June 16, 2025 • 45 mins
This week on Reset, we’re diving into one of the most human and most avoided experiences: grief.
I invite you to either take this episode on a nice walk outdoors or get cozy on the couch. It's full of all the feels.
Whether it's the loss of a loved one, a relationship, a dream, or even a version of yourself, grief shows up in more ways than we realise.
In this honest and grounding conversation, I sit down with Psychologist Emma to explore:
What grief actually is and how it impacts our minds and bodies
The types of life events that can trigger grief (it's not just about death)
What happens when we try to delay or suppress our emotions
Whether grief ever truly "goes away"
How to support a friend or partner who's grieving
Why you don't need to process it perfectly
We also talk about how Emma protects her own wellbeing while helping others through their darkest days.
Connect with Emma on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/psychologistemma/
Connect with Emma on TikTok:
https://www.tiktok.com/@psychologistemma
Connect with Ash on Instagram:
https://www.instagram.com/ashcam____/
🧠 If you’re struggling right now, here are some helpful resources:
Lifeline: 13 11 14 | www.lifeline.org.au
Griefline: 1300 845 745 | www.griefline.org.au
Beyond Blue: 1300 22 4636 | www.beyondblue.org.au
✨ This conversation might feel tender, but it’s one we all need. Share it with someone who might be grieving, or who just needs permission to feel.
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:05):
Emma, welcome to Reset. Hello, thank you for having me.
Appreciate it. I'm going to be honest, I was
kind of nervous about this conversation.
And once I tell everyone like what it's about, you're gonna
know what you get it. I've known Emma for about two
(00:27):
years now and I've been a big fan of yours, your work and
obviously follow all your Tik Toks and things like that.
But when Emma and I first started chatting about like, OK,
gotta come on the Reset podcast,what are we gonna talk about?
We were throwing a few differentideas around, and the one that
we landed on is grief. And This is why I think I was a
little bit hesitant because likemost people, grief is a feeling
(00:50):
that we would rather just Fast forward a voice at all cost.
Yeah. And then when I sat with that
for a little bit, I was like, OK, if that's how I'm feeling,
that's how probably most people are feeling.
And then it's a big green flag to say, well, actually, it's a
topic we should unpack because it's something we have no choice
but to go through as humans. Yeah.
(01:12):
Yeah, it's one of these weird topics that, like, everyone gets
faced with in like a variety of different ways and yet no one
talks about. And that's a shame because it's
like such a human experience and, like, such a beautiful
experience when we think about, like, what grieving something or
someone or an experience like means.
(01:34):
So yeah, I'm nervous to talk about it, too, because of the
kind of unspokenness in it. So I feel you with that.
But I'm also like, yeah, I thinkit's a topic that needs more
attention, more focus, more warmth, more connection, more
just like compassion and understanding.
(01:55):
So I'm I'm glad that we're goingto kind of shake it up.
Yeah, me too. And for anyone listening, it's
kind of one of those ones that maybe you want to do on a walk
or with a cup of tea. I want them to feel like
everyone that's listening right now, cosy, like they're here on
the couch with us. And it's OK to feel the feelings
during this topic because we live, I think in Australia, we
have this real culture of she'llbe right, everything will be
(02:17):
fine. And we just suppress and think
that we need to move through things often too quickly.
So from a psychologist's perspective, what is grief?
What is happening to us when we're experiencing grief?
So many different things. So grief is like more than just
sadness. We should probably be the, I
guess, the go to feeling that people would associate with
(02:39):
grief. But it's really like a bundle of
pain, I guess, which is why it feels so like confronting and
scary and something that we wantto avoid.
And it's not just like bereavement grief.
So the grief of like losing someone or it's also could be
identity grief, like seasons of transition grief of like losing
(03:01):
a relationship, like breakups. And it's that idea of like, we
only grieve if we've truly loved, appreciated or cherished
something. So when we look at it that way,
it's actually like a, a yearningfor something that has brought
us so much like life and love and joy and whatever that might
be. Whether that is a relationship
(03:23):
that's no longer like existing with us anymore, a breakup,
whether that's a person that's passed a life phase, a career.
Like you would have maybe even felt that with like career
changes. Like, although there's seasons
of change and there's excitementand in evolving into like maybe
the next evolution, there's alsothis sense of loss and concern
and worry and angst that can come with it.
(03:48):
Yeah, I think that's really important to touch on and that
you can be holding 2 emotions atthe same time.
Like, you can be excited for change, but you can also be
grieving something that you're leaving behind at the same time.
That is such a common experienceof feeling multiple competing
(04:08):
emotions at the same time, and we don't as a society know
really how to hold them very well.
Like it feels almost wrong. Like, how could we feel so much
excitement and eagerness and also so much loss and sadness
potentially at the same time? Yeah.
It's one of those, like, experiences I see a lot, like
(04:28):
postpartum as well, that feelingof like having kind of met your
new love of your life, which is like so much excitement and so
much love and so much joy. And also like, hinges of like,
oh, that's who I used to be in the identity that I used to
have. And that's OK.
Like, it's all one, Like, it's all OK to have multiple
(04:51):
experiences at the same time. Yeah.
But it does feel odd for people.And I, I feel like whenever I'm
sure everyone listening has probably experienced the death
of a loved one at some point. And I feel that can be really
messy too, because life keeps moving forward and you go
through these cycles, which I'm sure we can talk about soon.
(05:13):
Where OK, I'm feeling excited about life again or like there's
glimmers of hope, but I'm then every now and then reminded of
of a loss and a sadness. And it's, yeah, I guess it's a
very human to not just you don'thave to be 1 or the other at any
given time. Yeah, I think that's the main
thing with grief. It's like everything's OK.
(05:36):
Like if your experience in one day is complete and utter
sadness and lots of tears and lots of just grief and grieving,
and then another day there's happiness and joy and love and
excitement, and then you fall apart, that's OK.
Like there's no actual. It's messy, like true grief,
when we're actually like, allowing ourself to experience
(05:58):
it is really healthy and really messy.
Does everyone experience grief in the same way?
It's a good question. There's many models that try to
like predict grief, so there's one that's like a grief cycle
model that's used a lot. It was actually developed for
people when they found out they had chronic illness.
(06:20):
And it's that model of like, youknow, shock, denial, anger,
sadness, and then bringing it back up to hope.
And I've kind of gone away from that model because it does kind
of make it a cycle. And I've just from my experience
personally, like with grief and also with clients, it's like all
over the place. Like there isn't a set way to
(06:44):
grieve. So I guess my approach to it is
a continued bonds model, which is about like the sadness that
comes when, when losing some, let's pretend we're talking
about bereavement because that'sprobably a common one, like
having lost someone that you love.
The sadness that comes with thatis so beautiful because it, it
(07:08):
showcases like the depth of the bond and it showcases like a
real yearning for someone. There's so much beauty in that.
Like it makes, it makes me tear up when I'm dealing with clients
that are going through that because I just see so much like
yearning and love, like it's like the biggest expression of
(07:29):
love. So the continued bonds model
that I like, I guess advocate for is like, how do we keep that
bond alive? Like, how do we, like, lean into
all of these emotions and see them for what they are and see
the absolute, like, beauty and humanness in them rather than
shy away from them? It's that like, your sadness is
(07:54):
so indicative of the love that you shared and the deepness of
the bond that you've had with whatever you've lost.
And that's so special. And how do we honor that?
And can we have any rituals in your life that like, bring that
person back to life in some way?Like how do you continue that
(08:14):
thread because it's never fully lost?
I think that's beautiful. And those rituals, because I
don't know if you've experiencedit in your life, but I feel like
often when people pass away, we stop mentioning their names at
some point because it's hard or it's heavy, and then people are
still thinking about them. But having rituals or moments to
(08:37):
still celebrate them and remember them is really, yeah,
special. Yeah, 100%.
And that's such a common thing. It becomes almost too raw of a
pain point that we all avoid as a society and as friends.
We avoid because we don't want to trigger someone.
We don't want to make it too heavy, or we don't want to push
(09:00):
someone if they don't want to talk about something.
And so it's like we all kind of skirt around the topic and we
avoid saying names, but it's so important to like, it's so
important to speak that person, like still into your life, into
your existence. And it can be so individual.
Like I've had clients that like nature is one of the big ones I
(09:20):
see often, like people going forwalks and having a chat with
their loved one or like seeing certain symbols in the world
and, and saying hi, Poppy or hi,you know, hi, little one, if
you've lost a child or yeah, like having little moments of
just connection. Yeah, is so important.
(09:40):
For anyone that's wanting inspiration on what those
moments could be, do you have a few ideas?
It's so individual, so it has tobe accustomed be meaningful for
the individual ones that I've seen like cooking.
So for people that have lost someone who maybe they had a
certain recipe or a certain mealthat like reminds them of that
(10:02):
loved one, like making a ritual of like cooking that meal at a
certain time of the year or whenthey feel like a real separation
from that person. Nature, it's a big one.
Like connecting with nature, going on a walk and just talking
to that person in your mind or out loud.
Celebrating through like actually having like some sort
(10:24):
of sit down dinner with family. If it's like a birthday or an
anniversary, then sharing like good stories, like sharing fun
stories and having a laugh. Like it doesn't have to always
be sad. Yeah.
I, I say to clients all the timethat like tears are the most
highest vibration, the most likebeautiful indication of love
(10:45):
that I think we have when comingfrom like a non distorted place.
And a lot of what I deal with isgrief is actually not a problem
like grief is. It's a non problem.
So when I'm dealing with clients, yeah, I've got we've
got mood problems, depression, anxiety, we've got habits and
addiction problems that people want to change and we've got
(11:05):
relationship problems, that kindof problems that people deal
with. Grief is a non problem.
It's not a clinically like indicated problem.
Like it's a shared human experience.
It's like so normal. But what happens is we have
healthy grief and we have unhealthy grief.
And sometimes delineating from the 2 is like so important to
(11:25):
really just lean into the healthy side of sadness and loss
and love and shared memories andand happiness in in reliving
that person and and talking about them.
But it's so individual people like candles.
Yeah. Do you have any rituals that you
would do well that you've seen? Oh, I feel like you're right.
(11:47):
It needs to be definitely for the individual.
But I wonder if there's a few ways, because sometimes death
comes as a surprise, sometimes it's a long time coming.
And I wonder if there's almost things that you can pre plan
with loved ones if you do have that time.
Yeah. Where you're like every time you
see a rainbow or something like that.
(12:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a beautiful thought and
definitely something that I've seen done when people have a bit
of a like a runway towards potentially losing someone.
And that's so complicated when that's the scenario because
there's the gift of a little bitmore time and the gift of some
level of knowing, but also just the complete pain of a prolonged
(12:34):
experience and and knowing that you're about to lose someone.
It's like, which is so painful at the same time.
But often like the beauty that can come in that is having
conversations, like talking to that person, really allowing
that person to know how much youappreciate them.
Speaking about like, you know, come back as a Sparrow or come
(12:55):
back as a rainbow for me or like, yeah, like, look over me.
Like those types of like conversations are so beautiful
and so like beautifully emotive.Yeah.
I often sit with clients and we'll just cry with them.
Like, obviously I keep myself together, but there's something
nice about just having like a human experience with someone.
(13:18):
Like, even as we talk about this, like I think about clients
that are going through that right now and, and the pain that
they're going through, but also the, the, the purest love that
they're sharing with the people that they're, they're going to
lose. Yeah, yeah.
How do you know? Because grief can feel icky,
whether it's that good, healthy grief or not.
(13:41):
How do you distinguish between the two?
Yeah, such a good question. And this is so important.
Healthy grief is that real senseof sadness for what's been lost,
so sadness for like that person no longer being here, if we're
talking about bereavement, and also like the sadness for what
(14:05):
could have been. So it's like future and past and
it's just that real sense of like yearning for someone to be
there and missing someone and wishing it were different or
wishing you could still kind of have them with you, missing
their presence, missing a hug that that's also like beautiful
and indicative of like love. Unhealthy grief is when we start
(14:29):
to see like blame come in. I should have, I could have, I
wish I never had that argument. Maybe if I did this differently,
something else would have happened.
And so we start to have like little like cognitive
distortions come into it should have overgeneralizations.
I should have done this or I could have done this and that
would have saved them. Or I, I didn't spend enough
(14:50):
time. Like a lot of regret can be
quite distorted in the way that it comes across.
And that just kind of makes something like this a really
hard human experience, way more difficult and complicated
because then you've got shame and blame and regret and anger
and resentment tied into the pain of healthy grief.
(15:14):
So often it is talking with someone that can actually help
pinpoint what is it that you're thinking and feeling and like,
is, is that part true? Let's talk about that part.
Is that actually fair on you? Yeah.
So that is probably more like with a professional, I guess or
with like if you've got good friends or family that are just
(15:34):
really able to give you space and time, you might have like
the the fortune of having that otherwise obviously with the
professionals really helpful. Yeah.
Do you find that anyone struggles to move forward from
their grief because it feels like they're losing the person
again, that they're grieving, ifwe're talking about the death of
(15:56):
a loved one? Yeah, of course.
Yeah. There's this fear of moving on
often that comes with grief and that fear of, well, if I start
kind of picking myself back up and engaging back in life, then
I'm not doing that person justice or I'm like getting
(16:17):
further and further away from them.
And that's such a common experience.
And that's part of like the kindof complicated grief because
it's, if we think about it, it'snot true.
Like we're not going that personcan be there.
That continued bonds model that person can be there for the rest
of your life, no matter if you've re partnered, no matter
(16:38):
if you've had another child, no matter if like life has moved
on, that continued bond can still be like honoured and
remembered no matter what. And the way of like celebrating
that person's life doesn't disappear as your life continues
to move on. I do a, a method called the
(16:59):
grief method with clients, whichis so powerful and really
emotive. Like often I'm crying in the
sessions too. As weird as it is.
I'm like becoming really good atlike being OK to be a bit more
like human. Yeah.
As a psychologist, I think that's like come with a bit of
(17:20):
time. Yeah.
Like I can be professional and put together enough.
But also like I feel. And one of the things we I do in
that method is I will ask the client, you know, what are some
of the thoughts that are coming up for you right now?
And they might say like, well, Iworry that if I move on or if I
start dating again, then I'm like letting go.
(17:43):
Like I'm really like cutting thebond And I'm really like not
doing them justice. I'm doing something wrong.
I feel guilty. Or they might say, like, I wish
I had said XY Zed. I didn't know that was going to
be the last time I I saw that person.
And I just, I can't let that go.Like that's so painful for me.
(18:08):
And so I'll hear all their thoughts.
And then it's because I do a lotof role plays in, in therapy.
It's like one of my favorite things and it's really helpful.
I find and clients find it really helpful.
I will then play that person's voice to them and ask them to,
to the best of their ability, bethat the loved one that's
passed, like step into their voice.
(18:29):
Like often people know their loved one like really well.
So I will play there like, you know, I, I worry that I didn't
say this and I'm really sad about the last conversation we
had. And then the client will play
the role of the person that's passed.
And it's, it's the most moving thing ever because it helps to
(18:51):
like uncomplicated, like the complicated nature of it.
Because often that's when you hear like, like I've heard
people say things like, like I had someone that one of their
thoughts was it was someone thathad a young, a young child, like
a teenager who, who did get sick.
And without disclosing too much,basically, she said you can go
like you don't have to say. And, and the child did pass.
(19:16):
And one of the complicated natures of, of that person's
grief was, I shouldn't have toldyou to let go because I, I like,
gave up on you too soon. And then you passed.
And it's like a big regret I had.
And when I played that role for her and she played the role of
her son to the best of her ability.
(19:36):
And obviously, it's like, we've got to be really safe in order
to do this because it's such an emotive kind of practice.
Like he came up with, like, I, Istayed alone longer because of
the love that you had for me. And like, in that instant, it
was gone like that. That worry and that fear of hers
was like, it had dissipated justfrom being able to actually
(19:57):
like, really role play. Like, is it true?
What would your son actually say, you know?
I love that idea of role play. Is it something that obviously
beautiful done in a therapy room?
Is it something that people could do at home, say through
writing in their journal or a letter or something like that,
(20:18):
do you think? Yeah, yeah, a lot of journaling
practices can be really helpful.Like what would you like to say
to that person? What would they respond to the
best of your knowledge? You know the person best.
And having a bit of a dialogue in a journal is like a beautiful
way to do that. Well, speaking it like like
people can have, obviously we all can have conversations in
(20:39):
our head and we can do that withpast people.
You know, we can have that levelof a role play in our own mind.
Sometimes it is. I mean, it is helpful to be in a
kind of contained environment where you've got someone that
can like really process you through things, but it doesn't
(20:59):
mean that you can't do it yourself as well.
Life can be really busy and sometimes it's just not
convenient to grieve on a particular day or time.
There might be a really busy work deadline.
We might have commitments looking after kids or just
whatever's going on in our life.Is it actually possible?
(21:21):
I'm sure it's not necessarily healthy, but is it possible to
be like, you know what? I can't deal with this today.
Yeah. I'm going to let future me
process it. Is that?
Is that a? Thing certainly possible and
it's really it's really done andI can totally understand that
(21:42):
living in our world there is an idea of like contain that and
deal with it later and what's that worth?
In a meeting, it'll be like, canwe park that?
Yeah. We'll put that on the shelf.
Yeah, we'll go back to corporate, We'll circle back on
that. We'll just shelve that for a
bit. Yeah.
And of course, like there is an element of wanting control of
(22:06):
your own emotions and your own privacy that is really
important. And so being able to just for a
moment, compartmentalize is probably the right word.
Like compartmentalize that part and be able to get on with
whatever you're doing. The important thing is that we
do pick it back up. And that might be just a simple
genre reflection at night. That might be going to a yoga
(22:29):
session and being in the Shavasana and just kind of
feeling into the feelings. That might be like calling a
loved one and actually having a chat.
So like playing music that mightbe emotional and might just make
you just cry on the way home from work, but like, having
those little moments to release the sadness and actually lean
into the experience is so conducive to like, healing and
(22:52):
processing emotion. But it doesn't have to be all
the time. And we can pick and choose.
Like I would hate for someone tofeel at the mercy of their grief
and not able to kind of control at all when it shows up, because
then it is like a real vulnerable feeling walking
through life, feeling as though people can expose your emotional
(23:14):
side at any minute. Yeah.
And I suppose it's good to remind ourselves that even if we
do think, OK, I'm going to schedule my grief for Sunday,
I'm going to deal with it on Sunday.
It's not linear. And it's not just going to be a
box that you can tick and complete within a day.
Like it is still going to come up.
Yeah. In different moments.
(23:35):
Yeah. One of the models I chat with
clients about with grief, which speaks exactly to your point
about it's not that we can just box ticket like I'll schedule
that for Sunday, I'll give myself an hour and after that
I'll be perfectly fine and great.
Like how great if that was a failure I will take done.
I've done my. Grief I felt, I felt that I come
(23:58):
up again. I picture it as like a box and,
and when we're first in the throes of grief, the grief is
like a huge ball that takes up the entirety of that box,
meaning it hits all our edges like we're raw.
Like it really it hits all, it'snot contained.
It hits all of our whole soft spots.
(24:20):
We feel like we could kind of betriggered at the drop of a hat
and it takes up our whole mind space.
It's very hard like people oftendescribe.
And I know for me personally, when I've lost people that I've
loved a feeling of like, why thehell is the world still moving?
Like this doesn't make sense. And I hear that all often, like
people driving being like, well,why are people still driving
(24:41):
around just going to work? Like, what do you mean?
Like the world needs to pause? Like my world's collapsed.
Like why is life still revolving?
Like, why is the planet still turning?
Like it doesn't make sense. Like this is huge.
Like, why? Why is not everyone reacting,
You know, And that's because theball is like so huge, Like it's
our entire experience and existence and grief.
(25:05):
I'm one of those like advocates for grief will like never leave
us. Like it's not a process that you
go like I've started. I'm through it.
I'm out the other side. I never feel it again.
It's our capacity, our box kind of expense.
If you think of like a ball now in the middle of a big room and
it's floating around the room, sometimes it will hit the edge.
(25:27):
This bowl of grief will just be in you floating around.
And sometimes it will just kind of like wear its head and hit
the edge. And it's in those moments where
it's like, oh, I need to honor that.
Or maybe I need to ritualize that person or I need to just
give myself some space. I'm feeling it, and that's OK.
That's like, I'm glad. I'm glad that my love for that
person is still here and still around and still strong, but
(25:51):
it's still there, like it's always going to be there.
It's not that it, the bulb disappears and we kick it off
into another field and it never comes back.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's just our capacity grows andexpands.
Yeah. And there's so much like growth
that can happen from people having large, like life
experiences. It changes people.
And that's their their capacity,their box expanding, their
perspective expanding. It's the same when when you have
(26:13):
your bulb, like your perspectiveon life just gets bigger, Like
you're like what is meaningful and valuable in your life will
just like it's already happening, right?
It's just expanding the same when you've had something really
a loss happen, your perspective on life, your desire to do
(26:35):
certain things, your behaviours might change because your box,
who you are has expanded around it.
You've become bigger. During some of my prep for this
interview, I was doing research,I was chatting to friends.
I was also scrolling grief TikTok which is.
I haven't done that. OK, if you if you wanna feel the
feels like it's heavy. I'm one of those that I will
(26:57):
literally, if I scroll on a sideview, yeah, you'll just have
tears rolling in my face. My husband would be like, what's
wrong with you? Yeah, I got.
This, this dog, it's about to pass away, Yeah.
I'm with you. And there's like the grief
poetry side of TikTok. I went deep, but but one thing
that I came across was Jay Shetty was actually talking
about carrying grief like a stone in your pocket.
(27:18):
Yeah. And he was saying that that
stone never leaves your pocket. You just become stronger.
And so carrying it around, it just becomes that little bit
lighter. That's.
Exactly how I see it. Yeah.
Yeah. That's a beautiful metaphor.
I've never heard of that one. But yeah, that's that's exactly
it. You just learn to cope.
Yeah. Better.
Yeah. It doesn't go away.
You're just and nor would you want it to go away.
(27:40):
And this is the thing I, I say with clients all the time, The
grief or the sadness or the longing and the yearning is so
indicative of your love for someone and the, the impact
they've had on your life and like your gratitude and your
(28:01):
just desire for them to still behere.
That's so powerful. That is so beautiful.
We don't want that to go away. I want you to be loving your
life and experiencing like the best life possible.
Like I want you to be like so engaged in your life and able to
(28:24):
and able to do whatever you wantand not feel like hindered by
it. But like I want that person's
bond to be with you for the restof your life.
That's so powerful. I'm glad you've had that and I'm
sorry you've lost it, but I'm like, let's keep it.
Yeah, what a beautiful reframe. Yeah, I think that's probably
what society misses, at least inAustralia, yeah, we don't have a
(28:49):
great grief process. Like there's societies where the
whole community will get involved and it's so spiritual
and it's so like ritualized and there's so much encouragement
for real outward expressions of grief and anger and yelling and
crying and really kind of like dramatic.
(29:09):
Like if we saw it, we would be alittle bit taken aback
potentially in Australia. But in those cultures, there's
less of this complicated kind ofnature to it.
There's often just more continuing bonds, models going
on just because of the cultural piece of it.
There's a cultural aspect to like, grief.
Yeah, it's so interesting, isn'tit, to kind of unpack that what
(29:32):
happens if we don't deal with our grief and we just, she'll be
right, keep moving. Yeah.
Is it going to come up later in life in different ways for us,
like if we've if we haven't honoured?
Yeah, I think motion, yeah, probably a bold statement, but I
would say like you can often align someone's unprocessed
(29:57):
grief or not really leaning intotheir grief with physical
ailments. So like the body will speak if
the person's not allowed the emotions to come out.
So you'll see physical ailments,conditions pop up.
Bold statement. But I've seen like people get
things like cancer and like really severe conditions
(30:18):
following someone's passing, like, you know, with time
addictions, like people kind of going to more like unhealthy
behaviours, having more say wineor yeah, just it comes up in
some way. The way is very unique to the
individual and to their like body as well.
Because our bodies, some of them, some of our bodies are
(30:40):
just more robust and resilient than others, which is kind of
born with a state of like how much our bodies can cope with.
So some people will see it more in headaches and not being out
of sleep and chronic fatigue or autoimmune conditions.
Well, cancer and it's like severe form that isn't, from my
knowledge, scientifically backed.
(31:00):
It's just anecdotally from what I've seen.
But it makes sense to me as a clinician.
Like if emotions we saw in our body, if big emotions that had
every right to be there, that meant so much, if they weren't
tuned into and focused on and listened to and allowed to
(31:21):
outwardly express, then they just get clogged basically in
our system. And that just leads to ailments.
Yeah, I'm definitely not a health professional, but I have
seen that play out time and timeagain as well with people.
And yeah, I think there's definitely something to that.
I've heard that that has that saying that our body holds what
(31:43):
our mind isn't ready to deal with yet, and that's not
healthy. Like we said, it shows up in all
sorts of ways. Yeah, if someone's grieving at
the moment, like a friend or a partner or a loved one, how can
we best support them? Just presence would be like the
(32:03):
simplest one, like just be around.
If you know your friend well, like, then you'll know better
about how to navigate it becausecertain people would need the
right setting to be able to openup about it.
So there's certain friends that you wouldn't want to ask them
(32:24):
how they are in a public settingbecause you know them well
enough to know that that them falling apart would feel too
embarrassing for them. And so it's like really like
trying to think about from your best your knowledge, how do you
think that person is in life? And how can you most safely kind
of help them open up? I think the mistake a lot of us
(32:46):
make is we avoid because we're really scared of saying the
wrong thing. We're really scared of making
someone cry. And so then we just kind of
avoid the topic, which can make the person feel really isolated
and kind of do more damage than good.
(33:08):
So I would always say it's better to try than not try at
all. Like, better to try and speak to
that person and not speak at allthe things that definitely do
not, do not make any kind of super hopeful remarks.
(33:29):
Like people often like who say, oh, my, my friend said, well,
everything happens for a reason.I just felt so angry when they
said that. Of course you did.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because your whole world's like falling apart and you're not,
you're not seeing any reason right now.
Yeah. So sometimes those like remarks
that are really trying to be helpful and trying to be
(33:50):
positive and like pep someone upare like the most harmful.
It's actually really important. And something that I have
learned to do better since beinga clinician is like going into
the darkness with someone is thehealing, not trying to help.
So say you were grieving, like sitting with you and saying
(34:14):
like, like, tell me what it's been like, what do you miss?
What are you worried about in the future without this person?
How did you find out? What was that?
Like? How are you sleeping and
allowing the person to go where they need to go?
And that and not being scared ofit because like, it makes sense.
Whereas often it will be like, what can I do to help?
(34:38):
Should we go and do this and, and pep you up and like,
everything's going to be OK. Like you've got this.
They loved you so much, they would be so proud of you, which
is all us just trying to like it's going to be OK.
I'm really scared of like going there like, hey everyone,
everyone's OK. We're like putting out fires.
Like we're all so scared to touch the topic, which is fine.
(34:58):
Like it's fine. We're all just trying to trying
to do our best. But if you're really a person
sitting there that's like, I have this friend that's going
through grief and I'm scared andI don't know how to help them.
The first thing to say to yourself is like you don't have
to help, like trying to help will be the thing that hinders
(35:21):
trying to understand will be thething that unlocks and even
saying, you know, like Ash, I'm I'm really scared because I
don't know how to like handle this well for you.
But I just want to know like howyou're going and what it's been
like, like sharing that you're actually afraid and like you
don't know how to best deal withit and you feel like unsure.
(35:43):
That's just a shared human experience, which I think is
really important. Yeah, I love that.
And I've heard the term once, sit in the mud.
Yeah. And like, sometimes you just
need to sit in the mud with people.
Yeah. And as a optimistic problem
solver, I've been guilty many times of wanting to rush through
that with friends and take them out and distract.
(36:05):
And like I now know through lifeexperience, that's not helpful.
You just need to sit in the mud and be there with you.
And it can be that ebb and flow of like, sit in the mud, then go
and have a fun time. Like, and that's the dual, the
duality of it. Like allow, allow people to
engage in distraction in a beautiful way that keeps
(36:27):
lightness involved in their life.
Because we all need lightness amongst darkness to allow the
distraction. It's not, it's not like we
always have to be in the mud. But if we're always just up in
the let's go out and like, let'sgo to a cafe or we'll go out for
drinks and this let's go away toByron or whatever we're going to
do for the weekend. If we're always up, up, up, then
we risk our friend feeling aloneor isolated.
(36:52):
Yeah. So a bit of like getting into
the mud, getting, yeah dirty is important.
Parenting that. Yeah.
As a woman growing a baby, A fewdo Mum, how am I going to
explain grief and death to my future little girl?
Hopefully you won't have to explain that in the like the
(37:16):
earliest years of life because it is a big topic and everything
with like parenting and needs tobe like developmentally
appropriate because we don't want to overload brains with
content that's too much for the little like their little souls.
But I would just, I mean, overall, like as a parent, no
(37:38):
emotion is bad. Would be like my key to like
parenting. Like you're feeling sad because
your friend Tommy's moved away. So that's grief, all right.
So it doesn't always have B death.
You're feeling sad because your friend Tommy's moved away and
their family's gone to live in Canada.
It's my example. That's a nice light example.
(38:00):
Let's use a light example. Let's use this.
Yeah, yeah. Of course you're feeling sad.
Tell me more about you and Tommy.
What's he like? How do we make sure that you can
still connect with him? What do you like about him?
Like, tell me more about that. Of course you feel sad.
He was such a great friend of yours and he still can be, just
in a different form. So it's like going into the
(38:21):
sadness and like allowing the little one to feel OK that
they're sad. It's like stopping the
conditioning of like sad is bad,anger is bad, sad is often
powerful. Sad is often a sign of love.
Like sad is often a sign of connection that's been lost or
yearning for something. Anger is often a sign of
(38:44):
boundaries being crossed or a sign of frustration and not
being quite there yet. Like that's, that's helpful.
So a lot of like the real talking about emotions in all of
their complexity and not having good or bad emotions.
If it was to be a conversation around having like someone
having passed away, people have all different ways of doing it.
(39:05):
And I don't really have like a like a set conversation that I
would have, but using the the proper words I think is
important when they're kind of like a old enough, like you're
maybe not going to do that with a 2 year old.
But when they're getting a little bit older, you know, if
it might be a grandparent, hopefully that would be like the
(39:26):
most comfortable passing. Hopefully, like it's no one in
their very, very immediate circle.
You know, Grandma is no longer with us.
She's passed away. That's really sad.
We miss her. And we're going to bake some
cookies today because she made the most beautiful cookies.
And. Yeah, we're going to miss her
(39:48):
and we're going to do little things to make sure that we can
keep chatting to her and we can keep chatting to her.
We don't know where she's gone or some people have religious
beliefs, so sharing that with their kids, that's fine.
We don't know where she's gone, but it doesn't mean she's gone.
Like we can still chat to her. What would you like to say to
her? Do you have anything you want to
say to her now? What do you love about Nana or
Grandma? I don't know.
I see beauty in it, but I don't know why I see beauty in it.
(40:10):
Am I weird? Do you see beauty in that?
Yeah, and I think it's because of what you've said, like
there's this reoccurring threat of love for this whole
conversation. Yeah, you know, going to grieve
something that maybe that's actually more complicated.
You could grieve something that there was also hatred and anger
towards. That's added layer to it.
But yeah, I think it it highlights love and connection.
(40:34):
And even if it was, you're right, even if it was a
complicated relationship, that'swhen you're often not
definitely, but often you will have complicated nature in the
grief that is helpful to unpack.But there's still a bond.
And even if it's just a biological bond, there's still a
loss there of a bond. And so it can really confuse
(40:55):
people when they had they've maybe been estranged from a
family member and that person's past and they feel sadness, even
though they didn't no longer have like a real connection with
that person. Well, it's, it's still a bond
and there's a society pressure of like bonds with family
members. There's like so much like
stuckness in that that would be really complicated to traverse.
(41:20):
And in that will be a lot of complicated emotions of like,
was there things left unsaid? Did you have to become a
strange? Did you make the right
decisions? Like there's that's the
complicated stuff that will pop up that's helpful to work
through. But yeah, grief comes up, even
if the relationship wasn't just all sunshine and roses, which is
so interesting. Yeah.
(41:43):
So obviously unpacking grief with a psychologist like
yourself is a really safe space to do that.
If someone's grieving right now and for whatever reason can't
get to a psychologist, are theresome help lines or resources
that you could recommend? Yeah, so we're so lucky in
Australia that we have a lot of free phone counselling services
(42:05):
on offer. So Life lines one of them.
It's often advertised if people are like feeling at risk
themself or feeling any kind of suicidality, but it's not just
for that. And that's something to be
really aware of. Like people can call Lifeline
for whatever's going on. And some of that could be grief.
(42:27):
So that's a free phone service. There's the grief line, which is
purely for grief and that's a phone service.
Beyond Blue is a beautiful app and a beautiful website and a
beautiful service that have lotsof different resources if you
want to like resource up and like learn more about it.
The other thing is if you're like both of us coming from
corporate like EAP employee assistance programs, like just
(42:52):
reminding ourselves of like, OK,let me just check if my employer
has an EAP because often there'ssome like great clinicians on
the other end and that's free. And so then you actually are
speaking with a psychologist that you could have multiple
conversations with. The tricky thing with Lifeline
and grief line is you won't speak to the same person.
So it can be just really helpfulto have like a conversation that
(43:14):
just lifts you a little bit or allows you just to feel.
But if you want more of a continued kind of rapport, EAP
would be really helpful. People often don't know that
they can go to their GP and get a mental health care plan.
You don't have to have any kind of mental health illness.
And as I said at the start, likegrief is a non problem problem
in how I like conceptualize it. There's nothing clinically
(43:36):
wrong, but you can still have a mental health care plan which
gives you rebates. And then you can find a
psychologist that feels like is a good fit.
And that's probably one of the things I advocate the most.
And one of the things I say to every single client in their
first session is like, if this doesn't feel right, that's
(43:57):
totally OK. Don't give up on the profession.
It's just maybe that you haven'tfelt the right connection with
me and that's fine. Like I will be a great therapist
for many, but not all. And try other people until you
find the right fit if this hasn't felt like conducive for
you. Because often one of the things
(44:17):
I hate the most is if someone's gone to see a psychologist,
they've had a bad experience andthey give up.
Because I've just seen like how much growth and change and
support a really good therapeutic bond can have on
people. And I hate the fact that
sometimes that can be lost if they've had a bad experience.
So like testing the waters and trying different things,
(44:38):
connecting with like if people are religious, like their church
often will have different thingsaround grief.
I've seen people really connecting with faith, which has
been beautiful to witness. Probably a few.
We could put them in the show notes.
Yeah, we'll definitely do that. Emma, thank you so much for
joining me and crying with me today.
I think this has been a really important topic to discuss, so
(45:01):
thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and wisdom with
everyone. I think, like you said, it's
something that we tend to avoid,but it's going to, we're going
to deal with it as humans throughout our life anyway.
So, yeah, yeah. It's one of those ones that we
just can't avoid. Yeah.
So we might as well talk about it.
We might. As well talk about it we might
as. Well, see the beauty in it.
Yeah. Yeah.
(45:22):
And we want to continue the bonds.
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Thank you so much. So nice, Chad.
Yeah, appreciate you, you. Too.
Emma, welcome to Reset. Hello, thank you for having me.
Appreciate it. I'm going to be honest, I was
kind of nervous about this conversation.
And once I tell everyone like what it's about, you're gonna
know what you get it. I've known Emma for about two
(00:27):
years now and I've been a big fan of yours, your work and
obviously follow all your Tik Toks and things like that.
But when Emma and I first started chatting about like, OK,
gotta come on the Reset podcast,what are we gonna talk about?
We were throwing a few differentideas around, and the one that
we landed on is grief. And This is why I think I was a
little bit hesitant because likemost people, grief is a feeling
(00:50):
that we would rather just Fast forward a voice at all cost.
Yeah. And then when I sat with that
for a little bit, I was like, OK, if that's how I'm feeling,
that's how probably most people are feeling.
And then it's a big green flag to say, well, actually, it's a
topic we should unpack because it's something we have no choice
but to go through as humans. Yeah.
(01:12):
Yeah, it's one of these weird topics that, like, everyone gets
faced with in like a variety of different ways and yet no one
talks about. And that's a shame because it's
like such a human experience and, like, such a beautiful
experience when we think about, like, what grieving something or
someone or an experience like means.
(01:34):
So yeah, I'm nervous to talk about it, too, because of the
kind of unspokenness in it. So I feel you with that.
But I'm also like, yeah, I thinkit's a topic that needs more
attention, more focus, more warmth, more connection, more
just like compassion and understanding.
(01:55):
So I'm I'm glad that we're goingto kind of shake it up.
Yeah, me too. And for anyone listening, it's
kind of one of those ones that maybe you want to do on a walk
or with a cup of tea. I want them to feel like
everyone that's listening right now, cosy, like they're here on
the couch with us. And it's OK to feel the feelings
during this topic because we live, I think in Australia, we
have this real culture of she'llbe right, everything will be
(02:17):
fine. And we just suppress and think
that we need to move through things often too quickly.
So from a psychologist's perspective, what is grief?
What is happening to us when we're experiencing grief?
So many different things. So grief is like more than just
sadness. We should probably be the, I
guess, the go to feeling that people would associate with
(02:39):
grief. But it's really like a bundle of
pain, I guess, which is why it feels so like confronting and
scary and something that we wantto avoid.
And it's not just like bereavement grief.
So the grief of like losing someone or it's also could be
identity grief, like seasons of transition grief of like losing
(03:01):
a relationship, like breakups. And it's that idea of like, we
only grieve if we've truly loved, appreciated or cherished
something. So when we look at it that way,
it's actually like a, a yearningfor something that has brought
us so much like life and love and joy and whatever that might
be. Whether that is a relationship
(03:23):
that's no longer like existing with us anymore, a breakup,
whether that's a person that's passed a life phase, a career.
Like you would have maybe even felt that with like career
changes. Like, although there's seasons
of change and there's excitementand in evolving into like maybe
the next evolution, there's alsothis sense of loss and concern
and worry and angst that can come with it.
(03:48):
Yeah, I think that's really important to touch on and that
you can be holding 2 emotions atthe same time.
Like, you can be excited for change, but you can also be
grieving something that you're leaving behind at the same time.
That is such a common experienceof feeling multiple competing
(04:08):
emotions at the same time, and we don't as a society know
really how to hold them very well.
Like it feels almost wrong. Like, how could we feel so much
excitement and eagerness and also so much loss and sadness
potentially at the same time? Yeah.
It's one of those, like, experiences I see a lot, like
(04:28):
postpartum as well, that feelingof like having kind of met your
new love of your life, which is like so much excitement and so
much love and so much joy. And also like, hinges of like,
oh, that's who I used to be in the identity that I used to
have. And that's OK.
Like, it's all one, Like, it's all OK to have multiple
(04:51):
experiences at the same time. Yeah.
But it does feel odd for people.And I, I feel like whenever I'm
sure everyone listening has probably experienced the death
of a loved one at some point. And I feel that can be really
messy too, because life keeps moving forward and you go
through these cycles, which I'm sure we can talk about soon.
(05:13):
Where OK, I'm feeling excited about life again or like there's
glimmers of hope, but I'm then every now and then reminded of
of a loss and a sadness. And it's, yeah, I guess it's a
very human to not just you don'thave to be 1 or the other at any
given time. Yeah, I think that's the main
thing with grief. It's like everything's OK.
(05:36):
Like if your experience in one day is complete and utter
sadness and lots of tears and lots of just grief and grieving,
and then another day there's happiness and joy and love and
excitement, and then you fall apart, that's OK.
Like there's no actual. It's messy, like true grief,
when we're actually like, allowing ourself to experience
(05:58):
it is really healthy and really messy.
Does everyone experience grief in the same way?
It's a good question. There's many models that try to
like predict grief, so there's one that's like a grief cycle
model that's used a lot. It was actually developed for
people when they found out they had chronic illness.
(06:20):
And it's that model of like, youknow, shock, denial, anger,
sadness, and then bringing it back up to hope.
And I've kind of gone away from that model because it does kind
of make it a cycle. And I've just from my experience
personally, like with grief and also with clients, it's like all
over the place. Like there isn't a set way to
(06:44):
grieve. So I guess my approach to it is
a continued bonds model, which is about like the sadness that
comes when, when losing some, let's pretend we're talking
about bereavement because that'sprobably a common one, like
having lost someone that you love.
The sadness that comes with thatis so beautiful because it, it
(07:08):
showcases like the depth of the bond and it showcases like a
real yearning for someone. There's so much beauty in that.
Like it makes, it makes me tear up when I'm dealing with clients
that are going through that because I just see so much like
yearning and love, like it's like the biggest expression of
(07:29):
love. So the continued bonds model
that I like, I guess advocate for is like, how do we keep that
bond alive? Like, how do we, like, lean into
all of these emotions and see them for what they are and see
the absolute, like, beauty and humanness in them rather than
shy away from them? It's that like, your sadness is
(07:54):
so indicative of the love that you shared and the deepness of
the bond that you've had with whatever you've lost.
And that's so special. And how do we honor that?
And can we have any rituals in your life that like, bring that
person back to life in some way?Like how do you continue that
(08:14):
thread because it's never fully lost?
I think that's beautiful. And those rituals, because I
don't know if you've experiencedit in your life, but I feel like
often when people pass away, we stop mentioning their names at
some point because it's hard or it's heavy, and then people are
still thinking about them. But having rituals or moments to
(08:37):
still celebrate them and remember them is really, yeah,
special. Yeah, 100%.
And that's such a common thing. It becomes almost too raw of a
pain point that we all avoid as a society and as friends.
We avoid because we don't want to trigger someone.
We don't want to make it too heavy, or we don't want to push
(09:00):
someone if they don't want to talk about something.
And so it's like we all kind of skirt around the topic and we
avoid saying names, but it's so important to like, it's so
important to speak that person, like still into your life, into
your existence. And it can be so individual.
Like I've had clients that like nature is one of the big ones I
(09:20):
see often, like people going forwalks and having a chat with
their loved one or like seeing certain symbols in the world
and, and saying hi, Poppy or hi,you know, hi, little one, if
you've lost a child or yeah, like having little moments of
just connection. Yeah, is so important.
(09:40):
For anyone that's wanting inspiration on what those
moments could be, do you have a few ideas?
It's so individual, so it has tobe accustomed be meaningful for
the individual ones that I've seen like cooking.
So for people that have lost someone who maybe they had a
certain recipe or a certain mealthat like reminds them of that
(10:02):
loved one, like making a ritual of like cooking that meal at a
certain time of the year or whenthey feel like a real separation
from that person. Nature, it's a big one.
Like connecting with nature, going on a walk and just talking
to that person in your mind or out loud.
Celebrating through like actually having like some sort
(10:24):
of sit down dinner with family. If it's like a birthday or an
anniversary, then sharing like good stories, like sharing fun
stories and having a laugh. Like it doesn't have to always
be sad. Yeah.
I, I say to clients all the timethat like tears are the most
highest vibration, the most likebeautiful indication of love
(10:45):
that I think we have when comingfrom like a non distorted place.
And a lot of what I deal with isgrief is actually not a problem
like grief is. It's a non problem.
So when I'm dealing with clients, yeah, I've got we've
got mood problems, depression, anxiety, we've got habits and
addiction problems that people want to change and we've got
(11:05):
relationship problems, that kindof problems that people deal
with. Grief is a non problem.
It's not a clinically like indicated problem.
Like it's a shared human experience.
It's like so normal. But what happens is we have
healthy grief and we have unhealthy grief.
And sometimes delineating from the 2 is like so important to
(11:25):
really just lean into the healthy side of sadness and loss
and love and shared memories andand happiness in in reliving
that person and and talking about them.
But it's so individual people like candles.
Yeah. Do you have any rituals that you
would do well that you've seen? Oh, I feel like you're right.
(11:47):
It needs to be definitely for the individual.
But I wonder if there's a few ways, because sometimes death
comes as a surprise, sometimes it's a long time coming.
And I wonder if there's almost things that you can pre plan
with loved ones if you do have that time.
Yeah. Where you're like every time you
see a rainbow or something like that.
(12:09):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. That's a beautiful thought and
definitely something that I've seen done when people have a bit
of a like a runway towards potentially losing someone.
And that's so complicated when that's the scenario because
there's the gift of a little bitmore time and the gift of some
level of knowing, but also just the complete pain of a prolonged
(12:34):
experience and and knowing that you're about to lose someone.
It's like, which is so painful at the same time.
But often like the beauty that can come in that is having
conversations, like talking to that person, really allowing
that person to know how much youappreciate them.
Speaking about like, you know, come back as a Sparrow or come
(12:55):
back as a rainbow for me or like, yeah, like, look over me.
Like those types of like conversations are so beautiful
and so like beautifully emotive.Yeah.
I often sit with clients and we'll just cry with them.
Like, obviously I keep myself together, but there's something
nice about just having like a human experience with someone.
(13:18):
Like, even as we talk about this, like I think about clients
that are going through that right now and, and the pain that
they're going through, but also the, the, the purest love that
they're sharing with the people that they're, they're going to
lose. Yeah, yeah.
How do you know? Because grief can feel icky,
whether it's that good, healthy grief or not.
(13:41):
How do you distinguish between the two?
Yeah, such a good question. And this is so important.
Healthy grief is that real senseof sadness for what's been lost,
so sadness for like that person no longer being here, if we're
talking about bereavement, and also like the sadness for what
(14:05):
could have been. So it's like future and past and
it's just that real sense of like yearning for someone to be
there and missing someone and wishing it were different or
wishing you could still kind of have them with you, missing
their presence, missing a hug that that's also like beautiful
and indicative of like love. Unhealthy grief is when we start
(14:29):
to see like blame come in. I should have, I could have, I
wish I never had that argument. Maybe if I did this differently,
something else would have happened.
And so we start to have like little like cognitive
distortions come into it should have overgeneralizations.
I should have done this or I could have done this and that
would have saved them. Or I, I didn't spend enough
(14:50):
time. Like a lot of regret can be
quite distorted in the way that it comes across.
And that just kind of makes something like this a really
hard human experience, way more difficult and complicated
because then you've got shame and blame and regret and anger
and resentment tied into the pain of healthy grief.
(15:14):
So often it is talking with someone that can actually help
pinpoint what is it that you're thinking and feeling and like,
is, is that part true? Let's talk about that part.
Is that actually fair on you? Yeah.
So that is probably more like with a professional, I guess or
with like if you've got good friends or family that are just
(15:34):
really able to give you space and time, you might have like
the the fortune of having that otherwise obviously with the
professionals really helpful. Yeah.
Do you find that anyone struggles to move forward from
their grief because it feels like they're losing the person
again, that they're grieving, ifwe're talking about the death of
(15:56):
a loved one? Yeah, of course.
Yeah. There's this fear of moving on
often that comes with grief and that fear of, well, if I start
kind of picking myself back up and engaging back in life, then
I'm not doing that person justice or I'm like getting
(16:17):
further and further away from them.
And that's such a common experience.
And that's part of like the kindof complicated grief because
it's, if we think about it, it'snot true.
Like we're not going that personcan be there.
That continued bonds model that person can be there for the rest
of your life, no matter if you've re partnered, no matter
(16:38):
if you've had another child, no matter if like life has moved
on, that continued bond can still be like honoured and
remembered no matter what. And the way of like celebrating
that person's life doesn't disappear as your life continues
to move on. I do a, a method called the
(16:59):
grief method with clients, whichis so powerful and really
emotive. Like often I'm crying in the
sessions too. As weird as it is.
I'm like becoming really good atlike being OK to be a bit more
like human. Yeah.
As a psychologist, I think that's like come with a bit of
(17:20):
time. Yeah.
Like I can be professional and put together enough.
But also like I feel. And one of the things we I do in
that method is I will ask the client, you know, what are some
of the thoughts that are coming up for you right now?
And they might say like, well, Iworry that if I move on or if I
start dating again, then I'm like letting go.
(17:43):
Like I'm really like cutting thebond And I'm really like not
doing them justice. I'm doing something wrong.
I feel guilty. Or they might say, like, I wish
I had said XY Zed. I didn't know that was going to
be the last time I I saw that person.
And I just, I can't let that go.Like that's so painful for me.
(18:08):
And so I'll hear all their thoughts.
And then it's because I do a lotof role plays in, in therapy.
It's like one of my favorite things and it's really helpful.
I find and clients find it really helpful.
I will then play that person's voice to them and ask them to,
to the best of their ability, bethat the loved one that's
passed, like step into their voice.
(18:29):
Like often people know their loved one like really well.
So I will play there like, you know, I, I worry that I didn't
say this and I'm really sad about the last conversation we
had. And then the client will play
the role of the person that's passed.
And it's, it's the most moving thing ever because it helps to
(18:51):
like uncomplicated, like the complicated nature of it.
Because often that's when you hear like, like I've heard
people say things like, like I had someone that one of their
thoughts was it was someone thathad a young, a young child, like
a teenager who, who did get sick.
And without disclosing too much,basically, she said you can go
like you don't have to say. And, and the child did pass.
(19:16):
And one of the complicated natures of, of that person's
grief was, I shouldn't have toldyou to let go because I, I like,
gave up on you too soon. And then you passed.
And it's like a big regret I had.
And when I played that role for her and she played the role of
her son to the best of her ability.
(19:36):
And obviously, it's like, we've got to be really safe in order
to do this because it's such an emotive kind of practice.
Like he came up with, like, I, Istayed alone longer because of
the love that you had for me. And like, in that instant, it
was gone like that. That worry and that fear of hers
was like, it had dissipated justfrom being able to actually
(19:57):
like, really role play. Like, is it true?
What would your son actually say, you know?
I love that idea of role play. Is it something that obviously
beautiful done in a therapy room?
Is it something that people could do at home, say through
writing in their journal or a letter or something like that,
(20:18):
do you think? Yeah, yeah, a lot of journaling
practices can be really helpful.Like what would you like to say
to that person? What would they respond to the
best of your knowledge? You know the person best.
And having a bit of a dialogue in a journal is like a beautiful
way to do that. Well, speaking it like like
people can have, obviously we all can have conversations in
(20:39):
our head and we can do that withpast people.
You know, we can have that levelof a role play in our own mind.
Sometimes it is. I mean, it is helpful to be in a
kind of contained environment where you've got someone that
can like really process you through things, but it doesn't
(20:59):
mean that you can't do it yourself as well.
Life can be really busy and sometimes it's just not
convenient to grieve on a particular day or time.
There might be a really busy work deadline.
We might have commitments looking after kids or just
whatever's going on in our life.Is it actually possible?
(21:21):
I'm sure it's not necessarily healthy, but is it possible to
be like, you know what? I can't deal with this today.
Yeah. I'm going to let future me
process it. Is that?
Is that a? Thing certainly possible and
it's really it's really done andI can totally understand that
(21:42):
living in our world there is an idea of like contain that and
deal with it later and what's that worth?
In a meeting, it'll be like, canwe park that?
Yeah. We'll put that on the shelf.
Yeah, we'll go back to corporate, We'll circle back on
that. We'll just shelve that for a
bit. Yeah.
And of course, like there is an element of wanting control of
(22:06):
your own emotions and your own privacy that is really
important. And so being able to just for a
moment, compartmentalize is probably the right word.
Like compartmentalize that part and be able to get on with
whatever you're doing. The important thing is that we
do pick it back up. And that might be just a simple
genre reflection at night. That might be going to a yoga
(22:29):
session and being in the Shavasana and just kind of
feeling into the feelings. That might be like calling a
loved one and actually having a chat.
So like playing music that mightbe emotional and might just make
you just cry on the way home from work, but like, having
those little moments to release the sadness and actually lean
into the experience is so conducive to like, healing and
(22:52):
processing emotion. But it doesn't have to be all
the time. And we can pick and choose.
Like I would hate for someone tofeel at the mercy of their grief
and not able to kind of control at all when it shows up, because
then it is like a real vulnerable feeling walking
through life, feeling as though people can expose your emotional
(23:14):
side at any minute. Yeah.
And I suppose it's good to remind ourselves that even if we
do think, OK, I'm going to schedule my grief for Sunday,
I'm going to deal with it on Sunday.
It's not linear. And it's not just going to be a
box that you can tick and complete within a day.
Like it is still going to come up.
Yeah. In different moments.
(23:35):
Yeah. One of the models I chat with
clients about with grief, which speaks exactly to your point
about it's not that we can just box ticket like I'll schedule
that for Sunday, I'll give myself an hour and after that
I'll be perfectly fine and great.
Like how great if that was a failure I will take done.
I've done my. Grief I felt, I felt that I come
(23:58):
up again. I picture it as like a box and,
and when we're first in the throes of grief, the grief is
like a huge ball that takes up the entirety of that box,
meaning it hits all our edges like we're raw.
Like it really it hits all, it'snot contained.
It hits all of our whole soft spots.
(24:20):
We feel like we could kind of betriggered at the drop of a hat
and it takes up our whole mind space.
It's very hard like people oftendescribe.
And I know for me personally, when I've lost people that I've
loved a feeling of like, why thehell is the world still moving?
Like this doesn't make sense. And I hear that all often, like
people driving being like, well,why are people still driving
(24:41):
around just going to work? Like, what do you mean?
Like the world needs to pause? Like my world's collapsed.
Like why is life still revolving?
Like, why is the planet still turning?
Like it doesn't make sense. Like this is huge.
Like, why? Why is not everyone reacting,
You know, And that's because theball is like so huge, Like it's
our entire experience and existence and grief.
(25:05):
I'm one of those like advocates for grief will like never leave
us. Like it's not a process that you
go like I've started. I'm through it.
I'm out the other side. I never feel it again.
It's our capacity, our box kind of expense.
If you think of like a ball now in the middle of a big room and
it's floating around the room, sometimes it will hit the edge.
(25:27):
This bowl of grief will just be in you floating around.
And sometimes it will just kind of like wear its head and hit
the edge. And it's in those moments where
it's like, oh, I need to honor that.
Or maybe I need to ritualize that person or I need to just
give myself some space. I'm feeling it, and that's OK.
That's like, I'm glad. I'm glad that my love for that
person is still here and still around and still strong, but
(25:51):
it's still there, like it's always going to be there.
It's not that it, the bulb disappears and we kick it off
into another field and it never comes back.
Yeah. Yeah.
It's just our capacity grows andexpands.
Yeah. And there's so much like growth
that can happen from people having large, like life
experiences. It changes people.
And that's their their capacity,their box expanding, their
perspective expanding. It's the same when when you have
(26:13):
your bulb, like your perspectiveon life just gets bigger, Like
you're like what is meaningful and valuable in your life will
just like it's already happening, right?
It's just expanding the same when you've had something really
a loss happen, your perspective on life, your desire to do
(26:35):
certain things, your behaviours might change because your box,
who you are has expanded around it.
You've become bigger. During some of my prep for this
interview, I was doing research,I was chatting to friends.
I was also scrolling grief TikTok which is.
I haven't done that. OK, if you if you wanna feel the
feels like it's heavy. I'm one of those that I will
(26:57):
literally, if I scroll on a sideview, yeah, you'll just have
tears rolling in my face. My husband would be like, what's
wrong with you? Yeah, I got.
This, this dog, it's about to pass away, Yeah.
I'm with you. And there's like the grief
poetry side of TikTok. I went deep, but but one thing
that I came across was Jay Shetty was actually talking
about carrying grief like a stone in your pocket.
(27:18):
Yeah. And he was saying that that
stone never leaves your pocket. You just become stronger.
And so carrying it around, it just becomes that little bit
lighter. That's.
Exactly how I see it. Yeah.
Yeah. That's a beautiful metaphor.
I've never heard of that one. But yeah, that's that's exactly
it. You just learn to cope.
Yeah. Better.
Yeah. It doesn't go away.
You're just and nor would you want it to go away.
(27:40):
And this is the thing I, I say with clients all the time, The
grief or the sadness or the longing and the yearning is so
indicative of your love for someone and the, the impact
they've had on your life and like your gratitude and your
(28:01):
just desire for them to still behere.
That's so powerful. That is so beautiful.
We don't want that to go away. I want you to be loving your
life and experiencing like the best life possible.
Like I want you to be like so engaged in your life and able to
(28:24):
and able to do whatever you wantand not feel like hindered by
it. But like I want that person's
bond to be with you for the restof your life.
That's so powerful. I'm glad you've had that and I'm
sorry you've lost it, but I'm like, let's keep it.
Yeah, what a beautiful reframe. Yeah, I think that's probably
what society misses, at least inAustralia, yeah, we don't have a
(28:49):
great grief process. Like there's societies where the
whole community will get involved and it's so spiritual
and it's so like ritualized and there's so much encouragement
for real outward expressions of grief and anger and yelling and
crying and really kind of like dramatic.
(29:09):
Like if we saw it, we would be alittle bit taken aback
potentially in Australia. But in those cultures, there's
less of this complicated kind ofnature to it.
There's often just more continuing bonds, models going
on just because of the cultural piece of it.
There's a cultural aspect to like, grief.
Yeah, it's so interesting, isn'tit, to kind of unpack that what
(29:32):
happens if we don't deal with our grief and we just, she'll be
right, keep moving. Yeah.
Is it going to come up later in life in different ways for us,
like if we've if we haven't honoured?
Yeah, I think motion, yeah, probably a bold statement, but I
would say like you can often align someone's unprocessed
(29:57):
grief or not really leaning intotheir grief with physical
ailments. So like the body will speak if
the person's not allowed the emotions to come out.
So you'll see physical ailments,conditions pop up.
Bold statement. But I've seen like people get
things like cancer and like really severe conditions
(30:18):
following someone's passing, like, you know, with time
addictions, like people kind of going to more like unhealthy
behaviours, having more say wineor yeah, just it comes up in
some way. The way is very unique to the
individual and to their like body as well.
Because our bodies, some of them, some of our bodies are
(30:40):
just more robust and resilient than others, which is kind of
born with a state of like how much our bodies can cope with.
So some people will see it more in headaches and not being out
of sleep and chronic fatigue or autoimmune conditions.
Well, cancer and it's like severe form that isn't, from my
knowledge, scientifically backed.
(31:00):
It's just anecdotally from what I've seen.
But it makes sense to me as a clinician.
Like if emotions we saw in our body, if big emotions that had
every right to be there, that meant so much, if they weren't
tuned into and focused on and listened to and allowed to
(31:21):
outwardly express, then they just get clogged basically in
our system. And that just leads to ailments.
Yeah, I'm definitely not a health professional, but I have
seen that play out time and timeagain as well with people.
And yeah, I think there's definitely something to that.
I've heard that that has that saying that our body holds what
(31:43):
our mind isn't ready to deal with yet, and that's not
healthy. Like we said, it shows up in all
sorts of ways. Yeah, if someone's grieving at
the moment, like a friend or a partner or a loved one, how can
we best support them? Just presence would be like the
(32:03):
simplest one, like just be around.
If you know your friend well, like, then you'll know better
about how to navigate it becausecertain people would need the
right setting to be able to openup about it.
So there's certain friends that you wouldn't want to ask them
(32:24):
how they are in a public settingbecause you know them well
enough to know that that them falling apart would feel too
embarrassing for them. And so it's like really like
trying to think about from your best your knowledge, how do you
think that person is in life? And how can you most safely kind
of help them open up? I think the mistake a lot of us
(32:46):
make is we avoid because we're really scared of saying the
wrong thing. We're really scared of making
someone cry. And so then we just kind of
avoid the topic, which can make the person feel really isolated
and kind of do more damage than good.
(33:08):
So I would always say it's better to try than not try at
all. Like, better to try and speak to
that person and not speak at allthe things that definitely do
not, do not make any kind of super hopeful remarks.
(33:29):
Like people often like who say, oh, my, my friend said, well,
everything happens for a reason.I just felt so angry when they
said that. Of course you did.
Yeah. Yeah.
Because your whole world's like falling apart and you're not,
you're not seeing any reason right now.
Yeah. So sometimes those like remarks
that are really trying to be helpful and trying to be
(33:50):
positive and like pep someone upare like the most harmful.
It's actually really important. And something that I have
learned to do better since beinga clinician is like going into
the darkness with someone is thehealing, not trying to help.
So say you were grieving, like sitting with you and saying
(34:14):
like, like, tell me what it's been like, what do you miss?
What are you worried about in the future without this person?
How did you find out? What was that?
Like? How are you sleeping and
allowing the person to go where they need to go?
And that and not being scared ofit because like, it makes sense.
Whereas often it will be like, what can I do to help?
(34:38):
Should we go and do this and, and pep you up and like,
everything's going to be OK. Like you've got this.
They loved you so much, they would be so proud of you, which
is all us just trying to like it's going to be OK.
I'm really scared of like going there like, hey everyone,
everyone's OK. We're like putting out fires.
Like we're all so scared to touch the topic, which is fine.
(34:58):
Like it's fine. We're all just trying to trying
to do our best. But if you're really a person
sitting there that's like, I have this friend that's going
through grief and I'm scared andI don't know how to help them.
The first thing to say to yourself is like you don't have
to help, like trying to help will be the thing that hinders
(35:21):
trying to understand will be thething that unlocks and even
saying, you know, like Ash, I'm I'm really scared because I
don't know how to like handle this well for you.
But I just want to know like howyou're going and what it's been
like, like sharing that you're actually afraid and like you
don't know how to best deal withit and you feel like unsure.
(35:43):
That's just a shared human experience, which I think is
really important. Yeah, I love that.
And I've heard the term once, sit in the mud.
Yeah. And like, sometimes you just
need to sit in the mud with people.
Yeah. And as a optimistic problem
solver, I've been guilty many times of wanting to rush through
that with friends and take them out and distract.
(36:05):
And like I now know through lifeexperience, that's not helpful.
You just need to sit in the mud and be there with you.
And it can be that ebb and flow of like, sit in the mud, then go
and have a fun time. Like, and that's the dual, the
duality of it. Like allow, allow people to
engage in distraction in a beautiful way that keeps
(36:27):
lightness involved in their life.
Because we all need lightness amongst darkness to allow the
distraction. It's not, it's not like we
always have to be in the mud. But if we're always just up in
the let's go out and like, let'sgo to a cafe or we'll go out for
drinks and this let's go away toByron or whatever we're going to
do for the weekend. If we're always up, up, up, then
we risk our friend feeling aloneor isolated.
(36:52):
Yeah. So a bit of like getting into
the mud, getting, yeah dirty is important.
Parenting that. Yeah.
As a woman growing a baby, A fewdo Mum, how am I going to
explain grief and death to my future little girl?
Hopefully you won't have to explain that in the like the
(37:16):
earliest years of life because it is a big topic and everything
with like parenting and needs tobe like developmentally
appropriate because we don't want to overload brains with
content that's too much for the little like their little souls.
But I would just, I mean, overall, like as a parent, no
(37:38):
emotion is bad. Would be like my key to like
parenting. Like you're feeling sad because
your friend Tommy's moved away. So that's grief, all right.
So it doesn't always have B death.
You're feeling sad because your friend Tommy's moved away and
their family's gone to live in Canada.
It's my example. That's a nice light example.
(38:00):
Let's use a light example. Let's use this.
Yeah, yeah. Of course you're feeling sad.
Tell me more about you and Tommy.
What's he like? How do we make sure that you can
still connect with him? What do you like about him?
Like, tell me more about that. Of course you feel sad.
He was such a great friend of yours and he still can be, just
in a different form. So it's like going into the
(38:21):
sadness and like allowing the little one to feel OK that
they're sad. It's like stopping the
conditioning of like sad is bad,anger is bad, sad is often
powerful. Sad is often a sign of love.
Like sad is often a sign of connection that's been lost or
yearning for something. Anger is often a sign of
(38:44):
boundaries being crossed or a sign of frustration and not
being quite there yet. Like that's, that's helpful.
So a lot of like the real talking about emotions in all of
their complexity and not having good or bad emotions.
If it was to be a conversation around having like someone
having passed away, people have all different ways of doing it.
(39:05):
And I don't really have like a like a set conversation that I
would have, but using the the proper words I think is
important when they're kind of like a old enough, like you're
maybe not going to do that with a 2 year old.
But when they're getting a little bit older, you know, if
it might be a grandparent, hopefully that would be like the
(39:26):
most comfortable passing. Hopefully, like it's no one in
their very, very immediate circle.
You know, Grandma is no longer with us.
She's passed away. That's really sad.
We miss her. And we're going to bake some
cookies today because she made the most beautiful cookies.
And. Yeah, we're going to miss her
(39:48):
and we're going to do little things to make sure that we can
keep chatting to her and we can keep chatting to her.
We don't know where she's gone or some people have religious
beliefs, so sharing that with their kids, that's fine.
We don't know where she's gone, but it doesn't mean she's gone.
Like we can still chat to her. What would you like to say to
her? Do you have anything you want to
say to her now? What do you love about Nana or
Grandma? I don't know.
I see beauty in it, but I don't know why I see beauty in it.
(40:10):
Am I weird? Do you see beauty in that?
Yeah, and I think it's because of what you've said, like
there's this reoccurring threat of love for this whole
conversation. Yeah, you know, going to grieve
something that maybe that's actually more complicated.
You could grieve something that there was also hatred and anger
towards. That's added layer to it.
But yeah, I think it it highlights love and connection.
(40:34):
And even if it was, you're right, even if it was a
complicated relationship, that'swhen you're often not
definitely, but often you will have complicated nature in the
grief that is helpful to unpack.But there's still a bond.
And even if it's just a biological bond, there's still a
loss there of a bond. And so it can really confuse
(40:55):
people when they had they've maybe been estranged from a
family member and that person's past and they feel sadness, even
though they didn't no longer have like a real connection with
that person. Well, it's, it's still a bond
and there's a society pressure of like bonds with family
members. There's like so much like
stuckness in that that would be really complicated to traverse.
(41:20):
And in that will be a lot of complicated emotions of like,
was there things left unsaid? Did you have to become a
strange? Did you make the right
decisions? Like there's that's the
complicated stuff that will pop up that's helpful to work
through. But yeah, grief comes up, even
if the relationship wasn't just all sunshine and roses, which is
so interesting. Yeah.
(41:43):
So obviously unpacking grief with a psychologist like
yourself is a really safe space to do that.
If someone's grieving right now and for whatever reason can't
get to a psychologist, are theresome help lines or resources
that you could recommend? Yeah, so we're so lucky in
Australia that we have a lot of free phone counselling services
(42:05):
on offer. So Life lines one of them.
It's often advertised if people are like feeling at risk
themself or feeling any kind of suicidality, but it's not just
for that. And that's something to be
really aware of. Like people can call Lifeline
for whatever's going on. And some of that could be grief.
(42:27):
So that's a free phone service. There's the grief line, which is
purely for grief and that's a phone service.
Beyond Blue is a beautiful app and a beautiful website and a
beautiful service that have lotsof different resources if you
want to like resource up and like learn more about it.
The other thing is if you're like both of us coming from
corporate like EAP employee assistance programs, like just
(42:52):
reminding ourselves of like, OK,let me just check if my employer
has an EAP because often there'ssome like great clinicians on
the other end and that's free. And so then you actually are
speaking with a psychologist that you could have multiple
conversations with. The tricky thing with Lifeline
and grief line is you won't speak to the same person.
So it can be just really helpfulto have like a conversation that
(43:14):
just lifts you a little bit or allows you just to feel.
But if you want more of a continued kind of rapport, EAP
would be really helpful. People often don't know that
they can go to their GP and get a mental health care plan.
You don't have to have any kind of mental health illness.
And as I said at the start, likegrief is a non problem problem
in how I like conceptualize it. There's nothing clinically
(43:36):
wrong, but you can still have a mental health care plan which
gives you rebates. And then you can find a
psychologist that feels like is a good fit.
And that's probably one of the things I advocate the most.
And one of the things I say to every single client in their
first session is like, if this doesn't feel right, that's
(43:57):
totally OK. Don't give up on the profession.
It's just maybe that you haven'tfelt the right connection with
me and that's fine. Like I will be a great therapist
for many, but not all. And try other people until you
find the right fit if this hasn't felt like conducive for
you. Because often one of the things
(44:17):
I hate the most is if someone's gone to see a psychologist,
they've had a bad experience andthey give up.
Because I've just seen like how much growth and change and
support a really good therapeutic bond can have on
people. And I hate the fact that
sometimes that can be lost if they've had a bad experience.
So like testing the waters and trying different things,
(44:38):
connecting with like if people are religious, like their church
often will have different thingsaround grief.
I've seen people really connecting with faith, which has
been beautiful to witness. Probably a few.
We could put them in the show notes.
Yeah, we'll definitely do that. Emma, thank you so much for
joining me and crying with me today.
I think this has been a really important topic to discuss, so
(45:01):
thank you so much for sharing your knowledge and wisdom with
everyone. I think, like you said, it's
something that we tend to avoid,but it's going to, we're going
to deal with it as humans throughout our life anyway.
So, yeah, yeah. It's one of those ones that we
just can't avoid. Yeah.
So we might as well talk about it.
We might. As well talk about it we might
as. Well, see the beauty in it.
Yeah. Yeah.
(45:22):
And we want to continue the bonds.
Yeah. Thanks for having me.
Thank you so much. So nice, Chad.
Yeah, appreciate you, you. Too.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
Betrayal: Weekly
Betrayal Weekly is back for a brand new season. Every Thursday, Betrayal Weekly shares first-hand accounts of broken trust, shocking deceptions, and the trail of destruction they leave behind. Hosted by Andrea Gunning, this weekly ongoing series digs into real-life stories of betrayal and the aftermath. From stories of double lives to dark discoveries, these are cautionary tales and accounts of resilience against all odds. From the producers of the critically acclaimed Betrayal series, Betrayal Weekly drops new episodes every Thursday. Please join our Substack for additional exclusive content, curated book recommendations and community discussions. Sign up FREE by clicking this link Beyond Betrayal Substack. Join our community dedicated to truth, resilience and healing. Your voice matters! Be a part of our Betrayal journey on Substack. And make sure to check out Seasons 1-4 of Betrayal, along with Betrayal Weekly Season 1.