
In this country, boys who look like him are murdered
with impunity more often than we report. And my son
still has hope, and that gives me great hope. When
I can't find It. Writer Rebecca Wolf joined us to
(07:55):
talk about how grief can trap people in inauthentic versions
of themselves and how she's building her own house of hope.
House of hope was such a cool thing. Here's what
we're talking about. I think for me, hope it's so
funny because hope, for me has always felt passive, right,
like we can't like it's what we want for ourselves,
(08:16):
not necessarily what we're doing for ourselves. And I think
I lived sort of with this want for myself and
was very afraid to actually do the work to get there.
So for me, hope is sort of again reimagining what
it means to hope. Rebuilding what hope looks like finding
(08:38):
the extra room and the idea of hope, or rather
instead of finding the extra room, building that room myself,
because that's the thing too. It's like we don't have
to wait for the room to appear. We can build it, right,
we can build it. And for me that's been my
(08:59):
experiences last four years. How can I build? How can
I build? How can I redesign? How can I relearn? Unlearn?
So I guess for me, hope is finding new ways
to unlearn and create and rebuild and sort of reconstruct
a life that doesn't have to look like anyone else's.
(09:24):
New York Times bestselling author Emily Xrpan shared her version
of functional hope. I love the phrase functional hope here,
which includes the intersection of grief and change and openness.
I think I would call it something different. I think
I would call it openness, this willingness to see what
(09:44):
comes your way and to embrace it, and again not
trying to go with the positive vibes only or like
everything that happens is meant to happen, and you're on
the right path, not to go with any of those
sort of overly positive, overly shined up and almost dismissive,
(10:06):
sweeping statements, but just to say that I think the
saddest thing that can happen to us as humans is
to allow an experience to close us down so that
we are no longer willing to engage and learn new
relationships and allow things to change. I think that's something
(10:30):
that can happen a lot in grief, is this resistance
towards change, because the change that has been experienced has
been so huge and earth shattering that the idea of
more change is almost unbearable, right, And I think the
beautiful thing about openness rather than hope is learning to
(10:52):
allow for things to alter and grow and become different things,
allowing for ourselves to become from people. So I don't
know if that really answers your question, but I think it's,
you know, this question of not like what lessons being learned,
because I don't like when things feel prescriptive or like
(11:14):
they belong on a poster in an elementary school guidance
counselor's office, you know. But more that, I think it's
really beautiful when we can change our perspectives and when
we continue to allow those perspectives to shift, when we
continue to allow more and more of the world in.
(11:35):
That's what I mean by openness, to end a story
with this willingness to see what comes next, rather than
closing everything down. I love how so many guests this
season really took the word hope in and redefined it
for themselves. I also really appreciated how some of our guests,
in fact, a number of our guests talked about how
(11:58):
the younger generation coming up these days is gives them hope.
Here's author Emmy Neatfeld. I think that there are so
many good things going on right now, and I am
very hopeful by gen Z about the ways that they
are taking care of themselves, and that a lot of
(12:18):
young people are refusing to play the roles that adults
would ask them to play. And I think a lot
of the awareness of mental health and maybe even quiet
quitting and those phenomena are really like radical acts of
resistance to say, like, we are not going to participate
(12:39):
in this system that is making people on the planet
really really sick, and it's like so many people are
doing it, it feels like that it's impossible not to listen.
We definitely got into tricky territory here, which is my
honestly a lot of times my favorite place to be.
(13:00):
During her interview, illustrator and author Aubrehearsh spoke to us
about outrage and trauma and community building and how we
cannot possibly keep up with all of the new disasters,
human rights disasters, environmental disasters. Interpret like, we really got
into how bleak things are in our conversation, and then
when I asked her the question, she gave us a
(13:21):
slightly sinister but entirely functional idea of what hope means,
because this is a really like an important question for
me to think about right now, because, as I said,
I have been feeling really hopeless. Part of what hope
I have is I think about, and I just wrote
something about this too, how political power in our country
(13:42):
is often like a pendulum, right And I feel very
strongly that all the terrible things that are happening right
now to women, to LGBTQ people, particularly trans people, is
because of progress that we've made. You know, it's backlash.
It's saying, oh, now you've gone too far. You know,
you're you're out of your place now, and we're going
(14:04):
to put you back in the kitchen, you know, back
in the clothes you belong, and back in the relationship
that you don't want to be in, whatever it is
we're sending you back. Now, you've come too far. And
I am hopeful about the backlash to this backlash, because
this backlash has been so much crueler and more devastating
(14:26):
than I would have imagined that I feel like the
stuff we're going to get on the other side is
going to be amazing. You know, it's just gonna We're
gonna make the people who are making us feel this way,
feel this way, and I'm looking forward to that. Now.
Lest you think that this entire season was all puppy
dogs and rainbows, I mean Aubrey. Aubrey was definitely not
puppy dogs and rainbows. But my friend Cosh and Paley
(14:49):
Ellison told us he doesn't believe in hope at all.
For me, I hope it is actually not so great.
And so actually write about this in the book and
where I you know, Pandora's baskets. You know, we thought
of a mean think of them now as Pandora's box.
But back in the day, there were baskets, and there
(15:12):
was one about all the blessings and almost all the
curses on humankind. And like most people, get curious, and
she opened up the basket and all greed, anger and
ignorance came out, and jealousy and envy and justice she
was put in the lid back got hope jumped down.
(15:34):
And so I've always thought a lot about that because
I remember, as a young person, I was so into
Greek pathology, and for me, hope is kind of wishing
things were different, and so I think it's so tricky
and for me as a human I don't find it
very helpful, Like I wished how it was different, you know.
(15:56):
I hope it will change. I hope still in the blank,
and I'm much more interested in how are things and
what do I care about and how do I nourish
those things so that they can move into a new life,
(16:17):
you know, And I'm I'm so much more interested in
how the great Tony Morrison beloved Tony Morrison said, you
know why it's too hard to take refuge in how
it's like. I'm much more interested in how we actually
get really connected to our values and what we care about,
(16:38):
and how we nourish them so that we can be
more ourselves and other people can be more in themselves,
and that we can do the healing work that we
can do in this life now. One of my very
favorite responses to the question knowing what you know and
living what you've lived, what does hope look like for you?
(17:00):
Came from my friend and Supernatural fitness head coach Leanne Padante.
Here's why you know. One of the things I've struggled
with the most and ongoing since Miles Diide is like
you know, like you mentioned before, all these pieces of
(17:21):
your identity all these pieces of your past self, you've
become really unsure of what you are going to be
able to reclaim become again. And you know, I have
a job, I have a career, and I have like
a identity. You know. One of my favorite parts of
myself is as a motivator, as a like person, like
(17:47):
at the front of the room, at the top of
your workout, like telling you you're wonderful and it's going
to be great and we're going to do it together.
And I think that my purpose and the reason fitness
became this vector for me to really change my life
in a lot of ways that I love is that
I'm pretty sure I'm here to be a massive, like
(18:10):
positive impact in other people's lives. I think that's the
only reason I'm here. Hope would look like having greater
confidence that I am going to be able to do
that in a way that I believe, in a way
that feels very very very true to me. I still
(18:31):
do that. And when I talk about other people and
what other people are capable of, I believe it's so
damn hard. That's not a hard part. What is challenging
about having a role like I have is that my
relationship with myself and my relationship with like, the opinions
I have about what I'm going to be capable of
from here on out have really changed, and so I
(18:55):
feel like I'm telling just a little bit of a
lie when I try to think of how to help
other people, you know, because I'm still very much figuring
out about help myself. Hope would look like feeling like
I can offer things to the world without this nagging
sensation that I'm telling just a little tiny lie. Yeah,
(19:16):
So hope for you would feel like you are in
alignment with the medicine that you're bringing to the world. Yeah. Yeah,
that the medicine is for you too, and that you're
also taking it right. Friends. I love how she hesitated
when I asked her that question. I love it. And
(19:38):
then just last week, writer and healer Alex l shared
this with us. What's coming to mind is, hope looks
like the possibility of coming home to myself, regardless of
the season. I'm in the healing, I'm in the joy,
I'm in the grief I'm in I hope that I
(20:00):
can always find my way home to myself, into my center.
Hope looks like the possibility of coming home to myself.
No matter what is going on in our lives in
the world, Hope looks like the possibility of coming home.
I love that this season has brought such gifts into
(20:25):
my life everybody. I hope it's done the same for you. Now,
after this break, I am going to tell you what
is coming up for all of us, what is in
store for season three. We're going to keep talking about Hope.
We'll be right back. Before we get into what's a
(20:51):
head for season three, I want to tell you about
an opportunity to work with me directly via our Patreon community.
Once a month, I host a live video q and
as and with patrons, And honestly, it's kind of been
like this best kept secret. It really shouldn't be secret.
If you want the chance to ask me for advice,
or find out how to deal with a relationship challenge,
(21:11):
or you just want to talk to me about grief,
join us. The link is patreon dot com backslash Megan Divine.
You can find that in the show notes too, But
come join us once a month live video, ask me
whatever you want. I hope to see you. They're friends.
Now looking ahead to season three, exciting times are ahead,
(21:36):
we are going to continue our exploration of hope by
having conversations with interesting people about difficult things. And our
guest list is amazing. We've got Rachel Cargill, We've got
gob Ormatte, We've got Valerie, We've got bartun Day Thurston.
I mean the list, the list is stellar, and I
cannot wait for you to hear these conversations. Here all
(21:59):
of it now. While we're on break, We're going to
re release some of our best episodes from both season
one and season two, along with some episodes that didn't
get as much attention as they should have the first
time around. And as we have done each and every week,
I'm going to close this last episode of season two
with your questions to carry with you. I'm going to
(22:21):
leave you with the same question I have asked every
guest knowing what you know, living what you've lived, what
us hope look like for you right now, in this moment,
I'd love to hear what you find. Check out Refuge
in Grief on Instagram or here after Pod on TikTok
(22:44):
for audio clips from the show, and leave your thoughts
in the comments on those posts. Be sure to tag
us when you share the show on your own social accounts.
Use the hashtag here after pod on all the platforms.
We love to see where this show takes you. We'd
love to see where that question takes you. Remember to
subscribe and leave a review. That stuff helps more than
(23:06):
you know. If you want to tell us how today's
show felt for you, or how a season felt for you,
or you have a request or a question for upcoming
explorations of difficult things, you can send us an email
right through the website. Megan Divine. Do we want to
hear from you. I want to hear from you. This show,
(23:26):
this world needs your voice. Together we can make things
better even when they can't be made right. Want more Hereafter.
Grief education doesn't just belong to end of life issues.
As my dad says, daily life is full of everyday
grief that we don't call grief. Learning how to talk
about all that without cliches or platitudes or simplistic dismissive
(23:49):
statements is an important skill for everyone. Find trainings, professional resources,
and my best selling book, It's Okay that You're Not
Okay at Megan Divine dot co. And remember to join
us live every single month at Patreon dot com backslash
Megan Divine. Hereafter with Megan Divine is written and produced
by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown. Co
(24:13):
produced by Elizabeth Fossio. Logistical and social media support from Micah,
Edited by Houston Tilly, music provided by Wave Crush, and
background noise provided by the sweet little fleet of birds
nesting on My Patio
This is here after, and I'm your host, Megan Divine,
author of the best selling book It's Okay that You're
Not Okay. This week, the last episode of season two,
is upon us. Everybody. Find out what I've learned, what
the guests have learned, and what's in store for season
three right after this first break, before we get started,
(00:26):
one quick note. While we cover a lot of emotional
relational territory in each and every episode, this show is
not a substitute for skilled mental health support or for
professional supervision related to your work. Hey, friends, we have
had twenty seven amazing episodes, twenty seven whoa twenty seven episodes,
(00:50):
and season two is coming to a close with this
one episode twenty eight. I get so caught up in
the preparation and the conversations and the production element so
the show. I don't often get to look back at
where we've been, or where I've been, or the fact
that we've done twenty seven episodes already. Here's what I
want to do with our time together today. I want
(01:11):
to share some reflections on what this season has been
like for me. It is my show, and I want
to share some of the highlights of the last twenty
seven weeks, and then I want to tell you some
exciting things that are in store for us coming up
in season three. So there's my overview of today's episode.
It is me sharing my thoughts, and then some highlights
(01:34):
of season two, and then what's coming up ahead. Yeah. Now,
if you have been with me since season one, you
might hear me say we're going on season break and
you're like, oh, dear, it's gonna be six months before
we hear from you again. But this break between season
two and season three is not like the break between
seasons one and two for a whole bunch of reasons.
(01:58):
I feel like we're really just hitting our stride in
the podcast right now. And this season's exploration of hope
has been so powerful for me. I hope it has
been for you two, And I'm going to use the
word hope so much in this episode today. But whatever,
it's what we're doing right we're exploring hope. I opened
(02:20):
this season by sharing with you all that I had
lost my hope, Hope for the world, hope for the
work that I've done and continue to do, Hope that
we could make this show into a vehicle of love
and connection and conversation that I always wanted it to be.
If you haven't listened to episode one, that would be
kind of cool. Actually, right after you listen to this episode,
pop into the archives and listen to season two, episode one,
(02:43):
and here what's changed. I'll probably do that myself. We've
come a long way together everybody over these last several months.
The state of the world has not changed. The grief
inherent in everyday life, the difficulty we each face as individuals,
as families, as communities and cultures, none of that has
(03:05):
gone anywhere. But in exploring this, in having all of
these conversations with interesting people about difficult things, I feel
like my own hope has come back online a little bit.
I've been thinking about this a lot lately, and I
keep remembering this story. So a dear friend of mine
years ago was having some health issues and her acupuncture
(03:28):
has told her that her gate of hope was broken. Now,
I am not an acupuncturist, so I'm not entirely sure
what that means, but I think if anybody had checked
on my own hope gait acupuncture point in the last
few years, it probably would have been hanging off of
its hinges too. And while this season hasn't actually answered
(03:49):
the issue of hope for me, it has made me
increasingly curious, And as a by product of becoming increasingly curious,
I think I've actually become increased hopeful, which is really cool. Now.
We have covered some rather intense territory this season, from
Nelba Marquez Green discussing the aftermath of Sandy Hook and
(04:11):
her work with survivors of tragedy, to Nlsony Nor helping
us understand what's happening in Iran, to writers and activists
covering everything from pet loss to the grief inherent in
daily life for people of color. I really did get
my wish this season that I would just spend all
of my time talking with interesting people about difficult things.
(04:32):
Achievement unlocked. I'm really glad that this happened organically, because
something happened in one of the very first conversations I
had that gave me the question that I ask in
every single episode. Right at the close of every conversation,
I ask each guest the same question, and I got
twenty seven different answers. You know the closing question by
(04:54):
now right, friends, the question I ask everybody knowing what
you know? Living what you've lived, What does hope look
like for you right now? I love that question. It
turned out to be such a beautiful and useful question,
(05:14):
and it got us into some beautiful, useful and complicated territory.
I want to give us some reminders of the kinds
of hope we've been exploring the season, So let's go
through some clips. This isn't exactly a best of episode,
because I love every single one of my episode children,
but it is meat to hear a bunch of different
(05:36):
versions of hope to sort of remind me and remind
you or introduce you to it if you haven't heard
these before. The stuff we've been exploring, it's kind of
like a big unfolded map of the territory of hope,
with each guest its own city, their own city. I
don't know you'll get the metaphor when we go through
(05:58):
it now. I told you that this question sort of
arose organically, and it came up the very first time
with one of my very first guests for the season,
Melba Marquez Green. Our conversation about living such public grief
in the wake of Sandy Hook and her daughter's death
was so powerful. Here's Nelba on hope for me. Hope
(06:21):
lives in every moment I reclaim my voice. Hope lives
in every moment I can use my privilege to make
space for someone who has also lost but maybe has
never gotten an opportunity to tell their story. And I
have so many of those moments. Hope comes meeting people
(06:45):
that say I get it and show me they do,
or meeting people that say I didn't get it, but
damn I heard that interview and I can do better,
and here's what I'm trying. Hope comes and every person
that is grieving that has reached out to me and
said thank you for speaking my truth too. It made
(07:11):
me more courageous in not feeling like I had to
just be one way. Hope comes in every moment that
my husband still thinks like I'm his sweetheart, you know,
Hope comes. And every moment I look at my son
and he's excited about something. My son was eight when
(07:32):
his sister was murdered. He has every reason to not hope.
In this country, boys who look like him are murdered
with impunity more often than we report. And my son
still has hope, and that gives me great hope. When
I can't find It. Writer Rebecca Wolf joined us to
(07:55):
talk about how grief can trap people in inauthentic versions
of themselves and how she's building her own house of hope.
House of hope was such a cool thing. Here's what
we're talking about. I think for me, hope it's so
funny because hope, for me has always felt passive, right,
like we can't like it's what we want for ourselves,
(08:16):
not necessarily what we're doing for ourselves. And I think
I lived sort of with this want for myself and
was very afraid to actually do the work to get there.
So for me, hope is sort of again reimagining what
it means to hope. Rebuilding what hope looks like finding
(08:38):
the extra room and the idea of hope, or rather
instead of finding the extra room, building that room myself,
because that's the thing too. It's like we don't have
to wait for the room to appear. We can build it, right,
we can build it. And for me that's been my
(08:59):
experiences last four years. How can I build? How can
I build? How can I redesign? How can I relearn? Unlearn?
So I guess for me, hope is finding new ways
to unlearn and create and rebuild and sort of reconstruct
a life that doesn't have to look like anyone else's.
(09:24):
New York Times bestselling author Emily Xrpan shared her version
of functional hope. I love the phrase functional hope here,
which includes the intersection of grief and change and openness.
I think I would call it something different. I think
I would call it openness, this willingness to see what
(09:44):
comes your way and to embrace it, and again not
trying to go with the positive vibes only or like
everything that happens is meant to happen, and you're on
the right path, not to go with any of those
sort of overly positive, overly shined up and almost dismissive,
(10:06):
sweeping statements, but just to say that I think the
saddest thing that can happen to us as humans is
to allow an experience to close us down so that
we are no longer willing to engage and learn new
relationships and allow things to change. I think that's something
(10:30):
that can happen a lot in grief, is this resistance
towards change, because the change that has been experienced has
been so huge and earth shattering that the idea of
more change is almost unbearable, right, And I think the
beautiful thing about openness rather than hope is learning to
(10:52):
allow for things to alter and grow and become different things,
allowing for ourselves to become from people. So I don't
know if that really answers your question, but I think it's,
you know, this question of not like what lessons being learned,
because I don't like when things feel prescriptive or like
(11:14):
they belong on a poster in an elementary school guidance
counselor's office, you know. But more that, I think it's
really beautiful when we can change our perspectives and when
we continue to allow those perspectives to shift, when we
continue to allow more and more of the world in.
(11:35):
That's what I mean by openness, to end a story
with this willingness to see what comes next, rather than
closing everything down. I love how so many guests this
season really took the word hope in and redefined it
for themselves. I also really appreciated how some of our guests,
in fact, a number of our guests talked about how
(11:58):
the younger generation coming up these days is gives them hope.
Here's author Emmy Neatfeld. I think that there are so
many good things going on right now, and I am
very hopeful by gen Z about the ways that they
are taking care of themselves, and that a lot of
(12:18):
young people are refusing to play the roles that adults
would ask them to play. And I think a lot
of the awareness of mental health and maybe even quiet
quitting and those phenomena are really like radical acts of
resistance to say, like, we are not going to participate
(12:39):
in this system that is making people on the planet
really really sick, and it's like so many people are
doing it, it feels like that it's impossible not to listen.
We definitely got into tricky territory here, which is my
honestly a lot of times my favorite place to be.
(13:00):
During her interview, illustrator and author Aubrehearsh spoke to us
about outrage and trauma and community building and how we
cannot possibly keep up with all of the new disasters,
human rights disasters, environmental disasters. Interpret like, we really got
into how bleak things are in our conversation, and then
when I asked her the question, she gave us a
(13:21):
slightly sinister but entirely functional idea of what hope means,
because this is a really like an important question for
me to think about right now, because, as I said,
I have been feeling really hopeless. Part of what hope
I have is I think about, and I just wrote
something about this too, how political power in our country
(13:42):
is often like a pendulum, right And I feel very
strongly that all the terrible things that are happening right
now to women, to LGBTQ people, particularly trans people, is
because of progress that we've made. You know, it's backlash.
It's saying, oh, now you've gone too far. You know,
you're you're out of your place now, and we're going
(14:04):
to put you back in the kitchen, you know, back
in the clothes you belong, and back in the relationship
that you don't want to be in, whatever it is
we're sending you back. Now, you've come too far. And
I am hopeful about the backlash to this backlash, because
this backlash has been so much crueler and more devastating
(14:26):
than I would have imagined that I feel like the
stuff we're going to get on the other side is
going to be amazing. You know, it's just gonna We're
gonna make the people who are making us feel this way,
feel this way, and I'm looking forward to that. Now.
Lest you think that this entire season was all puppy
dogs and rainbows, I mean Aubrey. Aubrey was definitely not
puppy dogs and rainbows. But my friend Cosh and Paley
(14:49):
Ellison told us he doesn't believe in hope at all.
For me, I hope it is actually not so great.
And so actually write about this in the book and
where I you know, Pandora's baskets. You know, we thought
of a mean think of them now as Pandora's box.
But back in the day, there were baskets, and there
(15:12):
was one about all the blessings and almost all the
curses on humankind. And like most people, get curious, and
she opened up the basket and all greed, anger and
ignorance came out, and jealousy and envy and justice she
was put in the lid back got hope jumped down.
(15:34):
And so I've always thought a lot about that because
I remember, as a young person, I was so into
Greek pathology, and for me, hope is kind of wishing
things were different, and so I think it's so tricky
and for me as a human I don't find it
very helpful, Like I wished how it was different, you know.
(15:56):
I hope it will change. I hope still in the blank,
and I'm much more interested in how are things and
what do I care about and how do I nourish
those things so that they can move into a new life,
(16:17):
you know, And I'm I'm so much more interested in
how the great Tony Morrison beloved Tony Morrison said, you
know why it's too hard to take refuge in how
it's like. I'm much more interested in how we actually
get really connected to our values and what we care about,
(16:38):
and how we nourish them so that we can be
more ourselves and other people can be more in themselves,
and that we can do the healing work that we
can do in this life now. One of my very
favorite responses to the question knowing what you know and
living what you've lived, what does hope look like for you?
(17:00):
Came from my friend and Supernatural fitness head coach Leanne Padante.
Here's why you know. One of the things I've struggled
with the most and ongoing since Miles Diide is like
you know, like you mentioned before, all these pieces of
(17:21):
your identity all these pieces of your past self, you've
become really unsure of what you are going to be
able to reclaim become again. And you know, I have
a job, I have a career, and I have like
a identity. You know. One of my favorite parts of
myself is as a motivator, as a like person, like
(17:47):
at the front of the room, at the top of
your workout, like telling you you're wonderful and it's going
to be great and we're going to do it together.
And I think that my purpose and the reason fitness
became this vector for me to really change my life
in a lot of ways that I love is that
I'm pretty sure I'm here to be a massive, like
(18:10):
positive impact in other people's lives. I think that's the
only reason I'm here. Hope would look like having greater
confidence that I am going to be able to do
that in a way that I believe, in a way
that feels very very very true to me. I still
(18:31):
do that. And when I talk about other people and
what other people are capable of, I believe it's so
damn hard. That's not a hard part. What is challenging
about having a role like I have is that my
relationship with myself and my relationship with like, the opinions
I have about what I'm going to be capable of
from here on out have really changed, and so I
(18:55):
feel like I'm telling just a little bit of a
lie when I try to think of how to help
other people, you know, because I'm still very much figuring
out about help myself. Hope would look like feeling like
I can offer things to the world without this nagging
sensation that I'm telling just a little tiny lie. Yeah,
(19:16):
So hope for you would feel like you are in
alignment with the medicine that you're bringing to the world. Yeah. Yeah,
that the medicine is for you too, and that you're
also taking it right. Friends. I love how she hesitated
when I asked her that question. I love it. And
(19:38):
then just last week, writer and healer Alex l shared
this with us. What's coming to mind is, hope looks
like the possibility of coming home to myself, regardless of
the season. I'm in the healing, I'm in the joy,
I'm in the grief I'm in I hope that I
(20:00):
can always find my way home to myself, into my center.
Hope looks like the possibility of coming home to myself.
No matter what is going on in our lives in
the world, Hope looks like the possibility of coming home.
I love that this season has brought such gifts into
(20:25):
my life everybody. I hope it's done the same for you. Now,
after this break, I am going to tell you what
is coming up for all of us, what is in
store for season three. We're going to keep talking about Hope.
We'll be right back. Before we get into what's a
(20:51):
head for season three, I want to tell you about
an opportunity to work with me directly via our Patreon community.
Once a month, I host a live video q and
as and with patrons, And honestly, it's kind of been
like this best kept secret. It really shouldn't be secret.
If you want the chance to ask me for advice,
or find out how to deal with a relationship challenge,
(21:11):
or you just want to talk to me about grief,
join us. The link is patreon dot com backslash Megan Divine.
You can find that in the show notes too, But
come join us once a month live video, ask me
whatever you want. I hope to see you. They're friends.
Now looking ahead to season three, exciting times are ahead,
(21:36):
we are going to continue our exploration of hope by
having conversations with interesting people about difficult things. And our
guest list is amazing. We've got Rachel Cargill, We've got
gob Ormatte, We've got Valerie, We've got bartun Day Thurston.
I mean the list, the list is stellar, and I
cannot wait for you to hear these conversations. Here all
(21:59):
of it now. While we're on break, We're going to
re release some of our best episodes from both season
one and season two, along with some episodes that didn't
get as much attention as they should have the first
time around. And as we have done each and every week,
I'm going to close this last episode of season two
with your questions to carry with you. I'm going to
(22:21):
leave you with the same question I have asked every
guest knowing what you know, living what you've lived, what
us hope look like for you right now, in this moment,
I'd love to hear what you find. Check out Refuge
in Grief on Instagram or here after Pod on TikTok
(22:44):
for audio clips from the show, and leave your thoughts
in the comments on those posts. Be sure to tag
us when you share the show on your own social accounts.
Use the hashtag here after pod on all the platforms.
We love to see where this show takes you. We'd
love to see where that question takes you. Remember to
subscribe and leave a review. That stuff helps more than
(23:06):
you know. If you want to tell us how today's
show felt for you, or how a season felt for you,
or you have a request or a question for upcoming
explorations of difficult things, you can send us an email
right through the website. Megan Divine. Do we want to
hear from you. I want to hear from you. This show,
(23:26):
this world needs your voice. Together we can make things
better even when they can't be made right. Want more Hereafter.
Grief education doesn't just belong to end of life issues.
As my dad says, daily life is full of everyday
grief that we don't call grief. Learning how to talk
about all that without cliches or platitudes or simplistic dismissive
(23:49):
statements is an important skill for everyone. Find trainings, professional resources,
and my best selling book, It's Okay that You're Not
Okay at Megan Divine dot co. And remember to join
us live every single month at Patreon dot com backslash
Megan Divine. Hereafter with Megan Divine is written and produced
by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown. Co
(24:13):
produced by Elizabeth Fossio. Logistical and social media support from Micah,
Edited by Houston Tilly, music provided by Wave Crush, and
background noise provided by the sweet little fleet of birds
nesting on My Patio
Host
Megan Devine
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