July 14, 2025 • 43 mins
🎙️ Episode 18: Facing Fear & Grief
In this episode, we explore one of the hardest lines from Brené Brown’s Wholehearted Parenting Manifesto:
“Together we will cry and face fear and grief. I will want to take away your pain, but instead I will sit with you and teach you how to feel it.”
Danielle shares how she lives with acute medical fear and anxiety, and where it stems from.
Greg reflects on watching both of his parents slowly fade before they passed—and how grief sometimes shows up not in death, but in disconnection.
We talk about:
- Why fear can feel harder to sit with than grief
- What it looks like to walk alongside a child in a spiral
- Danielle’s rollercoaster joy and her blood pressure dread
- How Greg’s grief lives more in the imagined present than the past
- Surrender, safety, and why joy sometimes depends on trust
TMIT about Facing Fear & Grief:
We are not here to rescue one another or our children from these difficult emotions, but it really is an opportunity to be present with one another and to be connected in a new way.
If you’ve ever tried to fix someone else’s pain—or hide your own—you’re in good company. And if you’re wondering how to help your kids face big feelings without rescuing them, this conversation is for you.
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Welcome to The Most Important Thing.
I'm Danielle DeMarco Neufeld. And I'm Greg Neufeld, and
together we're exploring how ambitious busy families can
build culture at home. Because after all, family is the
most important thing. Hi, Greg.
Hi, everybody. Welcome to Team IT episode 18 on
facing fear and grief. Sounds like a heavy one.
(00:22):
Yeah, you're right. This is the 8th episode in our
Wholehearted Parenting manifestoand the line is together.
We will cry and face fear and grief.
I will want to take away your pain, but instead I will sit
with you and teach you how to feel it.
It really resonates with me, this idea of wanting to take
(00:44):
away your pain. Yeah, I want to take away
everyone's pain in our family. Yeah.
And you know, when reflecting onthis statement, I would love to
separate our conversation into fear and grief, partially
because as we've discussed, we have had limited experiences of
grief as a family, at least not it hasn't touched our home like
(01:07):
super closely. But I do think that I am much
more willing to sit with grief. Like grief to me feels like a
productive emotion if you will, and something that feels
warranted typically and like moving through it is almost like
a rite of passage and something that is healthy.
(01:32):
In preparing for this episode, Irealized that I do not have the
same relationship with fear. Anytime fear comes, whether it's
in one of our children or in myself, I cannot wait to get it
to go away. Like I am very reactionary and
very resistant to fear in any way.
(01:52):
And I have to tell you that evenin my reading in as far as
parenting or even re parenting, but as far as parenting is
concerned about how to help children with fear and anxiety.
The trope that I constantly hearis this is a wiring of us humans
that is supposed to help us froma lion attack or a bear.
(02:16):
And it has no place in today's society.
And I don't know, it feels really black and white to me.
And I guess one of the things I'd love to rumble with in this
conversation is really like fearsetting.
Like, what is an appropriate wayto feel fear?
Because I feel like I understandthe arc of grief a bit better
(02:38):
than I do. I'm like, what I'm supposed to
do when fear shows up? How does that resonate with you?
First of all, it sounds like youhave a superpower.
Oh hey, thanks. To want to rid yourself of fear
the moment it shows up is so healing.
(02:58):
I would say most of the population does not have that
same. I don't know, it feels like a, a
maladaptive response. Like I would like to be able to
sit with fear and tolerate fear more than I currently can.
And like, let's, let's talk a little bit more about that.
Like for me, at least in my adult life, fear has really been
(03:21):
wrapped up with anxiety. But I think honestly, even
looking back, like I've always had big fear.
I was, you know, I, I ran into my parents room until I was
probably like 11 years old everysingle night, 'cause I was
scared in the middle of the night.
Big, big fear. Big, big fear.
Cannot watch scary movies, as you know, at all still to this
day. Big, big fear.
(03:42):
Don't love when you travel when we're home.
Yeah, so. But for me, fear and anxiety are
like really intertwined these days.
And I think maybe they always have been and I just didn't know
it as anxiety when I was younger.
But I really much I, I would like to say I can't say for
sure, but you tell me like much in the same way you can't handle
not feeling your best. I hate anxiety.
(04:05):
Like I hate it so much. And it's very, very hard for me
to sit with. I just want it to go away.
Yeah, it feels like an appropriate relationship with
anxiety, but I think what's getting where signals might get
crossed is around where anxiety leads to the fear that you're
actually in danger. Right?
Like a true fear versus a silly fear, like, you know, think
(04:29):
about our our kids and how some of their fears show up and
what's actually real versus whatis just being stretched out in
their mind. Your relationship with anxiety,
I think is a is a very strong one and one that's very
relatable. But I agree that you do you do
not like fear and you you want to figure out a way to get
(04:49):
through it rather than sit with it and understand how founded it
necessarily is. Is that is that kind of making
sense? Yeah, I think, gosh, this, this
really is like a therapy sessionright out of the gate.
But I, I think that if I can relate it to grief and the times
in my life where I have experienced grief, I have tools
(05:10):
to kind of allow myself to grieve whether it is like for me
more recently, the closest experience I've had is when my
grandmother died of COVID, right?
That was that was a pretty roughtime for me.
We were very close, but I allowed myself to experience all
the different layers of grief, and those would be the deep
(05:32):
sorrow and the tears of joy justfor having experienced her in my
life. And thanks to your family, I
have something called the Mohammed Runjaya chant that I
use when someone when I want to express love and goodwill to
someone as they are passing. And I don't have those tools in
(05:56):
the same way for fear. Yeah, I don't think you have as
much fear, though, as most people.
I don't know. That's where I think the
superpower is. Like you, your fears are
actually manifested as anxiety. But you, it's like a true fear,
like something that actually is putting.
I I think you respond very well to situations where you might be
(06:18):
in danger, so to speak, where, you know, you have a fear maybe
of our garage door being open orsomething like that and Winston
getting out. But if Winston were to get out
like you would act, as opposed to being worried that he were
afraid that he's going to get hit by a car, you would go and
save that dog. Yeah.
I wonder how, how related those two things are.
Yes, I I am very good in a crisis, if that's what you're
(06:40):
saying. That's what I'm saying.
If any of the fear were to actually come true.
That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I think I'm very good in
the crisis, but we're kind of dancing around it.
So I don't want to spend too much time on my fear and
anxiety. But like I think you and I are
probably talking about somethingsimilar.
So most of my fear and anxiety today is wrapped up around
doctors and the medical system and in particular the way it the
symptom, the most acute symptom is that you cannot take my blood
(07:02):
pressure. We have no idea what my blood
pressure actually is because anytime someone tries to take
it, I have a full blown panic attack.
And that sucks. It's just annoying.
Like, I don't like that aspect of myself because I've made a
mountain out of a molehill, but it does have roots in something
real, right? And so a couple episodes ago, I
(07:22):
think in our accountability and respect episode, we talked about
how I had and still have significant trauma from Jade's
birth. And I think it's fair to say
that Jade's birth, during Jade'sbirth, we were victims of
malpractice because they were soafraid of preeclampsia that they
(07:44):
coerced us into inducing her three weeks early.
Even though I didn't have hypertension, right?
I had anxiety induced blood pressure and I had walking up
three flights of subway stairs, running across Central Park and
multiple avenues to try to get to the doctor's office and have
(08:06):
at 37 weeks, 36 weeks pregnant and having them take my blood
pressure the moment I arrived and still then only slightly
high, right. But, and this is a whole tangent
that I would love to talk to anyone about all the time
because I've definitely done a lot of research and kind of
unpacking about what happened. But because preeclampsia is so
pervasive in the United States in particular, suffice it to say
that I, I had probably too much trust in our family.
(08:29):
We placed a lot of trust on doctors.
Like we really elevated their status and whatever a doctor
said, I followed always. And so I didn't realize how I
didn't realize how strong of a relationship I had with a
doctor's authority until Jade's birth.
And it really, it broke me when I, and I'd always been treated
(08:53):
well by doctors too, Even with Hunter's birth when I had
postpartum hemorrhaging, my obstetrician at that time, like
I felt like really felt like really took care of me well.
And that was just not the case on on December 23rd, 2019.
And I'm still working through that and I still like, I really
feel as though that the problem is that that fear was warranted
(09:17):
at the time. And now there is no baby in my
belly and I'm still petrified and have a lot of mistrust for
the medical system. The problem is as I get older, I
really want to take care of my health and so I am the ultimate
loser if I avoid going to the doctor because I'm afraid that
(09:38):
they're not going to take care of me.
And so a lot of my journey over the past couple of years in
particular, because for a while I just didn't even want to look
at it, right, has been about trying to find that balance
between. I know that my initial
relationship with doctors and their ultimate authority is was
not healthy for me, is not healthy for me today.
(09:58):
But I also know that fully avoiding doctors is not healthy
for me. So how can I find the balance
where I'm listening to what experts have to say goes back to
this in the hand, right, while also trusting my intuition.
And I'm still really wrestling with that, like it's, it's
really hard for me. I know it is, then I see that.
What would you say to me if it were me struggling with doctors
(10:22):
and high blood pressure? That's The thing is that like, I
don't really know. And this comes up because Hunter
has big fear. Big, big fear.
And we were on our way to the orthodontist last Friday, and
she was hysterical in the car because she had eaten a piece of
her friend's fruit rope, and realized afterwards that it was
(10:45):
sticky, chewy candy, which she'snot really supposed to have
because she has an appliance in her mouth.
And she was out of her mind, upset the whole ride to the
orthodontist, like almost vomiting in the bathroom at the
orthodontist, doubled over in fear that they were going to be
(11:06):
mad at her and yell at her for having a bite of someone's fruit
rope. And this doctor could not be
nicer. Like it was so misplaced,
misguided, you know, it was so not related to fact.
Like she's never really had a bad experience at a doctor.
And that way, she's never reallyhad anyone yell at her in the
way that her mind thinks that she's going to get yelled at.
(11:28):
And this has come up at her in her volunteering opportunities.
This has come up in her extracurriculars.
This has come up with the with doctors.
And so I just tried to be walk alongside her and also end it as
soon as possible as a hunter, wejust need to get in there.
And you need to tell her so thatyou can see kind of get that
feedback loop. And of course they were like,
(11:49):
oh, hunter, no big deal. Don't worry about it.
Don't be silly like and I saw her visibly relax, but there is
this, it's so relatable for me, but both of us, it is just not
tied to reality at all. And so I don't know how to
ground that because it doesn't feel like facts can ground that.
(12:14):
That's true, Yeah. I sit in a house full of
unfounded fear, for sure. The ladies in this house
especially. I don't know what to do with it,
and I think it's worth exploringwhat we can do with it.
Yeah, I mean, listen, I think that I've definitely talked to
(12:35):
Chat chat DBT about this. I've listened to podcast about
this. Like I, I understand that there
are things that we can say mostly, you know, just being
physically present with someone and getting curious about what
really is bothering them and then naming it like that's
really scary or that must have felt awful without, without
(12:57):
minimizing it, right? And, and staying regulated for
ourselves. So all these things, you know,
great. But when it's just completely,
when it's just completely unrelated to reality, I don't, I
don't know how to bring includedmyself included.
Like I don't know how to bring that person back down.
And is it, and is that my, even my goal?
(13:18):
Like I'm not really sure. A recent episode of the Founders
podcast, Davidson brought up a quote from Jimmy Iovine, the
record producer, founder of Interscope Records, and the the
subject of the film with Doctor Dre.
The Defiant ones, where Jimmy says when you feel fear, you
have to train yourself to take astep forward.
And I believe that that is the answer.
(13:40):
But I don't know how to troubleshoot the middle part.
How do you do the training? Yeah, I don't.
I don't know either. And I think I told you that in
Adam Grant's latest book, HiddenPotential, he talks about how
you can't wait for confidence totake the first leap, that you
have to take the leap in order to gain confidence.
And so, you know, I do wonder, like for for me and for Hunter,
(14:04):
it seems like it's wrapped up indoctors a bit.
And that is not something that we do that often, is the other
part of it. Is that like?
Why? It's wrapped up in doctors, too.
And for Adam Grant, he's talkingabout he's a, he was a like a
competitive diver. And so he's talking about
literally taking a leap and likelearning how to do complicated
dives, right? And that is something that you
can practice over and over and over again.
(14:26):
How many times a year do I see adoctor?
Like 5 maximum, right? Hunter sees them the same,
right? So it's like we're not able to
put in enough reps for our brains to really create that
feedback loop. Like there's too much time in
between. Yeah.
I would argue also that there's some form of like a relationship
buyer payer mismatch in the relationships that we're talking
(14:50):
about with doctors when it is a cash pay doctor.
I don't think you've ever had anissue.
Yeah, I look forward to like, transferring everything to
private because I think that that will really change the way
I feel about it. You're so right.
And one of the things that you've taught me that
unfortunately, you tried to tellme when I was pregnant with
Jade, but it just wasn't landingbecause I was so spun up.
(15:11):
Anxiety had the wheel like inside out too and is and
something that I've actually shared with friends more
recently that I think has been helpful as well is just this
idea of like you are the customer, like you actually do
get to say what matters. But when it comes to the
healthcare system, like I just didn't know.
I didn't know that you could walk away against medical
advice. I had no idea that was a thing
(15:31):
until a similar trajectory happened with Maverick's
pregnancy. And I found myself in the
hospital again at 37 weeks with a different doctor telling me
that she wanted to induce me because my blood pressure was
slightly elevated and she wasn'tbusy that afternoon, right?
And it wasn't because, I mean, insanity, insanity.
But like, and so this is like real stuff.
Do you know what I mean? Like, I think that people should
(15:53):
have a healthy fear of the medical system.
I mean, you should have a healthy fear of anyone that it,
that you're putting your life intheir hands, right?
Health healthy skepticism is important no matter where you
are because you need to be your own advocate.
You can't put your, your life, your, you know, the next steps
in someone else's hands without understanding why those next
steps are what they say they are.
(16:14):
But it's really hard when it's an insurance pay versus a cash
pay. And it's really, really hard if
you have an employer where you get insurance through and you
can only go to certain doctors. And I think that's where a lot
of the fear in this country comes from, is people showing up
to doctors that they have to seewhere they can't.
They don't really have a choice.This is the one that's in
network that's closest to them. They can't go get a second
(16:36):
opinion. They're not the customer
anymore. They are really in a socialist
system. Yeah, Anyway, I don't want to
talk too much about healthcare. Sure, even.
I mean, I do want to talk too much about healthcare.
I can talk about it all day, butI don't think.
It's really in this context, though it's interesting that
that is where the fear shows up in this family.
It is. It really is.
And it's not even like I, I, I know I have some friends, you
(16:57):
know, that really are worried about their health all the time.
I am not worried about my health.
I feel like genuinely generally pretty healthy.
It's just when I feel like I need support that I am really
scared to, to put my, myself. I feel like I'm at the mercy of
someone who doesn't have my bestinterest at heart, whose
(17:18):
incentives are not aligned with mine.
And where you have to show up, take a test, and the results of
that test dictate what comes next.
Yeah, I'm a terrible test taker in that respect.
And and test taking is really a non entity in this house as
well. So that's another thing about.
It. Yeah, it's not surprising at all
that we send our kids to school where there are no tests because
(17:38):
I don't like them. Yeah.
I would love to talk about what fear means to you, because I
think that you have a very different type of fear and yeah,
So what comes up for you? What comes up is resistance.
Where do I feel resistance? Where it's things that I know
are good for me that I don't want to do versus things that I
know are not bad for me that I'mafraid of.
(18:01):
So I think that fear shows up inthat second category where I
feel resistance against doing something because I'm like, oh,
this is something that I genuinely have fear about.
I know it's not going to be detrimental to my mind, body, or
soul, but I just kind of don't want to do it because it rose me
the wrong way. It's pretty simple.
So the Velocicoaster at Universal, I mean, I didn't grow
(18:25):
up doing roller coasters and so something like that.
I'm just like, I can't imagine now what I found and what I've
experienced since trying to attempt that roller coaster with
you a couple years ago is every roller coaster since.
I have watched a YouTube of the first person experience of it,
so I'd understand what to expect.
And from there I'm able to do it.
(18:46):
And now I kind of like watching roller coaster videos.
I can't say that I love roller coasters, but I do like watching
them because it gets me into a place of normalization, if you
will, Like I know what's coming next.
I know that these are turns. I know that I'm safe and I can
get through fear that way and fight the resistance.
So that's that's a an example that comes to mind where I know
(19:07):
that it's not going to harm me, but it's like it makes my skin
crawl a little bit. I love that.
Two things. One, when you edit the video
episode of this, you absolutely have to put the picture.
Of you OK. That needs to go in there.
Two, I OK, Oh my gosh, I love that memory because it's so true
(19:31):
for you and fear and I think you've really found a great tool
in watching first person YouTubevideos of roller coasters.
And two, I am totally kicking myself because how did I not
talk about roller coasters in our joy episode?
Like whoa. Peak joy for me.
Like absolute. Well, that's, that's kind of why
I think you have a superpower isbecause you're, you're able to
(19:54):
equate fear of a very scary roller coaster with joy of that
experience that that you're going to feel at the end of it
and move through it and get on the on the ride.
Even if you're the only rider out of this family.
I saw you do it at Busch Gardenswhere you're like, Oh my God,
that thing looks so scary. I have to do it.
You're like, I have to do it, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do
it, I'm gonna do it. And then you like, run up to the
(20:16):
thing and you get on by yourself.
I love it. I love it so much.
Like, I love that fear. I love that.
Like, it's exhilaration, right? It's total exhilaration.
You know, it's so interesting because I think that, gosh,
there's a lot going through my head right now when we equate
fear of roller coasters to fear of doctors.
And the thing I think about whenit comes to roller coasters is
(20:37):
that I'm very trusting. Like I actually believe that I
am safe that I don't know if youdon't believe that you are safe,
but I really do believe that especially even just like law of
averages, like I'm not going to die on this roller coaster.
And I love the feeling of totally letting go.
It's almost like a spiritual experience for me where I'm
just, I've totally surrendered to this roller coaster.
(20:58):
And quite frankly, if I die on this roller coaster, I'm going
to die having so much fun like Iam I'm there.
That is what broke inside of me when Jade was born.
Is that like I like to hand overmy power and part of being a
dole, an adult, like is that I have to, I can't hand over my
(21:20):
power. I wanted to hand over my power
to that doctor because I definitely did.
When Hunter was born and I had postpartum hemorrhage, I was in
such a state that I had no idea what was happening.
I was 10 days postpartum with myfirst baby and like had to leave
her to go to the emergency room,right?
I was completely surrendered andgiving up power to this person
and it worked out. She treated me so well.
(21:42):
And I was, let's just say, 'cause it's, you know, all of
this is tied up with my expectations around the outcomes
too, right? And so like, I handed over my
power with my OB with Hunter andmy ego liked the outcome.
Therefore there was no, there was no bump on the road.
I handed, I did the same thing with my different OB with Jade,
but I did not like the outcome. I felt really harmed.
(22:06):
And since then, there's been a lot of bumps in the road.
It's been very, very hard for me.
But I did the same thing both times and I'm still doing it on
roller coasters. It's.
A great, great notice, yeah. So I think that part of what I
need to learn, and I hope that maybe this is something that I
can learn alongside our children, is when it is OK to
(22:27):
surrender, when it is safe to surrender, and when we actually
have to really own our power. Yeah, reflecting on this, my
fear shows up in places where surrender is necessary.
And I don't ever think it's safeto surrender.
So I do not like giving that up.I mean, you even see it at the
(22:48):
doctor where I'm like, no, this test is the one that I'm going
to that you're going to give to me.
Like this is a, you know, my labs that I've gotten from a
different doctor. I'm just bringing this to you to
inform you that I am healthy. Prove me.
Prove me wrong. It was so funny, you guys.
We went to the cardiologist together, of course, this past
week, and Greg was showing him his lab results.
And of course, Greg had an Excelspreadsheet with like the past
(23:10):
five lab results that he'd had over the.
Five years. Five years of lab results and
he's like, I know that this is really high, but let me tell you
that I have made peace with thisbecause this is really low and
I'm on a carnivore diet. So I know that This is why it's
OK. And he was just like right out
of the gate just pitching his reasoning why this outline this
(23:30):
this measure was that was completely way higher than range
was OK. And I'm like, prove me wrong.
I know. And he's like, you're, you're
right. I well, no, he said you're not
wrong, right? I don't know if he said he's
like, you know, we don't have enough data.
I don't have any data to refute you, right, is what he said.
And so if you're comfortable, then I'm comfortable, but I
don't think he felt like he had a choice.
Whereas me I'm like, he's just telling me I'm OK and he's like,
(23:53):
OK, let's run these tests because it'll give you Peace of
Mind. It's going to be OK.
It's. Going to be OK.
Yeah. So surrender.
That's a really great notice that you do well with that in
places where you feel like you're going to be safe.
Fear now shows up in places where you felt like it used to
be safe to surrender, and now you cannot.
Can I just tell you that it feels a little bit like an
immaturity? It does feel a lot like an
(24:13):
immaturity in me where I don't know, because I want to strike
this balance between like childlike Glee and joy, which I
do think really does somewhere come from this.
Like I am safe even when I surrender and then, like, having
to be and then when that doesn'twork out, like having to know
that I need to be an adult in the situation.
(24:36):
Yeah. And I don't like it.
I know you don't. It is a little.
It's immature. It's you.
It's not immature as much as it is you feeling like you have a
lot of places where you have to be overly responsible and
wanting for some places in your life for you to just be able to
walk in and somebody else is responsible.
(24:57):
Yeah, but to treat me with. Care, of course, to treat you
the way that a parent, a loving,doting parent, would treat you.
Yeah. Yeah, it's true.
OK. Life lesson though.
There's no places in this world where anyone outside of your
immediate family is going to have the incentive to treat you
(25:18):
the way that you want to be treated.
Can you show me the incentive? I'll show you the outcome.
Well, so it's true though, that the incentive at Busch Gardens
and Universal and Disney World is for me to not die.
Yep. So I feel like we're our
interests are aligned there. Totally, but but how many rides
get shut down? Well, that's a whole other.
Thing that as a result of. Well, I'd actually prefer that,
(25:39):
though I would prefer that because I do put my life in
their hands. But that's.
The thing if you show up and andyou're outsourcing the whole joy
component then and the fear component then they have the
right to shut down half the rides and it it can suck.
Yeah, we love amusement parks here in Florida, some of us more
than others, but it's. It's I'm warming up to all of
(26:00):
this. It's, it's new for me.
It's not something that I did much as a kid when I was 12.
I'd like to go to liquor stores and drive into Manhattan.
You know, I wasn't, I wasn't driving at 12.
But this is what I mean about you were so mature so early.
Like I was not doing that at 12.I was riding the rides.
Those were my roller coasters, getting in cars with strangers
(26:22):
and going to parties. It's amazing.
I know I'm still alive. Yeah, so.
OK, so we've said a lot about fear.
Shall we move over to grief, or is there anything else you'd
like to say about fear before wemove over?
No, let's move over to grief. I hate to say it, but you are
our resident grief expert, so I'm going to let you open.
(26:44):
Well, I don't have much experience with grief as a young
child, and that's pretty wonderful.
I think that grief for young children, especially hearing
from you about all the death that happened around your 4th or
5th birthday, is tremendously sad and unsettling, but also
(27:06):
creates this this feeling like the other shoe could drop at any
moment. Yeah.
I mean, I can talk about that for a moment.
So when I was 4, my mom's motherand sister, who were very
involved in my life, died withinsix months of each other.
And it's hard for me to say for sure how that has affected my
(27:28):
life. But I do think that 1990 was not
really a time where you talked much to your kids about death.
And I definitely took away the idea that people could drop dead
at any moment. I just don't know that any of us
really allowed space for our grief.
(27:50):
Yeah. And so I don't, I don't really
have a playbook for grief from those experiences.
Right. But it's stayed with you.
And I remember it showing back up when Hunter turned 4, you
know, when your grandmother passed away.
It's really hard for young kids to have this sense of
(28:12):
impermanence around the people they love.
And yeah, I don't, I don't know what to do with that.
But what I noticed a lot about our kids is probably similar to
my brother and I growing up. Our kids talk a lot about death
just in kind of like playful ways.
Not, not like in that sadistic way, but more just like, oh,
(28:34):
who's going to die first? And they're curious about it,
Yeah. There's no grief that they've
experienced necessarily, but they're curious about it and
they don't understand it. Yeah, well, the founder of their
preschool died this year, right?And that was that was their
first experience. She was someone that they saw
quite frequently they weren't super close to, but she was kind
(28:57):
of like an Angel on their play scape and someone that everyone
looked up to. And so we watched them move
through that grief and talk about how they just want to hug
her again and they don't understand why she died.
There was there were a lot of questions, right?
And, and some sadness, but mostly a lot of questions.
And I think that when I think about grief, the thing that has
(29:22):
been most helpful to me, two things really have been most
helpful to me, if I may. The first is from Elizabeth
Kubler Ross, who's like a grief expert and talks about the
different stages of grief. She defines grief as anytime
something is taken away without your consent.
So obviously we think a lot about grief around death, but it
(29:42):
could could be a divorce or the end of a relationship or the end
of a friendship, right? Anytime that there is something
that you didn't necessarily wantto end or don't feel like you
had consent and ending. And I've definitely experienced
grief in in those ways, really with, you know, the the ends of
(30:06):
friendships in particular more recently through I think no
fault of anyone, but just kind of growing apart.
And you've really supported me in my kind of wrestling with
really going through the different stages of grief
through ultimately accepting theend.
(30:27):
But then I think there's this other type of grief, which I
gratefully have not experienced,which is the one where you are
with someone all the time and they are a permanent figure in
your life. And then I think there's this
extra layer of grief, which Andrew Huberman talks about,
where grief is essentially a disruption of the go no go
(30:50):
signal in your brain. And so he describes it as
reaching for a glass of water that is continuously moving,
just out of reach. And it's this rewiring of your
brain that has to happen over time because you can't pick up
the phone and call that person. They aren't downstairs at the
breakfast table. And I think that that is the
(31:11):
grief that really only, you knowintimately in our home.
In a way for sure as it relates to my parents dying in my 20s
definitely experienced that typeof grief.
However, it's a bit meta becauseboth of my parents, I witnessed
(31:38):
A dramatic change in each of them that was foreign to me and
resulted from a dramatic change in each of their lives that was
foreign to them, where their newnormal look nothing like what
they had grown accustomed to. So to take it one at a time, I
(32:04):
lost my mom well before she died.
She lost herself well before shespiraled into depression.
She lost herself when we had to sell our childhood home to pay
family debts. She lost herself when she had to
(32:25):
move in with her mother, who wasa big antagonist protagonist in
our lives, somebody that loved her dearly but didn't know how
to show that love in a constructive way.
She lost herself when she and myfather had to move into that
house with her mother and was back under the same roof of her
(32:46):
mother. She lost herself when she
couldn't trust necessarily the things that she had trusted in
her friends, in her relationships, in my father.
And so I watched somebody that Iknew so well turn into somebody
that I could barely recognize. And that was the hardest thing
(33:06):
for me. When she died, you know, I
remember looking at her body andhoping that she had found peace
finally, because she was struggling.
She was really struggling. Interestingly, from what we now
know is hereditary bipolar. And then for my dad, I watched
(33:30):
him lose his wife because he didn't fight the resistance and
he didn't necessarily hold himself accountable to.
He put his needs to be a provider in front of his needs
to be an honest, loving, doting husband.
(33:50):
The man that he was. And I don't know if it was
intentional or not, or if it wasjust him being somebody who
thought that he could catch up, catch back up.
But he, he created a, a big sinkhole in his business
financially, which created massive problems for our family.
(34:12):
And so I watched him move from this place where he was
respected and cherished in the community to basically turned
away and became a pariah. After my mom died, he moved up
to Connecticut to live with his mother.
And after she died, he had another year or so where he was
(34:36):
battling terminal metastasized prostate cancer.
So I watched him and the man that he was, and I remember him
to be turned into the shell of aman that when I when I saw his
body after he died, I was like, well, I hope he's found peace.
So the grief in the mourning process that I experienced was
far more in the metamorphosis. I guess that cannot be used
(35:02):
negatively, too. And the metamorphosis of each of
my parents because, as Huberman says, I was reaching for a glass
of water that I was used to drinking every day, and it
wasn't there. Yeah.
Just a lot of really sad turns of events that I had to sit with
(35:27):
by myself. There was.
That was the hardest part was that there was really no one to
sit there with me. I promise to sit there with you.
Thank you. Yeah.
Thank you for sharing. Yeah.
Do you have moments where grief comes to you today about them?
(35:52):
Like what happens? I mean, I'm sure you do.
So what happens in those momentslike tomorrow is your dad's
birthday? Yeah.
What's coming up for you? I've had many acts in my life
and unfortunately, my favorite act so far is one that hasn't
(36:14):
overlapped with either of my parents.
And that's really the hardest thing about it.
It's not missing them for what we experienced because, you
know, I lived up until I was 18 under their roof.
We had 99% of the time that we would ever spend together,
together. And it was good times.
(36:34):
Yeah, so that was beautiful. And then we had a really bad
chapter and then that was the end.
And then today I look at what could have been and it's not
grief for what I lost, but it's just really.
And if there's no empty hole, because we don't know how this
(36:57):
family would be with them in it,but there's certainly a place at
the table where they would have slot in nicely and been very
appreciated. So the grief that you experience
is primarily one that they are not here to enjoy these times.
It's like fan fiction. It's like I can write all the
(37:18):
fan fiction in my mind and in mydreams about what could have
been, but I'll never know. And that's the grief is not
being able to do anything more than author those spiritually.
Are there times that you think about them more than others,
like dates or on the tennis court?
(37:38):
Like when is it more? When is it most likely to show
up for you? When I see the big stupid grins
on our little kids faces just like crazy teeth and all all up
in my face, I'm just like Oh my God they would have loved this.
Yeah, Yeah. Well, I don't know where to go
(38:01):
from there. I think it comes back to sitting
with our kids in grief and just being prepared to sit.
Yeah. There's nothing that we can do
to make it better, but what we can do is to normalize the
(38:21):
grief. I think that sitting with it and
and helping them understand thatthis glass of water doesn't go
away in your in your body and soul just because it goes away
in the physical world, because it's out of reach.
Yeah, it makes sense. I think that if there's one
(38:43):
thing I know about when someone that I'm close to is in fear or
grief, it's that I now know thatI have no idea what is going on
in their heads. Like this is 1.
Maybe it's true of all emotions,but it definitely comes up for
me a lot when someone is in fearor grief within this family or
within my friendships. And so I think this really, I,
(39:06):
this idea of sitting alongside someone rather than trying to
take their pain away is a reallyimportant one for me to remember
to mostly stay, stay silent, butalso get curious around what's
going on. Because I know that if I try to
guess or project what is inside their heads, I am truly 100% of
(39:33):
the time wrong. And so it really it's about
accompanying someone on their journey and just being a witness
to the experience, regardless ofhow badly I may want to stop it,
to make it stop. Yeah.
(39:58):
Are there any lighter or more beautiful aspects of grief that
you can share? Something about not carrying the
relationship for the baggage that it would have brought, may
have brought, could have broughtsomething about not holding onto
(40:19):
the baggage of that relationshipand just remembering all of the
wonderful moments, all of the lessons as we're doing this
podcast, just remembering the special connection on every
level. It's hard to do that when
someone's alive. Sure.
I understand. It's hard to do that when
(40:39):
someone's alive. I mean, there's this idea of
like this perfect world where, you know, we're with our parents
and they die peacefully of old age and the in the 90s and
hundreds and their great grandparents and they've seen,
but at that point, they've been involved in your life for a
(41:01):
really long time. And there's a lot of baggage
that we hold on to as adults that are related to our parents
that we can let go of when they pass.
And it's not necessarily rewriting history, but it is
(41:21):
being able to pen my own future without needing to think about
what they would think. Not that they would think we're
doing anything bad here. They'd love this all.
But we don't have to be. For example, we're in Florida.
Yeah, we wouldn't be here if they were.
Here we might not be here. Well, maybe they would be with
us. Maybe they would, but the we got
(41:42):
to chart our own course. It's true.
It's true. I do think all of the things and
so, you know, I feel very lucky to to have had the foundation
that I have. I also feel very light when it
comes to my own future. And the only thing that weighs
(42:02):
me down is that that feeling of lightness is something that I've
wanted for my whole life. And so getting it feels really
selfish and without the intendedcollateral damage, like I would,
I would probably trade a lot to have them back, if that makes
(42:24):
sense. But having, I don't know, just
being able to be my own person, guess that's the only other side
of grief that I can think of that creates a little bit of
like the bird leaving the nest. OK, so we've said a lot.
We definitely don't have all theanswers to this one.
(42:45):
I don't. Even know what the questions are
that this one is just like sit with your kids and fear and
grief. That's right.
So I think that the most important thing about sitting
and facing fear and grief is that we do it together, right?
It's that we are not here to rescue one another or our
children from these difficult emotions, but it really is an
(43:05):
opportunity to be present with one another and to be connected
in a new way. It doesn't always have to be
connection, doesn't always have to be about joy and fun and
silliness. It can also be extremely
connecting to sit together through sorrow and pain.
Yeah. And I've connected with our
seven and five year old quite beautifully around getting on
(43:28):
roller coasters together. So, yeah, what's this?
All right, well, thanks everybody for joining us.
And thank you, Goosey, for your honesty.
I love you. I.
Love you. Hey guys, if you're still here,
you're definitely our kind of person.
Thanks for spending this time with us on The Most Important
Thing. If this episode resonated with
(43:49):
you, we'd love for you to followus wherever you get your
podcasts and share it with someone else.
Building family culture on purpose.
Welcome to The Most Important Thing.
I'm Danielle DeMarco Neufeld. And I'm Greg Neufeld, and
together we're exploring how ambitious busy families can
build culture at home. Because after all, family is the
most important thing. Hi, Greg.
Hi, everybody. Welcome to Team IT episode 18 on
facing fear and grief. Sounds like a heavy one.
(00:22):
Yeah, you're right. This is the 8th episode in our
Wholehearted Parenting manifestoand the line is together.
We will cry and face fear and grief.
I will want to take away your pain, but instead I will sit
with you and teach you how to feel it.
It really resonates with me, this idea of wanting to take
(00:44):
away your pain. Yeah, I want to take away
everyone's pain in our family. Yeah.
And you know, when reflecting onthis statement, I would love to
separate our conversation into fear and grief, partially
because as we've discussed, we have had limited experiences of
grief as a family, at least not it hasn't touched our home like
(01:07):
super closely. But I do think that I am much
more willing to sit with grief. Like grief to me feels like a
productive emotion if you will, and something that feels
warranted typically and like moving through it is almost like
a rite of passage and something that is healthy.
(01:32):
In preparing for this episode, Irealized that I do not have the
same relationship with fear. Anytime fear comes, whether it's
in one of our children or in myself, I cannot wait to get it
to go away. Like I am very reactionary and
very resistant to fear in any way.
(01:52):
And I have to tell you that evenin my reading in as far as
parenting or even re parenting, but as far as parenting is
concerned about how to help children with fear and anxiety.
The trope that I constantly hearis this is a wiring of us humans
that is supposed to help us froma lion attack or a bear.
(02:16):
And it has no place in today's society.
And I don't know, it feels really black and white to me.
And I guess one of the things I'd love to rumble with in this
conversation is really like fearsetting.
Like, what is an appropriate wayto feel fear?
Because I feel like I understandthe arc of grief a bit better
(02:38):
than I do. I'm like, what I'm supposed to
do when fear shows up? How does that resonate with you?
First of all, it sounds like youhave a superpower.
Oh hey, thanks. To want to rid yourself of fear
the moment it shows up is so healing.
(02:58):
I would say most of the population does not have that
same. I don't know, it feels like a, a
maladaptive response. Like I would like to be able to
sit with fear and tolerate fear more than I currently can.
And like, let's, let's talk a little bit more about that.
Like for me, at least in my adult life, fear has really been
(03:21):
wrapped up with anxiety. But I think honestly, even
looking back, like I've always had big fear.
I was, you know, I, I ran into my parents room until I was
probably like 11 years old everysingle night, 'cause I was
scared in the middle of the night.
Big, big fear. Big, big fear.
Cannot watch scary movies, as you know, at all still to this
day. Big, big fear.
(03:42):
Don't love when you travel when we're home.
Yeah, so. But for me, fear and anxiety are
like really intertwined these days.
And I think maybe they always have been and I just didn't know
it as anxiety when I was younger.
But I really much I, I would like to say I can't say for
sure, but you tell me like much in the same way you can't handle
not feeling your best. I hate anxiety.
(04:05):
Like I hate it so much. And it's very, very hard for me
to sit with. I just want it to go away.
Yeah, it feels like an appropriate relationship with
anxiety, but I think what's getting where signals might get
crossed is around where anxiety leads to the fear that you're
actually in danger. Right?
Like a true fear versus a silly fear, like, you know, think
(04:29):
about our our kids and how some of their fears show up and
what's actually real versus whatis just being stretched out in
their mind. Your relationship with anxiety,
I think is a is a very strong one and one that's very
relatable. But I agree that you do you do
not like fear and you you want to figure out a way to get
(04:49):
through it rather than sit with it and understand how founded it
necessarily is. Is that is that kind of making
sense? Yeah, I think, gosh, this, this
really is like a therapy sessionright out of the gate.
But I, I think that if I can relate it to grief and the times
in my life where I have experienced grief, I have tools
(05:10):
to kind of allow myself to grieve whether it is like for me
more recently, the closest experience I've had is when my
grandmother died of COVID, right?
That was that was a pretty roughtime for me.
We were very close, but I allowed myself to experience all
the different layers of grief, and those would be the deep
(05:32):
sorrow and the tears of joy justfor having experienced her in my
life. And thanks to your family, I
have something called the Mohammed Runjaya chant that I
use when someone when I want to express love and goodwill to
someone as they are passing. And I don't have those tools in
(05:56):
the same way for fear. Yeah, I don't think you have as
much fear, though, as most people.
I don't know. That's where I think the
superpower is. Like you, your fears are
actually manifested as anxiety. But you, it's like a true fear,
like something that actually is putting.
I I think you respond very well to situations where you might be
(06:18):
in danger, so to speak, where, you know, you have a fear maybe
of our garage door being open orsomething like that and Winston
getting out. But if Winston were to get out
like you would act, as opposed to being worried that he were
afraid that he's going to get hit by a car, you would go and
save that dog. Yeah.
I wonder how, how related those two things are.
Yes, I I am very good in a crisis, if that's what you're
(06:40):
saying. That's what I'm saying.
If any of the fear were to actually come true.
That's what I'm saying. Yeah, I think I'm very good in
the crisis, but we're kind of dancing around it.
So I don't want to spend too much time on my fear and
anxiety. But like I think you and I are
probably talking about somethingsimilar.
So most of my fear and anxiety today is wrapped up around
doctors and the medical system and in particular the way it the
symptom, the most acute symptom is that you cannot take my blood
(07:02):
pressure. We have no idea what my blood
pressure actually is because anytime someone tries to take
it, I have a full blown panic attack.
And that sucks. It's just annoying.
Like, I don't like that aspect of myself because I've made a
mountain out of a molehill, but it does have roots in something
real, right? And so a couple episodes ago, I
(07:22):
think in our accountability and respect episode, we talked about
how I had and still have significant trauma from Jade's
birth. And I think it's fair to say
that Jade's birth, during Jade'sbirth, we were victims of
malpractice because they were soafraid of preeclampsia that they
(07:44):
coerced us into inducing her three weeks early.
Even though I didn't have hypertension, right?
I had anxiety induced blood pressure and I had walking up
three flights of subway stairs, running across Central Park and
multiple avenues to try to get to the doctor's office and have
(08:06):
at 37 weeks, 36 weeks pregnant and having them take my blood
pressure the moment I arrived and still then only slightly
high, right. But, and this is a whole tangent
that I would love to talk to anyone about all the time
because I've definitely done a lot of research and kind of
unpacking about what happened. But because preeclampsia is so
pervasive in the United States in particular, suffice it to say
that I, I had probably too much trust in our family.
(08:29):
We placed a lot of trust on doctors.
Like we really elevated their status and whatever a doctor
said, I followed always. And so I didn't realize how I
didn't realize how strong of a relationship I had with a
doctor's authority until Jade's birth.
And it really, it broke me when I, and I'd always been treated
(08:53):
well by doctors too, Even with Hunter's birth when I had
postpartum hemorrhaging, my obstetrician at that time, like
I felt like really felt like really took care of me well.
And that was just not the case on on December 23rd, 2019.
And I'm still working through that and I still like, I really
feel as though that the problem is that that fear was warranted
(09:17):
at the time. And now there is no baby in my
belly and I'm still petrified and have a lot of mistrust for
the medical system. The problem is as I get older, I
really want to take care of my health and so I am the ultimate
loser if I avoid going to the doctor because I'm afraid that
(09:38):
they're not going to take care of me.
And so a lot of my journey over the past couple of years in
particular, because for a while I just didn't even want to look
at it, right, has been about trying to find that balance
between. I know that my initial
relationship with doctors and their ultimate authority is was
not healthy for me, is not healthy for me today.
(09:58):
But I also know that fully avoiding doctors is not healthy
for me. So how can I find the balance
where I'm listening to what experts have to say goes back to
this in the hand, right, while also trusting my intuition.
And I'm still really wrestling with that, like it's, it's
really hard for me. I know it is, then I see that.
What would you say to me if it were me struggling with doctors
(10:22):
and high blood pressure? That's The thing is that like, I
don't really know. And this comes up because Hunter
has big fear. Big, big fear.
And we were on our way to the orthodontist last Friday, and
she was hysterical in the car because she had eaten a piece of
her friend's fruit rope, and realized afterwards that it was
(10:45):
sticky, chewy candy, which she'snot really supposed to have
because she has an appliance in her mouth.
And she was out of her mind, upset the whole ride to the
orthodontist, like almost vomiting in the bathroom at the
orthodontist, doubled over in fear that they were going to be
(11:06):
mad at her and yell at her for having a bite of someone's fruit
rope. And this doctor could not be
nicer. Like it was so misplaced,
misguided, you know, it was so not related to fact.
Like she's never really had a bad experience at a doctor.
And that way, she's never reallyhad anyone yell at her in the
way that her mind thinks that she's going to get yelled at.
(11:28):
And this has come up at her in her volunteering opportunities.
This has come up in her extracurriculars.
This has come up with the with doctors.
And so I just tried to be walk alongside her and also end it as
soon as possible as a hunter, wejust need to get in there.
And you need to tell her so thatyou can see kind of get that
feedback loop. And of course they were like,
(11:49):
oh, hunter, no big deal. Don't worry about it.
Don't be silly like and I saw her visibly relax, but there is
this, it's so relatable for me, but both of us, it is just not
tied to reality at all. And so I don't know how to
ground that because it doesn't feel like facts can ground that.
(12:14):
That's true, Yeah. I sit in a house full of
unfounded fear, for sure. The ladies in this house
especially. I don't know what to do with it,
and I think it's worth exploringwhat we can do with it.
Yeah, I mean, listen, I think that I've definitely talked to
(12:35):
Chat chat DBT about this. I've listened to podcast about
this. Like I, I understand that there
are things that we can say mostly, you know, just being
physically present with someone and getting curious about what
really is bothering them and then naming it like that's
really scary or that must have felt awful without, without
(12:57):
minimizing it, right? And, and staying regulated for
ourselves. So all these things, you know,
great. But when it's just completely,
when it's just completely unrelated to reality, I don't, I
don't know how to bring includedmyself included.
Like I don't know how to bring that person back down.
And is it, and is that my, even my goal?
(13:18):
Like I'm not really sure. A recent episode of the Founders
podcast, Davidson brought up a quote from Jimmy Iovine, the
record producer, founder of Interscope Records, and the the
subject of the film with Doctor Dre.
The Defiant ones, where Jimmy says when you feel fear, you
have to train yourself to take astep forward.
And I believe that that is the answer.
(13:40):
But I don't know how to troubleshoot the middle part.
How do you do the training? Yeah, I don't.
I don't know either. And I think I told you that in
Adam Grant's latest book, HiddenPotential, he talks about how
you can't wait for confidence totake the first leap, that you
have to take the leap in order to gain confidence.
And so, you know, I do wonder, like for for me and for Hunter,
(14:04):
it seems like it's wrapped up indoctors a bit.
And that is not something that we do that often, is the other
part of it. Is that like?
Why? It's wrapped up in doctors, too.
And for Adam Grant, he's talkingabout he's a, he was a like a
competitive diver. And so he's talking about
literally taking a leap and likelearning how to do complicated
dives, right? And that is something that you
can practice over and over and over again.
(14:26):
How many times a year do I see adoctor?
Like 5 maximum, right? Hunter sees them the same,
right? So it's like we're not able to
put in enough reps for our brains to really create that
feedback loop. Like there's too much time in
between. Yeah.
I would argue also that there's some form of like a relationship
buyer payer mismatch in the relationships that we're talking
(14:50):
about with doctors when it is a cash pay doctor.
I don't think you've ever had anissue.
Yeah, I look forward to like, transferring everything to
private because I think that that will really change the way
I feel about it. You're so right.
And one of the things that you've taught me that
unfortunately, you tried to tellme when I was pregnant with
Jade, but it just wasn't landingbecause I was so spun up.
(15:11):
Anxiety had the wheel like inside out too and is and
something that I've actually shared with friends more
recently that I think has been helpful as well is just this
idea of like you are the customer, like you actually do
get to say what matters. But when it comes to the
healthcare system, like I just didn't know.
I didn't know that you could walk away against medical
advice. I had no idea that was a thing
(15:31):
until a similar trajectory happened with Maverick's
pregnancy. And I found myself in the
hospital again at 37 weeks with a different doctor telling me
that she wanted to induce me because my blood pressure was
slightly elevated and she wasn'tbusy that afternoon, right?
And it wasn't because, I mean, insanity, insanity.
But like, and so this is like real stuff.
Do you know what I mean? Like, I think that people should
(15:53):
have a healthy fear of the medical system.
I mean, you should have a healthy fear of anyone that it,
that you're putting your life intheir hands, right?
Health healthy skepticism is important no matter where you
are because you need to be your own advocate.
You can't put your, your life, your, you know, the next steps
in someone else's hands without understanding why those next
steps are what they say they are.
(16:14):
But it's really hard when it's an insurance pay versus a cash
pay. And it's really, really hard if
you have an employer where you get insurance through and you
can only go to certain doctors. And I think that's where a lot
of the fear in this country comes from, is people showing up
to doctors that they have to seewhere they can't.
They don't really have a choice.This is the one that's in
network that's closest to them. They can't go get a second
(16:36):
opinion. They're not the customer
anymore. They are really in a socialist
system. Yeah, Anyway, I don't want to
talk too much about healthcare. Sure, even.
I mean, I do want to talk too much about healthcare.
I can talk about it all day, butI don't think.
It's really in this context, though it's interesting that
that is where the fear shows up in this family.
It is. It really is.
And it's not even like I, I, I know I have some friends, you
(16:57):
know, that really are worried about their health all the time.
I am not worried about my health.
I feel like genuinely generally pretty healthy.
It's just when I feel like I need support that I am really
scared to, to put my, myself. I feel like I'm at the mercy of
someone who doesn't have my bestinterest at heart, whose
(17:18):
incentives are not aligned with mine.
And where you have to show up, take a test, and the results of
that test dictate what comes next.
Yeah, I'm a terrible test taker in that respect.
And and test taking is really a non entity in this house as
well. So that's another thing about.
It. Yeah, it's not surprising at all
that we send our kids to school where there are no tests because
(17:38):
I don't like them. Yeah.
I would love to talk about what fear means to you, because I
think that you have a very different type of fear and yeah,
So what comes up for you? What comes up is resistance.
Where do I feel resistance? Where it's things that I know
are good for me that I don't want to do versus things that I
know are not bad for me that I'mafraid of.
(18:01):
So I think that fear shows up inthat second category where I
feel resistance against doing something because I'm like, oh,
this is something that I genuinely have fear about.
I know it's not going to be detrimental to my mind, body, or
soul, but I just kind of don't want to do it because it rose me
the wrong way. It's pretty simple.
So the Velocicoaster at Universal, I mean, I didn't grow
(18:25):
up doing roller coasters and so something like that.
I'm just like, I can't imagine now what I found and what I've
experienced since trying to attempt that roller coaster with
you a couple years ago is every roller coaster since.
I have watched a YouTube of the first person experience of it,
so I'd understand what to expect.
And from there I'm able to do it.
(18:46):
And now I kind of like watching roller coaster videos.
I can't say that I love roller coasters, but I do like watching
them because it gets me into a place of normalization, if you
will, Like I know what's coming next.
I know that these are turns. I know that I'm safe and I can
get through fear that way and fight the resistance.
So that's that's a an example that comes to mind where I know
(19:07):
that it's not going to harm me, but it's like it makes my skin
crawl a little bit. I love that.
Two things. One, when you edit the video
episode of this, you absolutely have to put the picture.
Of you OK. That needs to go in there.
Two, I OK, Oh my gosh, I love that memory because it's so true
(19:31):
for you and fear and I think you've really found a great tool
in watching first person YouTubevideos of roller coasters.
And two, I am totally kicking myself because how did I not
talk about roller coasters in our joy episode?
Like whoa. Peak joy for me.
Like absolute. Well, that's, that's kind of why
I think you have a superpower isbecause you're, you're able to
(19:54):
equate fear of a very scary roller coaster with joy of that
experience that that you're going to feel at the end of it
and move through it and get on the on the ride.
Even if you're the only rider out of this family.
I saw you do it at Busch Gardenswhere you're like, Oh my God,
that thing looks so scary. I have to do it.
You're like, I have to do it, I'm gonna do it, I'm gonna do
it, I'm gonna do it. And then you like, run up to the
(20:16):
thing and you get on by yourself.
I love it. I love it so much.
Like, I love that fear. I love that.
Like, it's exhilaration, right? It's total exhilaration.
You know, it's so interesting because I think that, gosh,
there's a lot going through my head right now when we equate
fear of roller coasters to fear of doctors.
And the thing I think about whenit comes to roller coasters is
(20:37):
that I'm very trusting. Like I actually believe that I
am safe that I don't know if youdon't believe that you are safe,
but I really do believe that especially even just like law of
averages, like I'm not going to die on this roller coaster.
And I love the feeling of totally letting go.
It's almost like a spiritual experience for me where I'm
just, I've totally surrendered to this roller coaster.
(20:58):
And quite frankly, if I die on this roller coaster, I'm going
to die having so much fun like Iam I'm there.
That is what broke inside of me when Jade was born.
Is that like I like to hand overmy power and part of being a
dole, an adult, like is that I have to, I can't hand over my
(21:20):
power. I wanted to hand over my power
to that doctor because I definitely did.
When Hunter was born and I had postpartum hemorrhage, I was in
such a state that I had no idea what was happening.
I was 10 days postpartum with myfirst baby and like had to leave
her to go to the emergency room,right?
I was completely surrendered andgiving up power to this person
and it worked out. She treated me so well.
(21:42):
And I was, let's just say, 'cause it's, you know, all of
this is tied up with my expectations around the outcomes
too, right? And so like, I handed over my
power with my OB with Hunter andmy ego liked the outcome.
Therefore there was no, there was no bump on the road.
I handed, I did the same thing with my different OB with Jade,
but I did not like the outcome. I felt really harmed.
(22:06):
And since then, there's been a lot of bumps in the road.
It's been very, very hard for me.
But I did the same thing both times and I'm still doing it on
roller coasters. It's.
A great, great notice, yeah. So I think that part of what I
need to learn, and I hope that maybe this is something that I
can learn alongside our children, is when it is OK to
(22:27):
surrender, when it is safe to surrender, and when we actually
have to really own our power. Yeah, reflecting on this, my
fear shows up in places where surrender is necessary.
And I don't ever think it's safeto surrender.
So I do not like giving that up.I mean, you even see it at the
(22:48):
doctor where I'm like, no, this test is the one that I'm going
to that you're going to give to me.
Like this is a, you know, my labs that I've gotten from a
different doctor. I'm just bringing this to you to
inform you that I am healthy. Prove me.
Prove me wrong. It was so funny, you guys.
We went to the cardiologist together, of course, this past
week, and Greg was showing him his lab results.
And of course, Greg had an Excelspreadsheet with like the past
(23:10):
five lab results that he'd had over the.
Five years. Five years of lab results and
he's like, I know that this is really high, but let me tell you
that I have made peace with thisbecause this is really low and
I'm on a carnivore diet. So I know that This is why it's
OK. And he was just like right out
of the gate just pitching his reasoning why this outline this
(23:30):
this measure was that was completely way higher than range
was OK. And I'm like, prove me wrong.
I know. And he's like, you're, you're
right. I well, no, he said you're not
wrong, right? I don't know if he said he's
like, you know, we don't have enough data.
I don't have any data to refute you, right, is what he said.
And so if you're comfortable, then I'm comfortable, but I
don't think he felt like he had a choice.
Whereas me I'm like, he's just telling me I'm OK and he's like,
(23:53):
OK, let's run these tests because it'll give you Peace of
Mind. It's going to be OK.
It's. Going to be OK.
Yeah. So surrender.
That's a really great notice that you do well with that in
places where you feel like you're going to be safe.
Fear now shows up in places where you felt like it used to
be safe to surrender, and now you cannot.
Can I just tell you that it feels a little bit like an
immaturity? It does feel a lot like an
(24:13):
immaturity in me where I don't know, because I want to strike
this balance between like childlike Glee and joy, which I
do think really does somewhere come from this.
Like I am safe even when I surrender and then, like, having
to be and then when that doesn'twork out, like having to know
that I need to be an adult in the situation.
(24:36):
Yeah. And I don't like it.
I know you don't. It is a little.
It's immature. It's you.
It's not immature as much as it is you feeling like you have a
lot of places where you have to be overly responsible and
wanting for some places in your life for you to just be able to
walk in and somebody else is responsible.
(24:57):
Yeah, but to treat me with. Care, of course, to treat you
the way that a parent, a loving,doting parent, would treat you.
Yeah. Yeah, it's true.
OK. Life lesson though.
There's no places in this world where anyone outside of your
immediate family is going to have the incentive to treat you
(25:18):
the way that you want to be treated.
Can you show me the incentive? I'll show you the outcome.
Well, so it's true though, that the incentive at Busch Gardens
and Universal and Disney World is for me to not die.
Yep. So I feel like we're our
interests are aligned there. Totally, but but how many rides
get shut down? Well, that's a whole other.
Thing that as a result of. Well, I'd actually prefer that,
(25:39):
though I would prefer that because I do put my life in
their hands. But that's.
The thing if you show up and andyou're outsourcing the whole joy
component then and the fear component then they have the
right to shut down half the rides and it it can suck.
Yeah, we love amusement parks here in Florida, some of us more
than others, but it's. It's I'm warming up to all of
(26:00):
this. It's, it's new for me.
It's not something that I did much as a kid when I was 12.
I'd like to go to liquor stores and drive into Manhattan.
You know, I wasn't, I wasn't driving at 12.
But this is what I mean about you were so mature so early.
Like I was not doing that at 12.I was riding the rides.
Those were my roller coasters, getting in cars with strangers
(26:22):
and going to parties. It's amazing.
I know I'm still alive. Yeah, so.
OK, so we've said a lot about fear.
Shall we move over to grief, or is there anything else you'd
like to say about fear before wemove over?
No, let's move over to grief. I hate to say it, but you are
our resident grief expert, so I'm going to let you open.
(26:44):
Well, I don't have much experience with grief as a young
child, and that's pretty wonderful.
I think that grief for young children, especially hearing
from you about all the death that happened around your 4th or
5th birthday, is tremendously sad and unsettling, but also
(27:06):
creates this this feeling like the other shoe could drop at any
moment. Yeah.
I mean, I can talk about that for a moment.
So when I was 4, my mom's motherand sister, who were very
involved in my life, died withinsix months of each other.
And it's hard for me to say for sure how that has affected my
(27:28):
life. But I do think that 1990 was not
really a time where you talked much to your kids about death.
And I definitely took away the idea that people could drop dead
at any moment. I just don't know that any of us
really allowed space for our grief.
(27:50):
Yeah. And so I don't, I don't really
have a playbook for grief from those experiences.
Right. But it's stayed with you.
And I remember it showing back up when Hunter turned 4, you
know, when your grandmother passed away.
It's really hard for young kids to have this sense of
(28:12):
impermanence around the people they love.
And yeah, I don't, I don't know what to do with that.
But what I noticed a lot about our kids is probably similar to
my brother and I growing up. Our kids talk a lot about death
just in kind of like playful ways.
Not, not like in that sadistic way, but more just like, oh,
(28:34):
who's going to die first? And they're curious about it,
Yeah. There's no grief that they've
experienced necessarily, but they're curious about it and
they don't understand it. Yeah, well, the founder of their
preschool died this year, right?And that was that was their
first experience. She was someone that they saw
quite frequently they weren't super close to, but she was kind
(28:57):
of like an Angel on their play scape and someone that everyone
looked up to. And so we watched them move
through that grief and talk about how they just want to hug
her again and they don't understand why she died.
There was there were a lot of questions, right?
And, and some sadness, but mostly a lot of questions.
And I think that when I think about grief, the thing that has
(29:22):
been most helpful to me, two things really have been most
helpful to me, if I may. The first is from Elizabeth
Kubler Ross, who's like a grief expert and talks about the
different stages of grief. She defines grief as anytime
something is taken away without your consent.
So obviously we think a lot about grief around death, but it
(29:42):
could could be a divorce or the end of a relationship or the end
of a friendship, right? Anytime that there is something
that you didn't necessarily wantto end or don't feel like you
had consent and ending. And I've definitely experienced
grief in in those ways, really with, you know, the the ends of
(30:06):
friendships in particular more recently through I think no
fault of anyone, but just kind of growing apart.
And you've really supported me in my kind of wrestling with
really going through the different stages of grief
through ultimately accepting theend.
(30:27):
But then I think there's this other type of grief, which I
gratefully have not experienced,which is the one where you are
with someone all the time and they are a permanent figure in
your life. And then I think there's this
extra layer of grief, which Andrew Huberman talks about,
where grief is essentially a disruption of the go no go
(30:50):
signal in your brain. And so he describes it as
reaching for a glass of water that is continuously moving,
just out of reach. And it's this rewiring of your
brain that has to happen over time because you can't pick up
the phone and call that person. They aren't downstairs at the
breakfast table. And I think that that is the
(31:11):
grief that really only, you knowintimately in our home.
In a way for sure as it relates to my parents dying in my 20s
definitely experienced that typeof grief.
However, it's a bit meta becauseboth of my parents, I witnessed
(31:38):
A dramatic change in each of them that was foreign to me and
resulted from a dramatic change in each of their lives that was
foreign to them, where their newnormal look nothing like what
they had grown accustomed to. So to take it one at a time, I
(32:04):
lost my mom well before she died.
She lost herself well before shespiraled into depression.
She lost herself when we had to sell our childhood home to pay
family debts. She lost herself when she had to
(32:25):
move in with her mother, who wasa big antagonist protagonist in
our lives, somebody that loved her dearly but didn't know how
to show that love in a constructive way.
She lost herself when she and myfather had to move into that
house with her mother and was back under the same roof of her
(32:46):
mother. She lost herself when she
couldn't trust necessarily the things that she had trusted in
her friends, in her relationships, in my father.
And so I watched somebody that Iknew so well turn into somebody
that I could barely recognize. And that was the hardest thing
(33:06):
for me. When she died, you know, I
remember looking at her body andhoping that she had found peace
finally, because she was struggling.
She was really struggling. Interestingly, from what we now
know is hereditary bipolar. And then for my dad, I watched
(33:30):
him lose his wife because he didn't fight the resistance and
he didn't necessarily hold himself accountable to.
He put his needs to be a provider in front of his needs
to be an honest, loving, doting husband.
(33:50):
The man that he was. And I don't know if it was
intentional or not, or if it wasjust him being somebody who
thought that he could catch up, catch back up.
But he, he created a, a big sinkhole in his business
financially, which created massive problems for our family.
(34:12):
And so I watched him move from this place where he was
respected and cherished in the community to basically turned
away and became a pariah. After my mom died, he moved up
to Connecticut to live with his mother.
And after she died, he had another year or so where he was
(34:36):
battling terminal metastasized prostate cancer.
So I watched him and the man that he was, and I remember him
to be turned into the shell of aman that when I when I saw his
body after he died, I was like, well, I hope he's found peace.
So the grief in the mourning process that I experienced was
far more in the metamorphosis. I guess that cannot be used
(35:02):
negatively, too. And the metamorphosis of each of
my parents because, as Huberman says, I was reaching for a glass
of water that I was used to drinking every day, and it
wasn't there. Yeah.
Just a lot of really sad turns of events that I had to sit with
(35:27):
by myself. There was.
That was the hardest part was that there was really no one to
sit there with me. I promise to sit there with you.
Thank you. Yeah.
Thank you for sharing. Yeah.
Do you have moments where grief comes to you today about them?
(35:52):
Like what happens? I mean, I'm sure you do.
So what happens in those momentslike tomorrow is your dad's
birthday? Yeah.
What's coming up for you? I've had many acts in my life
and unfortunately, my favorite act so far is one that hasn't
(36:14):
overlapped with either of my parents.
And that's really the hardest thing about it.
It's not missing them for what we experienced because, you
know, I lived up until I was 18 under their roof.
We had 99% of the time that we would ever spend together,
together. And it was good times.
(36:34):
Yeah, so that was beautiful. And then we had a really bad
chapter and then that was the end.
And then today I look at what could have been and it's not
grief for what I lost, but it's just really.
And if there's no empty hole, because we don't know how this
(36:57):
family would be with them in it,but there's certainly a place at
the table where they would have slot in nicely and been very
appreciated. So the grief that you experience
is primarily one that they are not here to enjoy these times.
It's like fan fiction. It's like I can write all the
(37:18):
fan fiction in my mind and in mydreams about what could have
been, but I'll never know. And that's the grief is not
being able to do anything more than author those spiritually.
Are there times that you think about them more than others,
like dates or on the tennis court?
(37:38):
Like when is it more? When is it most likely to show
up for you? When I see the big stupid grins
on our little kids faces just like crazy teeth and all all up
in my face, I'm just like Oh my God they would have loved this.
Yeah, Yeah. Well, I don't know where to go
(38:01):
from there. I think it comes back to sitting
with our kids in grief and just being prepared to sit.
Yeah. There's nothing that we can do
to make it better, but what we can do is to normalize the
(38:21):
grief. I think that sitting with it and
and helping them understand thatthis glass of water doesn't go
away in your in your body and soul just because it goes away
in the physical world, because it's out of reach.
Yeah, it makes sense. I think that if there's one
(38:43):
thing I know about when someone that I'm close to is in fear or
grief, it's that I now know thatI have no idea what is going on
in their heads. Like this is 1.
Maybe it's true of all emotions,but it definitely comes up for
me a lot when someone is in fearor grief within this family or
within my friendships. And so I think this really, I,
(39:06):
this idea of sitting alongside someone rather than trying to
take their pain away is a reallyimportant one for me to remember
to mostly stay, stay silent, butalso get curious around what's
going on. Because I know that if I try to
guess or project what is inside their heads, I am truly 100% of
(39:33):
the time wrong. And so it really it's about
accompanying someone on their journey and just being a witness
to the experience, regardless ofhow badly I may want to stop it,
to make it stop. Yeah.
(39:58):
Are there any lighter or more beautiful aspects of grief that
you can share? Something about not carrying the
relationship for the baggage that it would have brought, may
have brought, could have broughtsomething about not holding onto
(40:19):
the baggage of that relationshipand just remembering all of the
wonderful moments, all of the lessons as we're doing this
podcast, just remembering the special connection on every
level. It's hard to do that when
someone's alive. Sure.
I understand. It's hard to do that when
(40:39):
someone's alive. I mean, there's this idea of
like this perfect world where, you know, we're with our parents
and they die peacefully of old age and the in the 90s and
hundreds and their great grandparents and they've seen,
but at that point, they've been involved in your life for a
(41:01):
really long time. And there's a lot of baggage
that we hold on to as adults that are related to our parents
that we can let go of when they pass.
And it's not necessarily rewriting history, but it is
(41:21):
being able to pen my own future without needing to think about
what they would think. Not that they would think we're
doing anything bad here. They'd love this all.
But we don't have to be. For example, we're in Florida.
Yeah, we wouldn't be here if they were.
Here we might not be here. Well, maybe they would be with
us. Maybe they would, but the we got
(41:42):
to chart our own course. It's true.
It's true. I do think all of the things and
so, you know, I feel very lucky to to have had the foundation
that I have. I also feel very light when it
comes to my own future. And the only thing that weighs
(42:02):
me down is that that feeling of lightness is something that I've
wanted for my whole life. And so getting it feels really
selfish and without the intendedcollateral damage, like I would,
I would probably trade a lot to have them back, if that makes
(42:24):
sense. But having, I don't know, just
being able to be my own person, guess that's the only other side
of grief that I can think of that creates a little bit of
like the bird leaving the nest. OK, so we've said a lot.
We definitely don't have all theanswers to this one.
(42:45):
I don't. Even know what the questions are
that this one is just like sit with your kids and fear and
grief. That's right.
So I think that the most important thing about sitting
and facing fear and grief is that we do it together, right?
It's that we are not here to rescue one another or our
children from these difficult emotions, but it really is an
(43:05):
opportunity to be present with one another and to be connected
in a new way. It doesn't always have to be
connection, doesn't always have to be about joy and fun and
silliness. It can also be extremely
connecting to sit together through sorrow and pain.
Yeah. And I've connected with our
seven and five year old quite beautifully around getting on
(43:28):
roller coasters together. So, yeah, what's this?
All right, well, thanks everybody for joining us.
And thank you, Goosey, for your honesty.
I love you. I.
Love you. Hey guys, if you're still here,
you're definitely our kind of person.
Thanks for spending this time with us on The Most Important
Thing. If this episode resonated with
(43:49):
you, we'd love for you to followus wherever you get your
podcasts and share it with someone else.
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