What If Death Is A Rebirth Into Purpose

What if grief isn’t a staircase but a spiral that returns to teach us, soften us, and connect us to something larger than loss? That’s the journey Dave Roberts takes us on—former addictions counselor, longtime professor, and host of Teaching Journeys—after losing his 18-year-old daughter, Janine, to a rare cancer. We move from the clinical realities of unresolved grief and relapse to an honest, deeply human exploration of meaning, near-death experiences, and the possibility that love continues beyond the body.

Dave shares how his early reliance on stage models gave way to a more accurate view: grief loops and resurfaces, especially through anniversaries, music, and memory. He describes a transformative encounter that shifted him from strict materialism to an open, critical curiosity about consciousness, the afterlife, and continued bonds. We dig into near-death experience research, veridical perceptions, and the tension between healthy skepticism and genuine mystery. Along the way, Dave shows how intention, service, and community can ease suffering while honoring the truth of the pain.

We also talk generational trauma—abandonment, seizures, and the shape of inherited patterns—and what it means to forgive with context, not amnesia. Dave reframes his parents’ choices through ancestral insight, revealing how understanding reduces shame and frees the nervous system. For anyone facing raw loss, he offers grounded steps: show yourself grace, survive before you try to thrive, don’t judge a life by its last act after suicide, and build support with people who have capacity, not just proximity. If you’re looking for resources, Dave’s book with Patty Farino, When the Psychology Professor Met the Minister, and his Teaching Journeys podcast offer more tools, stories, and hope.

If this conversation helped you breathe a little easier or think a little wider, subscribe, share it with a friend who needs it, and leave a review so others can find their way here too. Your voice helps this community grow.

Episode Transcript

SPEAKER_01 (05:13):
Hey, welcome everybody to Trauma Talks Live.
My name is Russ Tellip.
I am your host with Trauma TalksLive.
I am a somatic trauma-informedcoach with Brain Spot in
Colorado Springs.
And this is a weekly podcastwhere we talk about trauma, uh
the effects it has on ournervous system, and how we can
leverage that information tolive the best possible lives

(05:34):
that we can.
And I have a treat for y'all.
Today we're gonna have a chatwith Dave Roberts.
Dave is the uh host of the uhTeaching Journeys podcast.
He's a teacher, uh therapist,the guy the guy is a renaissance
man, and he is pretty geniuswhen it comes to grief and and

(05:55):
some of the stuff that you guyscan do to deal with this.
And you know, this is the secondpodcast in a row where we've
dealt with grief as our maintopic because it's important.
So uh, Dave, welcome to theshow, man.

SPEAKER_00 (06:08):
Thanks.
Thanks, Russ.
I've been looking forward to ourconversation for a while now,
and I'm I'm anxious to sharewhat I've learned with your
guests in the hope that uh withyour with your audience, in the
hope that it's gonna you know beof use and help somebody who's
listening.

SPEAKER_01 (06:24):
That's awesome, man.
Um, do you mind just givingeverybody a little bit of
rundown of your history and andkind of where you're you're
coming from?
It's a long story, I know, butwe've got plenty of time.

SPEAKER_00 (06:34):
So it is.
Well, I've told a story enoughwhere I can kind of condense it
in a in a way and give you giveeverybody the highlights because
I'm sure we're gonna be buildingmore on the story as we go on.
But I'm gonna start from thebeginning.
Um, my first job that I had ofany consequence that really
shaped my career path was Igravitated to the field of

(06:57):
addictions.
I was a an addictions counselorand a clinical supervisor in a
state-run uh facility in upstateNew York.
Uh, I worked with individualswith addiction and other traumas
related to addiction, uh, suchas abuse, you know, physical
abuse, sexual abuse, emotionalabuse, abandonment issues.

(07:19):
Um I worked with individuals notonly who had substance use
challenges, but also hadcoexisting mental health
challenges such as PTSD,depression, schizophrenia,
bipolar disorder.
I did that for 27 years.
Um, it was one of the morefulfilling times of my life.

(07:40):
The individuals with substanceuse disorders I consider to be
my greatest teachers.
Um addiction is so stigmatizedin this country that what we
tend to, what we've tended to dois look at the individual and
define them by their addiction,when the addiction is actually
the behavior that has causedthem to have difficulties in

(08:01):
their lives.
But behind the addiction, theseare great creative individuals.
They also, as I discovered laterin my career, they had a lot of
unresolved grief issues due togrief that that wasn't expressed
due to the fact that the personthey lost was another addict.
Um, just grief that wasn'texpressed because they

(08:22):
self-medicated it.
So that became an issue that wedealt with.
And through my conversationswith them, I learned that their
unresolved grief was also areally key trigger to relapse to
the return to their substance ofchoice.
Um, concurrently, to me,teaching, or to excuse me, to me

(08:46):
being an addictions counselor, Idid get my master's in social
work degree in May of 2002.
Started teaching at UticaUniversity, where I've been for
over 22 years.
I teach courses such as Care ofthe Human Spirit, Death, Dying,
and Bereavement, Impact ofAddiction on Children and
Families.
And my passion is to helpindividuals, young adults who

(09:11):
are wanting to work withindividuals who are experiencing
trauma, giving them the tools sothey can do really good
trauma-informed practices.
Um, but in between, a lot oftimes people have will have
thought or asked, well, how didyou go from addiction to
immersing yourself into thefield of thanentology?
It certainly was not throughprofessional choice that I

(09:34):
decided to do this.
I didn't wake up and say, youknow, I want to deal with death,
I want to deal with all issuesrelated to death, life, and or
you know, death, life, and lifeafter death.
Um, that found me due to my ownpersonal tragedies.
Uh, I am no stranger to lossbefore I get into the personal
tragedy that redefined my lifepath.

(09:55):
Um, my father left when I wasfive years old, left leaving my
mother to raise me as an onlychild.
He I found out that he had diedwhen I was 11 years old.
I found out when I was 14 thathe died at 11 in a car crash.
I never saw him again.
And there were other losses.
My mom, maternal grandmother,uh, my aunt to maternal aunt who

(10:18):
raised me in amulti-generational household,
um, pets.
Um I'm my my dear friend andmentor who taught me everything
about building teams, dealingwith with individuals with
substance use challenges,supervising and motivating
staff.
He died of cancer in 1998, butthe loss that threw me headlong

(10:43):
at the age of 47 into trying tofigure out the type of person I
wanted to be and the kind ofworld I wanted to live in was
the death, or as I call it now,the transition of my 18-year-old
daughter, Janine, um, on March1st, 2003, of a rare and
aggressive connective muscletissue sarcoma.
She was diagnosed a little bitover three weeks after giving

(11:08):
birth to her first and onlychild, Brianna.
And she was diagnosed a weekafter I received my MSW degree,
after I was actually told that Ihad met the requirements.
So um, in the space of a month,I went from the joys of
grandfatherhood to the joys ofcompleting my higher education
journey to being thrown headlonginto a uh terminal illness

(11:34):
challenges with my in being acaregiver to a child with
terminal illness and thendealing with the parents' worst
nightmare, which is having tobury one of your children before
you yourself go.

SPEAKER_01 (11:46):
She was pretty young, right?
18?

SPEAKER_00 (11:49):
Yeah, she was 18, Russ, and um, you know, the
pregnancy massed anydifferential diagnosis of her
cancer.
Um, she had injured her rightfoot in a freak accident and
early in her pregnancy, didn'trespond to traditional treatment
for um for an injured foot.
Uh, didn't respond to footelevat to elevating the foot, it

(12:12):
didn't respond to rest,medicine, nothing.
And they've they've they wantedto, they finally decided they
wanted to do an MRI in April of2002, but she said, not until my
child is born.
They did the MRI, found an eightundefined eight-centimeter mass
at the bottom of her foot.
That they discovered it was amalignant stage four tumor.

(12:34):
And the type of cancer that shehad, which is actually called
the veliar rhabnomyosarcoma, thefive-year survival rate for that
type of cancer was depending onthe which research was 10 to 15
percent, which means that therewas an 80 85 to 90 percent
chance that she was going to diewithin five years.

SPEAKER_01 (12:53):
Yeah, that's wow, that's incredible.
Yeah, and and how and how longwere you taking caring for her
and while she was sick?

SPEAKER_00 (13:01):
Well, she she died 10 months after diagnosis, and
you know, interesting, you know,before then, be you know, just
after she got diagnosed, her,her significant other, her cat,
my my my granddaughter, um andher daughter moved in with my
two kids and me and my wife.
So the joke on our street washow many two-legged and

(13:23):
four-legged could you get into asingle-level ranch?
And we tested that theory with,I think it was nine.
Um, but we all we all got alongreal well.
We made it work, and hersignificant other stayed for
four years after um my daughtertransitioned, um, so that she
could she she wouldn't have tobe uprooted until she went to

(13:45):
kindergarten.
And we he made sure that he gotmarried again, but he made sure
that we saw her regularly, andshe was a part of our lives
growing up, and she's still apart of our lives today.
And she has two kids of her own.
She's 23 years old now.

SPEAKER_01 (13:58):
And it sounds like he still have a great
relationship with her hersignificant other, the her
daughter's father.

SPEAKER_00 (14:05):
Yes.
Um, you know, we don't see himas much because obviously, you
know, we we have our own livesand our paths have kind of gone
separately.
In fact, I just saw him at itwas a party for his his uh his
his daughter, Brianna'sdaughter, and well, which make
it his granddaughter and mygreat-granddaughter.

(14:26):
And it was like, man, we pickedup like you know, we had we we
where we left off, and we hadn'ttalked in about two or three
years, but it was just seamless.
He was uh he had responsibilityto defy his 19 years of age.
He was 19 when um when Janinegot diagnosed, and you know, he
was he was a man who was alreadykept his integrity.

(14:46):
Janine asked him to stay fortill Brianna was ready for
kindergarten.
He did it, no questions asked,and then he went off on his own,
but we're still maintainingconnections with us.

SPEAKER_01 (14:58):
That's awesome.
Yeah, and uh and a connectionwith his daughter.

SPEAKER_00 (15:02):
Yep.

SPEAKER_01 (15:02):
Yeah, that's fantastic.
Wow.
Uh it's and and this allhappened after you were working
with people on addictions.
So you already already seen theeffects of grief that the grief
could have on people, and thenended up living it firsthand.

SPEAKER_00 (15:18):
Yeah, and you know, the thing is, and I look back,
and hindsight's always 2020, butin the what in the addictions
field, then the standard griefmodel that we use was Kubler
Rosa Stages of Grief.
And I remember working with oneclient who was experiencing
grief, and I was working withhim as his case manager.
So I pulled out the old Hazletonpamphlet on the stages of grief

(15:42):
and started telling him this,you know, here here are the
stages.
There's denial, there's anger,and this is kind of where you
should be right now.
And as I look back on that, if Icould if I knew then what I knew
now, I would not have gone thatway.
Because with my own journey, asI learned with my daughter,
grief isn't a linear process,it's very much circular.

(16:04):
The pain of loss can surface atany time during our journey, no
matter how long it's been,depending on what's going on in
the moment.
What's different for me now, 22years plus in my journey, is
that I no longer feel theintense suffering that goes
along with grief that justwrecked my body, that wrecked my

(16:26):
mind, and wrecked my soul.
Um, I still have the occasionalyearnings, but the intense
suffering is no longer a part ofthat anymore.
Um, and I I accredit that to alot of support, and particularly
to one individual I met throughpure serendipity who facilitated
a spiritually transformativeexperience that allowed me to

(16:47):
find peace and be convinced inthe survival of consciousness
after we our physical bodies nolonger function.

SPEAKER_01 (16:55):
Which is a great segue, Dave.
It's almost like you've donethis before.

SPEAKER_00 (17:00):
Yeah, a few times.
Not only in my own podcast, butobviously I've guessed on
others.
And you know, I I try to makeyour job easier as a podcaster
by giving you those segues.

SPEAKER_01 (17:13):
I might just have you run start running my
podcast.
Uh so uh where was I going?
What was the last thing yousaid?

SPEAKER_00 (17:20):
Spiritually transformative experience.

SPEAKER_01 (17:23):
Right.
Yeah, I would love to hearbecause I I I I I listened to
your podcast on Chris Mamoney'sshow, The Empowered Groof
Journey.
Um, and it it's a reallyfascinating story.
So if you don't mind sharingthat spiritual awakening would
be the right word, I guess.

SPEAKER_00 (17:40):
Yeah, spiritual awakening.
I don't use the termenlightenment anymore, but it's
usually awakening, you know,spiritual awareness.
You know, a lot of people useenlightening, but you know, and
I and I and I can work withthat, but I prefer like the
awakening or awareness.
That to me, I think is kind offor me, encapsulates my journey.

SPEAKER_01 (18:00):
Well, the idea, I think the idea of continued
consciousness is a powerfulhealing tool for people.
So I'd love to hear your story,man.

SPEAKER_00 (18:09):
Okay.
Well, first of all, I havealways been very my my core
belief system has always beenabout science.
Behavior did not exist,phenomena didn't exist if I
could not experience it with myown senses, and it was right in
front of me in the real world.
Um, seven years into my journey,I was doing the traditional

(18:32):
grief playbook for somebody whohad lost a child.
I was starting to re-engage inlife gradually.
I was starting to do someservice work with uh individuals
who were grieving.
I started writing about myjourney, particularly as a
grandparent who was grieving.
Um, and then I also started tocoordinate and organize

(18:55):
conferences.
One of the conferences weorganized was in upstate New
York in Verona, New York, at theTurning Stone Resort Casino.
It was called Beyond Words UmEmbracing Creative Approaches to
Change.
Something like something likethat.
But it was about embracingcreativity in grief and as a
conduit for change.

(19:15):
Um, I was responsible, I was oneof the conference coordinators.
During the registration process,I got a call from an interfaith
minister in Long Island by thename of Patty Farino.
And Patty, all registration wasonline.
So Patty had found out about theconference through another
friend of hers who ran a berefeparents chapter in Long Island,

(19:37):
New York.
So she put in her credit cardinformation, double-checked her
choices, hit submit to register,and her computer screen went
blank.
As we look at it now as sometype of divine intervention for
that to occur, because if hercomputer screen didn't go blank,
she would have never called meto register.
So she called, I registered herby phone, took all of her

(20:00):
information.
We talked for about 45 minutes.
I asked her if she um she evershe had lost a child, but she
said no.
She but she did tell me that shewas the volunteer minister
coordinate volunteer coordinatorfor the angel of hope statue in

(20:21):
Long Island.
Um, the Angel of Hope is astatue that's erected in honor
of children who have died.
And there's a brick with theparents can purchase or members
in the community can purchasethat basically has her name,
date of death, date of birth,and people go there to

(20:41):
congregate and to pray and to toconnect.
And Patty was there to providesupport.
And there was a couple of youngpeople that had died that young
men that had died that she feltextremely connected to.
So to make a long story short,we share our stories.
She says, So I told her aboutJanine, she goes, Do you believe
in signs?
And I said, You know, Pat.

(21:03):
I really don't go in for that.
I'm kind of a science-based guy,and I really don't believe in
signs or really too manyspiritual, too much anything
spiritual.
Um, but I said, I think didthink my daughter sent me a
double rainbow on on Father'sDay in 2009, and I have the
picture of that.
And it was my wife had called meand said, You know, you better

(21:24):
come over.
I think your daughter just sentyou a double rainbow.
The cool thing about that, Russ,there wasn't a cloud in the sky,
there wasn't any rain.
This double rainbow justappeared.
It went from one side of the myearth to beyond.
Um, so I told Pat, if we meet atthe conference, I'll I'll give

(21:44):
you a hug.
We met at the conference, wehugs.
She whispers in my ear, I thinkyour daughter sent me a rainbow.
Now, you know, Russ, I'mfreaking fried after the
conference.
You know, I did all this work.
I mean, I had nothing left inthe tank.
My fumes were on fumes.
Um, so I said, Oh, that's great,that's wonderful.
Um, come to find out after thefact, um, she had on September

(22:10):
3rd, just before the two weeksbefore the conference, she was
driving with her husband, Marcoin Long Island on Route 17 in
New Jersey, and she saw thismagnificent double rainbow go
from one end of Route 17 to theother end.
They were so mystified andenamored with this rainbow
because there wasn't a cloud inthe sky.

(22:30):
Yeah, there wasn't a cloud inthe sky, man.
So she they took a picture ofand did a video, and all of a
sudden, she's sitting on thecar, she hears a voice in her
head saying, I need you to talkto my father.
And Patty attended to the voiceand said, Well, I'd love to, but
I said, She goes, Who's yourfather?
It was the guy you talked toabout the conference.

(22:52):
So, what ended up happening?
Patty said, if I ever get toyour Long Island, if I get to
Long Island, she would be gladfor me to stay with her and her
husband.
She'd show me her Long Island.
Now, first of all, first of all,I'm gonna backtrack just a
little bit.
Day after the conference, I'mjumping back and forth.
But man, this is all gonna makesense.
I'm driving three of thepresenters, okay, to Old Forge,

(23:17):
New York, which is in theAdirondacks, great scenery,
change of leaves duringSeptember, um, during the fall.
So I took them up there becausethey were they weren't from this
area and hadn't seen what fallin the Adirondack's look like.
So they're having this intensediscussion about spirituality,
and all of a sudden I justlooked up at the sky and just

(23:38):
said, I want to be where theyare, meaning that I wanted to
have more of a spiritualunderstanding of death to get me
through the next chapter of mygrief.
And my soul was yearning, wascalling out for something that
my mind and my body didn't knowI needed yet.
And I always have said intentionis a powerful precursor to

(24:02):
manifestation and manifestingyour dreams and manifesting your
wants.
So she said, if you get to LongIsland, let me know you can stay
with me.
Comes that turns come to findout there was a workshop that um
one of our then colleagues wasdoing called Embracing the Power
of Change, which ended up beinga a port tent for what was to

(24:24):
happen for me.
And this was on November 11th,uh 2010, that he was doing the
workshop.
So we did the workshop.
We she we she we went back toher house about 9:30.
She said, get into somethingcomfortable, get into your
pajamas.
I went back to her um her herliving room, her sacred space.

(24:47):
She had a fire going, and it was70 degrees in November in New
York, and she had a fire going,and she assumed a cross-legged
position, much like my daughterwould have assumed, had this
young, young energy about her,looked at me and said, Why don't
you listen to music anymore?
And it wasn't her, and I'mgetting a chill telling you

(25:09):
this, it was my daughter.
Um, coming through her, yeah.
And I said, I don't listen tomusic because it reminds me of
you.
And she said, Well, that's whyyou gotta, that's why you have
to listen to music.
So for the memories, and then Ijust gotta tell myself, man.
Yeah, yeah.
Oh, and this was the way thewhole weekend was.

(25:32):
Yeah, it was a weekend where shewould come through, remind me
that you know, you've done agreat job grieving me and you
honoring me, but you're also afather, you're a teacher, you're
uh, you know, you're a husband,you're a grandfather.
All of those categories need tobe present for your for your

(25:54):
your family.
Um, it's just not about grievingme.
And the message was that I'malways going to be here, but you
basically need to embrace allcategories of your life so that
eventually I could find mygreater purpose in life as a
result of the challenges thather death presented to me.

(26:15):
And what I learned from thatentire weekend, Russ, and in the
conversations that Patty and Ihad, is that Janine has taught
me that love truly exists fromthe other side.
If we're open to it, if we'reaware to it, and we're receptive
to it, and can come to believethat we've we do live in a
multidimensional universe.

SPEAKER_01 (26:38):
Yeah, yeah, sure.

SPEAKER_00 (26:40):
So that is without it, you know, and we for 10
years I bugged Patty to write abook.
I said, You we gotta write abook, you got we got to tell
them what you did for me, and wegot to share this with the world
because it could be be veryhelpful to them.
And she was always very private.
She does not consider herself tobe a medium, she considers

(27:01):
herself to be somebody who walksa sacred path who is very much
connected to the spiritualworld, and she does what she
does to help people, to helpthem find peace.
And she never wanted what shedid commercialized.
But finally, during thepandemic, she goes, Yeah, it's
time.
So she was in South Carolina.
I was in upstate New York.
We used Google Docs, we wrote abook, and I'll display it if

(27:23):
it's okay.
It's called When the PsychologyProfessor Met the Minister.
Um, how the woman on the how thecorner of Hunter and Whittier
permanently altered oneacademics worldview.
So there it is.

SPEAKER_01 (27:36):
Yeah, if you want to uh put a link down in the in the
chat and it'll go right on thevideo.

SPEAKER_00 (27:40):
Okay.

SPEAKER_01 (27:41):
I can I just put a link to your podcast as well in
the chat.

SPEAKER_00 (27:45):
Okay, yeah, I could I can do that.
Or basically, if they just go onAmazon and search for for you
know when the psychologyprofessor met the minister,
they'll find it.
Because the the the Amazon linkis god awful long.
Um, unless you do their you dotheir internal link.
But if they just go on Amazon,um you know, they can I can send
you the link later, you know,the shorter one.

SPEAKER_01 (28:07):
Yeah, if you don't mind, that way I can put it in
the description.

SPEAKER_00 (28:09):
Yeah, I'll throw it, throw it in the show notes.
I'll just email it to you.

SPEAKER_01 (28:13):
So Dave Dave, this interaction with her basically
turned changed your whole life,right?
Perspective on loss, um and thenand then kind of prompted your
work going forward.

SPEAKER_00 (28:27):
Absolutely.
And here's the other questionthat I know your audience is
probably wondering did I believewhat happened to me?
And that's a legitimatequestion, considering that I was
so science-based that I rejectedspiritual practices, which is
interesting because my motherwas into tarot cards.
She tried to get me intospiritual, you know, the

(28:48):
spirituality side of it.
I just rejected it.
And I vehemently rejected it.
Um, and I had come to find outlater why that why that may have
been the case.
But later on in my journey, Igot some understanding as to why
I did that.
But um I believed what happenedfor me because I asked for it.
I stated my intention to theuniverse that day that I wanted

(29:09):
something more.
And the universe said, Well,we're gonna give you something
more to ask for.
We're not just gonna give you aspiritual background in terms of
which in terms of which to helpyou work through grief.
We're gonna give you a wholedifferent perspective that's
gonna help you find peace,that's gonna inform who you are
personally, professionally, um,you know, the the work that you

(29:31):
do with clients.
And I was still in 2010 employedwith the state.
So what I asked for exceeded mygrasp, exceeded what I wanted.
And I'm glad now that theuniverse didn't listen to me and
gave me more more than I than Iasked for, but it was more, it
was what I needed.

SPEAKER_01 (29:51):
Yeah, more than you asked for, but still manageable.

SPEAKER_00 (29:54):
You got it.

SPEAKER_01 (29:54):
Yep, more than you asked for, but what you needed.

SPEAKER_00 (29:57):
Absolutely, yeah.
Absolutely.
So, and you know, that's thestory up until this point of my
own spiritual transformation andwhat a lot to help me find
peace.
But you know, my story is everchanging every day.
You know, every individual thatcomes into my life, every
student that I interact withthat has a different story

(30:18):
always inspires me.
Um, to and I, you know, I'mgonna continue to grow until the
day that I'm called um to thebeyond.
And I I do believe there's anafterlife.
I do believe that there's moreto this existence than this
life.
Um, you know, research onnear-death experiences, which
has been documented since the1800s, where individuals have

(30:42):
physically died, their spirithas left their body, they've
been met, they've been met onthe other side by loved ones,
spiritual guides.
They've been taught, they'vebeen given a glimpse of what the
afterlife is like in teachings,and they come back into their
body prepared to come to youknow to complete their mission
on earth.
They're they're told you need tocome, you need to go back

(31:03):
because your mission on earthisn't over yet.
Once you're done, you will joinus.
Um, and they come back with arenewed perspective, um, and a
change in their worldview, whichis similar to the world changed
worldview I went through afterthe catastrophic loss of my
daughter.

SPEAKER_01 (31:19):
Yeah.
Well, they you cannot uh energycannot be created or destroyed,
so our energy has to gosomewhere.
I was reading an article about anear-death experience where they
left their body, left thehospital, and there was a shoe
on top of like the cover for theentryway where the cars would

(31:40):
drive through on the roof.
And no one knew it was up there.
When he when they brought himback, he was said something
about this shoe, and sureenough, it was out there on the
roof.
So he legitimately left his bodyand saw the top of the the
hospital.

SPEAKER_00 (31:55):
Yeah, I mean, there are people that have had
near-to-death experiences umthat have actually seen
themselves being operated on,seeing themselves being
resuscitated, and they're ableto share those details.
Um, you know, when they talkabout meeting a divine presence,
it could be, you know, if you'reCatholic, it could be the
Blessed Virgin Mary, it could beJesus.
Um, you know, if you're you'reyou're Buddhist, it could be you

(32:18):
meet the Buddha himself or sometype of divine being or being of
light that is there to tointroduce you and indoctrinate
you to the other side.
And um, near-death experienceshave been documented since the
late 1800s, and there's such awide variety of research that's
been done that have documentedvery similar features that

(32:40):
there's no question in anybody'smind that near death experiences
are they're a valid phenomenon,and they're there's an
interesting correlation as faras like the experience to DMT as
well, right?

SPEAKER_01 (32:54):
Like I've heard a lot of people's DMT experiences
that follow along kind of thesame themes as as a near-death
experience, and then they callit the death chemical because
they say that there's a reserveof DMT in the brain for when we
do die so that it can help withthat transition.
So maybe who knows?

SPEAKER_00 (33:14):
It could just be you know that's true, and you know,
the other thing, I mean, there'sthere's always you know, you
gotta the this the skepticalpart, we need to be skeptical.
Take a look at a scientificexplanation.
A lot of funky things happen tothe brain when you die.
But but here's the thing wedefine death in this society as
brain death.
That's the universal definition.

(33:36):
When the brain stopsfunctioning, you know, the rest
of you know where brain stopsfunctioning, then we stop
breathing probably shortlythereafter.
One of the things that BruceGrayson brought up, and he's the
founder of the InternationalAssociation of Near Death
Studies.
One of the things he brought outis that near death experiences
need us to take a look at therelationship between the mind

(33:56):
and the brain.
If the brain is dead, andthere's parts of our brain, I
think you, you know, I think theprefrontal cortex are part of
our brain that's responsible forvivid, you know, vivid imagery,
visualization, hearing sounds,and individuals experience vivid
visualizations, butterflies,flowers that are exponentially

(34:17):
brighter than anything they'veseen on earth.
The question becomes if thebrain is at is brain dead, then
you know, they're then how ishow is the are these images
being being recalled?
See, yeah, which basically wesay that kind of matter
determined consciousness, andand you know, matter is primary

(34:37):
in determining consciousness,maybe consciousness in those
cases primary in determiningmatter.
And I mean these are questionsthat these these are quite
things that I started, you know,I I started researching.
I said, Yeah, and I started, youknow, I started thinking about
them.
And it's it's helped expand mybelief system, it's helped me
develop critical thinking, it'shelped me realize that science

(35:01):
does may not have an explanationfor everything.
And if we can accept that somebehaviors are real, but there
may not be a scientificexplanation for it, we can just
kind of, as my friend John Turk,the author of The Raven's Gift,
has said, we just we just are inawe of the magic of the
universe.
And why can't we just acceptthat?

(35:23):
That there's magic in theuniverse that isn't explained by
science.
And I'm paraphrasing John.

SPEAKER_01 (35:27):
Well, they also say that science is
undistinguishable from magic.

SPEAKER_00 (35:32):
Yep, that's true.

SPEAKER_01 (35:33):
Yeah, so it's just science we don't understand yet.

SPEAKER_00 (35:36):
Yeah, that's it.
And you know, um, so yeah, so II've kind of learned to embrace
some of the mysteries of theuniverse, um, and that has
helped me.

SPEAKER_01 (35:47):
You you also in your um story that I've that I've
heard on other shows, talk aboutsome some generational trauma,
right?
Yes.
Um, yeah, could you could youdive into that a little bit?
Because that's reallyinteresting as well.

SPEAKER_00 (36:00):
Well, as I mentioned, I think in the
beginning of the of the of theuh program, uh my father left
when I was five years old.
Um the last memory I have of myfather uh before he left was I
was sitting at, I was five yearsold.
Now I'm 70 years old now, mindyou.
I still remember this.

(36:22):
This is like always going to beembedded, I think, in my DNA,
this memory.
Um I was five years old eating abologna sandwich, which is my
favorite food at the time.
Um, and I think my wife stillsays I'm full of bologna, but I
think for different reasons thanother than my than my eating
habits uh when I was when I wasa child, but um and I remember

(36:44):
him being pinned against thewall by my two uncles and said,
if you ever do anything to hurtSadie, Sadie is was my mother,
is my mother.
Um she said, if you said if youever do anything to hurt Sadie
again, we're gonna kill you.
But five years old, that's thelast memory I had.
I never saw him again.

(37:05):
Physically, what that did to me,it traumatized me and to what
the effects that it had.
I started having seizures when Iwas five years old, grandmal
seizures.
Um, so they did a they did anEEG, EKG of no EEG of my brain,
excuse me.
And E G or I, whatever.

(37:25):
They did a they did brain wipesEEG, thank you.
Yeah, um, they did um uh EEG ofmy brain and they discovered
they said that there was a partof my brain, or was a there was
a part in the the EEG readingthat showed that there was
susceptibility to stress if thatpart of the brain was was was

(37:45):
stimulated, which was causingthe seizure.
So I've been on phenobarbitalfor you know uh 30 milligrams
now.
I've been been on that's thehighest dose I've been on since
I was a kid, and I haven't hadany seizure since the 80s, but I
won't stop taking it because theseizure threshold tends to, if
you stop taking it, tends tolower real quickly, and then you

(38:08):
become susceptible.
So that was the first impact Ihad emotionally.
Um, I felt abandoned.
I got I was angry at my motherlater for not remarrying to
provide me a father, so it thatcaused a lot of issues for me.
I was angry at my mother foroverprotecting me and angry at
my father for leaving.

(38:28):
Um in what was it about it?
It was Easter, it was like 2000,I want to say 14 or 15, might
have been sooner than that.
I got an email from a person inBaltimore where my father was
born, pure serendipity again.
I had written an article forabout my father for Father's

(38:52):
Day.
She got back to me and she said,I think I might be your first
cousin on your father's side,gave me information about gave
me information about my father'sparents that that um nobody ever
knew.
I never made that informationpublic of who my paternal
grandparents were.

(39:12):
So I got in touch with her.
Turns out we are first cousins.
She sent me the whole familytree history.
She was into chronological, youknow, she was like the ancestry
DNA queen of our family, youknow, she wanted to she really
was focused on finding outlineage and getting people
together.
And it turns out that my fathercame from a history where there

(39:33):
was addiction, um, mentalillness, and when the women and
infidelity, and when the womenin their lives wanted emotional
attachment from the males, theyjust beat feet and left, they
just moved on.
The women, yep, they just movedon.
Yeah, they just moved on.

(39:54):
And my my father, my guess isthat my mother wanted more than
my father could give him, so heleft to give us, so he left.

SPEAKER_01 (40:03):
Um, I'm sure the interaction with your with her
brother didn't help.

SPEAKER_00 (40:07):
No, no, but there's also some other things that
occurred.
He had stepped outside of themarriage, and this is the other
part of the story, and he hadfathered a child from another
relationship, and through thewonders of ancestral DNA in
2022, I found 2021.
I found out I had a sister, or2022, I found out I had a

(40:29):
sister.
2021, I found out I had asister, and um, you know,
younger sister who lives now inNew Mexico, and um, we've had a
great relationship.
So, but here's the other here'sthe other thing.
I had a context now for myfather's leaving.
I knew that he couldn't stay ina traditional marriage because
it was not in his DNA to dothat.

(40:51):
His his history couldn't changehis history, his history was
inextricably woven into his DNA.
He left.
I deter I determined that heleft not because he didn't love
us, but he left because he did.
He did not want to see anyfurther harm come to us.
I deduced this with also withthe help of Patty, who we were
having a conversation about myfather, and she goes, you know,

(41:14):
I'm I'm sensing your father.
He's he's got his he's got hishead buried in his hands, and
he's upset because he left you.
He's upset because he left.
And at that moment, this wasafter I met my cousin, I had a
context for his leaving.
And I told him, I said, Dad, Iforgive you.
I said, I understand.
You don't have you don't have toyou don't have to worry about it

(41:36):
anymore.
You don't have to beat yourselfup.
Yeah.
Um, and I hope that gave himpermission to grow in the
afterlife.
Um and I honestly, Russ, I lovemy father as much as the mother
raised me because I and also hegave me a pretty cool sister.
And I had always hoped that Ihad had a sibling that I could

(41:57):
have talked to during Janine'sillness.
Yeah, I didn't discover herthen, but I discovered her now.
So that that prayer manifested,that that wish manifested, and
I'm just glad I have her in mylife now.
I don't I'm learning what it'slike to be an older brother.
So um Yeah, that's fascinating.

SPEAKER_01 (42:16):
My my mother had a similar experience where she
until my mother, my grandmotherand my grandfather, who was her
stepdad, passed away.
Uh, she had never looked up herreal father, and then she looked
up her biological fatherafterwards and found out she's
got some brothers and a wholefamily down in Florida.
They've since relocated toFlorida and she's down there

(42:38):
with all her family and justabsolutely loved it.
It's it's amazing.

SPEAKER_00 (42:41):
Yeah, it's really cool.
Yeah, and then my mother, um,Susan always said, or Susan does
Patty always said, have morethan one spiritual teacher, just
don't rely on me.
And after I met Patty, it had tobe about a year or so after, uh
I met a shamanistic holisticpractitioner by the name of

(43:02):
Susan Roback, and she has a lotof body energy work uh that
releases a lot of stuck energy,releases a lot of trauma.
And I had had a conversationwith her about my mother, and I
said, Boy, I was angry at herfor overprotecting me.
Um, and to the point where itjust she's just like stifled me.
And and then the next month Imet with her, she goes, Let's

(43:25):
put you on the table.
And what Susan will do is ifshe'll do something called a
soul journey, she will just godeep, in she'll take it, she'll
she'll go deep, see what shefinds that may of information
maybe from other lifetimes,other dimensions, other worlds.
And she we she she after she didthe soul journey said to me, She

(43:45):
goes, What I saw was uh was alittle boy four years old in
Egyptian or Roman times in achariot with his father.
The chariot overturned, killingthe four-year-old boy.
And so I gave some thought tothis, and you know, a lot of
times spiritual awareness isabout making connections in the

(44:06):
real world to create someawareness.
Sure.
So I I I put this together whatthe what Susan saw with the
discussion we had about mymother's overprotectiveness, and
also at that time I also beganto to revisit and also believe
in the fact that we've had pastlives, and that was through the

(44:26):
influence of Brian Weiss's ManyLives, Many Masters.
That our souls have lived manyincarnations in the physical
form, and so I started to thinkI was wait a minute, what if I
was the child that died inEgyptian times?
What if my father was my fatherin this lifetime, and my mother

(44:48):
in Egyptian times was a motherwho couldn't say was my mother
who couldn't save me from fromdying?
What if our souls what if oursouls contract after we both you
know you know we both you knowuh died and went to the
afterlife?
What if our souls contracted tohave the experiences mother and

(45:09):
son, but my and my and my fathercontracted?
My father was gonna leave, mymother was gonna overprotect me
to the point where it wouldanger me because she didn't want
to lose me again.
So this was her soul resolvingthe karma from a past lifetime
where she couldn't save me.
So I so I I had a context for myfather's leaving, his history,

(45:33):
and I also had a sacredexplanation for my mother's
decision to overprotect me.
Now, you now trust you oranybody in your audience
couldn't consensually validatemy experiences, sure, but for
me, I know what thoseexperiences did to transform my
worldview, I know what it did topromote ancestral healing and

(45:55):
peace.
All the therapy I did in thepast didn't help me come to
peace with this as quickly asthe work I did with Patty, and
as as quickly as as two sessionswith Susan about my mother.
And you know, I have anancestral altar that I call up
over my desk, and I havepictures of my father, my

(46:16):
mother, uh, with me as a child,and they're a part of my they're
a part of my soul family, and myyou know, and those who I I rely
on uh for spiritual guidance andfor inspiration.
So um it's interesting.

SPEAKER_01 (46:31):
I have a family wall that I so my father and I had a
very poor relationship, he wasvery abusive.
Um, I didn't really have much ofa relationship with my mother,
unfortunately, because I livedwith him and through was living
through all that abuse.
But now I have out there apicture of them on their wedding
day.
I think I have a picture of herin her dress and then her

(46:52):
holding me as a baby.
Because even though um I didn'thave a great time with my dad,
and even though thatrelationship wasn't very
positive, I'm still here becauseof him.
And and the other thing that Istarted to realize is for him to
be the kind of person that hewas, he had to endure some abuse

(47:13):
too.
People aren't born like that,they're not created, so yeah.

SPEAKER_00 (47:18):
I I mean we're born out of love.
I mean, we're born with withlove, and there's love in the
afterlife, from what I've read,and from all accounts of
individuals that have near deathexperiences.
We're born with love, but it'sthe the contracts of the human
experience and and the theissues and challenges we run
into and the conflicts that thatreally you know they really kind

(47:39):
of mass that.
And but in the afterlife, again,from what I've read, there's
there's no anger, there's nothere's no uh revenge, it's all
about love, light, and bliss,and um, you know, the the
behaviors that we've engaged inin this life is eventually from
a sacred perspective for thegreater evolution of our souls,

(47:59):
and we have the option to comeback and do it again if we want
to.
You know, the soul has free willas much as a human if human
flesh has free will.
So um, you know, so and if Itold you 22 years ago I'd be
talking like this, or even 15years ago I'd be talking like
this, I would exercise my rightas an addiction counselor to do

(48:19):
a rapid drug screen on it.

SPEAKER_01 (48:21):
Um so my question now then is Dave with with how
your view of life, death, andthe afterlife has evolved
through your experiences thatyou've had with these people
you've worked with.
What is your belief system nowabout what the afterlife is and

(48:43):
how we can can reconcile withit?

SPEAKER_00 (48:46):
Well, I mean, for me, and the afterlife is is a
place that's going to becharacterized by pure love, pure
bliss.
I believe that we have otherfunctions in the afterlife.
From what I've read, I believethat we will do different things
in the afterlife.
Our you know, I've read aboutchildren who have transitioned
early, um, you know, who haveserved as inspiration or as as

(49:13):
communicators with mediumstrying to help find find missing
children.
So I believe that our life isgoing to continue.
We are going to continue, it'sgoing to be in a different form,
in a different dimension.
Um, and and basically what Ibelieved is that um, you know,

(49:34):
death is basically now a rebirthinto a new existence, is that we
leave one part of our existenceand continue in another.
And we do have the option, oursouls have the option to come
back into the physicalexperience to experience what we
need to experience for theevolution of our souls.
And Brian Weiss has talked aboutour souls, we have soul

(49:58):
families, they're soul groupsthat travel together over
lifetimes and they contract fordifferent relationships.
Hell, Russ, you and I could bepart of a soul group.
We might have been connected ina previous lifetime.
Um, and so for me, you know, Ithink once you realize that
there are other dimensions inthe universe, and I'm

(50:18):
paraphrasing this from theafterlife of Billy Fingers.
Once you realize that there are,you know, you've like you other
that we live in amultidimensional universe, you
won't look at life, death, orlife after death the same way
again.
And in some ways, I challenge mystudents.
I ask them when we talk aboutthe spiritual aspects of death.
The question that begs to beasked is that do we really die?

(50:39):
Or do we just go on in adifferent form?
Do we go on in a different formof energy?
Is our death just a rebirth intoa new existence?
So I believe that our existenceis ongoing.
I also believe our version ofthe afterlife can be anything we
want to create.
Um, you know, if you look atMitch Album's book, The Five
People You're Most Likely toMeet in Heaven, um, the

(51:00):
protagonist in the book meetsfive individuals who are very
influential, and they each had adifferent version of the
afterlife depending on what theydid in this lifetime.
So, and I think we can, and Ialso think that we don't come
into the afterlife automaticallyspiritually evolved.
I think if there is work that weneed to do from this lifetime or

(51:21):
previous lifetimes, we're it'skind of like you know, we're
we're at at that particularlevel, and then we continue to
grow as we master those levels.
So I believe it's just a wholenew level of existence.
Um that we're we are all gonnabe.
And I don't believe in adualistic philosophy, I don't
believe that we're gonna bebanished to the bowels of hell,

(51:42):
hell if we've done some you knowindiscretions in our lives.
I think if we're willing toforgive ourselves, I think God
has been a for is a forgivinghuman being.
And I think as if if if we canif we can be open to that and
and and forgiveness is just thekingdom of heaven, or however

(52:03):
you look at it, the purespiritual bliss is open to
anybody.

SPEAKER_01 (52:07):
I believe that it sounds similar to uh like
Gnosticism almost.
Yeah, I'm not for I'm notfamiliar with that school of
thought, so you're not it's ait's a form of Christianity that
was popular in the first andsecond century, and the idea was
that the earth was created by anon-benevolent force, right?

(52:32):
Um, and that Jesus was here as aas a way to try to bring about a
certain amount of knowledge thatwill then allow our soul to
evolve to the next plane ofexistence.
Yeah, and similar to likeIndian, uh, like uh and uh
what's the word uhreincarnation?

SPEAKER_00 (52:53):
Yep, yeah.
And there's a lot of religionsthat believe in some form of
reincarnation.
Um you know, and I and I and Ido believe that.
I do believe that there havebeen there have been Ian
Stevenson and Jim Tucker didsome reincarnation studies in
the early 2000s of uh there were2,500 cases that were presented

(53:13):
to them of children who had theyyou know whose parents believe
they had reincarnationexperience, they were coming in
remembering memories from a pastlife, and they found 50% of
those to be solved.
In other words, 50% of thosewere valid reincarnation
experiences.
Um so yeah, I mean, from whatI've researched from my own

(53:34):
experiences with with Patty andfrom working with other
spiritual teachers, man, I don'tbelieve this is the I don't
believe this is our our onlyexistence in the physical realm.
I believe that that we willcontinue to go on with the
option of coming back into thephysical realm for our soul to
to learn to to evolve andcontinue to evolve, you know,

(53:56):
for the greater good of oursoul.
So that's yeah, that's what Ibelieve.

SPEAKER_01 (53:59):
Yeah.
So um, what are you doing thesedays?
So you've got a podcast.
You you said you did you guysjust recently wrote a book over
the pandemic.
Can you tell me a little bitmore about the book?
The podcast and kind of what'sgoing on in Dave's world today.

SPEAKER_00 (54:14):
Well, um certainly I I I'm retired, I think, and
probably with uh a bunch ofparentheses around it because
I'm busier retired than I everwas working.
So um, but the book is uh Whenthe Psychology Professor Met the
Minister.
Uh, it's a book that's broken upinto three parts.
The first is um about thespiritually transformative

(54:38):
experience, and we go intodetail with that.
That helped me find peace aftermy daughter's uh uh transition.
Uh, we talk about uh part two iscalled Something Greater Than
Ourselves.
We've about life in amultidimensional universe, about
the power of storytelling,honoring the past as your
teacher.

(54:58):
And the third part of the bookis for present and future
generations, how to achievewholeness, how to embrace
critical thinking, to transcendchallenges.
Um, and so that that's it forthe book.
We've gotten really positivereviews on Amazon and on our
author website.
Um, we've been very happy withthe response of the book.

(55:22):
The book was published on or waswe rolled it out on March 1st,
2021.
March 1st was the date of mydaughter's transition to a new
existence.
So we rolled it out then.
Yep.
The book is four years old.
Um, it's a relatively youngbook, but you could I believe
you could pick this book up 10,20 years later, and now it's not

(55:42):
you're gonna get something outof it.
Um, you know, the teachings inthere I think are are timeless,
and there's something foreverybody in the book.
It's just not about grief, it'sabout achieving awareness, about
achieving peace, it's aboutdoing things that can help you
become better versions ofyourself.
So hopefully, uh, this our bookis at the hands of every anybody

(56:03):
who needs it.
So, as far as the podcast goes,that's another story.
We need to do a whole notherepisode on how that even got
started.
But I've been doing it at thebehest of two very pain in the
butt students that I had atUtica University who persisted
for a year in telling me to do apodcast because I needed to
bring the teachings from thedeath and dying classroom into

(56:24):
the podcast world.
So on March 31st, 2023, Pattyand I did the first episode of
the Teaching Journeys podcast.
The mantra of the podcast iswe're all students and teachers,
so let's learn from each other.
I've had individuals like likeyourself for us who have had who
have transcended their owntraumas and have have done you

(56:46):
know coaching.
I've had coaches on who have hadstays like you have had skills
to share that have helpedindividuals transcend their own
traumas.
Every guess that I have is myteacher and on the students.
So I just ask the questions, tryto have everybody's journeys
represented authentically, andyeah, with the hope of them
sharing some tools that aregoing to help my audience, who

(57:08):
in many cases are dealing withtheir own challenges.
It's been a fun experience.
I've discovered that thepodcasters we have a great
community of support, we supporteach other, we refer guests to
each other, we bounce ideas offof each other, and that was
something I hadn't anticipatedwas that that bonus of
community.

SPEAKER_01 (57:29):
Um and collaboration is fantastic.

SPEAKER_00 (57:33):
Yeah, yeah.
And and I'm gonna be up, I'mgonna be close to 200 episodes.
I'll be publishing, I'll be 200episodes, I believe, by the end
of the year or the beginning ofnext year.
Um, and I never thought I'd I'dget that far, but the podcast
seems to have a life of its own.
I've been blessed with referralsfrom podcast agents, other

(57:54):
podcasters, satisfied guests.
So as long as uh the demand isthere, I'm gonna keep doing it.

SPEAKER_01 (58:02):
Well, I can tell you, I was on your podcast last
week, actually.
Yep.
Um and it was a greatexperience, man.
I mean, you're a greatinterviewer, and I I enjoyed
your your vibe, which is why Iasked you to be online.
Hey, before I before I let yougo, I would love it if you could
if you have any advice foranybody.
In fact, I was just right beforewe got together, I was meeting
with a young lady who is dealingwith a suicide.

(58:24):
Her her partner died by suicidein just in July.
Um, but man, people dealing withgrief, obviously, you know it's
just so over overwhelming whenit happens, and there's so many
emotions happening, so muchgoing on in your head.
What is the first thing thatpeople should really try to

(58:44):
focus their energy toward tostart that recovery process?

SPEAKER_00 (58:48):
Well, first of all, is show yourself grace, speak
show grace to yourself.
I've said this on otherpodcasts, and this is gonna
probably sound very cliche, butgrief certainly is a marathon,
it's not a sprint.
Um, there are gonna be goodmoments, there are gonna be sad
moments, there's gonna beemotional ups and downs, but

(59:11):
it's normal, it's part of thejourney.
Um, ride the wave, realize thatyou can learn from everything
that happens with you, even ifit's just the understanding that
you can survive before you canthrive.
And I think we have to survivebefore we can thrive.

(59:32):
Um, we have to wallow in themuck of our grief before we can
wallow through it.
That's um, and in doing so, isI've learned later in my life,
grief has been one of mygreatest teachers.
It's taught me a lot aboutresilience, about developing
resilience.
It's taught me a lot about youknow tapping into the better

(59:53):
parts of myself with compassion,with empathy.
But the other thing,particularly with very
tremendous.
Losses.
Suicide is traumatic.
It's stigmatized.
There's a lot of shame and guiltthat's associated with those
that are left behind.
There are questions about shouldI have rich, should could I have
done more?
Could I have recognized thesigns more?

(01:00:15):
Could I have done something toprevent this?
And you know, the thing is, is Ihope individuals understand that
nobody's death is anybody'sfault.
No, um, it isn't.
I mean, I beat myself up for twoand a half years thinking that I
should have had prevented mydaughter from getting cancer.

(01:00:40):
I should have protected her, Ishould have protected her from
getting a disease that wasinevitably incurable.
Um and I realized that given thehand of cards that were dealt to
me, I did the best that I could.
And what I knew that I did is II loved my daughter immensely.
Uh and that love is always gonnacarry.

(01:01:04):
And I know that anything I didfor her was out of love, that I
had no control out of anythingthat happened.
In fact, I wanted her to getanother clinical trial.
I begged her to do that, and shesaid, No, I want to be here with
my family, I want to be herewith my daughter, I want to be
here with my friends, and I wantto be here with my parents.

(01:01:27):
And so, what I learned is thatshe taught me that we live life
on our own terms, and some andwe die on our own terms, and
that's what she wanted to do.
She wanted to live life freely,she also wanted to die on her
own terms, and she wanted to diefreely, and I've learned that
now.
But show grace, please don'tblame yourself for not seeing

(01:01:49):
what could have happened, andfor those that have experienced
traumatic loss, especially dueto suicide, don't judge the
totality of a person's life bytheir last act.
Don't do that, don't do that.
Individuals who die by suicideare people that are overwhelmed,

(01:02:11):
they don't feel that there'sthere's any hope for the
solution to their problems, theyfeel that they're a burden, and
they end up taking their lives,but don't judge a person by
their last act.
Um, take a look at the totalityof that life.

SPEAKER_01 (01:02:28):
Yeah, very well said.
Um, I did have one more questionthat just popped up in my head
while you were doing yourclosing statement.

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:36):
That's okay.
So we're not closed yet.

SPEAKER_01 (01:02:38):
Your granddaughter, how is your granddaughter doing?

SPEAKER_00 (01:02:41):
She's great, she's 23 years old.
Um, she has a couple of kids.
Um, she's doing you know, thething is, is that her father
made sure that she always knewthe history of her mother.
We we made sure that she knewwho her mother was.
In fact, one of the more surrealmoments I had with her is I had
a DVD, and I were going oldschool, Russ.

(01:03:02):
I had a DVD that that we made,or that her significant other,
Jean's significant other Steven,made of her last Christmas.
And we sat and we watched thatvideo.
My granddaughter and I, abouttwo or three years ago, watched
that video, and uh, because Iwanted to see how much love her

(01:03:23):
mother had for her.
Sure.
And her mother also filmed othermoments where she was holding
her, where she was playing withher and walking, and I didn't
know that it existed because Ijust stopped after the after the
the last Christmas that we hadtogether.
Yeah, um, but she wanted thatshe wanted that video
documentary so that when Briannawas ready to see it, she could

(01:03:46):
see that yeah, there was a lotof love for the 10 months that I
had you, I loved you more thanlife itself.
And and that was a surrealexperience for me, an emotional
experience for me.
And it was just, but it was kindof pretty cool watching it with
my daughter's daughter to say,This is your mom, this is who
she is.

SPEAKER_01 (01:04:05):
Well, she's blessed to have you as a grandfather, my
friend.

SPEAKER_00 (01:04:08):
Oh, thank you, thank you.
Um, you know, um, thank you, andum, I'm blessed to have her in
my life as well as as you and uhother individuals who have
crossed my path, and certainlynot by chance, it's all been
pure serendipity by the granddesign.
I've come to believe that peoplethat come into our lives don't

(01:04:29):
come into our lives bycoincidence, which leads me to
one other statement.
Sure, in early grief, we were wewe lament about the people who
we thought were gonna support usin grief, but didn't.
But yet there's other peoplethat come forward that we never
thought were gonna come forwardthat do support us.

(01:04:49):
Celebrate those people that arein your support group now.
Don't spend a lot of timelamenting over those people who
aren't there.
Those people who aren't theremay come back at some point, but
make sure that you are you'reyou're you you uh benefit from

(01:05:11):
the people who are willing to bethere for you during the worst
time of your life and realizethat support systems are going
to change depending on lifecircumstances, where you are in
your grief and everything.

SPEAKER_01 (01:05:22):
So I guess some people don't have the capacity
to be the support that you need.
Um, and that is not a reflectionon them or you, they just don't
have the capacity to be what youneed.

SPEAKER_00 (01:05:35):
No, they don't, and they don't know how to be of
support, which is why a lot ofbooks are being written on how
do you how do you hold space forsomebody who's grieving, how do
you hold space for somebodywho's at trauma?
What do you do?
What do you say?
What don't you say?
We're not born with thatknowledge, and certainly in a
society that fears mostly fearsdeath, we don't talk about how
to how to help grievingindividuals.

(01:05:57):
We don't know how to we don'ttalk about how do we set we set
support for that.
So how do we set space for that?
So but it's it's it's improving,it's improving, but we still got
a ways to go.

SPEAKER_01 (01:06:08):
Well, there's definitely an emphasis on
trauma, and grief is a fordefinitely a form of trauma.
You got it by every description.
So, Dave, thanks so much forbeing here with us, man.
I'm gonna I'm gonna jump overhere on the main screen and and
uh uh we talked about some heavystuff today.
A lot of it could be a littletriggering.
So I just want to take a minutefor anybody who is feeling

(01:06:30):
triggered, just take a second,get your feet flat on the floor,
just take a minute to bepresent, take a couple deep
breaths, and as you do that,we're gonna close out the show.
Um, my name once again is RussTellip.
I'm a somatic trauma-informedcoach with Brain Squad in
Colorado Springs and the host ofTrauma Talks.
Um, today we got the chance totalk to Dave.

(01:06:50):
Dave is a wonderful guy, he'sgot an amazing story, and I hope
that you go check out hispodcast, the Teaching Journeys
podcast.
And there's a link to that righthere in the chat in the uh in
the comments for the video, andI'll put it in the show notes
for the podcast as well.
This is our second episode ofTrauma Talks Live.
We haven't really gotten a wholelot of info of people coming in

(01:07:13):
and asking questions.
I don't know if people are shybecause they're definitely
watching.
Um, but if you're in here andyou're on one of these live
broadcasts and you have anyquestions, anything pops into
your head, or you just want tosay, hey, Dave, I really like
your goatee, whatever you wantto say, jump in there and ask
because you interacting iswhat's going to make Trauma
Talks Live successful.

(01:07:34):
So um, once again, if you arenot a subscriber, please
subscribe and I will catch youon the side.
Dave, thanks again, brother.
I really appreciate your time.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:43):
You're welcome, brother.
It was a pleasure to share spacewith you tonight, being on your
podcast.
I had a great time and uh thankyou for having me.

SPEAKER_01 (01:07:52):
You got it.
All right, guys.
Have a good one.
We'll see you next week.

SPEAKER_00 (01:07:56):
Bye bye.