December 21, 2021 • 57 mins
Grief, death, and loss can be such painful subjects to discuss, understand, and live with. We may struggle under the weight and pain to process our grief, as well as that of those around us, but life cannot exist without death.
This week we are honored to once again be in the presence of Sherri Doucette, yogi, lifespan doula, and founder of Litehouse Wellness, as she shares her professional and personal wisdom surrounding grief. When we last spoke to Sherri in Episode 69, we intended to discuss grief and gratitude, but found ourselves centering solely around gratitude instead. Now, we return to the conversation around grief, and as we so perfectly demonstrated in our last conversation, the struggle we can have as individuals and a society to hold space for it.
In this episode we talk about:
- The importance of embracing grief and creating space for it so we can thrive along our life’s journey.
- How we can be there and support others in their grief and pain.
- The difference between sympathy and empathy
- How when we compartmentalize ourselves, we hide away parts of our humanity.
- The beauty in allowing ourselves to be held and to hold others through our pain and suffering.
About Sherri Doucette
Sherri Doucette, founder of Litehouse Wellness, as featured on ABC’s/WFAA Daybreak at 8 and Good Morning Texas, NBC and BET, is a native of Los Angeles, CA and a long-time resident of Dallas, TX.
Litehouse Wellness is a 501c3 non-profit purposed to strengthen the African American family & community by bridging the wellness accessibility gap for underserved communities, particularly Black men, using contemplative practices and preventative health education.
Sherri recognizes that implementing these scientifically proven, resiliency-building restorative practices is key to healing ongoing trauma and building sustainable resistance against oppressive systems and institutions.
Sherri is a certified yoga & meditation teacher (200Hr RYT / 300Hr MTT), reiki II practitioner, mindfulness consultant, life-span doula and speaker.
She studied social work at Clark Atlanta University and trained with international master yoga and meditation teachers.
In 2020, the critically acclaimed WFAA feature on Litehouse Wellness, Broga = Yoga for the Brothers was nominated for an Emmy award and won the National Association of Black Journalism (NABJ) Excellence Award.
Links so you can explore more:
Learn more about Litehouse Wellness and Sherri at www.litehousewellness.org on Facebook and Instagram @litehousewellness and Twitter @litehouseheals.
Check out our first episode with Sherri, Episode 69: Healing, Slowing Down, and Giving from Our Overflow!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Amy (00:04):
We believe life can be a journey toward wholeness, toward
reconnecting with who we areauthentically meant to be. We
walk this path of growth anddiscovery with our children,
with our partners withinourselves. These are the stories
of what's possible. These arethe conversations that light the
(00:28):
way. Welcome to soul pathparenting. Hello, and welcome.
This is Amy Brees. Cooper, thankyou so much for joining us for
today's conversation aboutholding space for grief. Our
guest is Sherry do set and youmay remember her from Episode
(00:50):
69, about a month ago. If youhaven't heard the first
conversation, I'd invite you toconsider starting there. And if
you want to start here, that'sgreat too. Sherry is a yogi, a
lifespan doula who supportspeople through both birth and
(01:13):
death transitions. And she's thefounder of lighthouse, wellness.
Lighthouses, li te house, incase you want to look her up,
Amy Cooper (01:25):
you know, every once in a while, I have the privilege
of being in the presence ofsomeone who truly embodies
presence. There's just thistangible, quality, it's almost
indescribable, to the energythat's present when I'm with
them. And Sherry is one of thosepeople. So maybe you will feel
(01:47):
that too, in this conversation.
And as we introduce this, Iwanted to share a couple of
reflections. The first is thatwe live in a culture that
struggles to hold space forgrief. And so I don't think it
was by accident that we wentinto Lauren and I went into our
(02:08):
first conversation with Sherry,with the intention of talking
about grief and gratitude, andthen didn't make as much space
for grief as we had intended. Soshe very graciously agreed to
come back and talk with usagain. And what Sherry shares in
this conversation is so profoundand beautiful. It's as they say,
(02:33):
it's simple, but not easy. Andit comes from her lived
experience and her practice. Sothe other thing I wanted to
share as we introduce this is alittle bit more about her story.
As I was preparing thisintroduction, I looked back at
(02:54):
her her letter on her website.
And so these are her words.
Amy (03:05):
Baba began keeping a little roll of ant acid tablets in his
front pocket, seemingly harmlessat the time. However, we didn't
know that heartburn causescancer. He hoped to share his
story with men like himself, whobelieve erroneously in their
invincibility, their ability tosustain the unsustainable.
Amy Cooper (03:30):
He was 44 when I had to explain, dad isn't coming
home. His passing wasdevastating. But soon as Rumi
once said, I would turn my paininto medicine. In 2017, I
founded Lighthouse wellness, a501 c three nonprofit to bridge
(03:51):
the wellness accessibility gapfor black men, thereby
transforming families andcommunities using contemplative
practices, preventative healtheducation, plant based nutrition
and birth work. I recognize thatesophageal cancer was merely a
pronounced symptom of a largerissue that the adoption of
(04:15):
restorative practices like yoga,and mindfulness can transform
trauma and create sustainableresistance against oppressive
systems and institutions.
Amy (04:28):
She goes on from there but I will invite you if you'd like
to learn more about Lighthousewellness to visit her website,
Lighthouse li te housewellness.org. And with that,
we'll go to the conversationholding space for grief.
Lauren (04:51):
Hi, Sherry. I'm so excited that you're back.
Sherri Doucette (04:55):
I'm so excited to be here with the both of you.
Thank you so much.
Lauren (05:00):
I want to share with you that I was so inspired by our
first conversation that I amdoing a December sabbatical. And
I am taking all of December offto be so. And I'm so excited.
And it's something I had wantedto do for a long time. And I
(05:22):
think, witnessing You and youmodeling that, like, I want to
use language like, it gave methe permission I was looking
for. I don't know, I don't evenknow what language to put to it.
What do you think about that,like, I wanted to do it, I knew
I wanted to do it, I wasn'tgoing to do it, you're actually
(05:42):
embodying that I was in yourpresence. And now I'm doing it.
What do you make of that?
Sherri Doucette (05:48):
That's perfect.
I think that language isapropos, giving yourself
permission to be right. And, andmaking it a priority and putting
it on a calendar. And honoringthat time, as though it were the
most important meeting. Right?
And it is right, a meeting withyourself to be so I think that's
(06:10):
fantastic.
Lauren (06:11):
Yeah, thank you so much.
And I, I also want would love totalk with you. So I'm thinking
about that. And that thepermission to be the permission
to set aside that time formyself and treat it as equally
important as all the otherthings in my life that I do that
(06:33):
feel important to me. And it'sit's making me think about
grief, and pain and sadness andsome of the, you know, Shadow
aspects of human experience. AndI, I feel like I experienced our
world as prioritizing thehappier more positive, you know,
(07:01):
that side of things, andstruggling to create time and
space for grief and pain to beto breathe to like be
experienced? And I'm curiouswhat, how you might speak to
that.
Sherri Doucette (07:21):
Creating space for, for sadness and grief.
Equally?
Lauren (07:29):
Yeah. I'm curious what you would say about my
perception, I, I feel like I'veexperienced and I perceive our
current human world, I don'tknow, I'm like, Who am I talking
about? Now I need to get morespecific. In my personal life, I
(07:50):
have struggled to create timeand space to be with my own
grief, to be with sadness, to bewith pain, I tend to try to rush
through it, get over it, move onfrom it, run away from it. And
(08:10):
I'm seeking to change that. AndI'm curious if if you've
experienced any of what I'mdescribing, and what you might
say about it, especially givenyour experiences as a lifespan
doula, as a yogi, as a human.
Sherri Doucette (08:34):
I think that it is. It is crucial to our ability
to thrive along this lifejourney. To embrace grief, when
it arises, to embrace grief asan old long lost friend when it
(08:59):
shows up at our doorstep and tocreate space for it. And when we
do so, we we experience the giftof grief that is impermanent,
right? It doesn't stay forever.
But I think it's important tocreate space to give ourselves
(09:27):
permission right back to thatword, giving permission and to
allow ourselves to crack openand whatever that looks like
right for us. What I foundpersonally is that culturally,
we just don't know what to dowith grief. We don't know how to
(09:48):
respond to grief. At times wererepelled by grief because of the
end ability, the not knowingwhat to do what to say? Because
we all want to be really deepand profound, right? And so it's
like we're ruminating, like,what am I going to say? And what
(10:09):
am I going to do? And and whatgrief requires of us in terms of
showing up for other people isholding space. And companioning,
right, which is a willingness towalk along alongside someone in
their grief, in the throes ofthe ugliness of their grief, and
(10:31):
not taking away theirsovereignty, or their autonomy,
right? Knowing that they'll findtheir way out, but my role is to
walk alongside without judgment.
That requires practice. And wehaven't had much practice.
(10:56):
Right? We haven't had terrificmodeling. For instance, in my
family, whenever we've everexperienced loss, you know, that
there are folks who would justgo from person to person, you
know, at the sign of a singletear, and remind you that you
are a believer that you'rebetter than this, that you know,
(11:19):
that the other person that theperson that we've lost is in a
better place. So why are youcrying? Right? And so there's
this very much within my family,this stiffer the stiff upper lip
approach to grief, right? Thatif you allow yourself to crack
(11:41):
open, if you allow yourself toyield to the pain, that it is an
indictment on your belief, as aperson of faith, it is a sign of
weakness. And it is, it isanything but right? We the only
(12:02):
way out is through. Right? Andso we have to we have to walk
through the valley, right toreach that next mountaintop. And
we can we can ignore it. We canput on blinders, we can occupy
ourselves, by immersingourselves into the state of
(12:25):
doing right. Speakingpersonally, I became a certified
yoga teacher, I became amindfulness consultant. I
started a non profit. Yeah. Notto say that those things are
bad. But I was pretty busy,right in between the tears
because I just didn't know whatto do with it. Right? But when I
(12:50):
allowed myself to finally sitwith the grief, and allow the
waves those intense emotions towash over me, I was able to
experience the, theimpermanence, oh, I will survive
this. Oh, it won't take me out.
Okay, I think I can do this. Ithink I know I can do this, as a
(13:13):
matter of fact, and it made mestronger in the process. Right?
And itit heightened my, my emotional
intelligence, if you will, to beable to model that for other
people who find themselveswalking the same path that I've
(13:34):
walked.
Lauren (13:38):
That is so beautiful and clarifying. For me, I'm, I'm
very enamored with what I amaware of as the Buddhist concept
of clear seeing. And the reasonthat's coming up for me right
now is when I was listening toyour story, which I resonate
(14:01):
deeply with about tears, the wayI was experiencing it was having
those tears misinterpreted, likebeing told this story of why are
you crying, the person you loveand have lost is in a better
place, you should be happy. Youcan't be happy and cry. That's
all wrong. You're not followingthe script. You're not following
(14:22):
the story, which resonates sodeeply. I'm getting a little
tingly and emotional justthinking about the moments in my
life when I was in authentic,legitimate pain. And my
authentic legitimate expressionof that pain was misinterpreted
and then reflected back to me ina way that wasn't true. And it
(14:43):
wasn't clear. So my limitedunderstanding of clear seeing,
it's like looking in a clearmirror. It's like having your
truth reflected back to youclearly by someone who's able to
witness you without judgmentwithout an agenda without
putting their story to whatyou're experiencing. And that's
(15:03):
what I was thinking about whenyou were talking and how
important that is. And it's alsobringing up for me one of my
obstacles to embodying what Iwish to embody and what I also
wish to receive. I'm so afraidof doing it wrong. I have a
(15:25):
friend right now, who recentlyexperienced a house fire and
lost nearly everything. And shereceived clothing donations. And
she is grateful for the clothingdonations, and feeling like she
(15:47):
shared this with me, and feelinglike they're not her clothes.
And she doesn't feel as good inthe clothes that were given to
her as she felt in her ownclothes. But she didn't want to
admit that or feel that becauseshe felt like it negated her
gratitude. And she was supposedto be grateful, because people
were helping her and giving herclothes, so she had clean
clothes to wear. And, you know,we talked about how you can be
(16:14):
grateful for the gift of cleanclothes and acknowledge the
discomfort of not feeling greatin the clothes, because they
aren't the type of clothes thatyou prefer. And in the same way,
I want to learn how to holdspace for you, you know, the
both and that you can be inpain, and love, gratitude and
(16:40):
grief. And, and I want to beable to show up with other
people this way. And I want tobe able to hold this with
myself, but I'm so afraid ofgetting it wrong. I'm so aware
of my unconscious tendencies toput stories to things and not be
a clear mirror. And so that'ssomething I'm struggling with.
And you had mentioned, like ittakes practice, I would love to
(17:03):
hear anything you might be ableto share or offer for how
someone could practice or starta practice to try to be able to
walk with people in grief in aloving way.
Sherri Doucette (17:20):
Practice, stillness, and silence. You
can't fix it. But you can bepresent, non judgmentally. And
be quiet. And feel what theyfeel that's holding space.
(17:49):
Right? This willingness to gointo the wilderness with them
without the determination tofind your way out. Right, to
imagine what it would be like tolose everything. And to be given
(18:13):
donated clothing. And to imaginewhat that would feel like and to
imagine how she feels goingthrough that right? And embody
that. Right? To really, to notsympathize, but empathize.
Right? And I know there's thatfine line between empathy and
(18:34):
sympathy. Oh, poor her. I wish Ican do something to fix it.
Right? Because simply puts youin that mindset? How do I
provide a remedy for thishorrible thing that has happened
to this person? Empathy, ask uscause us to feel what they feel,
(18:56):
right? And all the things thatcome up with those feelings, and
to just be with it, walkalongside them in it. That's the
practice, to listen nonjudgmentally to show up without
without an ulterior motive.
Right and ulterior motives canbe good things that could be
(19:19):
positive things right? I'm onthis mission to figure out right
amount of reconnaissancemission. And I'm going to come
back and I'm going to reportback to the team what it is that
we need to do to remedy thissituation. And in the end, it's
not calling for you to fix or doanything. The situation is
calling for you to be present.
(19:43):
That's hard. As as a yogi thefinal posture in a yoga class is
savasana corpse pose. And theysay it is the most difficult
posture in all of the postureslike how can that be on the
floor? great poems turned uprelaxing, but a cause for you to
(20:06):
embody death to not fidget, tonot do anything, to simply be.
And as a yoga teacher, all thefidgeting, all the fidgeting,
even when they when the body canquiet, then you see the toes,
(20:27):
and you see the fingertips,right. But we're human beings,
and not human doings, but we'rejust so caught up in the, in the
practice and the regularpractice of doing. And if I'm
not doing then I'm not a value.
You want me to show up and justsit on the couch and not say
anything? Maybe I shouldn't showup? Absolutely, you should show
(20:51):
up. Difficult.
Amy Cooper (21:00):
It's so beautiful.
And this, this theme of being isthe way to support someone and
hold space through grief ratherthan doing. And it's I come into
a conversation like this. Andit's like, Okay, tell me what to
do. Oh, it's the wrong question.
(21:21):
We have to practice being, Ilove that you've taken it to
something so tangible assavasana. Because I haven't done
yoga in quite some time. Butwhen I used to do that pose at
the end, my eye might even berelaxed in my body. And my mind
would be like, how long do wehave to do this? What is this
going to be over? What is thepoint of this? I'm actually
(21:41):
seeing the point of it for thefirst time in this conversation
Sherri Doucette (21:46):
is quite beautiful. And you know, as you
know, yoga is a practice. Right?
The goal of yoga is notperfection. It's a practice.
It's a lifelong practice, right?
And we continue to practice andstrengthen those muscles. The
heart muscle, right? spiritualmuscle, the muscle of being. So
(22:10):
when we're called, right tocompanion, along someone who's
experiencing loss, we don't feelcompelled to do because we're
already comfortable in being wedon't have to be, we don't have
to come up with the mostprofound saying, and what is the
(22:30):
right Rumi quote, right? Theright scripture, right? It's
grief is not is not somethingthat needs to be fixed. Grief is
not a pathology. Right? Assomeone who's grieving is not
your burden, to to selfregulate, because the people
(22:54):
around you don't have thecapacity to hold you. Right? How
many times have you been? Haveyou experienced? Feeling sad, or
even grieving? And someoneasked, How are you doing? And
then your eyes welled up, right.
And you're right on the cusp ofof revealing your truth. But
(23:17):
then in that in a nanosecond,you see the change in their
countenance. This was not what Iwas expecting from you, right?
And then you you self regulateyou modulate, but I'm okay. I'm
blessed and highly favored. Youknow, I live in the south, they
say, Yeah, I'm blessed. And I'mfrom the school of thought you
(23:42):
can be blessed and bother at thesame time. Okay, that's one
thing. But number two, assomeone who's grieving, it is
not your burden. To help peoplehold you if they don't possess
the capacity to hold you that isokay. Cry anyway. be sad anyway.
Lauren (24:10):
Yeah, I really love that invitation, too. I for me, part
of how it's resonating is theinvitation to feel my feelings
and reveal that I'm feeling myfeelings like feel and reveal.
(24:32):
And if the other or others youknow, I experienced it as an
energetic withdrawal, like theywithdraw their energy, their
presence, some some, they canstill be right there looking at
me, and yet part of them feelsgone to me. And then I feel the
(24:55):
pain of feeling alone with mypain with my grief with my
sadness, I don't feel held, Idon't feel seen, I feel alone
with it. And so then part of mewants to run away from it also,
and still be seen and held bythe other in whatever capacity
they can see and hold me if theycan see and hold a modulated not
(25:20):
authentically, you know that howare you? If what they want to
hear is I'm, I'm okay. And thenthey can be with that. The part
of me that wants someone to bewith me, is motivated to try to
pretend to be whatever versionof myself I feel like I need to
(25:42):
be to be with. And then there'sthis other option of really
being fully with myself and mytruth and feeling it and
revealing it, and being with thepossible reality that I will
feel left alone with it.
Sherri Doucette (26:04):
It's a personal decision to either show up in
the fullness of who you are ornot. Right? And how does that
feel for you? How does that feelin your heart in your spirit?
You know, now, we we experiencewe see a lot of spiritual
(26:26):
bypassing, particularly in thein the yogic space in the
medical metaphysical space, loveand light. It's all love and
light, right?
Lauren (26:38):
I am with you. Yes,
Sherri Doucette (26:39):
yeah. When when what we need is, I need you to
show up at my door, I need aknock at my door. I need you to
hear in my voice and to sense inmy spirit and my energy that all
is not well, and I need you toshow up for me anyhow. I need
you to show up for me as thoughyou are showing up for yourself.
(27:03):
Right? And get out of your headin and move through your heart.
Right? What does your heart say?
How many times have you calledsomeone and said, hey, you know,
how's it going? And you can pickup those subtleties in their
voice, that they're saying allof the right things. Right. But
you know, in your spirit, thatis not right. Intellectually,
(27:26):
they said that they're fine,right? But you feel that is not
right. How many times were youmoved to do something about
those feelings and to show up?
Right. And I think that once weget in the practice of doing
that, it becomes easier tocompanion it becomes easier to
(27:48):
hold space. And then it becomeseasier to to be authentic with
our emotional selves, right? Andnot modulate based on the room
or the situation or reallythinking can they handle it?
Because it's not about them?
This is your experience wherespiritual beings and these
(28:09):
physical bodies having thesecular experience and it's
about constantly makingdecisions, will I or won't I
show up in the fullness of who Iam? And if they can't handle it,
will it destroy me? No. And, andbe okay with that. I remember
(28:33):
when following my husband'sdeath, five years ago, I
returned to the office. And Iwas in a very male dominated
industry, real estate,structural engineering. I was
the only woman in the in theboardroom. And that and you
(28:54):
know, grief just shows up.
Grief. It just shows up at themost at the least opportune time
in the middle of a meeting. AndI could just feel the waves of
the grief just moving from thesoles of my feet and I'm just
talking to myself Not now. Notnow. This is not a good time for
(29:17):
you to show up. And and then youknow, it reached my tear ducts
and it was just hanging out inmy tear ducts. And you know, I'm
negotiating with my tear ducts.
And then the next thing youknow, tears streaming down my
face and I pull up a notebook,put it in front of my face and I
excused myself. And I put wateron my face and I'm talking to
myself and I gather myself I goback and I did that like three
(29:41):
times. It would start again Ileave I come back I leave I come
back and then I just I I got toa point of of recognizing that I
need it to me Brace where I wasin the season. I needed it to be
(30:01):
fully involved in my grief.
Right? I didn't need to ignoreit. I didn't need to spiritually
bypass it. I didn't need tomodulate for the sake of the
people around me who werefrightened at the sight of a
(30:23):
woman crying in the workspace incorporate America. That was not
my problem. My husband died. Iloved him, I'm grieving. I'm
going to cry. Okay. And, but itwon't, I won't always cry. But
(30:45):
right now I'm crying. And that'sokay. And it doesn't make me
weak doesn't mean that I'm notprofessional. Cuz, you know, as
a woman in a male dominatedindustry, there are all these
rules, right? We don't we don'tbring baked goods to the office
unless we purchase them. BecauseI'm not you know, like, all of
(31:10):
all of those, all of thatmessaging that says, This is
what you need to do in order tobe a successful woman in
corporate America and a woman ofcolor, right? There are all
these rules. And one of therules is is that you, you try
not to show that the tender sideof yourself, right? You keep it
professional. And one of thereasons is, is that you don't
(31:34):
want sympathy. You don't wantsympathy.
But in in in compartmentalizingourselves, we hide away parts of
our humanity, of our sharedhumanity, right. And we give up
on opportunities to be held andto hold each other.
Lauren (32:02):
Yeah, because, you know, I feel like, for me, I have felt
afraid of this. And I have alsoexperienced it for me. Grief and
gratitude, joy, either one,either one of them can sometimes
be experienced as an eclipsesituation where one eclipses out
(32:25):
the other. So, you know,sometimes there are moments of
such intense, incredible joy andgratitude that I lose my
conscious connection in thatmoment to my grief. And then
sometimes they're such deep,painful eclipsing experiences of
grief that I temporarily lose myconscious access in the moment
(32:49):
to my joy to my gratitude. And Ifeel like people are okay with
the gratitude Joy clips, they'reokay. I mean, it bothers some
people, to be honest, somepeople don't like it if you're
too happy either, because itkind of triggers them. And me
too. So I'm not I don't mean tosound judgy here, I want to be
conscious, I've been triggeredby people that were too happy
(33:12):
when I wasn't happy. I was like,How dare you be so happy, get
out of my face with yourhappiness with your joy. I don't
want to see that right now. AndI've also been on the giving and
the receiving end of that griefEclipse, that I feel I very much
(33:33):
feel like everything you weresaying earlier is so true. I
don't think we've had greatmodeling for how to be with that
grief Eclipse, I think there's alot of fear that will get stuck
there forever. So let's justnever go there. That's how we
avoid getting stuck there. Wejust don't go there ever, when
the only way out is through. Soif you never go there, you
(33:53):
actually create the thing youdon't want, which is you're kind
of stuck there forever, but alsopushing it out of your
consciousness. And we can movethrough it. And it comes back to
like my deep griefs and lossesof loved ones and, you know,
realities for myself that I'velost. They come back they don't,
(34:17):
I don't move on from them tonever feel them again. They come
in waves for sure. And theythere's the potential for
another Eclipse experience. AndI really my dream, my vision my
wish would be for communities,whether it's a workspace like
(34:40):
you were describing, you know, acommunity of humans to be able
to collectively hold that andpresence that. And I feel like
sometimes that's not the realitythat we're in sometimes we're
not in an environment or in acommunity that knows how to
presence and hold that and thatcan presence and hold that and
then like you We're saying, weget to choose for ourselves, to
(35:04):
still allow it to still embodyit to still presence and hold
it, whether or not the peoplearound us are doing that with
us. And then I think about thefact that if, if an individual
that you'd like so now this iswhat I'm projecting onto you
now, I'm projecting onto youthat you have done the
(35:26):
difficult, powerful work ofgiving yourself permission to
embody and presence and expressthose things, even and
especially when no one aroundyou was able to do it with you
able to support it, able topresence it. And now you give
that gift to others, you'vealready given it to me, what you
(35:49):
embody your energy, yourpresence, I am benefiting just
from being in your presence. I'mlike, Thank you for taking the
time to talk with me, becauseit's benefiting me just being in
your presence, I can feel it.
And the story I'm making upabout you and the fears that I
have, and the struggles that Ihave, are feeling afraid that
I'm that, how do I want to saythis, I'm imagining that you've
(36:18):
done this difficult work, you'vebecome this. And it's at a cost
like this, there's this cost, Ifeel like to becoming that when
the environment isn't supportingit when your human community
isn't coming together and doingit with you. Like, I feel like
that's how it should be, andit's not. And so now it's being
(36:41):
done on this individual basis.
And I feel sad about it. Andthat that's what I'm curious.
I'm curious what you would sayabout that.
Sherri Doucette (36:57):
So for me, the cost benefit analysis is
incredible. Because you wouldthink that Okay, so now I'm out
here by myself, right? BecauseI'm an anomaly, right compared
to what's going on culturally.
But what I've done, really,subconsciously, is I've given
(37:19):
permission to all to everyonewho comes in contact with me to
bring their whole selves into mypresence, right into the space.
And so just yesterday. Well,today's Tuesday, so this was
(37:39):
Sunday, I taught a self care, aSunday self care class for men.
And invariably, someone will cryat the end of class. And a man,
can you believe that? A fullgrown man, at the end of yoga
class is bawling his eyes out.
(38:05):
And I don't rush over within areassuring granny pat on the
shoulder, I don't offer aKleenex, which is a sure way of
a very subtle way to tellsomeone Dry your eyes. So I
(38:25):
don't offer Kleenex. And what dowe do? We sit in silence. And we
hold space in silence. Nowthat's in a class setting,
amongst out in the communitywith people who know me,
particularly with my friends.
They cry, they come together, wethey come to me and to one
(38:48):
another right within our circle.
If their sadness present, weaddress the sadness, no
spiritual bypassing allowed.
Right. And to my earlier point,it's taking practice, right. My
husband died five years ago. Andfor me, that was a very, it was
very pivotal. I never lost thehusband before. Right? That that
(39:09):
was uncharted territory for me.
And considering my, you know, myfamily background, they didn't
know what to do. Right. And Ihad to figure it out. And what I
came to understand was, theirtraditional ways of being would
(39:31):
not work for me in the season. Iwould not make it to the other
side. And for me, the goal wasto come out of that season
stronger to come out of theseason out of the season better,
right. And, and and with theability to thrive. I felt like
(39:53):
there was the potential for thatgrief to just eat me up. Right.
I've lost Heads, I've lostgrandparents, I've lost extended
family, but a spouse, a child,that that level of loss has has
(40:14):
the potential to just gobble youup. Right. And I didn't want
that to be my story. And so Ihad to take charge of my grief,
right. And in doing so I modeleda new way of being for everyone
that I encountered. And itwasn't just limited to my, to my
(40:35):
children, or my, or my extendedfamily or my circle, everyone
that I encounter, I want it toenergetically give them
permission to show up in thefullness of who they were in the
moment, right? In the moment, ifhis grief if the sadness I
welcome that.
Lauren (40:58):
Yeah, that is so beautiful. And I think that is
so important for where I hopehumanity is headed. Because I
feel like, you know, what,what's coming alive for me now,
is in addition to individual,deep grief, losing a spouse
(41:24):
losing a child, those are, youknow, I hear people talk about,
like, those are clubs, theynever wanted to join, like, they
never wanted to be in thatgroup. Because, you know,
grandparents, we expect to loseour grandparents. And it's
different than, you know, wenever expect to outlive our
(41:47):
children. And we also don'texpect to lose our partner at a
young age when, you know, inyour case, like, it wasn't you
hadn't gotten to that age orstage of life where it starts to
become something that you'reanticipating. And that is so
(42:13):
significant. And I feel like thedeeper the grief, the more you
know, it's so hard when we talkabout pain, because pain is
pain. And there also seems to bedegrees of pain, layers of pain,
more pain, less pain. I thinkthere's truth to that. And so
(42:33):
I'm thinking in individual casesof those degrees, and getting to
a place where we can presence,those things and not run away
from our own feelings aboutthose things, and therefore run
away from another person who'sexperiencing those things.
(42:54):
Because that's, I think there'sa parallel process where if I
don't even want a presence, myfeelings, and my empathy and my
imagining of what it would belike to lose my partner to lose
my child, then I can't bepresent with someone else who's
walking through that right now.
So being able to presence thatindividually so powerful, and
you embodying that and modelingthat is so powerful, and I I
(43:19):
think everyone who comes incontact with you is, you know,
lucky to get to have thatexperience. And, and I'm also
thinking about the collectivelike the larger griefs like now
I'm shifting to thinking aboutour country and our history, our
pain filled history, with, youknow, 400 years of slavery and
(43:44):
oppression and so much pain thatwe, like, I feel like
collectively there's thissimilar struggle to presence,
that pain to witness it, to bewith it, to empathize with it,
to feel it, to acknowledge itsexistence. And I wonder if
there's anything you would wantto say to that kind of parallel
(44:09):
between the individual and thekind of collective presencing of
pain, avoidance of pain?
Sherri Doucette (44:18):
Sure. It starts with the individual Of course,
right? And then it growsoutward. It starts with this
willingness, right, this thiscourage to sit with the
uncomfortable, right? Grief isuncomfortable. Loss is
(44:43):
uncomfortable.
Offering deep kindness andcompassion to ourselves when
we're experiencing loss, resistThis judging levels of grief, a
(45:06):
lot of times what will happen islike this comparison, right?
Well, I shouldn't be, Ishouldn't be sad, I should be
really grateful because youknow, so and so over here loss,
I mean, they had anextraordinary loss than my loss
wasn't at that level. Loss isloss, right? If you lose your
cell phone, the all yourfinancial data and all your
(45:28):
contacts and and you didn't backit up to the cloud, you're going
to grieve the loss of youriPhone. It's worth grieving is
legitimate. Right? And no oneshould discount your pain.
Because your iPhone isn't aperson. Right? The it registers
(45:51):
in the body as grief. Right? Andthen you have to reconcile
yourself with that loss, right?
Come to terms with it,acceptance, right, you go
through Kubler Ross's stages ofgrief over a cell phone. Right.
But what's key is is to releasethe judgment. Right. And back to
the point of practicing,practice practicing over the the
(46:16):
quote unquote, small things,right? So you can build up your
your resiliency, your capacityto hold larger, if you will,
types of grief, right? We talkabout complicated history, the
ugly, dark past of America, 400years of slavery, right? If you
(46:39):
don't have the capacity to holdthe small things, it will be
impossible for you to holdsomething as big and hairy and
gross as 400 years of slavery.
Not that you don't have theintellectual capacity. But your
(47:03):
heart is just not capable.
Right? You haven't built themuscle. So you have to practice,
right? And how do we practice wepractice by having conversations
with one another, right? Withinaffinity groups, talking to your
friends, right? In a space whereyou feel safe, you feel held,
you don't feel judged, you feellike I may make some mistakes,
(47:24):
say some things that are notappropriate or doesn't come out
the wrong way. Right. But I feellike I can do that here. Right.
And we can talk through it. Andwe can build upon that. But
again, it takes practice.
Starting with self honoring, howyou feel when you feel it in
(47:49):
your body. Right? When you feelbecause, you know grief occupies
the body. Right? If you've everexperienced loss, you know, you
fill it in your belly, fill itin your heart, it's a physical
type of pain, right? It's notjust the emotional, and for if
(48:11):
someone hasn't experienced loss,and they're like, What are you
talking about? How can you howcan you how can any emotion
emotional type of pain manifestsphysically? It does. Right? And,
and because it does, you want todo anything that you can, to not
(48:33):
feel it right to numb it right?
And then comes food andsubstance shopping, doing right
doing this the number oneanything to to numb the feeling.
But if we can just sit with it,we are growing our capacity to
hold. Right? And what are weholding where our ability to
(48:57):
hold the pain of others, ourability to be empathic. Right?
In this age of woowoo. You know,we we say well, you know that
person is is is an is an empathwe're all empaths some of us are
more in touch with our empathicside than others. Right? And how
(49:18):
we build that capacity isallowing ourselves to feel what
we feel and in turn, feel whatother people feel you because
when you talk aboutholding space for something like
slavery, that is not is not anintellectual holding. Right?
(49:41):
It's an emotional holding. It'sit's it's holding of all the
lives lost all the livesimpacted. Right? All the pain
that was caused pain, perhapscaused by your ancestors or
ancestors of people that youknow, right? And in releasing
(50:01):
judgment, because with thejudgment comes the wall, right?
You want to block it. Not me,you start making the ego show
shows up, and we startintellectualizing pain. Right?
(50:21):
Well, that's not really my pain.
I didn't have anything to dowith that. So why should I? Why
should that concern me? What asa human being? As a fellow human
being? Right? It should concernyou. Right? We're in this thing
(50:45):
together.
Lauren (50:48):
Yeah. And I feel like, you know, that, that not me
temptation that Oh, not me, youknow, I, I'm not responsible or
it, you know, yes, maybe it wasmy ancestors. I'm speaking for
myself, maybe it was myancestors, but not me. I don't
want it to be me. That for me,the way I I experienced that is
(51:13):
this desire to run away fromparts of myself, run away from
run away from my empathy, myempathic side, because if I
really empathize with if Ireally presence and allow myself
to feel and hold emotionally,like you're describing my best
(51:35):
approximation in my imagination,and my ability to empathize with
the, like, the level the layersof devastation, though, you
know, if I imagine being rippedapart from my family, from my
parents, from my siblings,being, you know, forced to live
a life not of my choosing, beingjust so there's just so many
(52:00):
things. And if I really thinkabout like, that could have been
me, it could have been anyone,you know, one of one of my
teachers tries to offer theantidote to why me when people
are like, Why me? Why did thishappen to me? Why not me? It
could be any of us. We're allhuman. It could be any of us.
(52:23):
And like, accessing that thosefeelings? Yeah, it's a lot to
hold. And it takes, it takespractice to even try like I'm
trying and I even right now Ihave a judgemental voice coming
up in my head saying you shouldnot be speaking right now.
You're doing this wrong. You're.
Yeah. Be quiet. You can't dothis. You're not there yet. And,
(52:44):
you know, Mike, this Yeah, thisis practice, right. This is this
is my way of trying and failingand learning from it, you know?
And so, yeah.
Sherri Doucette (53:02):
His practice, and it takes repeat
conversations that you thinkabout when you're talking to a
child, a young child about sex,right, in, and culturally is
like, you know, the talk, it's aseries of conversations. It's
not, it's not a singular talk.
It's not an event, right? Youbegin the conversation, and it's
(53:22):
on a continuum, right? And theconversation evolves, right, and
it becomes more nuance, right?
With practice? Yes. And in thebeginning is really weird. And
you're kind of creeped out andfreaked out about it, and you
don't know how deep to go andwhat what do they know, and what
don't they know? And am I comingacross as an authority? Or am I
(53:47):
coming across as a really out oftouch parent? You know, there's
all that judgment and negativeself talk, right? But the more
you engage, right, that tensionfalls away. Right? And, and you
can open yourself up to organicengagement, right? And kind of
(54:07):
meeting each other where you arein filling it out and, and
laughing through it at somepoint. Right? It's the same. It
really is the same, but you haveto start somewhere. Right? And
ignoring it. Right? Ignoring theelephant in the room doesn't
serve anyone. Right? When you'regoing to have the talk, you're
going to start having to talk toare you going to wait until a
(54:31):
team in like you're just likepraying for the best Right?
Right. hoping for the best,right? Maybe they don't think
about it if we don't talk aboutit. Now. That's not reality.
Right? Yeah, yeah. That is justnot reality. And so again, just
practicing sitting with yourselfwith the, with the complicated
(54:54):
emotions that arise within ourourselves, just you As we're
going through our own self talk,right, without even engaging
with someone else, that's wherethe practice begins. Yeah. So
when you are engaging with withothers with the world, right
with circumstance, when thatwhen the intensity begins to
(55:18):
build within your body, it'slike, Oh, I've been here before.
And it won't wipe me out. And itwon't be the end of me. Right?
In fact, when I feel it rising,this is probably an opportunity
to learn something. Right? I'mlikely going to come out of this
(55:40):
on the other side better. If I,if I will challenge myself to
just sit with it. And to createspace.
Lauren (55:50):
Yeah, I feel like that's how we build resilience. We redo
what you just described, wepractice we show up, we present
I mean, even comparing it to,you know, yoga, you show up, you
get on the mat, you practice,you presence, you struggle, you
fail, you try again, you buildresilience, and emotionally, we
(56:11):
can build those muscles as well.
And I just, I'm so deeplygrateful for everything that you
shared. Thank you for sharingyour wisdom with us again. I
feel very lucky. So
Sherri Doucette (56:26):
me too. Thank you for the opportunity. So good
hanging out with the two of you.
Amy Cooper (56:33):
Thank you for coming back. And really delving into
the conversation of d of grief.
It's funny, as I reflect on ourtwo conversations, how maybe
even a part of us did the thingthat we're talking about, of not
being with the grief and notgoing and creating space and
holding space for that. I'm sureI'm complicit in moving right on
(56:53):
to gratitude. Let's talk aboutthat. So thank you so much for
coming back to talk with usabout this really important,
really important topic today.
Sherri Doucette (57:06):
Absolutely.
Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
We believe life can be a journey toward wholeness, toward
reconnecting with who we areauthentically meant to be. We
walk this path of growth anddiscovery with our children,
with our partners withinourselves. These are the stories
of what's possible. These arethe conversations that light the
(00:28):
way. Welcome to soul pathparenting. Hello, and welcome.
This is Amy Brees. Cooper, thankyou so much for joining us for
today's conversation aboutholding space for grief. Our
guest is Sherry do set and youmay remember her from Episode
(00:50):
69, about a month ago. If youhaven't heard the first
conversation, I'd invite you toconsider starting there. And if
you want to start here, that'sgreat too. Sherry is a yogi, a
lifespan doula who supportspeople through both birth and
(01:13):
death transitions. And she's thefounder of lighthouse, wellness.
Lighthouses, li te house, incase you want to look her up,
Amy Cooper (01:25):
you know, every once in a while, I have the privilege
of being in the presence ofsomeone who truly embodies
presence. There's just thistangible, quality, it's almost
indescribable, to the energythat's present when I'm with
them. And Sherry is one of thosepeople. So maybe you will feel
(01:47):
that too, in this conversation.
And as we introduce this, Iwanted to share a couple of
reflections. The first is thatwe live in a culture that
struggles to hold space forgrief. And so I don't think it
was by accident that we wentinto Lauren and I went into our
(02:08):
first conversation with Sherry,with the intention of talking
about grief and gratitude, andthen didn't make as much space
for grief as we had intended. Soshe very graciously agreed to
come back and talk with usagain. And what Sherry shares in
this conversation is so profoundand beautiful. It's as they say,
(02:33):
it's simple, but not easy. Andit comes from her lived
experience and her practice. Sothe other thing I wanted to
share as we introduce this is alittle bit more about her story.
As I was preparing thisintroduction, I looked back at
(02:54):
her her letter on her website.
And so these are her words.
Amy (03:05):
Baba began keeping a little roll of ant acid tablets in his
front pocket, seemingly harmlessat the time. However, we didn't
know that heartburn causescancer. He hoped to share his
story with men like himself, whobelieve erroneously in their
invincibility, their ability tosustain the unsustainable.
Amy Cooper (03:30):
He was 44 when I had to explain, dad isn't coming
home. His passing wasdevastating. But soon as Rumi
once said, I would turn my paininto medicine. In 2017, I
founded Lighthouse wellness, a501 c three nonprofit to bridge
(03:51):
the wellness accessibility gapfor black men, thereby
transforming families andcommunities using contemplative
practices, preventative healtheducation, plant based nutrition
and birth work. I recognize thatesophageal cancer was merely a
pronounced symptom of a largerissue that the adoption of
(04:15):
restorative practices like yoga,and mindfulness can transform
trauma and create sustainableresistance against oppressive
systems and institutions.
Amy (04:28):
She goes on from there but I will invite you if you'd like
to learn more about Lighthousewellness to visit her website,
Lighthouse li te housewellness.org. And with that,
we'll go to the conversationholding space for grief.
Lauren (04:51):
Hi, Sherry. I'm so excited that you're back.
Sherri Doucette (04:55):
I'm so excited to be here with the both of you.
Thank you so much.
Lauren (05:00):
I want to share with you that I was so inspired by our
first conversation that I amdoing a December sabbatical. And
I am taking all of December offto be so. And I'm so excited.
And it's something I had wantedto do for a long time. And I
(05:22):
think, witnessing You and youmodeling that, like, I want to
use language like, it gave methe permission I was looking
for. I don't know, I don't evenknow what language to put to it.
What do you think about that,like, I wanted to do it, I knew
I wanted to do it, I wasn'tgoing to do it, you're actually
(05:42):
embodying that I was in yourpresence. And now I'm doing it.
What do you make of that?
Sherri Doucette (05:48):
That's perfect.
I think that language isapropos, giving yourself
permission to be right. And, andmaking it a priority and putting
it on a calendar. And honoringthat time, as though it were the
most important meeting. Right?
And it is right, a meeting withyourself to be so I think that's
(06:10):
fantastic.
Lauren (06:11):
Yeah, thank you so much.
And I, I also want would love totalk with you. So I'm thinking
about that. And that thepermission to be the permission
to set aside that time formyself and treat it as equally
important as all the otherthings in my life that I do that
(06:33):
feel important to me. And it'sit's making me think about
grief, and pain and sadness andsome of the, you know, Shadow
aspects of human experience. AndI, I feel like I experienced our
world as prioritizing thehappier more positive, you know,
(07:01):
that side of things, andstruggling to create time and
space for grief and pain to beto breathe to like be
experienced? And I'm curiouswhat, how you might speak to
that.
Sherri Doucette (07:21):
Creating space for, for sadness and grief.
Equally?
Lauren (07:29):
Yeah. I'm curious what you would say about my
perception, I, I feel like I'veexperienced and I perceive our
current human world, I don'tknow, I'm like, Who am I talking
about? Now I need to get morespecific. In my personal life, I
(07:50):
have struggled to create timeand space to be with my own
grief, to be with sadness, to bewith pain, I tend to try to rush
through it, get over it, move onfrom it, run away from it. And
(08:10):
I'm seeking to change that. AndI'm curious if if you've
experienced any of what I'mdescribing, and what you might
say about it, especially givenyour experiences as a lifespan
doula, as a yogi, as a human.
Sherri Doucette (08:34):
I think that it is. It is crucial to our ability
to thrive along this lifejourney. To embrace grief, when
it arises, to embrace grief asan old long lost friend when it
(08:59):
shows up at our doorstep and tocreate space for it. And when we
do so, we we experience the giftof grief that is impermanent,
right? It doesn't stay forever.
But I think it's important tocreate space to give ourselves
(09:27):
permission right back to thatword, giving permission and to
allow ourselves to crack openand whatever that looks like
right for us. What I foundpersonally is that culturally,
we just don't know what to dowith grief. We don't know how to
(09:48):
respond to grief. At times wererepelled by grief because of the
end ability, the not knowingwhat to do what to say? Because
we all want to be really deepand profound, right? And so it's
like we're ruminating, like,what am I going to say? And what
(10:09):
am I going to do? And and whatgrief requires of us in terms of
showing up for other people isholding space. And companioning,
right, which is a willingness towalk along alongside someone in
their grief, in the throes ofthe ugliness of their grief, and
(10:31):
not taking away theirsovereignty, or their autonomy,
right? Knowing that they'll findtheir way out, but my role is to
walk alongside without judgment.
That requires practice. And wehaven't had much practice.
(10:56):
Right? We haven't had terrificmodeling. For instance, in my
family, whenever we've everexperienced loss, you know, that
there are folks who would justgo from person to person, you
know, at the sign of a singletear, and remind you that you
are a believer that you'rebetter than this, that you know,
(11:19):
that the other person that theperson that we've lost is in a
better place. So why are youcrying? Right? And so there's
this very much within my family,this stiffer the stiff upper lip
approach to grief, right? Thatif you allow yourself to crack
(11:41):
open, if you allow yourself toyield to the pain, that it is an
indictment on your belief, as aperson of faith, it is a sign of
weakness. And it is, it isanything but right? We the only
(12:02):
way out is through. Right? Andso we have to we have to walk
through the valley, right toreach that next mountaintop. And
we can we can ignore it. We canput on blinders, we can occupy
ourselves, by immersingourselves into the state of
(12:25):
doing right. Speakingpersonally, I became a certified
yoga teacher, I became amindfulness consultant. I
started a non profit. Yeah. Notto say that those things are
bad. But I was pretty busy,right in between the tears
because I just didn't know whatto do with it. Right? But when I
(12:50):
allowed myself to finally sitwith the grief, and allow the
waves those intense emotions towash over me, I was able to
experience the, theimpermanence, oh, I will survive
this. Oh, it won't take me out.
Okay, I think I can do this. Ithink I know I can do this, as a
(13:13):
matter of fact, and it made mestronger in the process. Right?
And itit heightened my, my emotional
intelligence, if you will, to beable to model that for other
people who find themselveswalking the same path that I've
(13:34):
walked.
Lauren (13:38):
That is so beautiful and clarifying. For me, I'm, I'm
very enamored with what I amaware of as the Buddhist concept
of clear seeing. And the reasonthat's coming up for me right
now is when I was listening toyour story, which I resonate
(14:01):
deeply with about tears, the wayI was experiencing it was having
those tears misinterpreted, likebeing told this story of why are
you crying, the person you loveand have lost is in a better
place, you should be happy. Youcan't be happy and cry. That's
all wrong. You're not followingthe script. You're not following
(14:22):
the story, which resonates sodeeply. I'm getting a little
tingly and emotional justthinking about the moments in my
life when I was in authentic,legitimate pain. And my
authentic legitimate expressionof that pain was misinterpreted
and then reflected back to me ina way that wasn't true. And it
(14:43):
wasn't clear. So my limitedunderstanding of clear seeing,
it's like looking in a clearmirror. It's like having your
truth reflected back to youclearly by someone who's able to
witness you without judgmentwithout an agenda without
putting their story to whatyou're experiencing. And that's
(15:03):
what I was thinking about whenyou were talking and how
important that is. And it's alsobringing up for me one of my
obstacles to embodying what Iwish to embody and what I also
wish to receive. I'm so afraidof doing it wrong. I have a
(15:25):
friend right now, who recentlyexperienced a house fire and
lost nearly everything. And shereceived clothing donations. And
she is grateful for the clothingdonations, and feeling like she
(15:47):
shared this with me, and feelinglike they're not her clothes.
And she doesn't feel as good inthe clothes that were given to
her as she felt in her ownclothes. But she didn't want to
admit that or feel that becauseshe felt like it negated her
gratitude. And she was supposedto be grateful, because people
were helping her and giving herclothes, so she had clean
clothes to wear. And, you know,we talked about how you can be
(16:14):
grateful for the gift of cleanclothes and acknowledge the
discomfort of not feeling greatin the clothes, because they
aren't the type of clothes thatyou prefer. And in the same way,
I want to learn how to holdspace for you, you know, the
both and that you can be inpain, and love, gratitude and
(16:40):
grief. And, and I want to beable to show up with other
people this way. And I want tobe able to hold this with
myself, but I'm so afraid ofgetting it wrong. I'm so aware
of my unconscious tendencies toput stories to things and not be
a clear mirror. And so that'ssomething I'm struggling with.
And you had mentioned, like ittakes practice, I would love to
(17:03):
hear anything you might be ableto share or offer for how
someone could practice or starta practice to try to be able to
walk with people in grief in aloving way.
Sherri Doucette (17:20):
Practice, stillness, and silence. You
can't fix it. But you can bepresent, non judgmentally. And
be quiet. And feel what theyfeel that's holding space.
(17:49):
Right? This willingness to gointo the wilderness with them
without the determination tofind your way out. Right, to
imagine what it would be like tolose everything. And to be given
(18:13):
donated clothing. And to imaginewhat that would feel like and to
imagine how she feels goingthrough that right? And embody
that. Right? To really, to notsympathize, but empathize.
Right? And I know there's thatfine line between empathy and
(18:34):
sympathy. Oh, poor her. I wish Ican do something to fix it.
Right? Because simply puts youin that mindset? How do I
provide a remedy for thishorrible thing that has happened
to this person? Empathy, ask uscause us to feel what they feel,
(18:56):
right? And all the things thatcome up with those feelings, and
to just be with it, walkalongside them in it. That's the
practice, to listen nonjudgmentally to show up without
without an ulterior motive.
Right and ulterior motives canbe good things that could be
(19:19):
positive things right? I'm onthis mission to figure out right
amount of reconnaissancemission. And I'm going to come
back and I'm going to reportback to the team what it is that
we need to do to remedy thissituation. And in the end, it's
not calling for you to fix or doanything. The situation is
calling for you to be present.
(19:43):
That's hard. As as a yogi thefinal posture in a yoga class is
savasana corpse pose. And theysay it is the most difficult
posture in all of the postureslike how can that be on the
floor? great poems turned uprelaxing, but a cause for you to
(20:06):
embody death to not fidget, tonot do anything, to simply be.
And as a yoga teacher, all thefidgeting, all the fidgeting,
even when they when the body canquiet, then you see the toes,
(20:27):
and you see the fingertips,right. But we're human beings,
and not human doings, but we'rejust so caught up in the, in the
practice and the regularpractice of doing. And if I'm
not doing then I'm not a value.
You want me to show up and justsit on the couch and not say
anything? Maybe I shouldn't showup? Absolutely, you should show
(20:51):
up. Difficult.
Amy Cooper (21:00):
It's so beautiful.
And this, this theme of being isthe way to support someone and
hold space through grief ratherthan doing. And it's I come into
a conversation like this. Andit's like, Okay, tell me what to
do. Oh, it's the wrong question.
(21:21):
We have to practice being, Ilove that you've taken it to
something so tangible assavasana. Because I haven't done
yoga in quite some time. Butwhen I used to do that pose at
the end, my eye might even berelaxed in my body. And my mind
would be like, how long do wehave to do this? What is this
going to be over? What is thepoint of this? I'm actually
(21:41):
seeing the point of it for thefirst time in this conversation
Sherri Doucette (21:46):
is quite beautiful. And you know, as you
know, yoga is a practice. Right?
The goal of yoga is notperfection. It's a practice.
It's a lifelong practice, right?
And we continue to practice andstrengthen those muscles. The
heart muscle, right? spiritualmuscle, the muscle of being. So
(22:10):
when we're called, right tocompanion, along someone who's
experiencing loss, we don't feelcompelled to do because we're
already comfortable in being wedon't have to be, we don't have
to come up with the mostprofound saying, and what is the
(22:30):
right Rumi quote, right? Theright scripture, right? It's
grief is not is not somethingthat needs to be fixed. Grief is
not a pathology. Right? Assomeone who's grieving is not
your burden, to to selfregulate, because the people
(22:54):
around you don't have thecapacity to hold you. Right? How
many times have you been? Haveyou experienced? Feeling sad, or
even grieving? And someoneasked, How are you doing? And
then your eyes welled up, right.
And you're right on the cusp ofof revealing your truth. But
(23:17):
then in that in a nanosecond,you see the change in their
countenance. This was not what Iwas expecting from you, right?
And then you you self regulateyou modulate, but I'm okay. I'm
blessed and highly favored. Youknow, I live in the south, they
say, Yeah, I'm blessed. And I'mfrom the school of thought you
(23:42):
can be blessed and bother at thesame time. Okay, that's one
thing. But number two, assomeone who's grieving, it is
not your burden. To help peoplehold you if they don't possess
the capacity to hold you that isokay. Cry anyway. be sad anyway.
Lauren (24:10):
Yeah, I really love that invitation, too. I for me, part
of how it's resonating is theinvitation to feel my feelings
and reveal that I'm feeling myfeelings like feel and reveal.
(24:32):
And if the other or others youknow, I experienced it as an
energetic withdrawal, like theywithdraw their energy, their
presence, some some, they canstill be right there looking at
me, and yet part of them feelsgone to me. And then I feel the
(24:55):
pain of feeling alone with mypain with my grief with my
sadness, I don't feel held, Idon't feel seen, I feel alone
with it. And so then part of mewants to run away from it also,
and still be seen and held bythe other in whatever capacity
they can see and hold me if theycan see and hold a modulated not
(25:20):
authentically, you know that howare you? If what they want to
hear is I'm, I'm okay. And thenthey can be with that. The part
of me that wants someone to bewith me, is motivated to try to
pretend to be whatever versionof myself I feel like I need to
(25:42):
be to be with. And then there'sthis other option of really
being fully with myself and mytruth and feeling it and
revealing it, and being with thepossible reality that I will
feel left alone with it.
Sherri Doucette (26:04):
It's a personal decision to either show up in
the fullness of who you are ornot. Right? And how does that
feel for you? How does that feelin your heart in your spirit?
You know, now, we we experiencewe see a lot of spiritual
(26:26):
bypassing, particularly in thein the yogic space in the
medical metaphysical space, loveand light. It's all love and
light, right?
Lauren (26:38):
I am with you. Yes,
Sherri Doucette (26:39):
yeah. When when what we need is, I need you to
show up at my door, I need aknock at my door. I need you to
hear in my voice and to sense inmy spirit and my energy that all
is not well, and I need you toshow up for me anyhow. I need
you to show up for me as thoughyou are showing up for yourself.
(27:03):
Right? And get out of your headin and move through your heart.
Right? What does your heart say?
How many times have you calledsomeone and said, hey, you know,
how's it going? And you can pickup those subtleties in their
voice, that they're saying allof the right things. Right. But
you know, in your spirit, thatis not right. Intellectually,
(27:26):
they said that they're fine,right? But you feel that is not
right. How many times were youmoved to do something about
those feelings and to show up?
Right. And I think that once weget in the practice of doing
that, it becomes easier tocompanion it becomes easier to
(27:48):
hold space. And then it becomeseasier to to be authentic with
our emotional selves, right? Andnot modulate based on the room
or the situation or reallythinking can they handle it?
Because it's not about them?
This is your experience wherespiritual beings and these
(28:09):
physical bodies having thesecular experience and it's
about constantly makingdecisions, will I or won't I
show up in the fullness of who Iam? And if they can't handle it,
will it destroy me? No. And, andbe okay with that. I remember
(28:33):
when following my husband'sdeath, five years ago, I
returned to the office. And Iwas in a very male dominated
industry, real estate,structural engineering. I was
the only woman in the in theboardroom. And that and you
(28:54):
know, grief just shows up.
Grief. It just shows up at themost at the least opportune time
in the middle of a meeting. AndI could just feel the waves of
the grief just moving from thesoles of my feet and I'm just
talking to myself Not now. Notnow. This is not a good time for
(29:17):
you to show up. And and then youknow, it reached my tear ducts
and it was just hanging out inmy tear ducts. And you know, I'm
negotiating with my tear ducts.
And then the next thing youknow, tears streaming down my
face and I pull up a notebook,put it in front of my face and I
excused myself. And I put wateron my face and I'm talking to
myself and I gather myself I goback and I did that like three
(29:41):
times. It would start again Ileave I come back I leave I come
back and then I just I I got toa point of of recognizing that I
need it to me Brace where I wasin the season. I needed it to be
(30:01):
fully involved in my grief.
Right? I didn't need to ignoreit. I didn't need to spiritually
bypass it. I didn't need tomodulate for the sake of the
people around me who werefrightened at the sight of a
(30:23):
woman crying in the workspace incorporate America. That was not
my problem. My husband died. Iloved him, I'm grieving. I'm
going to cry. Okay. And, but itwon't, I won't always cry. But
(30:45):
right now I'm crying. And that'sokay. And it doesn't make me
weak doesn't mean that I'm notprofessional. Cuz, you know, as
a woman in a male dominatedindustry, there are all these
rules, right? We don't we don'tbring baked goods to the office
unless we purchase them. BecauseI'm not you know, like, all of
(31:10):
all of those, all of thatmessaging that says, This is
what you need to do in order tobe a successful woman in
corporate America and a woman ofcolor, right? There are all
these rules. And one of therules is is that you, you try
not to show that the tender sideof yourself, right? You keep it
professional. And one of thereasons is, is that you don't
(31:34):
want sympathy. You don't wantsympathy.
But in in in compartmentalizingourselves, we hide away parts of
our humanity, of our sharedhumanity, right. And we give up
on opportunities to be held andto hold each other.
Lauren (32:02):
Yeah, because, you know, I feel like, for me, I have felt
afraid of this. And I have alsoexperienced it for me. Grief and
gratitude, joy, either one,either one of them can sometimes
be experienced as an eclipsesituation where one eclipses out
(32:25):
the other. So, you know,sometimes there are moments of
such intense, incredible joy andgratitude that I lose my
conscious connection in thatmoment to my grief. And then
sometimes they're such deep,painful eclipsing experiences of
grief that I temporarily lose myconscious access in the moment
(32:49):
to my joy to my gratitude. And Ifeel like people are okay with
the gratitude Joy clips, they'reokay. I mean, it bothers some
people, to be honest, somepeople don't like it if you're
too happy either, because itkind of triggers them. And me
too. So I'm not I don't mean tosound judgy here, I want to be
conscious, I've been triggeredby people that were too happy
(33:12):
when I wasn't happy. I was like,How dare you be so happy, get
out of my face with yourhappiness with your joy. I don't
want to see that right now. AndI've also been on the giving and
the receiving end of that griefEclipse, that I feel I very much
(33:33):
feel like everything you weresaying earlier is so true. I
don't think we've had greatmodeling for how to be with that
grief Eclipse, I think there's alot of fear that will get stuck
there forever. So let's justnever go there. That's how we
avoid getting stuck there. Wejust don't go there ever, when
the only way out is through. Soif you never go there, you
(33:53):
actually create the thing youdon't want, which is you're kind
of stuck there forever, but alsopushing it out of your
consciousness. And we can movethrough it. And it comes back to
like my deep griefs and lossesof loved ones and, you know,
realities for myself that I'velost. They come back they don't,
(34:17):
I don't move on from them tonever feel them again. They come
in waves for sure. And theythere's the potential for
another Eclipse experience. AndI really my dream, my vision my
wish would be for communities,whether it's a workspace like
(34:40):
you were describing, you know, acommunity of humans to be able
to collectively hold that andpresence that. And I feel like
sometimes that's not the realitythat we're in sometimes we're
not in an environment or in acommunity that knows how to
presence and hold that and thatcan presence and hold that and
then like you We're saying, weget to choose for ourselves, to
(35:04):
still allow it to still embodyit to still presence and hold
it, whether or not the peoplearound us are doing that with
us. And then I think about thefact that if, if an individual
that you'd like so now this iswhat I'm projecting onto you
now, I'm projecting onto youthat you have done the
(35:26):
difficult, powerful work ofgiving yourself permission to
embody and presence and expressthose things, even and
especially when no one aroundyou was able to do it with you
able to support it, able topresence it. And now you give
that gift to others, you'vealready given it to me, what you
(35:49):
embody your energy, yourpresence, I am benefiting just
from being in your presence. I'mlike, Thank you for taking the
time to talk with me, becauseit's benefiting me just being in
your presence, I can feel it.
And the story I'm making upabout you and the fears that I
have, and the struggles that Ihave, are feeling afraid that
I'm that, how do I want to saythis, I'm imagining that you've
(36:18):
done this difficult work, you'vebecome this. And it's at a cost
like this, there's this cost, Ifeel like to becoming that when
the environment isn't supportingit when your human community
isn't coming together and doingit with you. Like, I feel like
that's how it should be, andit's not. And so now it's being
(36:41):
done on this individual basis.
And I feel sad about it. Andthat that's what I'm curious.
I'm curious what you would sayabout that.
Sherri Doucette (36:57):
So for me, the cost benefit analysis is
incredible. Because you wouldthink that Okay, so now I'm out
here by myself, right? BecauseI'm an anomaly, right compared
to what's going on culturally.
But what I've done, really,subconsciously, is I've given
(37:19):
permission to all to everyonewho comes in contact with me to
bring their whole selves into mypresence, right into the space.
And so just yesterday. Well,today's Tuesday, so this was
(37:39):
Sunday, I taught a self care, aSunday self care class for men.
And invariably, someone will cryat the end of class. And a man,
can you believe that? A fullgrown man, at the end of yoga
class is bawling his eyes out.
(38:05):
And I don't rush over within areassuring granny pat on the
shoulder, I don't offer aKleenex, which is a sure way of
a very subtle way to tellsomeone Dry your eyes. So I
(38:25):
don't offer Kleenex. And what dowe do? We sit in silence. And we
hold space in silence. Nowthat's in a class setting,
amongst out in the communitywith people who know me,
particularly with my friends.
They cry, they come together, wethey come to me and to one
(38:48):
another right within our circle.
If their sadness present, weaddress the sadness, no
spiritual bypassing allowed.
Right. And to my earlier point,it's taking practice, right. My
husband died five years ago. Andfor me, that was a very, it was
very pivotal. I never lost thehusband before. Right? That that
(39:09):
was uncharted territory for me.
And considering my, you know, myfamily background, they didn't
know what to do. Right. And Ihad to figure it out. And what I
came to understand was, theirtraditional ways of being would
(39:31):
not work for me in the season. Iwould not make it to the other
side. And for me, the goal wasto come out of that season
stronger to come out of theseason out of the season better,
right. And, and and with theability to thrive. I felt like
(39:53):
there was the potential for thatgrief to just eat me up. Right.
I've lost Heads, I've lostgrandparents, I've lost extended
family, but a spouse, a child,that that level of loss has has
(40:14):
the potential to just gobble youup. Right. And I didn't want
that to be my story. And so Ihad to take charge of my grief,
right. And in doing so I modeleda new way of being for everyone
that I encountered. And itwasn't just limited to my, to my
(40:35):
children, or my, or my extendedfamily or my circle, everyone
that I encounter, I want it toenergetically give them
permission to show up in thefullness of who they were in the
moment, right? In the moment, ifhis grief if the sadness I
welcome that.
Lauren (40:58):
Yeah, that is so beautiful. And I think that is
so important for where I hopehumanity is headed. Because I
feel like, you know, what,what's coming alive for me now,
is in addition to individual,deep grief, losing a spouse
(41:24):
losing a child, those are, youknow, I hear people talk about,
like, those are clubs, theynever wanted to join, like, they
never wanted to be in thatgroup. Because, you know,
grandparents, we expect to loseour grandparents. And it's
different than, you know, wenever expect to outlive our
(41:47):
children. And we also don'texpect to lose our partner at a
young age when, you know, inyour case, like, it wasn't you
hadn't gotten to that age orstage of life where it starts to
become something that you'reanticipating. And that is so
(42:13):
significant. And I feel like thedeeper the grief, the more you
know, it's so hard when we talkabout pain, because pain is
pain. And there also seems to bedegrees of pain, layers of pain,
more pain, less pain. I thinkthere's truth to that. And so
(42:33):
I'm thinking in individual casesof those degrees, and getting to
a place where we can presence,those things and not run away
from our own feelings aboutthose things, and therefore run
away from another person who'sexperiencing those things.
(42:54):
Because that's, I think there'sa parallel process where if I
don't even want a presence, myfeelings, and my empathy and my
imagining of what it would belike to lose my partner to lose
my child, then I can't bepresent with someone else who's
walking through that right now.
So being able to presence thatindividually so powerful, and
you embodying that and modelingthat is so powerful, and I I
(43:19):
think everyone who comes incontact with you is, you know,
lucky to get to have thatexperience. And, and I'm also
thinking about the collectivelike the larger griefs like now
I'm shifting to thinking aboutour country and our history, our
pain filled history, with, youknow, 400 years of slavery and
(43:44):
oppression and so much pain thatwe, like, I feel like
collectively there's thissimilar struggle to presence,
that pain to witness it, to bewith it, to empathize with it,
to feel it, to acknowledge itsexistence. And I wonder if
there's anything you would wantto say to that kind of parallel
(44:09):
between the individual and thekind of collective presencing of
pain, avoidance of pain?
Sherri Doucette (44:18):
Sure. It starts with the individual Of course,
right? And then it growsoutward. It starts with this
willingness, right, this thiscourage to sit with the
uncomfortable, right? Grief isuncomfortable. Loss is
(44:43):
uncomfortable.
Offering deep kindness andcompassion to ourselves when
we're experiencing loss, resistThis judging levels of grief, a
(45:06):
lot of times what will happen islike this comparison, right?
Well, I shouldn't be, Ishouldn't be sad, I should be
really grateful because youknow, so and so over here loss,
I mean, they had anextraordinary loss than my loss
wasn't at that level. Loss isloss, right? If you lose your
cell phone, the all yourfinancial data and all your
(45:28):
contacts and and you didn't backit up to the cloud, you're going
to grieve the loss of youriPhone. It's worth grieving is
legitimate. Right? And no oneshould discount your pain.
Because your iPhone isn't aperson. Right? The it registers
(45:51):
in the body as grief. Right? Andthen you have to reconcile
yourself with that loss, right?
Come to terms with it,acceptance, right, you go
through Kubler Ross's stages ofgrief over a cell phone. Right.
But what's key is is to releasethe judgment. Right. And back to
the point of practicing,practice practicing over the the
(46:16):
quote unquote, small things,right? So you can build up your
your resiliency, your capacityto hold larger, if you will,
types of grief, right? We talkabout complicated history, the
ugly, dark past of America, 400years of slavery, right? If you
(46:39):
don't have the capacity to holdthe small things, it will be
impossible for you to holdsomething as big and hairy and
gross as 400 years of slavery.
Not that you don't have theintellectual capacity. But your
(47:03):
heart is just not capable.
Right? You haven't built themuscle. So you have to practice,
right? And how do we practice wepractice by having conversations
with one another, right? Withinaffinity groups, talking to your
friends, right? In a space whereyou feel safe, you feel held,
you don't feel judged, you feellike I may make some mistakes,
(47:24):
say some things that are notappropriate or doesn't come out
the wrong way. Right. But I feellike I can do that here. Right.
And we can talk through it. Andwe can build upon that. But
again, it takes practice.
Starting with self honoring, howyou feel when you feel it in
(47:49):
your body. Right? When you feelbecause, you know grief occupies
the body. Right? If you've everexperienced loss, you know, you
fill it in your belly, fill itin your heart, it's a physical
type of pain, right? It's notjust the emotional, and for if
(48:11):
someone hasn't experienced loss,and they're like, What are you
talking about? How can you howcan you how can any emotion
emotional type of pain manifestsphysically? It does. Right? And,
and because it does, you want todo anything that you can, to not
(48:33):
feel it right to numb it right?
And then comes food andsubstance shopping, doing right
doing this the number oneanything to to numb the feeling.
But if we can just sit with it,we are growing our capacity to
hold. Right? And what are weholding where our ability to
(48:57):
hold the pain of others, ourability to be empathic. Right?
In this age of woowoo. You know,we we say well, you know that
person is is is an is an empathwe're all empaths some of us are
more in touch with our empathicside than others. Right? And how
(49:18):
we build that capacity isallowing ourselves to feel what
we feel and in turn, feel whatother people feel you because
when you talk aboutholding space for something like
slavery, that is not is not anintellectual holding. Right?
(49:41):
It's an emotional holding. It'sit's it's holding of all the
lives lost all the livesimpacted. Right? All the pain
that was caused pain, perhapscaused by your ancestors or
ancestors of people that youknow, right? And in releasing
(50:01):
judgment, because with thejudgment comes the wall, right?
You want to block it. Not me,you start making the ego show
shows up, and we startintellectualizing pain. Right?
(50:21):
Well, that's not really my pain.
I didn't have anything to dowith that. So why should I? Why
should that concern me? What asa human being? As a fellow human
being? Right? It should concernyou. Right? We're in this thing
(50:45):
together.
Lauren (50:48):
Yeah. And I feel like, you know, that, that not me
temptation that Oh, not me, youknow, I, I'm not responsible or
it, you know, yes, maybe it wasmy ancestors. I'm speaking for
myself, maybe it was myancestors, but not me. I don't
want it to be me. That for me,the way I I experienced that is
(51:13):
this desire to run away fromparts of myself, run away from
run away from my empathy, myempathic side, because if I
really empathize with if Ireally presence and allow myself
to feel and hold emotionally,like you're describing my best
(51:35):
approximation in my imagination,and my ability to empathize with
the, like, the level the layersof devastation, though, you
know, if I imagine being rippedapart from my family, from my
parents, from my siblings,being, you know, forced to live
a life not of my choosing, beingjust so there's just so many
(52:00):
things. And if I really thinkabout like, that could have been
me, it could have been anyone,you know, one of one of my
teachers tries to offer theantidote to why me when people
are like, Why me? Why did thishappen to me? Why not me? It
could be any of us. We're allhuman. It could be any of us.
(52:23):
And like, accessing that thosefeelings? Yeah, it's a lot to
hold. And it takes, it takespractice to even try like I'm
trying and I even right now Ihave a judgemental voice coming
up in my head saying you shouldnot be speaking right now.
You're doing this wrong. You're.
Yeah. Be quiet. You can't dothis. You're not there yet. And,
(52:44):
you know, Mike, this Yeah, thisis practice, right. This is this
is my way of trying and failingand learning from it, you know?
And so, yeah.
Sherri Doucette (53:02):
His practice, and it takes repeat
conversations that you thinkabout when you're talking to a
child, a young child about sex,right, in, and culturally is
like, you know, the talk, it's aseries of conversations. It's
not, it's not a singular talk.
It's not an event, right? Youbegin the conversation, and it's
(53:22):
on a continuum, right? And theconversation evolves, right, and
it becomes more nuance, right?
With practice? Yes. And in thebeginning is really weird. And
you're kind of creeped out andfreaked out about it, and you
don't know how deep to go andwhat what do they know, and what
don't they know? And am I comingacross as an authority? Or am I
(53:47):
coming across as a really out oftouch parent? You know, there's
all that judgment and negativeself talk, right? But the more
you engage, right, that tensionfalls away. Right? And, and you
can open yourself up to organicengagement, right? And kind of
(54:07):
meeting each other where you arein filling it out and, and
laughing through it at somepoint. Right? It's the same. It
really is the same, but you haveto start somewhere. Right? And
ignoring it. Right? Ignoring theelephant in the room doesn't
serve anyone. Right? When you'regoing to have the talk, you're
going to start having to talk toare you going to wait until a
(54:31):
team in like you're just likepraying for the best Right?
Right. hoping for the best,right? Maybe they don't think
about it if we don't talk aboutit. Now. That's not reality.
Right? Yeah, yeah. That is justnot reality. And so again, just
practicing sitting with yourselfwith the, with the complicated
(54:54):
emotions that arise within ourourselves, just you As we're
going through our own self talk,right, without even engaging
with someone else, that's wherethe practice begins. Yeah. So
when you are engaging with withothers with the world, right
with circumstance, when thatwhen the intensity begins to
(55:18):
build within your body, it'slike, Oh, I've been here before.
And it won't wipe me out. And itwon't be the end of me. Right?
In fact, when I feel it rising,this is probably an opportunity
to learn something. Right? I'mlikely going to come out of this
(55:40):
on the other side better. If I,if I will challenge myself to
just sit with it. And to createspace.
Lauren (55:50):
Yeah, I feel like that's how we build resilience. We redo
what you just described, wepractice we show up, we present
I mean, even comparing it to,you know, yoga, you show up, you
get on the mat, you practice,you presence, you struggle, you
fail, you try again, you buildresilience, and emotionally, we
(56:11):
can build those muscles as well.
And I just, I'm so deeplygrateful for everything that you
shared. Thank you for sharingyour wisdom with us again. I
feel very lucky. So
Sherri Doucette (56:26):
me too. Thank you for the opportunity. So good
hanging out with the two of you.
Amy Cooper (56:33):
Thank you for coming back. And really delving into
the conversation of d of grief.
It's funny, as I reflect on ourtwo conversations, how maybe
even a part of us did the thingthat we're talking about, of not
being with the grief and notgoing and creating space and
holding space for that. I'm sureI'm complicit in moving right on
(56:53):
to gratitude. Let's talk aboutthat. So thank you so much for
coming back to talk with usabout this really important,
really important topic today.
Sherri Doucette (57:06):
Absolutely.
Thank you. It's been a pleasure.
Popular Podcasts
Stuff You Should Know
If you've ever wanted to know about champagne, satanism, the Stonewall Uprising, chaos theory, LSD, El Nino, true crime and Rosa Parks, then look no further. Josh and Chuck have you covered.
Dateline NBC
Current and classic episodes, featuring compelling true-crime mysteries, powerful documentaries and in-depth investigations. Follow now to get the latest episodes of Dateline NBC completely free, or subscribe to Dateline Premium for ad-free listening and exclusive bonus content: DatelinePremium.com
On Purpose with Jay Shetty
I’m Jay Shetty host of On Purpose the worlds #1 Mental Health podcast and I’m so grateful you found us. I started this podcast 5 years ago to invite you into conversations and workshops that are designed to help make you happier, healthier and more healed. I believe that when you (yes you) feel seen, heard and understood you’re able to deal with relationship struggles, work challenges and life’s ups and downs with more ease and grace. I interview experts, celebrities, thought leaders and athletes so that we can grow our mindset, build better habits and uncover a side of them we’ve never seen before. New episodes every Monday and Friday. Your support means the world to me and I don’t take it for granted — click the follow button and leave a review to help us spread the love with On Purpose. I can’t wait for you to listen to your first or 500th episode!