January 8, 2025 • 61 mins
What happens when life shatters your heart and soul, and you're left to pick up the pieces? Join us for a poignant conversation with David Roberts, a retired addictions professional and adjunct psychology professor, who has transformed his personal tragedy into a powerful message of resilience. After losing his daughter Janine to cancer, David's journey through grief offers profound insights into the human condition, touching on themes of imperfection and acceptance. His candid reflections provide a window into how grief has reshaped both his personal and professional life, offering a relatable narrative to those grappling with loss.
In a world where empathy often feels scarce, the episode underscores the crucial role of compassion in the medical and therapeutic realms. David and I navigate the emotional complexities faced by caregivers, emphasizing the necessity of self-care and the value of peer mentorship to combat burnout and compassion fatigue. Our discussion is enriched by personal anecdotes, highlighting how emotional resilience is vital for both therapists and those they support. We also break down common misconceptions about grief and addiction, advocating for a more nuanced understanding of these deeply personal experiences.
Listeners are invited to challenge the myths surrounding grief and addiction as we explore transformative spiritual connections and practical coping strategies. With David's experiences as a guide, we explore the importance of creating a compassionate space where individuals feel heard and understood, without judgment. Whether you're a therapist, someone grieving, or simply seeking to understand the intricacies of the human experience, this episode promises to offer meaningful insights and heartfelt support along the journey.
To buy his book directly, and the opportunity to get it signed, send $20 to Venmo: @David-Roberts-61.
You can reach Dave the following ways:
Website: davidrobertsmsw.com
Author Site: psychologyprofessorandminister.com
The Teaching Journeys Podcast: https://rss.com/podcasts/theteachingjourneys/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/david.j.roberts1/
Instagram : @daver3103
Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/david-roberts-56690513/
Email bootsyandangel@gmail.com
Freed AI converts conversations into SOAP note.Use code Steve50 for $50 off the 1st month!
Disclaimer: This post contains affiliate links. If you make a purchase, I may receive a commission at no extra cost to you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:03):
Hi and welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy
.
A proud member of thePsychCraft Network, the goal of
this podcast is to demystifytherapy, what can happen in
therapy and the wide array ofconversations you can have in
and about therapy Throughpersonal experiences.
Guests will talk about therapy,their experiences with it and
(00:24):
how psychology and therapy arepresent in many places in their
lives, with lots of authenticityand a touch of humor.
Here is your host, steve Bisson.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Alors je devrais avoir quelqu'un qui fait cette
introduction partout où je vais.
I gotta go somewhere wherepeople do this introduction
everywhere I go.
Welcome to episode 186.
If you haven't heard 185 yet,it's about the rebranding, so
please go and check that out andyou'll hear more about the
project that, probably in April,will be culminating on April
16th on the 200 episodes.
(00:58):
So looking forward to that.
But episode 186, which you knowagain, it's not too far from
episode 200, is going to be withDavid Roberts.
David Roberts is a parent whoexperienced the death of a child
when his daughter, janine, diedof cancer in March of 2003 at
the age of 18.
He's a retired addictionsprofessional and adjunct
professor of psychology, childlife development at Utica
(01:21):
University.
Dave has also presentednumerous workshops on grief,
both locally and nationally.
He is the host of the TeachingJourneys podcast, which can be
found on most podcast platforms.
Go check it out.
I put a link in the show notes.
He also has a book called whenthe Psychology Professor Met the
Minister.
I know he's going to talk aboutit in the interview, I'm pretty
sure.
So I think it's going to beinteresting to go find that book
(01:44):
.
But here is the interview.
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(02:07):
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(03:55):
Well, hi everyone and welcome toepisode 186.
You know there are stories thattouch you and I don't want to
take any of the story away fromhim because I again, I'm the
type of person that's his storyto tell.
But we know I got a messagefrom Dave and wanting to be on a
podcast and it really, you know, it really touched me for
(04:16):
several reasons and not onlyabout his strength, but knowing
that he's an addictionspecialist and I've worked with
addictions for several years asI joke around, 25 in my career,
49 years as a human being withmy family, and so I really liked
a lot of the stuff that you'retalking about.
But I know we're going to talkabout specific stuff around
grief.
So, dave Roberts, welcome toFinding your Way Through Therapy
(04:39):
.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Steve, thank you for having me on the podcast.
I've been looking forward toour conversation.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, as long as I get the time right and I don't
send you wrong messages, we'llbe good, right?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Hey, if that's the worst thing that happened to me
this week, steve, it's a goodweek.
Hey, as I've learned to beembarrassed for 30 seconds and
then realize the onlyembarrassment is on me, I let it
go after that.
No, I've come to understandthat you know, we're all living
a human experience and it doesnot have to be a perfect
(05:10):
existence.
So I make room for mistakes,because it happens.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I mean, if we weren't human, we wouldn't make
mistakes, you know so.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah, perfectionism is certainly something that
people strive for, but it's anillusion, because the bar keeps
getting raised higher and higherfor what perfectionism is.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, and you're doomed to fail.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yep absolutely.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Being a New England guy.
Now I go back to Tom Brady.
He says the hardest part ofwinning all those Super Bowls is
that when you're on the top ofthe mountain there's only one
place to go Yep, and that's downto go yep and that's down.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yeah, and the fall is usually very steep and the
person who falls off of thatpedestal doesn't nearly get back
on or climb as high as they didwhen they, you know, before
they fell off.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
So well, you know, like I said, I read a little bit
of your bio, but I think thatmy audience didn't read your bio
yet, so how about you introduceyourself to my audience?
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Thank you, steve.
And for those who areencountering me for the first
time, my name is Dave Roberts.
Before the world of death anddying found me, I was living
very comfortably.
I still live very comfortablyin upstate New York, a little
suburb called Whitesboro, newYork.
(06:23):
My primary career, like yours,steve, was I worked for 27 years
as an addictions counselor.
I was a credentialed alcoholismand substance abuse counselor
for the state of New York.
I worked at an inpatientfacility, state-run inpatient
facility in upstate New Yorkcalled the McPike Addiction
Treatment Center.
I had my most satisfying yearsof in my career working with
(06:48):
individuals with with chemicaldependency and substance use
issues.
Because they were, I soondiscovered they were much more
than their addiction.
These were very brilliant, verycreative individuals who had
difficulty putting down thedance with their drugs of choice
.
But I also saw many whorecovered, who were in recovery
(07:11):
and whose presence I was blessedby.
I count the recoveringsubstance users that I worked
with among my greatest teachers.
I was also a clinicalsupervisor.
I retired after 27 years ofstate service, not so much
because the clients were wearingon me, it was the bureaucracy
(07:33):
that wore on me that typicallywas out of step with the needs
of the people who were providingservices.
When I had the opportunity toretire, I did.
When I had the opportunity toretire, I did Prior to retiring.
I also started a second careeras an adjunct instructor at
Utica University.
I was teaching psychologycourses and then later on in my
(07:56):
career I began teaching death,dying and bereavement.
And I'll give you thebackground in terms of how that
happened, because typicallyindividuals who start embracing
research or discussions aboutdeath and dying typically don't
do so at a professional choice.
It's usually personal tragedyand that's what the personal
(08:19):
tragedy of um that I'll alludeto in a second um, you know, got
me involved in that field.
So once I retired, moreteaching opportunities became in
place for me.
But again during my career, mylife took a drastic turn, and
this is with age 47.
This was in 2002.
(08:40):
My only daughter I have twosons, daniel and Matt, but my
only daughter, janine, wasdiagnosed with a stage four
tumor.
It was called a veliorrhabdomyosarcoma.
It was a connective muscletissue cancer.
She was diagnosed 24 days aftergiving birth to her first child
(09:03):
and my first grandchildchild,and what turned out to be her
only child, brianna, was born onMay 2nd.
Janine was diagnosed on May26th and on May 19th of 2002, I
met the requirements for mymaster in social work degree.
When I tell my story as far asthe back bio, I put those three
(09:25):
dates in for perspective.
May 2nd, I was exhilarated atbeing a grandfather for the
first time, knowing that mydaughter had a significant other
who was supportive, who wasgoing to take care of her.
May 19th, I completed a 25-yearjourney to get my graduate
degree.
Then, may 26th, I found outthat I had a terminally ill
(09:46):
adult child.
We went to Dana-Farber ResearchInstitute and Hospital in
Boston, one of the besthospitals in the world for
research on pediatric sarcomasand treatment of pediatric
sarcomas.
We were told, stephen afiveminute consult, that your
daughter has a stage 4 tumorwith bone marrow and lymph node
(10:07):
involvement.
There is no chance for a cureunless we put her cancer in
remission until we can find acure.
So what my daughter heard andwhat I heard was that unless
there's a miracle, yourdaughter's going to die.
And, as I saw, the tearsstreaming down her face and, as
(10:27):
I was just told, in total shock,um, this is what we were
looking at when we got home.
You know, we drove for fivehours, you know, from boston and
I had this old jeep cherokeeand she was in a lot of pain and
any I any bump I went over justexacerbated that pain.
When I got home she was sittingon the couch and I looked at
(10:50):
her and I started bawling myeyes out, buried my head in her
lap and I told her.
I said I'm sorry, my drivingmade you so, put you in so much
pain.
And she looked at me she goes,dad.
I was yelling because I was somuch in pain.
She goes, but she goes.
And she looked at me she goes,dad.
I was yelling because I was somuch in pain.
She goes, but she goes.
And she looked at me and shesaid I'm not going down without
(11:11):
a fight and what she told me Istays with me to this day.
She said if you need to talk tome and you can't sleep, come
wake me up.
Now I'm thinking to myself.
I have a child who is dying andshe's more worried about me
than she is her her ownprognosis.
She was.
She taught me about theresilience of the human spirit
in that moment just by herresponse to me.
(11:34):
She fought steve like hell for10 months to to uh, but her
chemo only got an 80% remissionIn January of 2003,.
Her cancer re-metastasized.
We were given a prognosis ofone to three months and on March
1st 2003, she transitioned andI call a transition from the
(11:59):
physical world to the spiritualworld.
Other people may look at it aspassing away or death.
However individualsconceptualize that.
I will work with thatvocabulary.
And 10 months after she wasdiagnosed, her significant other
and my granddaughter, briannaand Janine, had moved in with us
(12:19):
with their cat and our two catsand my two sons.
They had moved in prior, youknow, after she was diagnosed,
and he stayed with us withbrianna for four years after she
transitioned, because my grand,my daughter, asked him look
when, if something does happento me, I want you to stay with
(12:40):
my family until brand is readyfor kindergarten.
Then do what you need to do.
And he did that.
He was a man of his word, 19years old.
He had the responsibility ofsomebody twice his age and the
maturity of somebody twice hisage.
And you know, brianna wasalways a part of my life, our
life even after he remarried,and she's a part of our life now
(13:01):
.
She's 22 years old and has twodaughters of her own.
So, um, I am no stranger togrief, I need to just throw this
in there.
I've danced with death stevesince I've been five years old.
Since my father left, I lostnumerous my you know my mother,
my mother's transition, mymaternal grandparents, my
maternal grandmother and mymaternal aunt, who raised me
(13:24):
along with my mother after myfather left when I was five
years old numerous friends, pets, but the transition of my
daughter put me into a worldthat I that was totally foreign
and terrifying to me, and I'lljust leave it at that for now.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Well, you said a mouthful First of all.
First and foremost, sorry foryour loss number one.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Number two if you look at the, I can't remember
what the index is for stresslevels.
It's the highest stress youcould ever have.
Hearing your story gave megoosebumps.
I had read it and I hadgoosebumps.
And I heard it again and Istill had goosebumps, being a
Montrealer at heart.
When you talked about upperstate New York, hey, shout out,
I'm very big fan of that, andnow I live in the Boston area.
(14:08):
So when you talk about DanaFarber, you know I never wished
that to anyone but I always tellpeople probably the best place
to go ever If you need to go andshout out the Dana Farber who
has saved and many, many, manypeople that have extended
people's lives many, many timesof people I personally know.
So shout out to Dana Farber too.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
All right, and you know, one of the things I want
to mention about Dana Farber.
Even though that oncologist didnot give me the news in a way
that I would have preferred itit was like getting hit on the
head with a brick, you know,without warning I appreciated
the fact that she was honestwith us and let us know her
prognosis, which was not good tobegin with.
(14:51):
She had an 8-centimeter tumor.
She had every mortality index,steve, for her type of cancer
tumor size, bone marrowinvolvement, age, lymph node
involvement, you name it, shehad it.
Involvement, age, lymph nodeinvolvement, you name it, she
had it.
But one of the things that youknow, time has a.
You know, when you back awayfrom something, you look at it.
You know, over a period of timeyou have a different
(15:12):
perspective on things.
I think, and one of the thingsI looked at, was that I think
she was as uncomfortable givingme us the news as she was
receiving it, as if we werereceiving it.
She might have had a bad day,she might have already lost a
patient.
This might not have been thenews she wanted to give with,
with somebody so somebody soyoung.
So I tried to put myself in hershoes and in knowing what I
(15:34):
know now, the doctors take deathvery personally.
I think she took it aspersonally and as we did, and as
and it was as hurt by giving usthe news as we were receiving
it.
So looking at that, I was ableto kind of I didn't have any
anger, I just took a look at itfrom her perspective and said,
yeah, I could see why she mayhave given me the news the way
(15:56):
she gave it to us.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Well, you know, I think that number one.
You're right that Dana Farbertakes a lot of these things
personally and all the gooddoctors I've ever known and good
therapists and clinicians takethese things personally.
And people would say we're tooattached to our clients, blah,
blah, blah.
I say BS to that.
I think we need to, don't mind,it's the Boston way anyway.
They just tell you what it isjust like, straight out, they
(16:28):
don't sugarcoat it.
So maybe she's also from Bostonor from the Massachusetts area,
but I was thinking abouteverything you were saying.
You know, one of the standardquestions on finding your way is
to talk about have you everbeen in therapy?
Speaker 3 (16:50):
I'm assuming, with a lot of this stuff you said some
from age five on, there's got tobe some time.
You probably went to therapy.
Oh, absolutely.
One of the things is as atherapist myself I think some of
the best therapists I know havebeen in therapy themselves
because a lot of times, justwith the nature of the business
that we're in in terms ofworking with clients with a
plethora of challenges, the thechance for burnout and
particularly compassion fatigueif the organization is not in
(17:12):
step with the needs of themiddle management staff, the
line staff and the clients, isvery real.
Um, so, yeah, I've been intherapy.
Uh, primarily for losses that Iincurred.
I remember I went into therapyafter my mentor and supervisor
at McPike died of cancer.
(17:33):
He taught me everything I knewabout building teams, treating
people, treating clients.
His background Steve get thishe was an ex-Nvy SEAL commander
and a clinical social worker.
How's that for a combination.
He was the, the best therapistand administrator wrapped in one
package that I ever saw before,that I ever saw and I will ever
(17:57):
see since.
Um, so you know it was.
I went in therapy for thatbecause that was a major loss I
was.
Ironically, I was in therapybefore my daughter got sick and
I was doing an internship at alocal nursing home as part of
(18:19):
the requirement for my socialwork degree and old grief issues
began to surface regarding mymentor and my mother.
So I was referred to apsychiatrist who did not believe
in medications as the firstform of treatment.
He believed in actually doingtherapy, and so I was working
(18:41):
with him on specific unresolvedgrief issues when my daughter
got sick.
And then when I told him whathappened, he looked at me in his
very calm manner and said Well,david, our focus has changed.
Now we need to consider morepractical matters, and I stayed
(19:01):
with him for about two and ahalf years during Janine's
illness and after her death, andhe was a big, big help to me,
helping me put things inperspective.
He also was a liaison for workand work.
He's recommended that I go onmodified work duties, suspend
supervision, just do casemanagement for now, just until I
(19:21):
could get you know, re-engagedin life again.
For now, just until I could getyou know, re-engaged in life
again.
And so he was great and I'm afirm believer that if you're a
therapist, there's no, there'sno shame in having your own
therapist, and many therapistseither have their own therapist
or or have peer mentors or peer.
They engage in peer supervisionto bounce off particularly
(19:41):
challenging cases or look at youknow, specific issues where
they may be burned out or have acompassion fatigue or vicarious
traumatization.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
I agree, and me being a therapist who has been in
therapy for several years andyeah, I don't see my therapist
regularly now, but I do see himfairly regularly.
Sometimes it's a check-in,Sometimes it's hey, I need your
help for something, and weschedule.
Uh, I'm a firm believer thattherapy should be.
Everyone should have therapy atleast once a year.
(20:11):
I'm not once for life.
Once a year, hey, everything'sgood, Everything's not good.
If you need a little more, youdo it.
If you don't, that's fine, andI think that you're right.
The therapists that I know thathave been in therapy or continue
to be in therapy are probablythe best therapists I've ever
had, because the experience ofbeing on that other chair is so
important, because it gives youa different sense of compassion
(20:36):
and peer mentors and peersupervision.
Um, we do it.
Well, not now.
I mean, uh, when this comes outin January, we're going to
probably knock out playing golf.
But I have a bunch oftherapists Um, I'm the kid in
the team at 49.
Someone else is in fifties andthe other two are in their
seventies and I like to be thekid.
(20:56):
But we do peer supervision ifwe need to while we're playing
golf, and it's the best time inthe world.
We get fresh air, we get to getfrustrated, a little ball and
we get pure supervision with youknow.
I think it's like 150 years ofexperience among us.
It's just an amazing thing tohave and I'm a big fan of it.
When I think about everythingyou said, you know being.
(21:17):
You know especially, youstarted in the addiction field.
You know, I think aboutaddiction and grief as two
different things, but I'mwondering if your experience in
addiction helped you with thegrief of your daughter.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
As a therapist.
It didn't really help me, steve.
All the training in the worldthat I had, all the education in
the world that I had, didn'teven begin to prepare me for it
Before you go on.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
My favorite quote on that is this you cannot solve a
problem that the same mindcreated, and that's why you need
to talk to outsiders.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Yep, I think if it did, I probably would not have
been as rattled or as shaken ormy universe would not have been
turned upside down.
But there isn't a book, aparenting book.
There isn't a social work text.
There isn't a book, a parentingbook.
There isn't a social work text.
There isn't a psychology textthat says here's the blueprint
(22:10):
when a child dies or when youhave another loss that defies
the natural order of theuniverse.
Whether it's a young spouse,you know whether it's a sibling,
there's nothing to prepare youfor that, you just simply you
pretty much find yourself.
And I'm paraphrasing a quotefrom, I think, a book and I by
the name I think the guy'sgentleman's name is tom crider.
(22:31):
It's kind of like he wrote abook about his own grief journey
after the death of his daughterand he talked about it's like.
You know, for him it was liketrying to rummage through a box
of old clothes to find a sweaterthat fit, and for me it was
like who am I?
What kind of world do I want tolive in, now that my daughter
(22:53):
is not a part of that?
And that quote I amparaphrasing from the late great
drummer of Rush, neal Peart,who had his own specific
tragedies, with his wife anddaughter transitioning or dying
in 1997 and 1998, within 10months of each other.
And he said he went on a55,000-mile road trip to the
(23:15):
United States, mexico and Canada.
And on page 10 of his bookGhostwriter I remember this,
I've read this book severaltimes and I quote Neil Peart
several times he needed to takethat trip to decide what type of
a person he wanted to be andwhat type of world he wanted to
live in.
And that's what I was faced with, steve, and I think that's what
(23:36):
anybody I think, withoutverbalizing it.
That's what anybody who goesthrough life-altering loss is
faced with.
What kind of a person do I wantto be?
What kind of a world do I wantto live in?
At 47 years old, my midlifecrisis wasn't buying a Maserati,
trying to date women 25 yearsor younger than me.
(23:56):
It was what are my values now?
What are my priorities?
What are my beliefs?
What stays, what goes, whatgets expanded on?
It was a whole identity crisisfor me.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
And again mentioning sorry, I'm Canadian.
So Neil Peart, god rest hissoul, also died a few years ago.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
But I feel that and you know like I'll share my
backstory I know you've listenedto the podcast but my best
friend died when I was 12.
And my grief process was well,you better play well on Saturday
, because he won't be there andwe played football together.
That's why I was told that thatwas my grief process at the
time.
I don't blame anyone, by theway.
(24:39):
This is.
I always say that becausepeople are like oh, you're angry
at people.
No, anyone, by the way, this is.
I always say that because peoplelike, oh, you're angry at
people.
No, no, I'm not.
That's, that's what the 80swere all about.
Just move on.
So you know, I think that griefreally forms not only how we
see the world in the future, buthow we live our life on a daily
basis.
And for me, you know, that'skind of like why I became a
therapist and to this day, Inever want a human being to be
(25:00):
alone.
So I think you're absolutelyright.
Every day, I think of how luckyI am to be here and reminding
myself of what do I want to dotoday so that I enjoy life.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah, I mean, in spite of what's happened to me
and all the losses I've had inmy life, and particularly the
worst loss of my life with youknow, with my daughter, with my
daughter Janine, I considermyself a blessed man and I can
you know, with my daughter, withmy daughter Janine, I consider
myself a blessed man and I canyou know, I consider myself, you
know, every day I'm gratefulfor the students in my life.
I'm grateful for my boys.
(25:33):
I'm grateful for mygrandchildren, my
great-grandchildren.
I'm grateful to be able tobreathe, to be able to exercise,
to be able to do the thingsthat a lot of times people take
for granted.
But what I've learned is that Ilook at life now as a precious
commodity, because there's nodays guaranteed anymore, and
(25:55):
just because I've experiencedthe worst loss of my life
doesn't mean I'm not going toexperience more, and I already
have.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
It doesn't exclude you when something happens.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
No, I mean loss is as much a part of life as life
itself.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
You know, the one thing you mentioned is you know
you talked about someone passingaway versus going to the other
side or dying or whatever wordspeople use.
You know I, I, I encourage awhole lot of people and I know
maybe I'm jumping around here alittle bit, but when I talk
about grief, I tell people,whatever your belief system is,
no matter what it is, I thinkthat it is key to survive any
(26:31):
type of loss and I don't knowwhat you think about that.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Oh, absolutely.
I agree with you.
It's like it's what do youbelieve?
And what we need to do, steve,is not judge how people grieve,
not say that my way of grievingis better than your way of
grieving.
But how do you grieve?
What is it?
What strengths do you have thatare going to allow you to move
from the raw pain of grief toacceptance that my world is
(26:58):
permanently different?
But I'm willing to re-engage inlife anyway.
It's bearing witness to that,it's understanding it and it's
maybe in terms of bearingwitness and creating a space for
that person's belief to comeout, we might I might see
something that says you know, Ican incorporate that, that part
of your belief system thataligns with mine.
(27:20):
So what we're talking about issetting a stage not only for a
person's story to unfold, butfor critical thinking to occur,
for nonjudgmental presence tooccur and for creating a sacred
space where everybody's story isrevered.
And we don't have to agree withall parts of it.
We don't have to agree with anyof it, but we still have to
(27:42):
listen to it with respect and wetake those parts that resonate.
The rest we just we can,because we have free will, we
can leave behind.
But, yeah, there's no right orwrong way to grace, dave.
It's.
As long as it, I mean as longas what you're doing is not
hurting yourself or somebodyelse, it's all good, that was
(28:05):
exactly what I was going to say.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Actually, if it doesn't harm yourself or others,
what do I care if it's workingfor you?
And I think that that's theother part too is, you know, I
never underestimate how sacredmy job is to have people open up
about these hard things.
And I think that's the otherpart too is that when you know
you talk about grief being acertain way, I mean, I've read
(28:27):
grief books.
Obviously we're going to talkabout yours, but I've read grief
book after grief book, aftergrief book and guess what?
They're all valid.
You know, like when I hearpeople say Kubler-Ross's model
has been disproven, like butit's still kind of works for
some people and I'm not going tosay that it doesn't work for
some people- so I think thatwhen I think about grief, I also
tell people like, if you thinkthere's an actual book that
(28:50):
you're going to read and that'sgoing to take care of all my
grief first of all, that won'thappen, that it's going to
happen in two weeks, two days,two months, two years again not
predictable, because grief neverquite goes away.
Grief is always there and Ithink people forget about that.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
It's and it's true.
And you know, for meKubler-Ross's stages wouldn't
have worked.
I mean for the death of a child, I mean, and for any type of
loss I mean.
I think we grieve to a certaincertain extent for the rest of
our lives and it isn'tpathological Grief is just love
expressed.
You know, the amount of love wehave for that person I think
(29:27):
correlates to the amount ofinitial raw pain we feel because
of their lack of their physicalpresence.
For me, the stages of griefkind of went like this, and I'm
just, you know, it's just likethey were all scrambled, they
were all yeah, it's just so.
Yeah, it's just so.
And research has proven for thethat the stages of grief don't
really say how, don't reallyreflect how people accurately
(29:49):
grieve.
Like you said, for some peopleit may work.
For me it didn't work.
And there, even after 21 yearsof the physical absence of my,
my daughter, I still yearn forher presence.
There are days where I canstill feel sadness, but I look
at it as part of the deal.
Now it's another way for me toremember her, to honor her, and
I can also learn from my sadnessand every episode of sadness
(30:13):
now I have, I I believe, turnsme into a more compassionate
person for somebody else.
I didn't see that in earlygrief.
I saw that more as a curse thana blessing at this point.
But now I take a look atsadness, says, okay, this is
another opportunity for me toget in touch with my authentic
feelings and to be able to totransmute that into compassion
(30:34):
for for my fellow human being.
And so I've learned thateverything is in service to us,
good and bad.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Well, while you were talking, I did the roadmap to
grief and I want to show it toyou.
For those of you who arelistening to the podcast in
their car and they can't go tothe video, please go to my
YouTube, because it's worth it.
But here's the map to grief.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
And I don't even want to say it, so I want you guys
to go to YouTube.
But that's exactly how I seegrief.
If you think it's going to,I'll give a small spoiler.
If you think it's a straightline, then I mean don't even,
don't, even like.
That's not grief.
There's no such thing as astraight line, and sometimes
when I talk about grief withsome of my clients, I also talk
(31:20):
about it as a big mountain andmost people want to circle it.
They don't want to get throughit, and when they get through it
they're like oh, it's gone, no,turn around, it's still there
and it will always be there.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Yeah, and you know, you can try it out, run it, you
can try to suppress it, but it'sstill going to catch up with
you.
So you, you, you.
The only way, the only way todeal with grief is to go through
grief and to literally workthrough it and move through it.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
And I think that that's why you know, like I
think, that sometimes therapistsdon't know how to deal with
grief.
I think that you know becauseyou know.
Call it transference, if youwill, or counter transference.
But I think it's hard sometimesto know what to say to people
who are going through griefbecause we put ourselves in
other people's shoes.
That's empathetic.
I don't think, that's to me.
(32:07):
That's why I don't say it'stransference or
countertransference.
But it's also sitting insomeone's shoes and going geez,
I really don't know how I dealwith that.
Do you have any tips or ideasfor therapists on best support
individuals who had a loss?
Oh, I think one of the things isto downplay clinical expertise
when you're dealing withindividuals with loss, I need to
(32:28):
get a clap machine.
You're awesome, I agree.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Thank you, steve.
And there is a model of sittingwith bereaved individuals that
was developed by RichardTedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun
called Expert Companionship.
They wrote a book back in the90s called Helping Bereaved
Parents a Clinician's Guide.
They are also the individualswho put a vocabulary.
(32:52):
They talked aboutpost-traumatic growth and they
talked about the dimensions ofpost-traumatic growth after
trauma which, as you know, hasbeen thoroughly researched and
proven to be a valid phenomenonwith all kinds of loss, all
kinds of trauma.
But they talk about expertcompanionship where essentially
(33:13):
you show a compassionatepresence, a willingness to
listen to an individual's storyas they talk about their loved
ones.
They talk about specificquestions to ask to understand
the relationship that thatperson had with their loved one
and essentially it's creating apresence where that individual's
(33:36):
story becomes significant andwhere they can understand who
the bereaved person lost throughtheir specific eyes.
And it's not offering advice,it's not offering solutions,
it's simply creating acompassionate presence, giving
feedback on what they hear andfinding out what resources do
you need for me today that canbe of help to you to move
(34:00):
through your journey at thisparticular time, and it shows a
willingness to be there for themin the long haul and therapists
can do that create a spacewhere they're listening first
and the best therapists I knoware the best listeners I've ever
found where they let the storyunfold.
They're going to go a long wayand not try to say, well, this
(34:23):
is where you should be in yourgrief because, like you said,
it's not a straight line.
Everybody is going to bedifferent depending on the
nature of the loss, depending onthe nature of the relationship,
the trauma that was attached toit.
It's going to be different foreverybody, so create a space for
that story to occur.
Work, I believe, on helpinghelping individuals embrace
(34:44):
different perspectives, whetherit's spiritual perspectives or
perspectives that will help themtransform the relationship with
their loved ones so that theycan continue to maintain
connection with the essence ofwho they are and their spirit,
so that they are literallymoving through grief with them,
as opposed to, after a certainperiod of time, burying their
(35:07):
grief and moving on as if lifewas normal again.
Loss changes the landscape of aperson's life forever, and if
we as therapists can recognizethat this is a permanent change
and we can allow an individualto empower them to talk about
that and talk about how thatfeels for them and share stories
(35:28):
about their loved one and thenoffer them specific coping
skills, whether it's suggestingjournaling, whether it's
suggesting support groups,whether it's suggesting other
types of experiential exercisesor groups that can help them
shift their perspective on loss.
And again, let the client drivethe bus.
(35:49):
The client will tell you whatthey need and if therapists can
do that, they would not need tohave experienced a specific loss
themselves to create space forit.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
I mean I remember my undergrad in psych 101 and I
can't remember who the professoris, but my professor.
The first time he says how manypeople tell things that therapy
is saying I know what you'regoing through and a bunch of
hands went up.
He's like you're all going to belousy therapists because you
don't know, what they're goingthrough, and I always thought
(36:22):
that was something like I tellpeople.
That's psychology 101.
If you think you know what aperson's going through, you're
probably a lousy therapist.
You might have an idea, youmight have a ballpark figure,
but you don't know what theperson's going through because
every unique challenge not onlygrief, but any challenge is
unique to that person from theirperspective.
(36:43):
So just want to mention thattoo.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I think it makes sense, steve, because I mean, we
can say things like I know howyou feel Well, no, you don't,
because you're not in my skin,but I can understand, I can ask
you, I can reflect in terms ofyou know, boy, it sounds like
you know you're really sad aboutthis particular situation,
you're angry about thisparticular situation.
Tell me more.
So, basically, you'rereflecting what you see as an
(37:06):
emotion, with the understandingor thought, with the
understanding that that clienthas a power to agree or disagree
with that and can correct youwithout the therapist taking it
personally.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
The other line that I really like to say specifically
around grief and even trauma,really like to say specifically
around grief and even trauma.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
I tell people.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
I can only imagine how you feel, and that that's
validating.
Without telling a person I knowhow you feel, I can only
imagine makes it sound like,okay, it's valid for me to not
even know how to react, and Iuse that line a lot.
So spoiler alert to all myclients who are listening to the
podcast right now.
But the truth is is that's nota line that I rehearse, but I
certainly know that that's theright thing to say, because the
(37:46):
day I say to someone I knowexactly how I feel, I probably
will land like take my license,give it back to the state of
Massachusetts and say, all right, I can't do this job.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Well, you know that also gets into the other dilemma
that therapists go through interms of therapist
self-disclosure when, when isappropriate self-disclosure?
When it isn't, I mean for me.
Now, if somebody who'sexperienced loss, I can pretty
much say to somebody I can, Ican kind of feel where they have
, particularly if it's a loss ofa child.
So but what I won't do is I sayI, I can say I can I under, I
(38:17):
can understand where you'recoming from.
In that sense, I can do thatand say this is my, this is what
I did to help me.
This may help you.
When counselor self-disclosurebecomes unethical, it's when the
therapist is using the clientfor their own form of therapy.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Bingo I think that's what's changed right?
Speaker 3 (38:37):
I mean I tell people.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
I share my story with my clients.
The day we're recording thistoday is the anniversary of a
miscarriage that me and my nowex-wife had.
We lost our first child.
I could disclose that tosomeone.
When they have a miscarriage, Idon't go and I'm still working
on.
No, I said that's how I livedwith it, but I want to know how
(38:59):
you want to live through it.
How can I help you?
And that's why I tell peoplesharing your story is powerful.
Making it your story is not.
It's taking away from theclient.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Absolutely, and if somebody trusts you enough to
share a story of their mostintimate detail of their lives
and death is certainly one ofthe most intimate experiences
we'll have.
I tell my students, I tellanybody listens, consider it to
be the ultimate gift becausethey trust you with the most
traumatic and the mostlife-altering part of your life
and consider yourself blessed.
(39:30):
And every story I hear Steveinspires me and I consider that
to be a great gift.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Well, I think that you know.
You talk about it beinginspired by your clients.
I believe that you know.
I believe everyone has theirown story and they're all valid,
whether someone is strugglingwith their story, whether people
may make up part of their storyto make themselves a Y, x, y, z
I don't want to evencharacterize it.
The opportunity to learn fromevery one of our clients is
(40:00):
essential.
As therapists, and specificallyaround grief, one of the things
that I do with all my clientswhen I terminate with them is I
take them out to eat I mean notthe Chateau, whatever, or like a
steak dinner, but you know,maybe a small restaurant, maybe
even just a muffin and a coffee.
And what I do at the end of theset, at that last session, I
tell them what they thought meabout life, and that's so
(40:22):
powerful for the client becausethey're like shit, you were
listening.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
And I'm like absolutely.
Well and particularly, and whenyou're talking about dealing
with individuals who areaddicted and we you know, steve,
we know the stigma aroundaddiction that you know, you've
heard all the myths aboutaddiction.
You've heard we've heard all ofthat that these are people that
are are are lower than low.
These are people that are lowerthan low.
These are people that arehomeless.
(40:46):
We can go through the laundrylist.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
They don't have any.
Will is my favorite.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Yeah, they don't have any will is my favorite.
Yeah, and these are individualsthat are bright, that are.
You know, it's an equalopportunity disease and it's
everybody.
And these are individuals thatare bright, they're creative,
they have, when they've beensober and there have been many
clients I've worked with thathave had several years periods
of sobriety they've done somemeaningful service work.
So you take a look at the wholetotality.
(41:13):
So you know it's.
Yeah, I mean, you know you.
Just, sometimes life is illusion, posing as truth, and one of
the things that I things that aperson is not their addiction.
We're treating the behavior andsparing the self-esteem of the
individual, and I think that's agreat tool.
This is what you've taught me,Because one of the mantras that
(41:37):
I go by is we're all studentsand teachers, so let's learn
from each other.
We can learn from everybodythat comes into our purview.
And, um, they've taught me alot about life and for that I'm,
I'm forever grateful and I willsing the praises of anybody,
anybody who has addiction.
I will defend anybody thatthinks that that buys into the
(41:59):
stigma, that buys into the mythto say no, it isn't true.
Take it from somebody who'sworked with them for 27 years.
It's not true.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Well, I also remind anyone who tells me about it's a
will issue or whatever.
I remind them one thing If youknow four people, you know
someone who went throughaddiction.
Did you judge them that way?
And you highly likely did so.
Stop judging other people,because everyone has their story
for where they're at today.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
that's right, yeah, yeah, we don't know what people
are going through.
So love is trail with love, youknow, love is the.
I think I think I've heard thisquote love is the the only
rational act, and I and I forgotwho did.
Who did the quote, but it was.
It was in tuesdays with mauryin the the book, tuesdays with
Maury.
Love is the only rational actand that's what's going to get
(42:50):
us through some tough times andthat's what's going to be key to
us building a community.
That's going to, that's whatwe're going to be mutually
supportive to each other duringtimes of trauma and trouble.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
And what's interesting is we're talking
about the misconceptions ofsubstance use, which I could go
down that rabbit hole really,really long.
But maybe we can talk a littlebit more about the
misconceptions about grief,because I think there's a
significant amount of those andI don't know what you think, but
I wanted to know what youthought yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
the first is grief is time limited.
And this one?
I think this was an outgrowthof the stages of grief which
Kubler-Ross first developed in1969 and was designed to be a
vocabulary for individuals whoare going through their
end-of-life trauma.
Many in Western societyextrapolated that and said well,
this is how we grieve.
So the myth is that grief istime limited and then, six
(43:41):
months to a year, we should bedone grieving, put our grief in
a box and move on forward as ifnothing has happened.
And that is furthest from thetruth.
For one, the second year, forme and for many others that I've
companioned in grief, is worsethan the first year.
Because the first year is kindof like surreal.
Like in my own instance, steve,with my daughter Janine.
(44:03):
I was thinking, you know, shewas just going to walk into the
kitchen and say, hey, dad, justkidding, I'm back, or that God
or whoever was running theuniverse was going to come down
and say you know, we made amistake, we're going to give you
your life back the way it was.
And once, one day and one yearand one day hit Steve, I
realized that this is going tobe my life going forward.
(44:24):
My daughter isn't going to be apart of it.
And do I want to live or do Iwant to die?
And this is what the decisionbasically that I had to make Am
I going to live or am I going tocontinue to wallow in the muck
of my grief until I just witheraway?
And you know, eventually I madethe decision where I wanted to
(44:44):
be of service and to help othersas a result of what's happened
in honor of and with my daughter.
So that's one of the firstmyths is that grief is
time-limited.
The other thing and I just wantto get into myths about specific
kind of loss and specificallymiscarriage loss and newborn
death a lot of times individualswill say well, you know, you
(45:05):
can have another child orthey'll look at miscarriage or
newborn death as a lostpregnancy, but it's a lost child
.
And then my wife has told meright, my wife and I've had this
conversation.
She said when I found out I waspregnant, that child became
mine, we bonded and in ninemonths you know they they're.
They're feeling their childkick, they're feeling they're,
(45:26):
they're talking to each other,playing music in the womb,
soothing music to create asoothing environment.
That's her child, and to saythat somebody has lost a
pregnancy is insensitive, it's alost and we treat it as that
and saying that, oh you know,you can have another child.
One, maybe they don't want to.
Two, maybe they can't.
Maybe that one child that theylost through miscarriage or
(45:48):
newborn death was the lastchance they had to have a child
and they went through a lot ofvery drastic means, such as
maybe the woman havinghip-widening surgery to expand
her birth canal to have a child.
So that's the other part of it.
The other part, I think theother myth is that some of the
things that we're told to saythat we think are helpful, like
(46:11):
I know how you feel that's oneof the worst things you can say
because you don't okay.
The other thing is or I knowhow you feel, I lost a dog.
Now I'm not saying pet lossisn't significant, but when you
compare the loss of a pet to theloss of a child or a human
being, there's no comparison orsaying things like uh, god
needed another angel or or whichthat always.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
That is a pet peeve of mine.
I can tell you.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Well, here's another pet peeve of mine.
God won't tell you.
Well, here's another pet peeveof mine.
God won't give you any morethan you can bear.
Oh, my God.
Well, and these are things thatwe're told are comforting, but
they're really not.
What I would have told somebodywho said that to me is that God
already gave me more than Icould bear.
He took my child, so this ismore than I could bear.
(46:57):
He took my child, so this ismore than I can bear.
So don't tell him he's notgoing to give me any more than I
could bear.
He already has.
Okay, and so essentially and Idon't usually say I'm sorry for
your loss, I'll say that, butwhat I'll also say things like
you know, please accept mycondolences for your loss, or
you and your family are going tobe in thoughts.
Uh, some individuals will, willtake umbrage at verbiage, um,
(47:21):
and you know, the only wayyou'll know that is when it
happens.
But one of the things that I'vealso tried to be conscious of
is the what am I going to say toan individual after they've
experienced a loss?
I'll look at cause of death,I'll look at the circumstances.
How do I want to come acrosswhat I to say, and it doesn't
automatically come to me.
I have to think about it and bemindful of how do I want to
(47:42):
present myself.
Another myth is that sayingnothing is better is not as good
as saying something.
Well, when you don't havesomething to say or don't know
what to say, simply offeringyour presence can be powerful.
It's okay to say I don't knowwhat to say, I have no words for
your tragedy, but I'm here andI will.
I'll be willing to listenanytime you need me to listen.
(48:04):
Run errands, do anything youneed me to do.
And here's the other thing.
Another myth is that people knowwhat they need after they,
after after death.
They don't.
You know.
It's like whatever you need,let me know.
And it's like I didn't knowwhat the hell I needed after my
daughter died.
I couldn't even think straightin terms of what I needed, much
(48:27):
less what anybody else needed.
So be directive.
If you're my neighbor and youexperience a loss, I'd knock on
your door and say, steve, I'mgoing to the grocery store to
pick up a few things.
What do you need Now?
What this might trigger is youmight look in the refrigerator
and say, shit, I haven't boughtanything for five days.
You know, dave, would you mind?
Here's the money.
Would you mind going to getthis?
That's how you can be of help.
(48:48):
And then the other thing isplease don't ask somebody who is
grieving how they're doingunless you're prepared for a
conversation.
Because how you're doing tosomebody is grieving just isn't
a social nicety.
It means it create, creates awhole new, different meaning.
So unless you have the time forthe answer, don't ask the
(49:11):
question I also want to add tone.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
How are you doing?
is to me like you're kind oflike prompting people to say
something in that direction Idon't say it that way, because I
think that sometimes that canbe very hard for people, number
one and number two.
I think that that's why, likeyou know, I've had people tell
them how do you think I'mfeeling?
Yeah, you know, like I lost my,my son, my daughter, my
(49:36):
whatever and in and I'm notobviously in an insensitive way,
I'm just giving an example.
And ultimately, I want tomention that because I've heard
that too many times.
And the other advice I give topeople is this, and this has
come from a lot of like I workwith first responders when
there's a police officer,firefighter or someone dies, vmt
, paramedic, a lot of peopleoffer help for the first two
(49:59):
weeks.
Then everything disappears andthat family is still grieving
and doesn't know what to do.
So I tell people if you reallywant to be helpful, yeah, sure,
show up at the funeral, sure,I'll go to all that stuff, but
more importantly, in two tothree weeks, stop by and spend
time with them.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
You know, know that's .
Another myth of grief too isthat after the funeral, it, you
know that, that's that's, youknow, that's all I need.
You know all I need to do is I.
But afterwards, after all, thepeople have left, that's when
the grief really starts settlingand that's when they have an
opportunity to realize, hey,this is going to be tough.
The time to check in with themis after the funeral.
The time to even if you say youshoot a text, you do a phone
(50:37):
call say, hey, I'm thinking ofyou, I just wanted to, I was
thinking of you today.
I'm just checking in to see howyou are doing today at this
moment, not just how you'redoing in general, how you're
doing today, and that mightspike a phone call, that might
spike a conversation.
And then that leads to hey, I'mgoing to the store, I'm running
(50:57):
a few errands, what do you need?
And that's, that's beingpresent, and you won't have to
worry about what you have to sayor what you're not saying.
You're just giving yourauthentic, genuine presence in
being a companion in front ofsomebody by, by trying to help
out in what might seem to beminor ways, but they're big ways
(51:18):
, particularly when somebody whowas not able to think straight
in the early stages of grief.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
I remember a particular time where I think it
was when my grandmother died.
It was around Christmas at thetime and it was my father and my
mother and myself and mythen-wife sitting in front of a
Christmas tree on the 24th afterwe buried her on the 23rd, and
the silence was absolutelydeafening.
(51:44):
Yep, and I tell people I sharethat story for to people because
I say it's not like coming tosee me on the 16th after she
dies.
That's great, thank you.
I appreciate that.
Coming in seeing me on the 25thor 26th, that means a whole lot
more and I know that thatsounds to people
counterintuitive, but I thinkthat means more when there's a
(52:05):
hundred people saying I'm sorryfor your loss, I'm sorry for
okay, yeah, you're going throughthe motions, you almost you
don't see the time go and thensuddenly you're like 10 days
later and you're like the hell'sgoing on.
Speaker 3 (52:16):
Yeah, yeah, I mean support at any time during the
grief process is support, isn'ttime limited.
I appreciate hearing frompeople who remember my daughter
21 years later and once they'vebeen remembered.
That's a great gift to usanytime, because it means we can
share some stories, share somememories, and it's always a
great gift.
So don't think the remembrancestops.
(52:37):
The other thing is, oh, theother myth is that if I mention
that person's name, it's goingto make the bereaved person
upset.
Well, I tell people hey, we'realready upset.
If you mention our child's nameor you mention our spouse's
name, it's going to put a smileon our face.
It's going to tell us thatyou've remembered and that is
something that is verymeaningful to us.
(52:59):
So now say their names, showthem that you remember, show
them that their life matters.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
And yeah, just to put a little bow on this, it's like
when we people say if I mentionsuicide to someone who's
suicidal, they'll make him moresuicidal.
No, you'll break the wholebarrier of not being able to
talk about it.
Absolutely as we approach thehour, I want to make sure we
talk about your book.
Okay, tell me about your book.
Speaker 3 (53:25):
Well, I got a copy right here, so I'll just show it
for the viewers.
It's called when the PsychologyProfessor Met the Minister To
talk about how, co-authored byme and also Reverend Patty
Farino, an interfaith ministerwho was originally from Long
Island and now living in SouthCarolina.
To talk about how we met wouldprobably be another podcast
(53:48):
episode, steve, but I'll giveyou the condensed version, since
I know we're running low ontime.
I met Reverend Farino in 2010,seven years after my daughter
transitioned.
She was trying to register fora grief conference that I had
been organizing and registrationwas online.
And just as she was ready toregister, she hit the button to
(54:12):
register, her computer screenwent blank, and we look at this
now as divine intervention thatthis was meant to bring us
together.
So she wanted to make sure herregistration got through.
She called me.
We had a conversation.
We met at the grief conference.
(54:34):
I was also thinking about goingto a presentation in Long Island
that a mutual colleague of thetime was was, was uh putting on
called embracing the power ofchange and which, for which
patty was a volunteer throughher work with with uh, the angel
of hope in long island.
Um, the angel of hope is astatue that was erected in law
in that I think it wasrockefeller park, if I if I'm
(54:55):
recalling correctly in honor ofchildren who had died,
transitioned or passed away, andparents would congregate there
At the park.
Patty would also do somevolunteer bereavement support
and interfaith ministry workwith the parents.
So she said you know, if youever get to Long Island and you
want to come down and see theworkshop, you can stay with me
(55:16):
and my husband and I'll show youmy Long Island.
So one thing led to another.
A couple of weeks after theconference I told her I want to
come down.
So I asked her probably about300 times is your husband going
to be okay with me staying there?
He doesn't know me and the lastthing I want to do is be
accused of breaking up amarriage or causing a rift.
(55:38):
He said, trust me, he's goingto be fine.
And he was.
And her husband Marco and me,patty and my wife Sherry, are
just like soul family membersand friends today.
That's how much therelationship has grown during
the conversation.
I'm going to backtrack.
Initially she had asked meduring the conversation do you
believe in the signs from yourloved ones?
(55:59):
And I said no, patty, I'm ascience-based guy.
I really don't believe in anytype of spiritual phenomenon.
I'm paraphrasing that.
But there were some things thatwere happening that science
couldn't explain.
I would think of my daughter ina song that we both like and
would come on the radio that we.
At the same time that I wasthinking about my daughter, and
(56:21):
as I was walking, mygranddaughter's butterfly seemed
to be following me around theblock.
So the things that werehappening, that didn't fit my
science-based background, but Istill couldn't make sense out of
it.
I said you know, I think my, mygranddaughter sent me, or my
daughter sent me, a rainbow onfather's day, double rainbow.
So then at the conference Igave her a hug and we talked and
(56:42):
she goes.
You know, I think your daughtersent me a rainbow, and this was
like a week before theconference.
What I found out later, steve,was that when she was, the
rainbow that she had seen wentover transverse Route 17 in New
Jersey, took a video of it andshe was sitting on the car and
(57:02):
she heard in her head a voicesaying I need you to talk to my
father and she's saying okay,but who's your father?
I mean, I shouldn't say it likethat.
But she just wanted an.
Okay, I'm glad to, but tell mewho your father is.
It's the guy you talked toabout the conference.
So I didn't know this untilafter the fact.
But once we were in Long IslandI got to her house.
She told me to get comfortable,she took me to her meditation
(57:30):
room and from there I began tolearn very quickly that my
daughter's spirit was alive andwell and that Patty was a
conduit for me to for her aliveand well, and that Patty was a
conduit for me to, for her totell me what she needed to tell
me, and I believed everythingthat happened.
I know that was probably quitewell.
Did you believe it?
I did Because prior to theworkshop, prior to going to Long
Island, I was driving three ofthe presenters after the day
(57:54):
after the conference, two oldforge in the Adirondacks to see
the leaves.
They were having this intensediscussion about spirituality
and I looked up to the sky andit was my soul speaking, steve,
I think, as opposed to my mindsaying I want to be where they
are.
All I wanted was to have a, beable to have a conversation on
spirituality or understand morespiritual practices.
(58:15):
That would help me get throughto the next moment.
So I got more than I bargainedfor.
I got a whole differentperspective that led to marathon
conversations we had about howspiritual practices and
psychology and this was over a10-year period can help
individuals together transcendchallenge and also the
importance of critical thinking.
The details of my spirituallytransformative experience,
(58:37):
sampling of our conversations,the importance of critical
thinking for present and futuregenerations are all in this book
.
It's less than 200 pages.
It's designed to be a fast read, but yet a thought-provoking
read.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
Where can we get it?
Speaker 3 (58:51):
You can get it on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
I would encourage yourlisteners to take a look at the
reviews on amazon.
We've gotten very positivereviews from a lot of
individuals about the book.
If they want a signed copy,they can certainly email me at
bootsy and angel at gmailcom andthey could pay me through venmo
um, and if they did that itwould be a little bit more
(59:15):
obviously it would be 15 plusfive dollars shipping and
handling for a signed copy if Isent it to them directly, so it
would be $20 total.
The book on Amazon is $15 inpaperback and less than $9 in
Kindle, and we want the book toget into as many hands as
possible.
We think it can help whoeverreads it and be of comfort to
(59:36):
whoever reads it and realizethat the universe has some
amazing things that we can takea wonderment at and you know
that life does truly go on.
And then we can be open to that, to those type of messages and
multidimensional living in amultidimensional universe, if
(59:56):
we're open to it.
Speaker 2 (59:57):
Well, what I'm going to do is I'm going to add your
book from Amazon.
I will add your email addressyou just mentioned, as well as
your Venmo, because I'm going tobe getting a book that way, and
I really want to thank you foryour time today, because this
was a fantastic conversation.
Like I said, time flew by and Ihope maybe we'll have to get
together and talk more aboutother stuff, because I really
(01:00:18):
enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
Steve, I did too, and I'd, um, I'd love to get
together again and talk somemore.
Um, this was a seamlessconversation and it was just
great, and it seemed like, uh,we, we aligned on a lot of
different things, which was was,which was great, but it's what
you believe is great and that'sthat.
I've learned to make space forthat and, um, it's what makes
(01:00:40):
the world go around.
It enriches my critical thingagain, it enriches my
perspective.
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
So and, as I've said to many people before, you will
be in my meditations becausethat's what I do, and I hope you
have a great rest of the nightand I'll talk to you soon you
got it, steve, thanks well,that's it.
This completes episode 186.
Dave Roberts, thank you so much, and I hope you join us for
episode 187.
Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Please like, subscribe and follow this
podcast on your favoriteplatform.
A glowing review is alwayshelpful and, as a reminder, this
podcast is for informational,educational and entertainment
purposes only.
If you're struggling with amental health or substance abuse
issue, please reach out to aprofessional counselor for
consultation.
If you are in a mental healthcrisis, call 988 for assistance.
(01:01:26):
This number is available in theUnited States and Canada.
Hi and welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy
.
A proud member of thePsychCraft Network, the goal of
this podcast is to demystifytherapy, what can happen in
therapy and the wide array ofconversations you can have in
and about therapy Throughpersonal experiences.
Guests will talk about therapy,their experiences with it and
(00:24):
how psychology and therapy arepresent in many places in their
lives, with lots of authenticityand a touch of humor.
Here is your host, steve Bisson.
Speaker 2 (00:37):
Alors je devrais avoir quelqu'un qui fait cette
introduction partout où je vais.
I gotta go somewhere wherepeople do this introduction
everywhere I go.
Welcome to episode 186.
If you haven't heard 185 yet,it's about the rebranding, so
please go and check that out andyou'll hear more about the
project that, probably in April,will be culminating on April
16th on the 200 episodes.
(00:58):
So looking forward to that.
But episode 186, which you knowagain, it's not too far from
episode 200, is going to be withDavid Roberts.
David Roberts is a parent whoexperienced the death of a child
when his daughter, janine, diedof cancer in March of 2003 at
the age of 18.
He's a retired addictionsprofessional and adjunct
professor of psychology, childlife development at Utica
(01:21):
University.
Dave has also presentednumerous workshops on grief,
both locally and nationally.
He is the host of the TeachingJourneys podcast, which can be
found on most podcast platforms.
Go check it out.
I put a link in the show notes.
He also has a book called whenthe Psychology Professor Met the
Minister.
I know he's going to talk aboutit in the interview, I'm pretty
sure.
So I think it's going to beinteresting to go find that book
(01:44):
.
But here is the interview.
Getfreeai, yes, you've heard metalk about it previously in
other episodes, but I'm going totalk about it again because
Getfreeai is just a greatservice.
Imagine being able to payattention to your clients all
(02:07):
the time, instead of writingnotes and making sure that the
note's going to sound good andhow are you going to write that
note, and things like that.
Getfreeai liberates you frommaking sure that you're writing
what the client is saying,because it is keeping track of
what you're saying and willcreate, after the end of every
session, a progress note.
But it goes above and beyondthat.
(02:28):
Not only does it create aprogress note, it also gives you
suggestions for goals, givesyou even a mental status if
you've asked questions aroundthat, as well as being able to
write a letter for your clientto know what you talked about.
So that's the great, greatthing.
It saves me time, it saves me alot of aggravation and it just
(02:50):
speeds up the progress noteprocess so well.
And for $99 a month.
I know that that's nothing.
That's worth my time, that'sworth my money, you know.
The best part of it too is thatif you want to go and put in the
code Steve 50, when you get theservice at the checkout code is
Steve 50, you get $50 off yourfirst month and if you get a
(03:12):
whole year, you save a whole 10%for the whole year.
So again, steve 50, at checkoutfor get freeai, We'll give you
$50 off for the first month and,like I said, get a full year,
get 10% off, get free fromwriting notes, get free from
always scribbling while you'retalking to a client and just
(03:34):
paying attention to your client.
So they win out, you win out,everybody wins, and I think that
this is the greatest thing.
And if you're up to a pointwhere you got to change a
treatment plan, well, the goalsare generated for you.
And if you're up to a pointwhere you got to change the
treatment plan, well, the goalsare generated for you.
So, getfreeai code Steve50 tosave $50 on your first month.
(03:55):
Well, hi everyone and welcome toepisode 186.
You know there are stories thattouch you and I don't want to
take any of the story away fromhim because I again, I'm the
type of person that's his storyto tell.
But we know I got a messagefrom Dave and wanting to be on a
podcast and it really, you know, it really touched me for
(04:16):
several reasons and not onlyabout his strength, but knowing
that he's an addictionspecialist and I've worked with
addictions for several years asI joke around, 25 in my career,
49 years as a human being withmy family, and so I really liked
a lot of the stuff that you'retalking about.
But I know we're going to talkabout specific stuff around
grief.
So, dave Roberts, welcome toFinding your Way Through Therapy
(04:39):
.
Speaker 3 (04:39):
Steve, thank you for having me on the podcast.
I've been looking forward toour conversation.
Speaker 2 (04:44):
Yeah, as long as I get the time right and I don't
send you wrong messages, we'llbe good, right?
Speaker 3 (04:49):
Hey, if that's the worst thing that happened to me
this week, steve, it's a goodweek.
Hey, as I've learned to beembarrassed for 30 seconds and
then realize the onlyembarrassment is on me, I let it
go after that.
No, I've come to understandthat you know, we're all living
a human experience and it doesnot have to be a perfect
(05:10):
existence.
So I make room for mistakes,because it happens.
Speaker 2 (05:15):
I mean, if we weren't human, we wouldn't make
mistakes, you know so.
Speaker 3 (05:20):
Yeah, perfectionism is certainly something that
people strive for, but it's anillusion, because the bar keeps
getting raised higher and higherfor what perfectionism is.
Speaker 2 (05:29):
Yeah, and you're doomed to fail.
Speaker 3 (05:30):
Yep absolutely.
Speaker 2 (05:32):
Being a New England guy.
Now I go back to Tom Brady.
He says the hardest part ofwinning all those Super Bowls is
that when you're on the top ofthe mountain there's only one
place to go Yep, and that's downto go yep and that's down.
Speaker 3 (05:47):
Yeah, and the fall is usually very steep and the
person who falls off of thatpedestal doesn't nearly get back
on or climb as high as they didwhen they, you know, before
they fell off.
Speaker 2 (05:53):
So well, you know, like I said, I read a little bit
of your bio, but I think thatmy audience didn't read your bio
yet, so how about you introduceyourself to my audience?
Speaker 3 (06:02):
Thank you, steve.
And for those who areencountering me for the first
time, my name is Dave Roberts.
Before the world of death anddying found me, I was living
very comfortably.
I still live very comfortablyin upstate New York, a little
suburb called Whitesboro, newYork.
(06:23):
My primary career, like yours,steve, was I worked for 27 years
as an addictions counselor.
I was a credentialed alcoholismand substance abuse counselor
for the state of New York.
I worked at an inpatientfacility, state-run inpatient
facility in upstate New Yorkcalled the McPike Addiction
Treatment Center.
I had my most satisfying yearsof in my career working with
(06:48):
individuals with with chemicaldependency and substance use
issues.
Because they were, I soondiscovered they were much more
than their addiction.
These were very brilliant, verycreative individuals who had
difficulty putting down thedance with their drugs of choice
.
But I also saw many whorecovered, who were in recovery
(07:11):
and whose presence I was blessedby.
I count the recoveringsubstance users that I worked
with among my greatest teachers.
I was also a clinicalsupervisor.
I retired after 27 years ofstate service, not so much
because the clients were wearingon me, it was the bureaucracy
(07:33):
that wore on me that typicallywas out of step with the needs
of the people who were providingservices.
When I had the opportunity toretire, I did.
When I had the opportunity toretire, I did Prior to retiring.
I also started a second careeras an adjunct instructor at
Utica University.
I was teaching psychologycourses and then later on in my
(07:56):
career I began teaching death,dying and bereavement.
And I'll give you thebackground in terms of how that
happened, because typicallyindividuals who start embracing
research or discussions aboutdeath and dying typically don't
do so at a professional choice.
It's usually personal tragedyand that's what the personal
(08:19):
tragedy of um that I'll alludeto in a second um, you know, got
me involved in that field.
So once I retired, moreteaching opportunities became in
place for me.
But again during my career, mylife took a drastic turn, and
this is with age 47.
This was in 2002.
(08:40):
My only daughter I have twosons, daniel and Matt, but my
only daughter, janine, wasdiagnosed with a stage four
tumor.
It was called a veliorrhabdomyosarcoma.
It was a connective muscletissue cancer.
She was diagnosed 24 days aftergiving birth to her first child
(09:03):
and my first grandchildchild,and what turned out to be her
only child, brianna, was born onMay 2nd.
Janine was diagnosed on May26th and on May 19th of 2002, I
met the requirements for mymaster in social work degree.
When I tell my story as far asthe back bio, I put those three
(09:25):
dates in for perspective.
May 2nd, I was exhilarated atbeing a grandfather for the
first time, knowing that mydaughter had a significant other
who was supportive, who wasgoing to take care of her.
May 19th, I completed a 25-yearjourney to get my graduate
degree.
Then, may 26th, I found outthat I had a terminally ill
(09:46):
adult child.
We went to Dana-Farber ResearchInstitute and Hospital in
Boston, one of the besthospitals in the world for
research on pediatric sarcomasand treatment of pediatric
sarcomas.
We were told, stephen afiveminute consult, that your
daughter has a stage 4 tumorwith bone marrow and lymph node
(10:07):
involvement.
There is no chance for a cureunless we put her cancer in
remission until we can find acure.
So what my daughter heard andwhat I heard was that unless
there's a miracle, yourdaughter's going to die.
And, as I saw, the tearsstreaming down her face and, as
(10:27):
I was just told, in total shock,um, this is what we were
looking at when we got home.
You know, we drove for fivehours, you know, from boston and
I had this old jeep cherokeeand she was in a lot of pain and
any I any bump I went over justexacerbated that pain.
When I got home she was sittingon the couch and I looked at
(10:50):
her and I started bawling myeyes out, buried my head in her
lap and I told her.
I said I'm sorry, my drivingmade you so, put you in so much
pain.
And she looked at me she goes,dad.
I was yelling because I was somuch in pain.
She goes, but she goes.
And she looked at me she goes,dad.
I was yelling because I was somuch in pain.
She goes, but she goes.
And she looked at me and shesaid I'm not going down without
(11:11):
a fight and what she told me Istays with me to this day.
She said if you need to talk tome and you can't sleep, come
wake me up.
Now I'm thinking to myself.
I have a child who is dying andshe's more worried about me
than she is her her ownprognosis.
She was.
She taught me about theresilience of the human spirit
in that moment just by herresponse to me.
(11:34):
She fought steve like hell for10 months to to uh, but her
chemo only got an 80% remissionIn January of 2003,.
Her cancer re-metastasized.
We were given a prognosis ofone to three months and on March
1st 2003, she transitioned andI call a transition from the
(11:59):
physical world to the spiritualworld.
Other people may look at it aspassing away or death.
However individualsconceptualize that.
I will work with thatvocabulary.
And 10 months after she wasdiagnosed, her significant other
and my granddaughter, briannaand Janine, had moved in with us
(12:19):
with their cat and our two catsand my two sons.
They had moved in prior, youknow, after she was diagnosed,
and he stayed with us withbrianna for four years after she
transitioned, because my grand,my daughter, asked him look
when, if something does happento me, I want you to stay with
(12:40):
my family until brand is readyfor kindergarten.
Then do what you need to do.
And he did that.
He was a man of his word, 19years old.
He had the responsibility ofsomebody twice his age and the
maturity of somebody twice hisage.
And you know, brianna wasalways a part of my life, our
life even after he remarried,and she's a part of our life now
(13:01):
.
She's 22 years old and has twodaughters of her own.
So, um, I am no stranger togrief, I need to just throw this
in there.
I've danced with death stevesince I've been five years old.
Since my father left, I lostnumerous my you know my mother,
my mother's transition, mymaternal grandparents, my
maternal grandmother and mymaternal aunt, who raised me
(13:24):
along with my mother after myfather left when I was five
years old numerous friends, pets, but the transition of my
daughter put me into a worldthat I that was totally foreign
and terrifying to me, and I'lljust leave it at that for now.
Speaker 2 (13:42):
Well, you said a mouthful First of all.
First and foremost, sorry foryour loss number one.
Speaker 3 (13:46):
Thank you.
Speaker 2 (13:47):
Number two if you look at the, I can't remember
what the index is for stresslevels.
It's the highest stress youcould ever have.
Hearing your story gave megoosebumps.
I had read it and I hadgoosebumps.
And I heard it again and Istill had goosebumps, being a
Montrealer at heart.
When you talked about upperstate New York, hey, shout out,
I'm very big fan of that, andnow I live in the Boston area.
(14:08):
So when you talk about DanaFarber, you know I never wished
that to anyone but I always tellpeople probably the best place
to go ever If you need to go andshout out the Dana Farber who
has saved and many, many, manypeople that have extended
people's lives many, many timesof people I personally know.
So shout out to Dana Farber too.
Speaker 3 (14:29):
All right, and you know, one of the things I want
to mention about Dana Farber.
Even though that oncologist didnot give me the news in a way
that I would have preferred itit was like getting hit on the
head with a brick, you know,without warning I appreciated
the fact that she was honestwith us and let us know her
prognosis, which was not good tobegin with.
(14:51):
She had an 8-centimeter tumor.
She had every mortality index,steve, for her type of cancer
tumor size, bone marrowinvolvement, age, lymph node
involvement, you name it, shehad it.
Involvement, age, lymph nodeinvolvement, you name it, she
had it.
But one of the things that youknow, time has a.
You know, when you back awayfrom something, you look at it.
You know, over a period of timeyou have a different
(15:12):
perspective on things.
I think, and one of the thingsI looked at, was that I think
she was as uncomfortable givingme us the news as she was
receiving it, as if we werereceiving it.
She might have had a bad day,she might have already lost a
patient.
This might not have been thenews she wanted to give with,
with somebody so somebody soyoung.
So I tried to put myself in hershoes and in knowing what I
(15:34):
know now, the doctors take deathvery personally.
I think she took it aspersonally and as we did, and as
and it was as hurt by giving usthe news as we were receiving
it.
So looking at that, I was ableto kind of I didn't have any
anger, I just took a look at itfrom her perspective and said,
yeah, I could see why she mayhave given me the news the way
(15:56):
she gave it to us.
Speaker 2 (15:58):
Well, you know, I think that number one.
You're right that Dana Farbertakes a lot of these things
personally and all the gooddoctors I've ever known and good
therapists and clinicians takethese things personally.
And people would say we're tooattached to our clients, blah,
blah, blah.
I say BS to that.
I think we need to, don't mind,it's the Boston way anyway.
They just tell you what it isjust like, straight out, they
(16:28):
don't sugarcoat it.
So maybe she's also from Bostonor from the Massachusetts area,
but I was thinking abouteverything you were saying.
You know, one of the standardquestions on finding your way is
to talk about have you everbeen in therapy?
Speaker 3 (16:50):
I'm assuming, with a lot of this stuff you said some
from age five on, there's got tobe some time.
You probably went to therapy.
Oh, absolutely.
One of the things is as atherapist myself I think some of
the best therapists I know havebeen in therapy themselves
because a lot of times, justwith the nature of the business
that we're in in terms ofworking with clients with a
plethora of challenges, the thechance for burnout and
particularly compassion fatigueif the organization is not in
(17:12):
step with the needs of themiddle management staff, the
line staff and the clients, isvery real.
Um, so, yeah, I've been intherapy.
Uh, primarily for losses that Iincurred.
I remember I went into therapyafter my mentor and supervisor
at McPike died of cancer.
(17:33):
He taught me everything I knewabout building teams, treating
people, treating clients.
His background Steve get thishe was an ex-Nvy SEAL commander
and a clinical social worker.
How's that for a combination.
He was the, the best therapistand administrator wrapped in one
package that I ever saw before,that I ever saw and I will ever
(17:57):
see since.
Um, so you know it was.
I went in therapy for thatbecause that was a major loss I
was.
Ironically, I was in therapybefore my daughter got sick and
I was doing an internship at alocal nursing home as part of
(18:19):
the requirement for my socialwork degree and old grief issues
began to surface regarding mymentor and my mother.
So I was referred to apsychiatrist who did not believe
in medications as the firstform of treatment.
He believed in actually doingtherapy, and so I was working
(18:41):
with him on specific unresolvedgrief issues when my daughter
got sick.
And then when I told him whathappened, he looked at me in his
very calm manner and said Well,david, our focus has changed.
Now we need to consider morepractical matters, and I stayed
(19:01):
with him for about two and ahalf years during Janine's
illness and after her death, andhe was a big, big help to me,
helping me put things inperspective.
He also was a liaison for workand work.
He's recommended that I go onmodified work duties, suspend
supervision, just do casemanagement for now, just until I
(19:21):
could get you know, re-engagedin life again.
For now, just until I could getyou know, re-engaged in life
again.
And so he was great and I'm afirm believer that if you're a
therapist, there's no, there'sno shame in having your own
therapist, and many therapistseither have their own therapist
or or have peer mentors or peer.
They engage in peer supervisionto bounce off particularly
(19:41):
challenging cases or look at youknow, specific issues where
they may be burned out or have acompassion fatigue or vicarious
traumatization.
Speaker 2 (19:51):
I agree, and me being a therapist who has been in
therapy for several years andyeah, I don't see my therapist
regularly now, but I do see himfairly regularly.
Sometimes it's a check-in,Sometimes it's hey, I need your
help for something, and weschedule.
Uh, I'm a firm believer thattherapy should be.
Everyone should have therapy atleast once a year.
(20:11):
I'm not once for life.
Once a year, hey, everything'sgood, Everything's not good.
If you need a little more, youdo it.
If you don't, that's fine, andI think that you're right.
The therapists that I know thathave been in therapy or continue
to be in therapy are probablythe best therapists I've ever
had, because the experience ofbeing on that other chair is so
important, because it gives youa different sense of compassion
(20:36):
and peer mentors and peersupervision.
Um, we do it.
Well, not now.
I mean, uh, when this comes outin January, we're going to
probably knock out playing golf.
But I have a bunch oftherapists Um, I'm the kid in
the team at 49.
Someone else is in fifties andthe other two are in their
seventies and I like to be thekid.
(20:56):
But we do peer supervision ifwe need to while we're playing
golf, and it's the best time inthe world.
We get fresh air, we get to getfrustrated, a little ball and
we get pure supervision with youknow.
I think it's like 150 years ofexperience among us.
It's just an amazing thing tohave and I'm a big fan of it.
When I think about everythingyou said, you know being.
(21:17):
You know especially, youstarted in the addiction field.
You know, I think aboutaddiction and grief as two
different things, but I'mwondering if your experience in
addiction helped you with thegrief of your daughter.
Speaker 3 (21:32):
As a therapist.
It didn't really help me, steve.
All the training in the worldthat I had, all the education in
the world that I had, didn'teven begin to prepare me for it
Before you go on.
Speaker 2 (21:42):
My favorite quote on that is this you cannot solve a
problem that the same mindcreated, and that's why you need
to talk to outsiders.
Speaker 3 (21:49):
Yep, I think if it did, I probably would not have
been as rattled or as shaken ormy universe would not have been
turned upside down.
But there isn't a book, aparenting book.
There isn't a social work text.
There isn't a book, a parentingbook.
There isn't a social work text.
There isn't a psychology textthat says here's the blueprint
(22:10):
when a child dies or when youhave another loss that defies
the natural order of theuniverse.
Whether it's a young spouse,you know whether it's a sibling,
there's nothing to prepare youfor that, you just simply you
pretty much find yourself.
And I'm paraphrasing a quotefrom, I think, a book and I by
the name I think the guy'sgentleman's name is tom crider.
(22:31):
It's kind of like he wrote abook about his own grief journey
after the death of his daughterand he talked about it's like.
You know, for him it was liketrying to rummage through a box
of old clothes to find a sweaterthat fit, and for me it was
like who am I?
What kind of world do I want tolive in, now that my daughter
(22:53):
is not a part of that?
And that quote I amparaphrasing from the late great
drummer of Rush, neal Peart,who had his own specific
tragedies, with his wife anddaughter transitioning or dying
in 1997 and 1998, within 10months of each other.
And he said he went on a55,000-mile road trip to the
(23:15):
United States, mexico and Canada.
And on page 10 of his bookGhostwriter I remember this,
I've read this book severaltimes and I quote Neil Peart
several times he needed to takethat trip to decide what type of
a person he wanted to be andwhat type of world he wanted to
live in.
And that's what I was faced with, steve, and I think that's what
(23:36):
anybody I think, withoutverbalizing it.
That's what anybody who goesthrough life-altering loss is
faced with.
What kind of a person do I wantto be?
What kind of a world do I wantto live in?
At 47 years old, my midlifecrisis wasn't buying a Maserati,
trying to date women 25 yearsor younger than me.
(23:56):
It was what are my values now?
What are my priorities?
What are my beliefs?
What stays, what goes, whatgets expanded on?
It was a whole identity crisisfor me.
Speaker 2 (24:09):
And again mentioning sorry, I'm Canadian.
So Neil Peart, god rest hissoul, also died a few years ago.
Speaker 3 (24:18):
Yes.
Speaker 2 (24:19):
But I feel that and you know like I'll share my
backstory I know you've listenedto the podcast but my best
friend died when I was 12.
And my grief process was well,you better play well on Saturday
, because he won't be there andwe played football together.
That's why I was told that thatwas my grief process at the
time.
I don't blame anyone, by theway.
(24:39):
This is.
I always say that becausepeople are like oh, you're angry
at people.
No, anyone, by the way, this is.
I always say that because peoplelike, oh, you're angry at
people.
No, no, I'm not.
That's, that's what the 80swere all about.
Just move on.
So you know, I think that griefreally forms not only how we
see the world in the future, buthow we live our life on a daily
basis.
And for me, you know, that'skind of like why I became a
therapist and to this day, Inever want a human being to be
(25:00):
alone.
So I think you're absolutelyright.
Every day, I think of how luckyI am to be here and reminding
myself of what do I want to dotoday so that I enjoy life.
Speaker 3 (25:12):
Yeah, I mean, in spite of what's happened to me
and all the losses I've had inmy life, and particularly the
worst loss of my life with youknow, with my daughter, with my
daughter Janine, I considermyself a blessed man and I can
you know, with my daughter, withmy daughter Janine, I consider
myself a blessed man and I canyou know, I consider myself, you
know, every day I'm gratefulfor the students in my life.
I'm grateful for my boys.
(25:33):
I'm grateful for mygrandchildren, my
great-grandchildren.
I'm grateful to be able tobreathe, to be able to exercise,
to be able to do the thingsthat a lot of times people take
for granted.
But what I've learned is that Ilook at life now as a precious
commodity, because there's nodays guaranteed anymore, and
(25:55):
just because I've experiencedthe worst loss of my life
doesn't mean I'm not going toexperience more, and I already
have.
Speaker 2 (26:02):
It doesn't exclude you when something happens.
Speaker 3 (26:05):
No, I mean loss is as much a part of life as life
itself.
Speaker 2 (26:09):
You know, the one thing you mentioned is you know
you talked about someone passingaway versus going to the other
side or dying or whatever wordspeople use.
You know I, I, I encourage awhole lot of people and I know
maybe I'm jumping around here alittle bit, but when I talk
about grief, I tell people,whatever your belief system is,
no matter what it is, I thinkthat it is key to survive any
(26:31):
type of loss and I don't knowwhat you think about that.
Speaker 3 (26:35):
Oh, absolutely.
I agree with you.
It's like it's what do youbelieve?
And what we need to do, steve,is not judge how people grieve,
not say that my way of grievingis better than your way of
grieving.
But how do you grieve?
What is it?
What strengths do you have thatare going to allow you to move
from the raw pain of grief toacceptance that my world is
(26:58):
permanently different?
But I'm willing to re-engage inlife anyway.
It's bearing witness to that,it's understanding it and it's
maybe in terms of bearingwitness and creating a space for
that person's belief to comeout, we might I might see
something that says you know, Ican incorporate that, that part
of your belief system thataligns with mine.
(27:20):
So what we're talking about issetting a stage not only for a
person's story to unfold, butfor critical thinking to occur,
for nonjudgmental presence tooccur and for creating a sacred
space where everybody's story isrevered.
And we don't have to agree withall parts of it.
We don't have to agree with anyof it, but we still have to
(27:42):
listen to it with respect and wetake those parts that resonate.
The rest we just we can,because we have free will, we
can leave behind.
But, yeah, there's no right orwrong way to grace, dave.
It's.
As long as it, I mean as longas what you're doing is not
hurting yourself or somebodyelse, it's all good, that was
(28:05):
exactly what I was going to say.
Speaker 2 (28:06):
Actually, if it doesn't harm yourself or others,
what do I care if it's workingfor you?
And I think that that's theother part too is, you know, I
never underestimate how sacredmy job is to have people open up
about these hard things.
And I think that's the otherpart too is that when you know
you talk about grief being acertain way, I mean, I've read
(28:27):
grief books.
Obviously we're going to talkabout yours, but I've read grief
book after grief book, aftergrief book and guess what?
They're all valid.
You know, like when I hearpeople say Kubler-Ross's model
has been disproven, like butit's still kind of works for
some people and I'm not going tosay that it doesn't work for
some people- so I think thatwhen I think about grief, I also
tell people like, if you thinkthere's an actual book that
(28:50):
you're going to read and that'sgoing to take care of all my
grief first of all, that won'thappen, that it's going to
happen in two weeks, two days,two months, two years again not
predictable, because grief neverquite goes away.
Grief is always there and Ithink people forget about that.
Speaker 3 (29:05):
It's and it's true.
And you know, for meKubler-Ross's stages wouldn't
have worked.
I mean for the death of a child, I mean, and for any type of
loss I mean.
I think we grieve to a certaincertain extent for the rest of
our lives and it isn'tpathological Grief is just love
expressed.
You know, the amount of love wehave for that person I think
(29:27):
correlates to the amount ofinitial raw pain we feel because
of their lack of their physicalpresence.
For me, the stages of griefkind of went like this, and I'm
just, you know, it's just likethey were all scrambled, they
were all yeah, it's just so.
Yeah, it's just so.
And research has proven for thethat the stages of grief don't
really say how, don't reallyreflect how people accurately
(29:49):
grieve.
Like you said, for some peopleit may work.
For me it didn't work.
And there, even after 21 yearsof the physical absence of my,
my daughter, I still yearn forher presence.
There are days where I canstill feel sadness, but I look
at it as part of the deal.
Now it's another way for me toremember her, to honor her, and
I can also learn from my sadnessand every episode of sadness
(30:13):
now I have, I I believe, turnsme into a more compassionate
person for somebody else.
I didn't see that in earlygrief.
I saw that more as a curse thana blessing at this point.
But now I take a look atsadness, says, okay, this is
another opportunity for me toget in touch with my authentic
feelings and to be able to totransmute that into compassion
(30:34):
for for my fellow human being.
And so I've learned thateverything is in service to us,
good and bad.
Speaker 2 (30:42):
Well, while you were talking, I did the roadmap to
grief and I want to show it toyou.
For those of you who arelistening to the podcast in
their car and they can't go tothe video, please go to my
YouTube, because it's worth it.
But here's the map to grief.
Speaker 3 (30:57):
Yeah.
Speaker 2 (30:59):
And I don't even want to say it, so I want you guys
to go to YouTube.
But that's exactly how I seegrief.
If you think it's going to,I'll give a small spoiler.
If you think it's a straightline, then I mean don't even,
don't, even like.
That's not grief.
There's no such thing as astraight line, and sometimes
when I talk about grief withsome of my clients, I also talk
(31:20):
about it as a big mountain andmost people want to circle it.
They don't want to get throughit, and when they get through it
they're like oh, it's gone, no,turn around, it's still there
and it will always be there.
Speaker 3 (31:30):
Yeah, and you know, you can try it out, run it, you
can try to suppress it, but it'sstill going to catch up with
you.
So you, you, you.
The only way, the only way todeal with grief is to go through
grief and to literally workthrough it and move through it.
Speaker 2 (31:47):
And I think that that's why you know, like I
think, that sometimes therapistsdon't know how to deal with
grief.
I think that you know becauseyou know.
Call it transference, if youwill, or counter transference.
But I think it's hard sometimesto know what to say to people
who are going through griefbecause we put ourselves in
other people's shoes.
That's empathetic.
I don't think, that's to me.
(32:07):
That's why I don't say it'stransference or
countertransference.
But it's also sitting insomeone's shoes and going geez,
I really don't know how I dealwith that.
Do you have any tips or ideasfor therapists on best support
individuals who had a loss?
Oh, I think one of the things isto downplay clinical expertise
when you're dealing withindividuals with loss, I need to
(32:28):
get a clap machine.
You're awesome, I agree.
Speaker 3 (32:30):
Thank you, steve.
And there is a model of sittingwith bereaved individuals that
was developed by RichardTedeschi and Lawrence Calhoun
called Expert Companionship.
They wrote a book back in the90s called Helping Bereaved
Parents a Clinician's Guide.
They are also the individualswho put a vocabulary.
(32:52):
They talked aboutpost-traumatic growth and they
talked about the dimensions ofpost-traumatic growth after
trauma which, as you know, hasbeen thoroughly researched and
proven to be a valid phenomenonwith all kinds of loss, all
kinds of trauma.
But they talk about expertcompanionship where essentially
(33:13):
you show a compassionatepresence, a willingness to
listen to an individual's storyas they talk about their loved
ones.
They talk about specificquestions to ask to understand
the relationship that thatperson had with their loved one
and essentially it's creating apresence where that individual's
(33:36):
story becomes significant andwhere they can understand who
the bereaved person lost throughtheir specific eyes.
And it's not offering advice,it's not offering solutions,
it's simply creating acompassionate presence, giving
feedback on what they hear andfinding out what resources do
you need for me today that canbe of help to you to move
(34:00):
through your journey at thisparticular time, and it shows a
willingness to be there for themin the long haul and therapists
can do that create a spacewhere they're listening first
and the best therapists I knoware the best listeners I've ever
found where they let the storyunfold.
They're going to go a long wayand not try to say, well, this
(34:23):
is where you should be in yourgrief because, like you said,
it's not a straight line.
Everybody is going to bedifferent depending on the
nature of the loss, depending onthe nature of the relationship,
the trauma that was attached toit.
It's going to be different foreverybody, so create a space for
that story to occur.
Work, I believe, on helpinghelping individuals embrace
(34:44):
different perspectives, whetherit's spiritual perspectives or
perspectives that will help themtransform the relationship with
their loved ones so that theycan continue to maintain
connection with the essence ofwho they are and their spirit,
so that they are literallymoving through grief with them,
as opposed to, after a certainperiod of time, burying their
(35:07):
grief and moving on as if lifewas normal again.
Loss changes the landscape of aperson's life forever, and if
we as therapists can recognizethat this is a permanent change
and we can allow an individualto empower them to talk about
that and talk about how thatfeels for them and share stories
(35:28):
about their loved one and thenoffer them specific coping
skills, whether it's suggestingjournaling, whether it's
suggesting support groups,whether it's suggesting other
types of experiential exercisesor groups that can help them
shift their perspective on loss.
And again, let the client drivethe bus.
(35:49):
The client will tell you whatthey need and if therapists can
do that, they would not need tohave experienced a specific loss
themselves to create space forit.
Speaker 2 (36:01):
I mean I remember my undergrad in psych 101 and I
can't remember who the professoris, but my professor.
The first time he says how manypeople tell things that therapy
is saying I know what you'regoing through and a bunch of
hands went up.
He's like you're all going to belousy therapists because you
don't know, what they're goingthrough, and I always thought
(36:22):
that was something like I tellpeople.
That's psychology 101.
If you think you know what aperson's going through, you're
probably a lousy therapist.
You might have an idea, youmight have a ballpark figure,
but you don't know what theperson's going through because
every unique challenge not onlygrief, but any challenge is
unique to that person from theirperspective.
(36:43):
So just want to mention thattoo.
Speaker 3 (36:46):
I think it makes sense, steve, because I mean, we
can say things like I know howyou feel Well, no, you don't,
because you're not in my skin,but I can understand, I can ask
you, I can reflect in terms ofyou know, boy, it sounds like
you know you're really sad aboutthis particular situation,
you're angry about thisparticular situation.
Tell me more.
So, basically, you'rereflecting what you see as an
(37:06):
emotion, with the understandingor thought, with the
understanding that that clienthas a power to agree or disagree
with that and can correct youwithout the therapist taking it
personally.
Speaker 2 (37:18):
The other line that I really like to say specifically
around grief and even trauma,really like to say specifically
around grief and even trauma.
Speaker 3 (37:26):
I tell people.
Speaker 2 (37:26):
I can only imagine how you feel, and that that's
validating.
Without telling a person I knowhow you feel, I can only
imagine makes it sound like,okay, it's valid for me to not
even know how to react, and Iuse that line a lot.
So spoiler alert to all myclients who are listening to the
podcast right now.
But the truth is is that's nota line that I rehearse, but I
certainly know that that's theright thing to say, because the
(37:46):
day I say to someone I knowexactly how I feel, I probably
will land like take my license,give it back to the state of
Massachusetts and say, all right, I can't do this job.
Speaker 3 (37:56):
Well, you know that also gets into the other dilemma
that therapists go through interms of therapist
self-disclosure when, when isappropriate self-disclosure?
When it isn't, I mean for me.
Now, if somebody who'sexperienced loss, I can pretty
much say to somebody I can, Ican kind of feel where they have
, particularly if it's a loss ofa child.
So but what I won't do is I sayI, I can say I can I under, I
(38:17):
can understand where you'recoming from.
In that sense, I can do thatand say this is my, this is what
I did to help me.
This may help you.
When counselor self-disclosurebecomes unethical, it's when the
therapist is using the clientfor their own form of therapy.
Speaker 2 (38:34):
Bingo I think that's what's changed right?
Speaker 3 (38:37):
I mean I tell people.
Speaker 2 (38:39):
I share my story with my clients.
The day we're recording thistoday is the anniversary of a
miscarriage that me and my nowex-wife had.
We lost our first child.
I could disclose that tosomeone.
When they have a miscarriage, Idon't go and I'm still working
on.
No, I said that's how I livedwith it, but I want to know how
(38:59):
you want to live through it.
How can I help you?
And that's why I tell peoplesharing your story is powerful.
Making it your story is not.
It's taking away from theclient.
Speaker 3 (39:09):
Absolutely, and if somebody trusts you enough to
share a story of their mostintimate detail of their lives
and death is certainly one ofthe most intimate experiences
we'll have.
I tell my students, I tellanybody listens, consider it to
be the ultimate gift becausethey trust you with the most
traumatic and the mostlife-altering part of your life
and consider yourself blessed.
(39:30):
And every story I hear Steveinspires me and I consider that
to be a great gift.
Speaker 2 (39:37):
Well, I think that you know.
You talk about it beinginspired by your clients.
I believe that you know.
I believe everyone has theirown story and they're all valid,
whether someone is strugglingwith their story, whether people
may make up part of their storyto make themselves a Y, x, y, z
I don't want to evencharacterize it.
The opportunity to learn fromevery one of our clients is
(40:00):
essential.
As therapists, and specificallyaround grief, one of the things
that I do with all my clientswhen I terminate with them is I
take them out to eat I mean notthe Chateau, whatever, or like a
steak dinner, but you know,maybe a small restaurant, maybe
even just a muffin and a coffee.
And what I do at the end of theset, at that last session, I
tell them what they thought meabout life, and that's so
(40:22):
powerful for the client becausethey're like shit, you were
listening.
Speaker 3 (40:25):
And I'm like absolutely.
Well and particularly, and whenyou're talking about dealing
with individuals who areaddicted and we you know, steve,
we know the stigma aroundaddiction that you know, you've
heard all the myths aboutaddiction.
You've heard we've heard all ofthat that these are people that
are are are lower than low.
These are people that are lowerthan low.
These are people that arehomeless.
(40:46):
We can go through the laundrylist.
Speaker 2 (40:49):
They don't have any.
Will is my favorite.
Speaker 3 (40:51):
Yeah, they don't have any will is my favorite.
Yeah, and these are individualsthat are bright, that are.
You know, it's an equalopportunity disease and it's
everybody.
And these are individuals thatare bright, they're creative,
they have, when they've beensober and there have been many
clients I've worked with thathave had several years periods
of sobriety they've done somemeaningful service work.
So you take a look at the wholetotality.
(41:13):
So you know it's.
Yeah, I mean, you know you.
Just, sometimes life is illusion, posing as truth, and one of
the things that I things that aperson is not their addiction.
We're treating the behavior andsparing the self-esteem of the
individual, and I think that's agreat tool.
This is what you've taught me,Because one of the mantras that
(41:37):
I go by is we're all studentsand teachers, so let's learn
from each other.
We can learn from everybodythat comes into our purview.
And, um, they've taught me alot about life and for that I'm,
I'm forever grateful and I willsing the praises of anybody,
anybody who has addiction.
I will defend anybody thatthinks that that buys into the
(41:59):
stigma, that buys into the mythto say no, it isn't true.
Take it from somebody who'sworked with them for 27 years.
It's not true.
Speaker 2 (42:07):
Well, I also remind anyone who tells me about it's a
will issue or whatever.
I remind them one thing If youknow four people, you know
someone who went throughaddiction.
Did you judge them that way?
And you highly likely did so.
Stop judging other people,because everyone has their story
for where they're at today.
Speaker 3 (42:25):
that's right, yeah, yeah, we don't know what people
are going through.
So love is trail with love, youknow, love is the.
I think I think I've heard thisquote love is the the only
rational act, and I and I forgotwho did.
Who did the quote, but it was.
It was in tuesdays with mauryin the the book, tuesdays with
Maury.
Love is the only rational actand that's what's going to get
(42:50):
us through some tough times andthat's what's going to be key to
us building a community.
That's going to, that's whatwe're going to be mutually
supportive to each other duringtimes of trauma and trouble.
Speaker 2 (43:02):
And what's interesting is we're talking
about the misconceptions ofsubstance use, which I could go
down that rabbit hole really,really long.
But maybe we can talk a littlebit more about the
misconceptions about grief,because I think there's a
significant amount of those andI don't know what you think, but
I wanted to know what youthought yeah.
Speaker 3 (43:18):
the first is grief is time limited.
And this one?
I think this was an outgrowthof the stages of grief which
Kubler-Ross first developed in1969 and was designed to be a
vocabulary for individuals whoare going through their
end-of-life trauma.
Many in Western societyextrapolated that and said well,
this is how we grieve.
So the myth is that grief istime limited and then, six
(43:41):
months to a year, we should bedone grieving, put our grief in
a box and move on forward as ifnothing has happened.
And that is furthest from thetruth.
For one, the second year, forme and for many others that I've
companioned in grief, is worsethan the first year.
Because the first year is kindof like surreal.
Like in my own instance, steve,with my daughter Janine.
(44:03):
I was thinking, you know, shewas just going to walk into the
kitchen and say, hey, dad, justkidding, I'm back, or that God
or whoever was running theuniverse was going to come down
and say you know, we made amistake, we're going to give you
your life back the way it was.
And once, one day and one yearand one day hit Steve, I
realized that this is going tobe my life going forward.
(44:24):
My daughter isn't going to be apart of it.
And do I want to live or do Iwant to die?
And this is what the decisionbasically that I had to make Am
I going to live or am I going tocontinue to wallow in the muck
of my grief until I just witheraway?
And you know, eventually I madethe decision where I wanted to
(44:44):
be of service and to help othersas a result of what's happened
in honor of and with my daughter.
So that's one of the firstmyths is that grief is
time-limited.
The other thing and I just wantto get into myths about specific
kind of loss and specificallymiscarriage loss and newborn
death a lot of times individualswill say well, you know, you
(45:05):
can have another child orthey'll look at miscarriage or
newborn death as a lostpregnancy, but it's a lost child
.
And then my wife has told meright, my wife and I've had this
conversation.
She said when I found out I waspregnant, that child became
mine, we bonded and in ninemonths you know they they're.
They're feeling their childkick, they're feeling they're,
(45:26):
they're talking to each other,playing music in the womb,
soothing music to create asoothing environment.
That's her child, and to saythat somebody has lost a
pregnancy is insensitive, it's alost and we treat it as that
and saying that, oh you know,you can have another child.
One, maybe they don't want to.
Two, maybe they can't.
Maybe that one child that theylost through miscarriage or
(45:48):
newborn death was the lastchance they had to have a child
and they went through a lot ofvery drastic means, such as
maybe the woman havinghip-widening surgery to expand
her birth canal to have a child.
So that's the other part of it.
The other part, I think theother myth is that some of the
things that we're told to saythat we think are helpful, like
(46:11):
I know how you feel that's oneof the worst things you can say
because you don't okay.
The other thing is or I knowhow you feel, I lost a dog.
Now I'm not saying pet lossisn't significant, but when you
compare the loss of a pet to theloss of a child or a human
being, there's no comparison orsaying things like uh, god
needed another angel or or whichthat always.
Speaker 2 (46:34):
That is a pet peeve of mine.
I can tell you.
Speaker 3 (46:36):
Well, here's another pet peeve of mine.
God won't tell you.
Well, here's another pet peeveof mine.
God won't give you any morethan you can bear.
Oh, my God.
Well, and these are things thatwe're told are comforting, but
they're really not.
What I would have told somebodywho said that to me is that God
already gave me more than Icould bear.
He took my child, so this ismore than I could bear.
(46:57):
He took my child, so this ismore than I can bear.
So don't tell him he's notgoing to give me any more than I
could bear.
He already has.
Okay, and so essentially and Idon't usually say I'm sorry for
your loss, I'll say that, butwhat I'll also say things like
you know, please accept mycondolences for your loss, or
you and your family are going tobe in thoughts.
Uh, some individuals will, willtake umbrage at verbiage, um,
(47:21):
and you know, the only wayyou'll know that is when it
happens.
But one of the things that I'vealso tried to be conscious of
is the what am I going to say toan individual after they've
experienced a loss?
I'll look at cause of death,I'll look at the circumstances.
How do I want to come acrosswhat I to say, and it doesn't
automatically come to me.
I have to think about it and bemindful of how do I want to
(47:42):
present myself.
Another myth is that sayingnothing is better is not as good
as saying something.
Well, when you don't havesomething to say or don't know
what to say, simply offeringyour presence can be powerful.
It's okay to say I don't knowwhat to say, I have no words for
your tragedy, but I'm here andI will.
I'll be willing to listenanytime you need me to listen.
(48:04):
Run errands, do anything youneed me to do.
And here's the other thing.
Another myth is that people knowwhat they need after they,
after after death.
They don't.
You know.
It's like whatever you need,let me know.
And it's like I didn't knowwhat the hell I needed after my
daughter died.
I couldn't even think straightin terms of what I needed, much
(48:27):
less what anybody else needed.
So be directive.
If you're my neighbor and youexperience a loss, I'd knock on
your door and say, steve, I'mgoing to the grocery store to
pick up a few things.
What do you need Now?
What this might trigger is youmight look in the refrigerator
and say, shit, I haven't boughtanything for five days.
You know, dave, would you mind?
Here's the money.
Would you mind going to getthis?
That's how you can be of help.
(48:48):
And then the other thing isplease don't ask somebody who is
grieving how they're doingunless you're prepared for a
conversation.
Because how you're doing tosomebody is grieving just isn't
a social nicety.
It means it create, creates awhole new, different meaning.
So unless you have the time forthe answer, don't ask the
(49:11):
question I also want to add tone.
Speaker 2 (49:14):
How are you doing?
is to me like you're kind oflike prompting people to say
something in that direction Idon't say it that way, because I
think that sometimes that canbe very hard for people, number
one and number two.
I think that that's why, likeyou know, I've had people tell
them how do you think I'mfeeling?
Yeah, you know, like I lost my,my son, my daughter, my
(49:36):
whatever and in and I'm notobviously in an insensitive way,
I'm just giving an example.
And ultimately, I want tomention that because I've heard
that too many times.
And the other advice I give topeople is this, and this has
come from a lot of like I workwith first responders when
there's a police officer,firefighter or someone dies, vmt
, paramedic, a lot of peopleoffer help for the first two
(49:59):
weeks.
Then everything disappears andthat family is still grieving
and doesn't know what to do.
So I tell people if you reallywant to be helpful, yeah, sure,
show up at the funeral, sure,I'll go to all that stuff, but
more importantly, in two tothree weeks, stop by and spend
time with them.
Speaker 3 (50:15):
You know, know that's .
Another myth of grief too isthat after the funeral, it, you
know that, that's that's, youknow, that's all I need.
You know all I need to do is I.
But afterwards, after all, thepeople have left, that's when
the grief really starts settlingand that's when they have an
opportunity to realize, hey,this is going to be tough.
The time to check in with themis after the funeral.
The time to even if you say youshoot a text, you do a phone
(50:37):
call say, hey, I'm thinking ofyou, I just wanted to, I was
thinking of you today.
I'm just checking in to see howyou are doing today at this
moment, not just how you'redoing in general, how you're
doing today, and that mightspike a phone call, that might
spike a conversation.
And then that leads to hey, I'mgoing to the store, I'm running
(50:57):
a few errands, what do you need?
And that's, that's beingpresent, and you won't have to
worry about what you have to sayor what you're not saying.
You're just giving yourauthentic, genuine presence in
being a companion in front ofsomebody by, by trying to help
out in what might seem to beminor ways, but they're big ways
(51:18):
, particularly when somebody whowas not able to think straight
in the early stages of grief.
Speaker 2 (51:23):
I remember a particular time where I think it
was when my grandmother died.
It was around Christmas at thetime and it was my father and my
mother and myself and mythen-wife sitting in front of a
Christmas tree on the 24th afterwe buried her on the 23rd, and
the silence was absolutelydeafening.
(51:44):
Yep, and I tell people I sharethat story for to people because
I say it's not like coming tosee me on the 16th after she
dies.
That's great, thank you.
I appreciate that.
Coming in seeing me on the 25thor 26th, that means a whole lot
more and I know that thatsounds to people
counterintuitive, but I thinkthat means more when there's a
(52:05):
hundred people saying I'm sorryfor your loss, I'm sorry for
okay, yeah, you're going throughthe motions, you almost you
don't see the time go and thensuddenly you're like 10 days
later and you're like the hell'sgoing on.
Speaker 3 (52:16):
Yeah, yeah, I mean support at any time during the
grief process is support, isn'ttime limited.
I appreciate hearing frompeople who remember my daughter
21 years later and once they'vebeen remembered.
That's a great gift to usanytime, because it means we can
share some stories, share somememories, and it's always a
great gift.
So don't think the remembrancestops.
(52:37):
The other thing is, oh, theother myth is that if I mention
that person's name, it's goingto make the bereaved person
upset.
Well, I tell people hey, we'realready upset.
If you mention our child's nameor you mention our spouse's
name, it's going to put a smileon our face.
It's going to tell us thatyou've remembered and that is
something that is verymeaningful to us.
(52:59):
So now say their names, showthem that you remember, show
them that their life matters.
Speaker 2 (53:05):
And yeah, just to put a little bow on this, it's like
when we people say if I mentionsuicide to someone who's
suicidal, they'll make him moresuicidal.
No, you'll break the wholebarrier of not being able to
talk about it.
Absolutely as we approach thehour, I want to make sure we
talk about your book.
Okay, tell me about your book.
Speaker 3 (53:25):
Well, I got a copy right here, so I'll just show it
for the viewers.
It's called when the PsychologyProfessor Met the Minister To
talk about how, co-authored byme and also Reverend Patty
Farino, an interfaith ministerwho was originally from Long
Island and now living in SouthCarolina.
To talk about how we met wouldprobably be another podcast
(53:48):
episode, steve, but I'll giveyou the condensed version, since
I know we're running low ontime.
I met Reverend Farino in 2010,seven years after my daughter
transitioned.
She was trying to register fora grief conference that I had
been organizing and registrationwas online.
And just as she was ready toregister, she hit the button to
(54:12):
register, her computer screenwent blank, and we look at this
now as divine intervention thatthis was meant to bring us
together.
So she wanted to make sure herregistration got through.
She called me.
We had a conversation.
We met at the grief conference.
(54:34):
I was also thinking about goingto a presentation in Long Island
that a mutual colleague of thetime was was, was uh putting on
called embracing the power ofchange and which, for which
patty was a volunteer throughher work with with uh, the angel
of hope in long island.
Um, the angel of hope is astatue that was erected in law
in that I think it wasrockefeller park, if I if I'm
(54:55):
recalling correctly in honor ofchildren who had died,
transitioned or passed away, andparents would congregate there
At the park.
Patty would also do somevolunteer bereavement support
and interfaith ministry workwith the parents.
So she said you know, if youever get to Long Island and you
want to come down and see theworkshop, you can stay with me
(55:16):
and my husband and I'll show youmy Long Island.
So one thing led to another.
A couple of weeks after theconference I told her I want to
come down.
So I asked her probably about300 times is your husband going
to be okay with me staying there?
He doesn't know me and the lastthing I want to do is be
accused of breaking up amarriage or causing a rift.
(55:38):
He said, trust me, he's goingto be fine.
And he was.
And her husband Marco and me,patty and my wife Sherry, are
just like soul family membersand friends today.
That's how much therelationship has grown during
the conversation.
I'm going to backtrack.
Initially she had asked meduring the conversation do you
believe in the signs from yourloved ones?
(55:59):
And I said no, patty, I'm ascience-based guy.
I really don't believe in anytype of spiritual phenomenon.
I'm paraphrasing that.
But there were some things thatwere happening that science
couldn't explain.
I would think of my daughter ina song that we both like and
would come on the radio that we.
At the same time that I wasthinking about my daughter, and
(56:21):
as I was walking, mygranddaughter's butterfly seemed
to be following me around theblock.
So the things that werehappening, that didn't fit my
science-based background, but Istill couldn't make sense out of
it.
I said you know, I think my, mygranddaughter sent me, or my
daughter sent me, a rainbow onfather's day, double rainbow.
So then at the conference Igave her a hug and we talked and
(56:42):
she goes.
You know, I think your daughtersent me a rainbow, and this was
like a week before theconference.
What I found out later, steve,was that when she was, the
rainbow that she had seen wentover transverse Route 17 in New
Jersey, took a video of it andshe was sitting on the car and
(57:02):
she heard in her head a voicesaying I need you to talk to my
father and she's saying okay,but who's your father?
I mean, I shouldn't say it likethat.
But she just wanted an.
Okay, I'm glad to, but tell mewho your father is.
It's the guy you talked toabout the conference.
So I didn't know this untilafter the fact.
But once we were in Long IslandI got to her house.
She told me to get comfortable,she took me to her meditation
(57:30):
room and from there I began tolearn very quickly that my
daughter's spirit was alive andwell and that Patty was a
conduit for me to for her aliveand well, and that Patty was a
conduit for me to, for her totell me what she needed to tell
me, and I believed everythingthat happened.
I know that was probably quitewell.
Did you believe it?
I did Because prior to theworkshop, prior to going to Long
Island, I was driving three ofthe presenters after the day
(57:54):
after the conference, two oldforge in the Adirondacks to see
the leaves.
They were having this intensediscussion about spirituality
and I looked up to the sky andit was my soul speaking, steve,
I think, as opposed to my mindsaying I want to be where they
are.
All I wanted was to have a, beable to have a conversation on
spirituality or understand morespiritual practices.
(58:15):
That would help me get throughto the next moment.
So I got more than I bargainedfor.
I got a whole differentperspective that led to marathon
conversations we had about howspiritual practices and
psychology and this was over a10-year period can help
individuals together transcendchallenge and also the
importance of critical thinking.
The details of my spirituallytransformative experience,
(58:37):
sampling of our conversations,the importance of critical
thinking for present and futuregenerations are all in this book
.
It's less than 200 pages.
It's designed to be a fast read, but yet a thought-provoking
read.
Speaker 2 (58:50):
Where can we get it?
Speaker 3 (58:51):
You can get it on Amazon in paperback and Kindle.
I would encourage yourlisteners to take a look at the
reviews on amazon.
We've gotten very positivereviews from a lot of
individuals about the book.
If they want a signed copy,they can certainly email me at
bootsy and angel at gmailcom andthey could pay me through venmo
um, and if they did that itwould be a little bit more
(59:15):
obviously it would be 15 plusfive dollars shipping and
handling for a signed copy if Isent it to them directly, so it
would be $20 total.
The book on Amazon is $15 inpaperback and less than $9 in
Kindle, and we want the book toget into as many hands as
possible.
We think it can help whoeverreads it and be of comfort to
(59:36):
whoever reads it and realizethat the universe has some
amazing things that we can takea wonderment at and you know
that life does truly go on.
And then we can be open to that, to those type of messages and
multidimensional living in amultidimensional universe, if
(59:56):
we're open to it.
Speaker 2 (59:57):
Well, what I'm going to do is I'm going to add your
book from Amazon.
I will add your email addressyou just mentioned, as well as
your Venmo, because I'm going tobe getting a book that way, and
I really want to thank you foryour time today, because this
was a fantastic conversation.
Like I said, time flew by and Ihope maybe we'll have to get
together and talk more aboutother stuff, because I really
(01:00:18):
enjoyed this conversation.
Speaker 3 (01:00:20):
Steve, I did too, and I'd, um, I'd love to get
together again and talk somemore.
Um, this was a seamlessconversation and it was just
great, and it seemed like, uh,we, we aligned on a lot of
different things, which was was,which was great, but it's what
you believe is great and that'sthat.
I've learned to make space forthat and, um, it's what makes
(01:00:40):
the world go around.
It enriches my critical thingagain, it enriches my
perspective.
Speaker 2 (01:00:44):
So and, as I've said to many people before, you will
be in my meditations becausethat's what I do, and I hope you
have a great rest of the nightand I'll talk to you soon you
got it, steve, thanks well,that's it.
This completes episode 186.
Dave Roberts, thank you so much, and I hope you join us for
episode 187.
Speaker 1 (01:01:03):
Please like, subscribe and follow this
podcast on your favoriteplatform.
A glowing review is alwayshelpful and, as a reminder, this
podcast is for informational,educational and entertainment
purposes only.
If you're struggling with amental health or substance abuse
issue, please reach out to aprofessional counselor for
consultation.
If you are in a mental healthcrisis, call 988 for assistance.
(01:01:26):
This number is available in theUnited States and Canada.
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