March 11, 2025 • 66 mins
The podcast delves into profound themes of grief and loss, as articulated by Dr. Ray Mitsch, who presents a recorded lecture originally given to the Christian Counselors Fellowship. This episode is poignantly dedicated to the memory of a dear friend whose death serves as a backdrop for the discussion on how loss can foster connections, particularly with the emerging Generation Z. Dr. Mitsch explores the unique characteristics of this generation, suggesting that the experience of grief opens up avenues for conversation that transcend typical interactions. He emphasizes that understanding grief requires a broader lens that includes not only the death of loved ones but also the myriad losses encountered throughout life. This perspective is crucial in aiding counselors and listeners to facilitate deeper connections and understanding, particularly with a generation often perceived as disconnected from traditional forms of communication and spirituality. Dr. Mitsch articulates the necessity of recognizing the stages of grief as not merely linear but rather cyclical and seasonal, allowing for a more nuanced approach to counseling and support. Through his insights, listeners are encouraged to reflect on their own experiences of loss and the potential for growth and understanding that arises from grappling with such profound emotions.
Takeaways:
- Dr. Ray Mitsch discusses the profound impact of grief and loss, emphasizing its relevance for the Gen Z community.
- The podcast highlights the necessity of embracing grief in order to foster deeper connections with others.
- Mitsch introduces a model of approaching grief as a series of seasons, each with distinct tasks and emotional challenges.
- Gen Z faces unique challenges related to loss, often fleeing from emotional connections while simultaneously desiring them.
Links referenced in this episode:
- sgi-net.org
- https://www.instagram.com/sgi_international
- Facebook: @stainedglassinternational
- LinkedIn: @stainedglassinternational
- seasonsofourgrief.com
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Foreign to another edition ofUnscripted, the Collected wisdom
(00:27):
of Life, Living and sorrow.
I'm Dr.
Ray Mitch, your host and I amposting this podcast in memory of
a dear friend who died passedaway a year ago today.
And it is fitting for thekinds of things that I'm going to
(00:51):
be talking about today.
I want to make you aware thatthe upcoming podcast is going to
be a long form podcast.
It is a recorded presentationI did for Focus on the Family and
it gives you an opportunity tolisten in to this presentation which
(01:13):
is a full explanation and aconnection even with how loss actually
opens a window for us to beable to talk to and connect with
Gen Z, who has someinteresting characteristics that
I think provide us with abasis of conversation around this
(01:36):
issue of grief and loss.
I know for myself in teachingthe course at CCU that this particular
class is one that has a directimpact on the students.
And so with that I want tointroduce it and give you an opportunity.
To listen in in talking tostudents and who they are and how
(01:57):
they approach things.
And I have been increasinglyexposed to what is now labeled as
Gen Z.
And that's some of what I wantto kind of connect to.
Partly because the whole ideasaround grief and loss I think opens
(02:17):
a window to Gen Z that otherconnection opportunities don't exist.
And so as a result of that Istarted doing the grief and loss
and then I branched out todoing a class on shame and grace.
And both of those have acomponent to it that are they have
(02:41):
a group and students say waita minute, I didn't bargain for this.
I just wanted to hearsomething and walk away and forget
it.
But groups don't let you dothat, as we all well know and interacting
with each other and about thestuff that I talk about or I bring
up and I am often reminded andI remind my students of this is just
(03:10):
a quote from Elizabeth Kubler Ross.
I think that's going to come up.
It is the denial of death thatis partially responsible for people
living empty, purposeless lives.
For when you live as if youlive forever, it becomes way too
easy to postpone what you knowyou must do.
(03:32):
And this is a quote from her.
Not long before she died shedid one book, I think we all probably
know all about it, on deathand dying.
And she did a second bookbesides other writings of course,
on grief and grieving.
(03:53):
And she joked with her coauthor Kessler.
I think it's Daniel Kessler, David.
Sorry.
And what she said was maybe Ishould have done one on life and
Living.
And that would have been veryappropriate, I think, partly because
loss has a way of focusing ourattention on living, not dying.
(04:15):
And I think that's where a lotof our effort is in even sitting
and talking to people.
We tend to take a fairlymyopic view of loss and grief.
We think of it only in termsof someone dying, as most of my students
(04:35):
do.
And when we broaden it out, itbegins to kind of shape itself into
this subtext of our lives thatwe're always waning and waxing through
losses and gains andinvestment and a loss of that investment.
So I think if not all of ushave looked for opportunities to
(05:01):
look at grief and loss in abigger context so that we can then
explain or at least helppeople understand what they're going
through.
The tendency or the question Ithink we have to ask is, how do I
organize it?
How do I say it in such a waythat the client I'm talking to can
(05:24):
access it and understand it?
I think that's some of what weget tempted by with stages, because
stages seem to be very orderly.
It does tempt us into thinkingvery linearly, which is a problem.
Or do we think in terms ofphases or seasons, as I'm going to
(05:44):
propose this morning?
And ultimately, I think in alot of ways.
And my daughter, my oldestdaughter is also a counselor.
So the apple doesn't fall veryfar from the tree.
And I heard her talking tosomebody in my family, which is always
dangerous.
And she was talking about stages.
(06:04):
And I said, you lead my groups.
What is wrong with you?
Right.
Yeah, the will.
But it is easy to talk about.
And what ends up happeningwith that is that we take what Gubler
Ross was talking about interms of death and dying into grief
(06:26):
and grieving.
Now she brings it over intothat, but it broadens, I think, ultimately
with the things that we talk about.
And I see this with mystudents that whenever I'm talking
about, they rehearse it witheach other.
And that same thing is truewith a lot of the stages and the
way that we kind of approachloss and our experiences in it.
(06:47):
And so what I want to do isdescribe a little bit different landscape.
It's the same landscape, butwe look at it, maybe a different
way of looking at it that Ithink, to some degree makes more
sense.
Now, I arrived at this not somuch based on all the reading I've
done, which is plenty over the years.
(07:08):
You do that, you accumulateknowledge and you put things together
and things like that.
But it's also from my own experiences.
And one of the books overthere that I brought with me was
Grieving the Loss of Someoneyoue Love.
It came out of my ownexperience of having my dad pass
away when I was 12, which isancient history now.
(07:30):
And so I think I want to lookat that landscape a little bit differently.
And then I want to kind ofpivot as best I can with the time
I have to understand why this.
This topic is so powerful, Ithink, in talking to and connecting
with Gen Z, because a lot oftheir lives are spent fleeing loss.
(07:55):
And by doing so, as KublerRoss would suggest, they are fleeing
meaning in a lot of ways.
And so before I go on, I wantto recognize the work of Dr.
William Worden.
His book is Grief Counselingand Therapy.
And he went into looking atgrief from a developmental point
(08:18):
of view, which I think makes alot more sense depending on not only
lifespan development, but alsojust development in how we process
and go through the grief we experience.
So the one thing that I ammindful of is when we're talking
about grief, I think the well,yeah, I would get ahead of myself,
(08:44):
but sometimes it feels likewe're trying to describe the indescribable
because it's such a uniquehuman experience.
And yet at the same time, itis also general.
We share the experience of loss.
And so I began to be remindedof the six blind men of I don't know
(09:07):
if you've ever heard thisbefore, but I think this describes
a lot of our approaches evento grief.
And in this case, the elephantis the grief.
So I thought I'd read this toyou just to set the context.
And it goes this way.
The six men of Indostan tolearning much inclined who went to
(09:27):
see the elephant, though allof them were blind, that each by
observation might satisfy his mind.
The first approached theelephant, happening to fall, and
his broad and sturdy side atonce began to bawl, God bless me.
But the elephant is like a wall.
The second feeling of the tuskcried, ho.
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What have we here?
So very round and smooth andsharp to me tis mighty clear.
This wonder of an elephant isvery like a spear.
The third approached theanimal and happening to take the
squirming trunk within hishands, thus boldly up he spake.
I see, quoth he, the elephantis very like a snake.
(10:08):
The fourth reached out aneager hand and felt about the knee.
What must this wondrous beastbe as clear enough to see is like
a tree.
The fifth, who touched theear, said, e'en the blindest man
can tell what this resemblesthe most.
Deny the fact, you who can.
(10:30):
This marvel of an elephant isvery like a fan.
The six no sooner had begunbegan about the beast to grope, than
seizing on the swinging tailthat fell within his scope.
I see, quoth he, the elephantis very like a rope.
So these men of Indostandisputed loud and long, each in his
(10:53):
own opinion exceeding stiffand strong, though each was partly
in the right and all were inthe wrong.
And the elephant is grief.
If you've ever heard thephrase the elephant in the room,
it's grief and loss.
And there are many differentways of approaching this.
(11:16):
I want to highlight a coupleof them.
First is phases that.
That you might hear.
Ultimately, the challenge andthe dissatisfaction for me about
talking about phases is kindof a passivity.
I pass through it somehow andI just wait for it to get over.
And we've talked to plenty ofpeople like that, I'm sure, where
(11:37):
it's like, will this be overanytime soon?
Just let me know, and then Ican get back to life.
And then the other one istasks, which Warden suggests.
And it fits into adevelopmental process that ultimately
we think in terms of.
I think generally, wheneverwhomever we're talking to, where
they are in life, not only theissues that they bring with them.
(12:00):
So that's very much a part ofwhat Wharton brings to the table
and kind of captured myattention because even my own grief
that I went through and Icontinue to go through is, in a variety
of ways, is it's not quite aslinear as stages would suggest.
It's more circular, and Iwould suggest even seasonal in our
(12:23):
experiences of it.
So what I want to propose iskind of an interactive or a combination
model of seasons of grief.
And there are tasks to bedone, but there are phases to experience,
and those phases are seasons.
And again, it's accessible.
We're in the middle ofstarting into spring.
(12:45):
And the funny thing aboutseasons is they're never safe.
Right?
I mean, I was going to comehere and wow you with all my eloquence
in November, but winterintruded, and it almost intruded
this week, too.
I was watching and saying,jeremy, what do I do?
(13:07):
And so the seasons, the thingthat we know about seasons is we
have the experience of theseason itself, but also we have different
tools for different seasons.
I don't use my snow blower tomove my leaves, although some people
I see do.
(13:28):
But we don't do that.
We use rakes, right?
Or I don't use my lawn mowerto remove the snow.
And so there are tools thatare specific to the seasons.
And not only do we go throughthem, but we also have things to
do in them.
And I think anybody that'sdone any kind of grief work with
people will use that word.
(13:48):
It's grief work.
It is not easy stuff to moveinto because it tends to reveal things
about our relationships.
So what I want to do is I wantto start and to walk through the
seasons and you will knowwhere we are.
That's the beauty of doingseasons, is you know what's coming
next.
(14:08):
The thing is, is that they mixeach other up and they intrude on
each other in a variety of ways.
And winter is the first onewhere everything is dead or at least
looks dead.
And in grief, the emotionsshut down.
You hear people say all thetime, I feel numb.
There's a slowing down ofthinking and feeling and a spiritual
(14:31):
disengagement.
And ultimately the task hereis accepting the reality of the loss.
That's the thing to do.
And we go in and out of thatin various ways throughout it.
The thing to keep in mind isacceptance does not mean it is okay.
(14:52):
Okay.
Somewhere along the way, wehave gotten the notion that accepting
something means I condone its existence.
And acceptance is not that.
The reality is, is that when Igo about accepting something, the
beginning of healing occurs.
I can't begin the healinguntil I accept what is.
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And that's very much a part ofwhat we experience.
So most people will experience numbness.
It's a little bit like searingof a nerve.
And when you first get itburned, you don't feel anything.
And then suddenly it wakes upand you're sure that you're not going
to sleep that night because ofwhatever the burn is.
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And so it allows people thatare going through grief to deal with
the flurry of all theactivity, particularly with the loss
of someone, the flurry of activities.
And a lot of times people willlook at them and say, hey, they seem
to be getting along pretty well.
I mean, they're getting thingsdone and getting the funeral, getting
(15:56):
through the funeral andengaging people.
But it also can create a senseof confidence or fear.
I don't know what I got up here.
The confidence is, maybe I'llget through this.
This won't be so bad.
And the fear is, did theperson mean so little to me that
(16:19):
I feel so little?
So you have this complex kindof mixing together of hope, maybe
this is going to get better,and then what's wrong with me?
And I think in a lot of ways,working with people that are going
through, it's like, am I crazy?
(16:40):
And I end up saying, no,you're just human.
And they don't find that verycomforting, unfortunately.
But, see, there are threedifferent strategies we use to deal
with denial, which is thefirst season or first part of the
season of winter.
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And there are a variety ofways we use to really kind of thwart
it.
And the thwarting of it ismanaging to get through it in a lot
of ways.
And all of us have somestrategy in getting through it.
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Even when David experiencedthe news of Absalom, you see, he
started shaking, and he said,oh, if I could have only traded places
with my son.
And that's all very much apart of that.
But there's three things Iwant to mention.
First is we deny the facts ofthe loss.
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I got to keep moving here.
We deny the facts of the loss.
The famous story is told ofQueen Victoria and her consort, Prince
Albert.
And when he died, she refusedto absorb the reality of him being
(18:05):
gone.
And so every morning, sheinstructed his butler to go to his
chambers, lay out his shavingequipment, lay out all of his bathing
materials, and then everyevening, pick it up and bring it
back.
And she was reported to havebeen seen walking through the palace
talking to Prince Albert.
(18:27):
And so we try to keepeverything intact.
After my dad's death.
My mom.
My dad was a World War II vet,and he was a veteran of the Marine
Corps, and he was in some ofthe bloodier battles within the South
Pacific.
And after he died, we had acedar closet.
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Y'all remember those?
And she kept all of hisuniforms in there, his dress blues,
his other.
The various other outfits thatthey use for PT and other things.
And she kept it all the same.
And it was like it was justwaiting for him to return.
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And so we tend to mummify thereality of what's going on.
It's almost like we're waitingfor them to come back, and we expect
them fully to come back.
And so we deny the facts ofthe loss, and we mummify and try
to keep everything the same.
The other part of this is theidea that we deny the meaning of
(19:35):
the loss.
And the meaning of the loss.
Is that up there?
Yeah.
The meaning of the loss.
I can give you a very good example.
I'm coming up on a yearanniversary of a friend of mine that
we've been friends for 32 years.
And he passed into Abba's armsa year ago.
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And when he broke the news tome that he had cancer he had bladder
cancer.
And we talked and he knew mybackground and the stuff that I had
done with grief and thingslike that.
And he said, you know, I'm notin denial, I know I have cancer.
And I said, okay.
(20:19):
And then the next questionwas, yeah, but what does it mean
to you, to your family, towhat it means for their future, to
the impact on your wife of 50 years?
What does it mean?
And our tendency is to denythe meaning of it.
And so it's not as big deal aswe think it is.
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Or somebody had a verycomplicated relationship with the
person that is gone or anynumber of things.
And that can be even brokenrelationships too, that you see the
same thing happening.
So there is a tendency indenying the meaning of the loss is
to kind of a selective forgetting.
And then there's also justridding oneself of all remembrances,
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things that would remind me.
A few years back, my father inlaw, his wife died his bride of 52
years.
And within six months he hadliquidated all of her clothing, all
of where they lived, and wasgone from where they lived.
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Six months later he was livingsomewhere else.
And it was really adiminishment of all that they had
because the house they were inbreathed memories and he didn't want
that and he moved on.
So the last one we do is wetend to deny that death is irreversible.
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Now, the interesting twisthere is for us people of faith, we
understand that death is notthe end.
But boy, grief and loss andthe things that we experience during
winter has a way of spawningsome alternate spiritualities.
And people coming up to my oldmentor mentioned that he was talking
(22:12):
to, he was doing spiritualdirection with a young woman that
mentioned that somebody cameup to her at church at the memorial
service of her little boy thathad died from cancer and said, well,
now you have your own angel in heaven.
And all she could taste is dust.
Because it was not.
It was just this alternatething that we seem oftentimes to
(22:36):
be bent on.
I want to help, but I have nowords to do that other than stuff
like that, which is mild wayof describing it.
And it never really seems tooccur that we enter in instead because
that's the thing that it'sbegging for in so many ways.
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So there's a variety ofspiritualities and even spiritualism.
You can think of the storythat is told of Saul and losing his
dear mentor of Samuel.
When everything went south, hewent looking for the witch of Endor
so that he could start talkingto Samuel again.
And so there Are those thingseven in the Christian world?
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There are those things thatstretch theology for sure, and yet
they end up being a part ofthis winter.
Now, what about the tools?
The tools?
One of the things that isconstant all the way through here.
I gotta keep moving here.
One of the things that'sconstant all the way through, the
(23:43):
tools of the trade, if youwill, the tools of each season.
The one thing you will alwayssee consistently is journaling.
And there's a reason peopledon't like journaling.
Not because we recommend it,which is partly that, but also because
if I write it down, it becomesreal and I don't want it to become
(24:04):
real.
And so journaling is animportant aspect.
If you read the introductionon my first book of grief, I make
mention of the fact that inthe old days when people had burns,
they had to scrub the woundsin order for them to actually heal.
We have all the beauty, wonderof modern science and artificial
(24:28):
skin and all that.
That wasn't what they did 75,100 years ago.
They would take the person inthe morning, they would scrub all
the wounds, they would shootthem full of Demerol, put them in
a whirlpool and scrub all thewounds and then get them out again
and put them to rest again.
And even through all theDemerol they were still screaming.
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But they knew that if theydidn't scrub the wound, all that
would incubate underneath thatwould be disease and death.
Ultimately, grief is no different.
We have to find a way to scrubthe wound.
And journaling is one of those ways.
Visiting the grave, looking atold pictures, listening to music
(25:14):
that you shared, revisitingplaces that you were together and
a variety of other things thatI have mentioned here.
Self caring activities.
Sometimes we just kind offorget when we're in the winter to
do anything for ourselves andappetite plummets and you don't really
see much use for eating andthings like that.
(25:36):
That goes on around thiswinter and everything.
Just like we have, right?
I mean, when winter hits.
I used to live in the U.P.
of Michigan and we got 350inches of snow every year.
And the only way that I couldwalk my golden retriever was with
snowshoes, which she thoughtwas great.
(25:56):
I was doing all the work.
But you hunker down for thoseyears, for those months.
You just wait it out really,and just keep doing the best you
can.
And that's what winter is like.
Now.
Winter intrudes on spring,which is the next one.
And it's a whiteout.
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Spring comes and a Lot oftimes, people end up having spring
come and they wish for winteragain, because everything wakes up.
Everything wakes up.
The emotions, the thoughts,all of those things.
And the task here is to beginthe process of looking at and experiencing
(26:45):
and understanding the painthat I'm experiencing.
And this is oftentimes theactive healing process, if you will,
in spring.
And it's not something that.
That people look forward to.
They'd rather be back inwinter when I'm not feeling all this
stuff.
And so the onset of spring,everything emerges.
(27:05):
Plants emerge, temperaturesget better.
There's hope for a newbeginning, if you will.
And that same thing occurseven in grief.
And people aren't, like Isaid, aren't real sure that they're
all too keen on the idea ofthe spring, of their grief.
But spring gets intruded bywinter, and it also gets intruded
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by summer.
And that's the strange thingof this, because you can't.
How do you develop a strategyfor things that are always mixed
up in the middle somehow?
And so the things that show upduring this time are probably more
of our wheelhouse as counselors.
The feelings that we have ofanger and frustration and.
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And blame and guilt, the whatifs and the if onlys and I should
haves, all of those.
It borders on, and oftentimestakes people into shame.
It's like, if I had been abetter dad or a mom, if I had done
this, if I had done that, thatis all very actively a part of spring,
(28:13):
the physical sensations.
And this is, again, one ofthese things that.
That mixes things up, becausepeople start thinking, I'm having
a heart attack, and they gointo the er and the doctor gently
says, it's not a heart attack,it's anxiety.
It's like, what's wrong withyou, Doc?
I know what this is.
And so you have hollowness instomach and tightening of the throat
(28:37):
and oversensitivity to noiseand derealization.
I had one person say, I walkeddown the street, and nothing feels
real, even me.
And so there's this alternatereality it feels like you're living
in.
And then cognitions is evenmore of it.
And again, this is ourwheelhouse, right?
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The confusion, the disbelief,the sense of presence.
A lot of times people willreport phantom experiences like they
see the person.
And even on the extreme end,you'll see some mild hallucinations
that show up.
And so there's that.
(29:20):
And then also in behaviors,you have sleeping and eating disturbances.
You have a variety ofdistracted behaviors or absentminded
behaviors.
You know, the keys show up inthe refrigerator someday and you
wonder why.
And you're kicking the kidbecause they hit him on you, that
(29:41):
kind of thing.
I wouldn't know about that.
Of course, in idealizing thedeceased, my father in law is a very
good example of geographic cures.
I leave the area and so thething that we have to turn to again,
what are the tools?
What are the tools for spring?
(30:02):
And some of them include journaling.
Sometimes some structure comesin handy in journaling that helps
organize it.
You know, I always remindpeople, look, I'm not asking you
to be Hemingway.
I'm asking you to describe thereal contours of your own heart rather
than something else.
And so the journaling continues.
(30:24):
Sorting belongings, allowingother people to talk about the deceased.
If any of you have seen orread Tuesdays with Maury, Maury reports
that his dad, when his momdied, banned him from talking about
his mom.
And it was something he had avery hard time forgiving his dad
for taking the time to dealwith guilt and with the shame.
(30:50):
Messages that crop up withinour conclusions because they're searching
for a conclusion.
There's so much about griefand loss that is trying to contain
the pain.
We're not trying to engage thepain, we're trying to contain it.
And so we seek out or can begoing to support groups.
(31:11):
That's a constant, ongoingkind of suggestion I make is it doesn't
have to be a support, even asupport group.
It can be any kind of group ofpeople that have experience life.
Loss comes with it.
And so any kind of supportgoes a long way to create the environment
(31:32):
in which we can begin thehealing process.
And so spring.
Yes, ma'am.
Oh, sorry.
Oh, yeah, I'm sorry.
Yeah, I did this really wellin November.
(31:52):
I already mentioned those.
I think there's more tools.
Yeah.
And the support groups arepart of that.
So it is very much the tools.
There are some constants.
Shovel.
You use a shovel for dirt, youuse it for snow.
And so there's some constants,but there are others that are very
(32:14):
unique to that.
And sorting belongings is agood example of that.
And the emotional purges,again, people's perspective on purges.
I show any emotions and I'mbecoming emotional rather than experiencing
the emotions for what they are.
And then the next one, like Isaid, the beauty of this is people
(32:37):
know where you're heading.
I already mentioned some of these.
The emotional purging,miniature challenges, those are all
very much a part of it.
And then I'll make theseslides available so that you can
take a look at it.
We get into summer in summer.
This is kind of theconsolidation period of time where
we begin to work through andadjust to life without the loved
(33:02):
one in our lives anymore.
And we begin to discover in alot of ways, not only the skills
that I never really bothereddeveloping or the roles that they
have played, they begin toshow up in this place.
And maybe I take a new courseto learn some of those skills.
Those are all part of thechallenges of summer.
(33:24):
But the beauty of this is I'veworked through the springtime of
my grief.
Now I'm in the summer.
I've got a little bit of thatbehind me, and I've worked through
it, and I understand it, and Iunderstand what's coming and what
is going to be there for anyperiod of time.
And that's okay.
As Megan Devine put on thefront of her book, it's okay to not
(33:48):
be okay.
And that captures it.
It's the permission to bewhere I am rather than where I should
be.
And so summer, we have toadjust to life without the loved
one in it.
And there are lots of ways toabort this.
Promoting helplessness.
There's things about our griefand the things that we experience
(34:10):
that prompt people'scompassion, understandably.
But when we're in the summer,it's try some things, try anything,
really, because it'sencouraging people to realize that
they have some measure ofagency in the world around them,
and they're not a victim tothe loss that occurs.
(34:33):
They're now a participant with it.
And by doing so, they begin toreweave the fabric of their lives.
I often use the metaphor ofyou have a house and you have a very
nice Persian rug on the wall,and thieves come in and just out
of spite, they shoot it with ashotgun just to leave their calling
(34:54):
card.
And you say, what am I goingto do?
How am I going to fix this thing?
And so I find an artisan inthe community to fix it.
I.
I take it to them.
They do their job.
It looks like nothing is wronguntil you turn it over and you see
what's happened to it.
And that's a lot of times whatpeople are doing in summer is they're
(35:15):
reweaving the fabric of their lives.
The person's still in it.
There's still a thread thatruns through it.
But they're really easy for meto say, reweaving a lot of that.
So the tools that we havewithin this, and there are some of
the features that I alreadyMentioned withdrawing from the world
(35:39):
helplessness, the opportunitythat we have to try things out new
and what that actually meansto us.
The tools of summer are different.
Like I mentioned, I startdoing miniature challenges that continues.
But if I'm identifying now theroles that the person played that
(36:02):
now I have to do myself, thenI got to build some skills of my
own.
And so the tools here includetaking a course, community college
course on budgeting or onfinance or any number of things that
might be a part of that.
The continued engagement withsupport groups of people and the
(36:25):
encouragement from others thathave also had this.
The other one, which is alwaysfascinating in a lot of ways, and
I don't think my father in lawwould have done this even if he had
stayed in his home.
But is to reshape the homeenvironment to what I need.
And I had one lady I workedwith many years ago and she decided
(36:47):
that as part of the sayinggoodbye, she wrote a note to her
husband, who had died about ayear before, explaining to him why
she was reshaping the house tofit her needs now.
And those little rituals go along way.
They mark time for us and theymark importance and significance
(37:10):
for us.
And those things we've kind oflost that in the world of grief and
loss is the kind of ritualsthat I think are very important engage
in in one fashion or another.
And so writing the letter ofgoodbye, explaining where I'm at,
what I'm feeling, how I'mexperiencing life now you see a lot
(37:34):
of these things.
The interesting thing betweenmen and women is they do these rituals
differently.
Men will do them privately andwomen will do them in community in
a lot of cases.
Good example, some of you willremember is George Burns and Gracie
died and he had a ritual everyweek to go out to the cemetery to
(37:56):
sit by her grave and to tellher about the kids and life and everything
else.
And that was part of thatlittle ritual, actually.
It's captured in.
And I'm enough of a movie geekthat you find that out of me eventually
is the final Rocky film.
And he actually stores a chairin the tree by Adrian's grave so
(38:22):
he could go there and spendtime with her and see.
These things tend to mark timeand importance for us and are important
for all of us in a lot of ways.
And then finally the last one,which I think we can anticipate,
of course, is fall.
And in fall the colors come back.
(38:42):
A lot of times that's exactlya direct quote is up until this time
that all the color has washedout of My life.
And now it feels like that Iam seeing colors again.
And the key task here is toremember the one that has been lost
while embarking on the rest ofthe person's life.
(39:07):
And it's not ever forgetting.
It's not ever forgetting.
As a psychologist, I remindpeople we were not designed to forget,
we were designed to remember.
All you have to do is readthrough the Old Testament.
And God counts on peopleremembering because it marks time
(39:28):
and importance again, so.
So the colors return andremembering the person who's been
lost while embarking on life itself.
Some of the features hereinclude feelings of dishonoring or
disloyalty.
I engage a new relationship.
I had a young lady who I wastalking to many years ago, and her
(39:53):
mom had died and her dad wasin another relationship.
And she said, I don't want toconnect with this person because
I feel like I'm being disloyalto my mom.
And so we end up kind ofregressing in our understanding of
what love is, that itmultiplies instead of is addition
(40:14):
in some fashion.
And once I lose something,then I don't have anything to give,
or I give to someone else andI have nothing to give to anyone
else.
So the frightened of theprospect of reinvesting in life,
it's like, what do I do?
How do I do this relationshipthing again?
I kind of had it so easy,quote, unquote.
(40:36):
And so there are people thatnever choose to love again.
My mom was very much of a casestudy in that she never remarried.
And it was the disloyalty, I'mconvinced it was very much a part
of.
Of the way that she did it.
So she hangs on to past attachments.
The interesting thing about itis we have tokens of past attachment.
(40:58):
I wear one around my neck.
It's the dog tag from my dad,but it's a token of remembrance,
not anything else.
And then.
So the features here areimportant to keep in mind.
And then, of course, when weget to the tools, writing a letter
or saying of goodbye.
In a lot of cases, the letterof goodbye has multiple iterations
(41:21):
over the process of grieving.
It will change because Ichange as I engage this process,
continuing to journal, of course.
And a lot of times by thisstage in the seasons of their grief,
they get more and morecomfortable of taking the thoughts
that they have and puttingthem on paper and being able to see
(41:42):
them.
And so they're comforted bywhat they see instead of threatened
by what they see.
Allowing new relationships,counseling if necessary, of course
and developing a healthyspiritual perspective on this.
And that's there's so muchcontained in each one.
As you can tell.
I do a class in 16 weeks on this.
(42:03):
So yeah, I don't think we have30 hours to do this too.
So that's the flyover of, ofthe seasons.
The question of course becomesis what does this have to do with
the next generation?
And like I said at the verybeginning, it kind of opens a window
of conversation that wewouldn't otherwise have because this
(42:26):
generation is fleeingconnection, even though they long
for connection, which isironic really, because the connection
between loss and Gen Z.
I can tell you I never thoughtI had a lot of students when I first
offered this class.
They would come in and I'dhave them write journals.
(42:50):
Go figure, right?
And a lot of them will put in there.
I don't know why I'm takingthis class.
This is going to be the mostdepressing class I've ever taken
in my life.
And it's like, okay, thattells me through everything about
how you see grief.
But it opened a window that Icouldn't have if I were talking about
(43:11):
relationships even it's thelosses that do that.
And so research tells us thatGen Z is less likely to read the
Bible than previous generations.
They're also more likely to goto college, believe the government
should do more and have aTikTok account, hence why it's so
(43:34):
popular.
And we were on the verge ofrebellion when a president decided
to ban it.
So there are five keycharacteristics I want to mention
to you just to provide somecontext for this and where there's
an interplay between thelosses and this is always an avenue
(43:54):
I keep open when I'm sittingand talking to my students because
sooner or later I have earsfor loss, apparently.
And so the first feature orcharacteristic is that the research,
I think I've mentioned this already.
The first characteristic isthey are atheistic, sort of.
(44:18):
They're less religious thanany other generation on record.
Now again, we have to defineour terms as far as what religiousness
means to them because it'svery different than what it means
to most of us.
Their faith connection is totheir grandparents, not their parents.
(44:40):
And it's an importantconnection to keep in mind.
They're more actually agnosticwhen you move in far and ask more
questions.
They don't know about God andthey're not real sure it's worth
the energy to get to know them.
They really are aboutconservation of energy in spite of
(45:00):
the fact that they spend a lotof energy, a lot of energy.
Doom scrolling and all theother things they tend to do.
But that's different.
That's different.
So they are less likely thanprevious generations to be familiar
with the Bible, how to use,use it, believe the Bible contains
(45:21):
everything that's necessaryfor living life.
And the remarkable thing Iteach students in a subset, all right,
Christian students coming fromChristian homes.
I still see this.
They have very loose grip.
Now our bib studies students,they're all in.
Okay.
But at the same time there'stwo different levels, and I was talking
(45:45):
about this with Ken before we started.
There are two different levelsof knowledge that they have.
They have explicit knowledgeabout God, but then they have implicit
relational knowledge of Godand that's very, very different.
So they'll say I knoweverything there is about God, but
I don't feel close to him.
And that's that implicitknowledge that we don't really do
(46:09):
much to identify oftentimes.
So they are atheistic, sort of.
They're more agnostic.
They don't believe.
If you've ever, and I'll justmention this in passing, but if you
ever have an opportunity tolook up mtd, Moralistic therapeutic
deism.
(46:29):
It is a trademark of a lot ofour students and not just at ccu,
but I think anywhere else.
The second one is they'relooking for community.
Even before COVID Gen Z waslabeled the loneliest generation
(46:51):
on record.
Now it's remarkable becauseI've had plenty of people of my generation
looking.
Huh?
How could they be lonely?
They're on constantly.
But connection is not mediatedthrough a screen.
And we all remember back inpandemic days and zoom doom because
(47:16):
we did not.
We couldn't flourish withoutthe interpersonal cues like breathing.
We take in breath when we'regoing to talk and it becomes a sharing
activity.
And when we talk that way,that wasn't there with that and that's
their lives.
It's little wonder if they'renot connected.
(47:39):
They are now alone.
There seems to be almost anemotional object permanence that
is lacking in this generation.
So they are very muchenveloped in an idealistic portrayal
of relationships.
I can't imagine where thatcomes from because everybody's sharing
(48:02):
their highlight reel, they'renot their real reel.
And so their desire is forrelationship, but they don't have
the first clue how to connect.
That is why my groups are so threatening.
But it's also why our groups,by the time we get to the end of
the semester, they are weepingthat they can't continue and begging
(48:28):
for more.
I've had so many groups thatstill are connecting with one another
through various means becauseof that connection.
And that was a time when I wasdoing grief and loss in a week, which
is frightening.
Talk about a fire hose.
And so they're still lookingfor community, even though they don't
(48:51):
know about relationship very much.
And I think there lies an opportunity.
They may flee the church andwalk into our offices and we can't
be a community, we can be partof one.
But that's one of mycommitments has been groups bring
something new to the table, adynamic that you can't have with
(49:15):
a therapist.
Not diminishing.
I've been doing this for along time, so I'm not diminishing
its value, but I sure can in avariety of ways and create a space
for them to connect that theylearn on the fly with one another.
And so the thirdcharacteristic is they are anxiously
(49:37):
digital.
The minute they are disconnected.
One author said the level ofpanic is high.
Everything is out there insocial media.
And ultimately they are livinga double bind.
The double bind, of course, iswhen they disengage from it.
(49:58):
They feel disconnected, butthey get connected to it and they
feel diminished.
And so oftentimes what youfind is they have multiple times
of getting on and getting offand getting on and getting off time
and time again, over and over again.
(50:19):
And so they are anxiously digital.
The fourth one is that theyare fervently principled.
Now, the principal, we mighthave questions about what those principles
are, but Gen Z feels stronglyabout some principles, not challenging
(50:40):
someone's beliefs, forexample, and less strongly about
others, like lying.
The moral principles, theydon't believe.
The moral principles don'tchange with the society that they're
in.
And so value for them isactions and words have to match,
(51:00):
which is essentially appliedto the people that they interact
with as well, is they have to match.
A lot of times you find theirdisenchantment with the church is
because leaders don't relatethe way they talk from the pulpit.
And so there's a lack ofconsistency between those things
(51:20):
and they walk out.
And there's a sensitivity tomaking a difference in the world.
If they get onto something,there is no stopping them.
They are a walking tippingpoint once they get going on something.
And their standards, though,are always idealistic because it's
not realism requires the topicwe're talking about.
(51:44):
You know, we got to losesomething to be realistic, and we
got to accept the reality ofthat in order to have that be part
of our relationship with people.
And so they are ferventlyprincipled and they can be exceedingly
passionate, Talking to anumber of leaders across the country
that work with Gen Z, whetherin the inner city or other universities,
(52:05):
and they will say, oncethey're in, you cannot get them stopped.
And then the last one I'dmention is living a curated life.
Their life is curated, theyshow, and they bend their life experience
to happiness and comfort.
(52:26):
I had one student a coupleyears back that was part of my men's
group and also part of my.
One of my groups, of my classes.
And he said, we're addicted tohappiness, any, anything now.
Remember, happiness, not joy,but happiness.
We're addicted to that becauseanything that hints at interfering
(52:48):
with it or intruding on itwere fleeing immediately.
And I thought, holy cow,somebody has just caught the holy
grail of the nature of relationships.
They show only what they wantto be seen, and in so doing, they
become unseen.
And so they are committed tohaving a controlling life rather
(53:13):
than actually living it.
The thing I would highlight,and one of the things that tends
to be the most convicting tomy students about the things that
I talk about, is that controland trust cannot coexist.
And so if they're committed tocontrolling people's perceptions
of them, how they are viewedabout safety in relationships, controlling
(53:37):
everything about it, it is exhausting.
And they think that is alltheir life, all that life is.
And they also wonder, whycan't I connect to people when I'm
so busy trying to control them?
I can't connect.
I can't connect.
(53:58):
And so the whole idea of thenature of relationships and curated
actually led into what?
The last kind of pitch I havefor you is the window of opportunity
that I think we have with this generation.
I think the role of loss andgrief in their lives is consistently
(54:23):
there.
Stained Glass International Iformed two years ago, actually, the
insistence, prompting andharassing of a number of students
because I talk about a conceptin my classes, particularly shame
and grace, about somethingthat I call the stained glass self.
(54:43):
And it really creates this image.
It's the curated life, essentially.
It creates the image orappearance of being Christian, of
being accepting, beingconnected, but then I am safely behind
it without anybody knowing whoI really am.
And again, the double bind.
(55:05):
I invite people with theappearance I show, but I can't really
be in it with them.
And so stained glass self, Ispend time in one of my classes talking
about it from all the way frominfancy to young adulthood and beyond.
And what do we show Are weWYSIWYG people?
(55:25):
Some of you might understandthat term.
What you see is what you get,which is what pure glass is about.
And so the window ofopportunity we took advantage of
and put together and createdan organization called Stained Glass
International.
There were three differentthings that I emphasized is the retreats.
(55:46):
Now, this is different.
This is not more teaching retreats.
I actually introduce the youngpeople to silence and solitude.
And it strips away.
It strips away a lot of this stuff.
I'm firmly convinced that Godreveals himself in our silence in
(56:11):
remarkable ways.
I had a good friend of mine,he is the voice of Daily Audio Bible.
And he came and actuallyvisited and was part of our silent
retreats and was blown away bythe students in simply two and a
half days.
What happened in that amountof time?
Because we leave on a Thursdaynight, we come back on Sunday after
(56:34):
lunch, and they are in silence22 hours of the day.
The one thing that we add toit, because it's got to be stylized
to this generation, is is wedo a debrief at the end of every
day.
So there's a connection piece.
And they're talking abouttheir experiences with God and my
friend.
And that's what I was getting to.
(56:55):
What my friend said was, andhe's been a Christian all of his
life, grew up in a church.
And he said, nobody ever toldme that silence is inhabited.
Someone is waiting for us there.
And that's what's sounnerving, I think.
And so the retreats are notteaching retreats.
(57:15):
They're connecting retreats,connecting with God and with each
other.
And they're in silence duringall of that time.
And it's remarkable what happens.
And one of the biggestchallenges we have is Gen Z doesn't
have a lot of money.
And so it's raising the fundsto be able to have a scholarship
(57:37):
fund that allows me to bringstudents on these retreats and make
it possible to them for themto be a part of it.
Because otherwise theywouldn't go.
If their friend said, this is amazing.
There's that word again.
They'll go.
They'll go in a heartbeat.
But if it's silence, oh, no, Icould never do that.
I've had a lot of students saythat, and somebody leaned on them
(58:00):
and they went.
And it's like, now they're mygreatest evangelists for the silent
retreats.
And we've been doing those.
I started those 14 years ago.
We started with five studentsand one retreat, and now we're up
to two a year.
And 10 students each.
I serve as a spiritualdirector for them.
So sometimes I'll meetindividually, sometimes I won't.
(58:23):
And I equip them with twothings, or they equip themselves
a journal.
Surprise of surprise.
You might notice the theme andtheir Bible, if they so choose.
I have a particular book thatsometimes I will have them work their
way through if they want to,during the time they're there.
It's called the center ofquiet, and it is a little bit more
(58:48):
structured.
That's what they come intomost of the time.
When they come into theretreats, we'll sit down for the
very first session and starttalking about, you know, what's.
What's to be expected andthings like that.
And one of the first questionsI'll get is, so what do I do?
I said, nothing.
It's like, uh, oh, okay, whatdo I do?
(59:12):
It's like, no assignments,just you and God.
Take the time to spend timewith him and see what he has to say
to you.
So there's that.
And then, of course, as itmentions up up here, what I'm talking
about is outpost groups, and Icall it outpost because it's outposts
for the heart.
And the nature of what it isabout is creating that space that
(59:36):
is not necessarily connectedto a church, where they can connect
and begin to discover actuallythe embodiment of truth in their
relationships.
Because it's in relationshipsthat implicit knowledge is contained,
and it's in relationships thatit can be changed.
And I've seen it happen toomany times.
(59:57):
And of course, the last one, Ithink, is Relationship Resources.
Within the next month, I'll bereleasing an E course on shame and
grace.
And that E course is forgroups, it is for individuals, and
it allows anybody that isinterested to see my contention.
I have a bone to pick withBrene Brown.
(01:00:17):
I know that's kind of Davidand Goliath, but the bone to pick
is that the solution for shameis not just connection.
It's learning the fullunderstanding of what grace means.
Not just grace to save us, butgrace to live in.
And that is what that courseis about.
(01:00:40):
16 weeks.
I can bore you in half thattime if you want to pay half price.
And that's really what theresources are.
There are a variety of other resources.
We release a newsletter everycouple of months, whatever I can
put together, the next onecoming out is actually about journaling
(01:01:01):
and a structure for journaling.
So sign up.
It's sgi-net.org I think I mayhave put this up there.
Yeah, it's there it is.
And I brought a couple bookswith me.
Grieving the Loss of Someoneyoue Love.
That little book hasabsolutely stunned me.
I wrote that book in 1993.
(01:01:26):
I was 12.
And it's remarkable lifespan.
It really is.
And so there's that one.
And then my newly releasedbook in January, which I also brought
along is the Seasons of OurGrief, which I basically introduced
to you.
The thing is, it is not adidactic book.
(01:01:48):
I wrote it for Gen Z.
And so they follow twopeople's journey through grief and
they tell their stories infiction, but there's teaching and
that's, that's a way ofconnecting with them.
I wrote it for that express purpose.
(01:02:09):
So that brings us to the end.
I'm getting circled out here.
So do we have time for questions?
Okay, thank you.
Well, I hope you enjoyed thattalk that I gave.
(01:02:31):
It was to a group ofcounselors in Colorado Springs Christian
Counselor Fellowship that Iwas asked to present to.
They were a great group and wehad a great time answering lots of
questions on the backside of it.
So I hope you enjoyed it.
(01:02:52):
I hope it gave you some plentyto think about.
And thanks for joining me.
SGI-net.org that's the homefor the SGI community and you can
follow us on three differentsocial media channels.
Instagram, GIInternational,Facebook, Stained Glass International,
(01:03:13):
all one word, and LinkedInStained Glass International as well.
You can find wherever youconsume podcasts, you can find us.
So wherever you might look,you can listen either into the Outpost
podcast, which is part of SGIMedia, but also this unscripted,
(01:03:36):
which I started off a year agoat the prompting of saying goodbye
to a dear friend.
And I have spent the yeartalking about various aspects of
the grieving process and whatit looks like and including the seasons
of grief and including anumber of different topics.
(01:03:57):
This is episode 19, so thereare 18 different episodes to catch
up on if you're so inclined.
And so if you're looking forthe books themselves, there are two
different books I wrote on grief.
One's called Grieving the Lossof someone you Love.
And the newest one is theSeasons of Our Grief, which can also
(01:04:19):
be found@seasonsofargrief.comon that webpage you will see not
only the presentation if you'dlike to watch it on video and a variety
of items that give you somebackground about the book itself
and what is significant about it.
You can subscribe to ouronline community as soon as you hit
(01:04:42):
sgi-net.org you will beinvited to become part of it.
If you do so, we will not sendyou any spam, but there will be an
occasional email newslettercoming out to inform you of some
of the retreats that arecoming up, opportunities for groups
and other opportunities.
(01:05:03):
I generally have been writingan article in there for Thought and
Challenge and that would be aplace for you to keep up with what's
going on in the community itself.
If you are interested inpartnering with us, we would be ever
so grateful to continue todevelop the Ministry of SGI which
(01:05:27):
you now have a little bit ofan understanding based on the presentation
I gave.
SGI Media is a tax deductibleorganization, so all of your gifts
are tax deductible as well.
And and you can give that tosupport our silent retreats, our
groups and funding andsupporting training for our leaders
(01:05:49):
in the groups and also othermaterials and resources.
Before too long we will have abrand new E course that I will be
announcing here on the podcastfor people to engage in.
It will be designed not onlyfor groups but also for individuals
that you might findinteresting as well.
(01:06:12):
So if you would rather send usa check, you're welcome to do that
as well.
Physical check.
Just make it out to SGI andsend it to P.O.
box 322, Eastlake, Colorado 80614.
And that's it for tonight.
Blessings to you all and untilnext time, love you later.
(01:06:33):
Bye.
SA.
Foreign to another edition ofUnscripted, the Collected wisdom
(00:27):
of Life, Living and sorrow.
I'm Dr.
Ray Mitch, your host and I amposting this podcast in memory of
a dear friend who died passedaway a year ago today.
And it is fitting for thekinds of things that I'm going to
(00:51):
be talking about today.
I want to make you aware thatthe upcoming podcast is going to
be a long form podcast.
It is a recorded presentationI did for Focus on the Family and
it gives you an opportunity tolisten in to this presentation which
(01:13):
is a full explanation and aconnection even with how loss actually
opens a window for us to beable to talk to and connect with
Gen Z, who has someinteresting characteristics that
I think provide us with abasis of conversation around this
(01:36):
issue of grief and loss.
I know for myself in teachingthe course at CCU that this particular
class is one that has a directimpact on the students.
And so with that I want tointroduce it and give you an opportunity.
To listen in in talking tostudents and who they are and how
(01:57):
they approach things.
And I have been increasinglyexposed to what is now labeled as
Gen Z.
And that's some of what I wantto kind of connect to.
Partly because the whole ideasaround grief and loss I think opens
(02:17):
a window to Gen Z that otherconnection opportunities don't exist.
And so as a result of that Istarted doing the grief and loss
and then I branched out todoing a class on shame and grace.
And both of those have acomponent to it that are they have
(02:41):
a group and students say waita minute, I didn't bargain for this.
I just wanted to hearsomething and walk away and forget
it.
But groups don't let you dothat, as we all well know and interacting
with each other and about thestuff that I talk about or I bring
up and I am often reminded andI remind my students of this is just
(03:10):
a quote from Elizabeth Kubler Ross.
I think that's going to come up.
It is the denial of death thatis partially responsible for people
living empty, purposeless lives.
For when you live as if youlive forever, it becomes way too
easy to postpone what you knowyou must do.
(03:32):
And this is a quote from her.
Not long before she died shedid one book, I think we all probably
know all about it, on deathand dying.
And she did a second bookbesides other writings of course,
on grief and grieving.
(03:53):
And she joked with her coauthor Kessler.
I think it's Daniel Kessler, David.
Sorry.
And what she said was maybe Ishould have done one on life and
Living.
And that would have been veryappropriate, I think, partly because
loss has a way of focusing ourattention on living, not dying.
(04:15):
And I think that's where a lotof our effort is in even sitting
and talking to people.
We tend to take a fairlymyopic view of loss and grief.
We think of it only in termsof someone dying, as most of my students
(04:35):
do.
And when we broaden it out, itbegins to kind of shape itself into
this subtext of our lives thatwe're always waning and waxing through
losses and gains andinvestment and a loss of that investment.
So I think if not all of ushave looked for opportunities to
(05:01):
look at grief and loss in abigger context so that we can then
explain or at least helppeople understand what they're going
through.
The tendency or the question Ithink we have to ask is, how do I
organize it?
How do I say it in such a waythat the client I'm talking to can
(05:24):
access it and understand it?
I think that's some of what weget tempted by with stages, because
stages seem to be very orderly.
It does tempt us into thinkingvery linearly, which is a problem.
Or do we think in terms ofphases or seasons, as I'm going to
(05:44):
propose this morning?
And ultimately, I think in alot of ways.
And my daughter, my oldestdaughter is also a counselor.
So the apple doesn't fall veryfar from the tree.
And I heard her talking tosomebody in my family, which is always
dangerous.
And she was talking about stages.
(06:04):
And I said, you lead my groups.
What is wrong with you?
Right.
Yeah, the will.
But it is easy to talk about.
And what ends up happeningwith that is that we take what Gubler
Ross was talking about interms of death and dying into grief
(06:26):
and grieving.
Now she brings it over intothat, but it broadens, I think, ultimately
with the things that we talk about.
And I see this with mystudents that whenever I'm talking
about, they rehearse it witheach other.
And that same thing is truewith a lot of the stages and the
way that we kind of approachloss and our experiences in it.
(06:47):
And so what I want to do isdescribe a little bit different landscape.
It's the same landscape, butwe look at it, maybe a different
way of looking at it that Ithink, to some degree makes more
sense.
Now, I arrived at this not somuch based on all the reading I've
done, which is plenty over the years.
(07:08):
You do that, you accumulateknowledge and you put things together
and things like that.
But it's also from my own experiences.
And one of the books overthere that I brought with me was
Grieving the Loss of Someoneyoue Love.
It came out of my ownexperience of having my dad pass
away when I was 12, which isancient history now.
(07:30):
And so I think I want to lookat that landscape a little bit differently.
And then I want to kind ofpivot as best I can with the time
I have to understand why this.
This topic is so powerful, Ithink, in talking to and connecting
with Gen Z, because a lot oftheir lives are spent fleeing loss.
(07:55):
And by doing so, as KublerRoss would suggest, they are fleeing
meaning in a lot of ways.
And so before I go on, I wantto recognize the work of Dr.
William Worden.
His book is Grief Counselingand Therapy.
And he went into looking atgrief from a developmental point
(08:18):
of view, which I think makes alot more sense depending on not only
lifespan development, but alsojust development in how we process
and go through the grief we experience.
So the one thing that I ammindful of is when we're talking
about grief, I think the well,yeah, I would get ahead of myself,
(08:44):
but sometimes it feels likewe're trying to describe the indescribable
because it's such a uniquehuman experience.
And yet at the same time, itis also general.
We share the experience of loss.
And so I began to be remindedof the six blind men of I don't know
(09:07):
if you've ever heard thisbefore, but I think this describes
a lot of our approaches evento grief.
And in this case, the elephantis the grief.
So I thought I'd read this toyou just to set the context.
And it goes this way.
The six men of Indostan tolearning much inclined who went to
(09:27):
see the elephant, though allof them were blind, that each by
observation might satisfy his mind.
The first approached theelephant, happening to fall, and
his broad and sturdy side atonce began to bawl, God bless me.
But the elephant is like a wall.
The second feeling of the tuskcried, ho.
(09:48):
What have we here?
So very round and smooth andsharp to me tis mighty clear.
This wonder of an elephant isvery like a spear.
The third approached theanimal and happening to take the
squirming trunk within hishands, thus boldly up he spake.
I see, quoth he, the elephantis very like a snake.
(10:08):
The fourth reached out aneager hand and felt about the knee.
What must this wondrous beastbe as clear enough to see is like
a tree.
The fifth, who touched theear, said, e'en the blindest man
can tell what this resemblesthe most.
Deny the fact, you who can.
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This marvel of an elephant isvery like a fan.
The six no sooner had begunbegan about the beast to grope, than
seizing on the swinging tailthat fell within his scope.
I see, quoth he, the elephantis very like a rope.
So these men of Indostandisputed loud and long, each in his
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own opinion exceeding stiffand strong, though each was partly
in the right and all were inthe wrong.
And the elephant is grief.
If you've ever heard thephrase the elephant in the room,
it's grief and loss.
And there are many differentways of approaching this.
(11:16):
I want to highlight a coupleof them.
First is phases that.
That you might hear.
Ultimately, the challenge andthe dissatisfaction for me about
talking about phases is kindof a passivity.
I pass through it somehow andI just wait for it to get over.
And we've talked to plenty ofpeople like that, I'm sure, where
(11:37):
it's like, will this be overanytime soon?
Just let me know, and then Ican get back to life.
And then the other one istasks, which Warden suggests.
And it fits into adevelopmental process that ultimately
we think in terms of.
I think generally, wheneverwhomever we're talking to, where
they are in life, not only theissues that they bring with them.
(12:00):
So that's very much a part ofwhat Wharton brings to the table
and kind of captured myattention because even my own grief
that I went through and Icontinue to go through is, in a variety
of ways, is it's not quite aslinear as stages would suggest.
It's more circular, and Iwould suggest even seasonal in our
(12:23):
experiences of it.
So what I want to propose iskind of an interactive or a combination
model of seasons of grief.
And there are tasks to bedone, but there are phases to experience,
and those phases are seasons.
And again, it's accessible.
We're in the middle ofstarting into spring.
(12:45):
And the funny thing aboutseasons is they're never safe.
Right?
I mean, I was going to comehere and wow you with all my eloquence
in November, but winterintruded, and it almost intruded
this week, too.
I was watching and saying,jeremy, what do I do?
(13:07):
And so the seasons, the thingthat we know about seasons is we
have the experience of theseason itself, but also we have different
tools for different seasons.
I don't use my snow blower tomove my leaves, although some people
I see do.
(13:28):
But we don't do that.
We use rakes, right?
Or I don't use my lawn mowerto remove the snow.
And so there are tools thatare specific to the seasons.
And not only do we go throughthem, but we also have things to
do in them.
And I think anybody that'sdone any kind of grief work with
people will use that word.
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It's grief work.
It is not easy stuff to moveinto because it tends to reveal things
about our relationships.
So what I want to do is I wantto start and to walk through the
seasons and you will knowwhere we are.
That's the beauty of doingseasons, is you know what's coming
next.
(14:08):
The thing is, is that they mixeach other up and they intrude on
each other in a variety of ways.
And winter is the first onewhere everything is dead or at least
looks dead.
And in grief, the emotionsshut down.
You hear people say all thetime, I feel numb.
There's a slowing down ofthinking and feeling and a spiritual
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disengagement.
And ultimately the task hereis accepting the reality of the loss.
That's the thing to do.
And we go in and out of thatin various ways throughout it.
The thing to keep in mind isacceptance does not mean it is okay.
(14:52):
Okay.
Somewhere along the way, wehave gotten the notion that accepting
something means I condone its existence.
And acceptance is not that.
The reality is, is that when Igo about accepting something, the
beginning of healing occurs.
I can't begin the healinguntil I accept what is.
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And that's very much a part ofwhat we experience.
So most people will experience numbness.
It's a little bit like searingof a nerve.
And when you first get itburned, you don't feel anything.
And then suddenly it wakes upand you're sure that you're not going
to sleep that night because ofwhatever the burn is.
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And so it allows people thatare going through grief to deal with
the flurry of all theactivity, particularly with the loss
of someone, the flurry of activities.
And a lot of times people willlook at them and say, hey, they seem
to be getting along pretty well.
I mean, they're getting thingsdone and getting the funeral, getting
(15:56):
through the funeral andengaging people.
But it also can create a senseof confidence or fear.
I don't know what I got up here.
The confidence is, maybe I'llget through this.
This won't be so bad.
And the fear is, did theperson mean so little to me that
(16:19):
I feel so little?
So you have this complex kindof mixing together of hope, maybe
this is going to get better,and then what's wrong with me?
And I think in a lot of ways,working with people that are going
through, it's like, am I crazy?
(16:40):
And I end up saying, no,you're just human.
And they don't find that verycomforting, unfortunately.
But, see, there are threedifferent strategies we use to deal
with denial, which is thefirst season or first part of the
season of winter.
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And there are a variety ofways we use to really kind of thwart
it.
And the thwarting of it ismanaging to get through it in a lot
of ways.
And all of us have somestrategy in getting through it.
(17:21):
Even when David experiencedthe news of Absalom, you see, he
started shaking, and he said,oh, if I could have only traded places
with my son.
And that's all very much apart of that.
But there's three things Iwant to mention.
First is we deny the facts ofthe loss.
(17:42):
I got to keep moving here.
We deny the facts of the loss.
The famous story is told ofQueen Victoria and her consort, Prince
Albert.
And when he died, she refusedto absorb the reality of him being
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gone.
And so every morning, sheinstructed his butler to go to his
chambers, lay out his shavingequipment, lay out all of his bathing
materials, and then everyevening, pick it up and bring it
back.
And she was reported to havebeen seen walking through the palace
talking to Prince Albert.
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And so we try to keepeverything intact.
After my dad's death.
My mom.
My dad was a World War II vet,and he was a veteran of the Marine
Corps, and he was in some ofthe bloodier battles within the South
Pacific.
And after he died, we had acedar closet.
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Y'all remember those?
And she kept all of hisuniforms in there, his dress blues,
his other.
The various other outfits thatthey use for PT and other things.
And she kept it all the same.
And it was like it was justwaiting for him to return.
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And so we tend to mummify thereality of what's going on.
It's almost like we're waitingfor them to come back, and we expect
them fully to come back.
And so we deny the facts ofthe loss, and we mummify and try
to keep everything the same.
The other part of this is theidea that we deny the meaning of
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the loss.
And the meaning of the loss.
Is that up there?
Yeah.
The meaning of the loss.
I can give you a very good example.
I'm coming up on a yearanniversary of a friend of mine that
we've been friends for 32 years.
And he passed into Abba's armsa year ago.
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And when he broke the news tome that he had cancer he had bladder
cancer.
And we talked and he knew mybackground and the stuff that I had
done with grief and thingslike that.
And he said, you know, I'm notin denial, I know I have cancer.
And I said, okay.
(20:19):
And then the next questionwas, yeah, but what does it mean
to you, to your family, towhat it means for their future, to
the impact on your wife of 50 years?
What does it mean?
And our tendency is to denythe meaning of it.
And so it's not as big deal aswe think it is.
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Or somebody had a verycomplicated relationship with the
person that is gone or anynumber of things.
And that can be even brokenrelationships too, that you see the
same thing happening.
So there is a tendency indenying the meaning of the loss is
to kind of a selective forgetting.
And then there's also justridding oneself of all remembrances,
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things that would remind me.
A few years back, my father inlaw, his wife died his bride of 52
years.
And within six months he hadliquidated all of her clothing, all
of where they lived, and wasgone from where they lived.
(21:26):
Six months later he was livingsomewhere else.
And it was really adiminishment of all that they had
because the house they were inbreathed memories and he didn't want
that and he moved on.
So the last one we do is wetend to deny that death is irreversible.
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Now, the interesting twisthere is for us people of faith, we
understand that death is notthe end.
But boy, grief and loss andthe things that we experience during
winter has a way of spawningsome alternate spiritualities.
And people coming up to my oldmentor mentioned that he was talking
(22:12):
to, he was doing spiritualdirection with a young woman that
mentioned that somebody cameup to her at church at the memorial
service of her little boy thathad died from cancer and said, well,
now you have your own angel in heaven.
And all she could taste is dust.
Because it was not.
It was just this alternatething that we seem oftentimes to
(22:36):
be bent on.
I want to help, but I have nowords to do that other than stuff
like that, which is mild wayof describing it.
And it never really seems tooccur that we enter in instead because
that's the thing that it'sbegging for in so many ways.
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So there's a variety ofspiritualities and even spiritualism.
You can think of the storythat is told of Saul and losing his
dear mentor of Samuel.
When everything went south, hewent looking for the witch of Endor
so that he could start talkingto Samuel again.
And so there Are those thingseven in the Christian world?
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There are those things thatstretch theology for sure, and yet
they end up being a part ofthis winter.
Now, what about the tools?
The tools?
One of the things that isconstant all the way through here.
I gotta keep moving here.
One of the things that'sconstant all the way through, the
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tools of the trade, if youwill, the tools of each season.
The one thing you will alwayssee consistently is journaling.
And there's a reason peopledon't like journaling.
Not because we recommend it,which is partly that, but also because
if I write it down, it becomesreal and I don't want it to become
(24:04):
real.
And so journaling is animportant aspect.
If you read the introductionon my first book of grief, I make
mention of the fact that inthe old days when people had burns,
they had to scrub the woundsin order for them to actually heal.
We have all the beauty, wonderof modern science and artificial
(24:28):
skin and all that.
That wasn't what they did 75,100 years ago.
They would take the person inthe morning, they would scrub all
the wounds, they would shootthem full of Demerol, put them in
a whirlpool and scrub all thewounds and then get them out again
and put them to rest again.
And even through all theDemerol they were still screaming.
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But they knew that if theydidn't scrub the wound, all that
would incubate underneath thatwould be disease and death.
Ultimately, grief is no different.
We have to find a way to scrubthe wound.
And journaling is one of those ways.
Visiting the grave, looking atold pictures, listening to music
(25:14):
that you shared, revisitingplaces that you were together and
a variety of other things thatI have mentioned here.
Self caring activities.
Sometimes we just kind offorget when we're in the winter to
do anything for ourselves andappetite plummets and you don't really
see much use for eating andthings like that.
(25:36):
That goes on around thiswinter and everything.
Just like we have, right?
I mean, when winter hits.
I used to live in the U.P.
of Michigan and we got 350inches of snow every year.
And the only way that I couldwalk my golden retriever was with
snowshoes, which she thoughtwas great.
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I was doing all the work.
But you hunker down for thoseyears, for those months.
You just wait it out really,and just keep doing the best you
can.
And that's what winter is like.
Now.
Winter intrudes on spring,which is the next one.
And it's a whiteout.
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Spring comes and a Lot oftimes, people end up having spring
come and they wish for winteragain, because everything wakes up.
Everything wakes up.
The emotions, the thoughts,all of those things.
And the task here is to beginthe process of looking at and experiencing
(26:45):
and understanding the painthat I'm experiencing.
And this is oftentimes theactive healing process, if you will,
in spring.
And it's not something that.
That people look forward to.
They'd rather be back inwinter when I'm not feeling all this
stuff.
And so the onset of spring,everything emerges.
(27:05):
Plants emerge, temperaturesget better.
There's hope for a newbeginning, if you will.
And that same thing occurseven in grief.
And people aren't, like Isaid, aren't real sure that they're
all too keen on the idea ofthe spring, of their grief.
But spring gets intruded bywinter, and it also gets intruded
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by summer.
And that's the strange thingof this, because you can't.
How do you develop a strategyfor things that are always mixed
up in the middle somehow?
And so the things that show upduring this time are probably more
of our wheelhouse as counselors.
The feelings that we have ofanger and frustration and.
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And blame and guilt, the whatifs and the if onlys and I should
haves, all of those.
It borders on, and oftentimestakes people into shame.
It's like, if I had been abetter dad or a mom, if I had done
this, if I had done that, thatis all very actively a part of spring,
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the physical sensations.
And this is, again, one ofthese things that.
That mixes things up, becausepeople start thinking, I'm having
a heart attack, and they gointo the er and the doctor gently
says, it's not a heart attack,it's anxiety.
It's like, what's wrong withyou, Doc?
I know what this is.
And so you have hollowness instomach and tightening of the throat
(28:37):
and oversensitivity to noiseand derealization.
I had one person say, I walkeddown the street, and nothing feels
real, even me.
And so there's this alternatereality it feels like you're living
in.
And then cognitions is evenmore of it.
And again, this is ourwheelhouse, right?
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The confusion, the disbelief,the sense of presence.
A lot of times people willreport phantom experiences like they
see the person.
And even on the extreme end,you'll see some mild hallucinations
that show up.
And so there's that.
(29:20):
And then also in behaviors,you have sleeping and eating disturbances.
You have a variety ofdistracted behaviors or absentminded
behaviors.
You know, the keys show up inthe refrigerator someday and you
wonder why.
And you're kicking the kidbecause they hit him on you, that
(29:41):
kind of thing.
I wouldn't know about that.
Of course, in idealizing thedeceased, my father in law is a very
good example of geographic cures.
I leave the area and so thething that we have to turn to again,
what are the tools?
What are the tools for spring?
(30:02):
And some of them include journaling.
Sometimes some structure comesin handy in journaling that helps
organize it.
You know, I always remindpeople, look, I'm not asking you
to be Hemingway.
I'm asking you to describe thereal contours of your own heart rather
than something else.
And so the journaling continues.
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Sorting belongings, allowingother people to talk about the deceased.
If any of you have seen orread Tuesdays with Maury, Maury reports
that his dad, when his momdied, banned him from talking about
his mom.
And it was something he had avery hard time forgiving his dad
for taking the time to dealwith guilt and with the shame.
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Messages that crop up withinour conclusions because they're searching
for a conclusion.
There's so much about griefand loss that is trying to contain
the pain.
We're not trying to engage thepain, we're trying to contain it.
And so we seek out or can begoing to support groups.
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That's a constant, ongoingkind of suggestion I make is it doesn't
have to be a support, even asupport group.
It can be any kind of group ofpeople that have experience life.
Loss comes with it.
And so any kind of supportgoes a long way to create the environment
(31:32):
in which we can begin thehealing process.
And so spring.
Yes, ma'am.
Oh, sorry.
Oh, yeah, I'm sorry.
Yeah, I did this really wellin November.
(31:52):
I already mentioned those.
I think there's more tools.
Yeah.
And the support groups arepart of that.
So it is very much the tools.
There are some constants.
Shovel.
You use a shovel for dirt, youuse it for snow.
And so there's some constants,but there are others that are very
(32:14):
unique to that.
And sorting belongings is agood example of that.
And the emotional purges,again, people's perspective on purges.
I show any emotions and I'mbecoming emotional rather than experiencing
the emotions for what they are.
And then the next one, like Isaid, the beauty of this is people
(32:37):
know where you're heading.
I already mentioned some of these.
The emotional purging,miniature challenges, those are all
very much a part of it.
And then I'll make theseslides available so that you can
take a look at it.
We get into summer in summer.
This is kind of theconsolidation period of time where
we begin to work through andadjust to life without the loved
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one in our lives anymore.
And we begin to discover in alot of ways, not only the skills
that I never really bothereddeveloping or the roles that they
have played, they begin toshow up in this place.
And maybe I take a new courseto learn some of those skills.
Those are all part of thechallenges of summer.
(33:24):
But the beauty of this is I'veworked through the springtime of
my grief.
Now I'm in the summer.
I've got a little bit of thatbehind me, and I've worked through
it, and I understand it, and Iunderstand what's coming and what
is going to be there for anyperiod of time.
And that's okay.
As Megan Devine put on thefront of her book, it's okay to not
(33:48):
be okay.
And that captures it.
It's the permission to bewhere I am rather than where I should
be.
And so summer, we have toadjust to life without the loved
one in it.
And there are lots of ways toabort this.
Promoting helplessness.
There's things about our griefand the things that we experience
(34:10):
that prompt people'scompassion, understandably.
But when we're in the summer,it's try some things, try anything,
really, because it'sencouraging people to realize that
they have some measure ofagency in the world around them,
and they're not a victim tothe loss that occurs.
(34:33):
They're now a participant with it.
And by doing so, they begin toreweave the fabric of their lives.
I often use the metaphor ofyou have a house and you have a very
nice Persian rug on the wall,and thieves come in and just out
of spite, they shoot it with ashotgun just to leave their calling
(34:54):
card.
And you say, what am I goingto do?
How am I going to fix this thing?
And so I find an artisan inthe community to fix it.
I.
I take it to them.
They do their job.
It looks like nothing is wronguntil you turn it over and you see
what's happened to it.
And that's a lot of times whatpeople are doing in summer is they're
(35:15):
reweaving the fabric of their lives.
The person's still in it.
There's still a thread thatruns through it.
But they're really easy for meto say, reweaving a lot of that.
So the tools that we havewithin this, and there are some of
the features that I alreadyMentioned withdrawing from the world
(35:39):
helplessness, the opportunitythat we have to try things out new
and what that actually meansto us.
The tools of summer are different.
Like I mentioned, I startdoing miniature challenges that continues.
But if I'm identifying now theroles that the person played that
(36:02):
now I have to do myself, thenI got to build some skills of my
own.
And so the tools here includetaking a course, community college
course on budgeting or onfinance or any number of things that
might be a part of that.
The continued engagement withsupport groups of people and the
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encouragement from others thathave also had this.
The other one, which is alwaysfascinating in a lot of ways, and
I don't think my father in lawwould have done this even if he had
stayed in his home.
But is to reshape the homeenvironment to what I need.
And I had one lady I workedwith many years ago and she decided
(36:47):
that as part of the sayinggoodbye, she wrote a note to her
husband, who had died about ayear before, explaining to him why
she was reshaping the house tofit her needs now.
And those little rituals go along way.
They mark time for us and theymark importance and significance
(37:10):
for us.
And those things we've kind oflost that in the world of grief and
loss is the kind of ritualsthat I think are very important engage
in in one fashion or another.
And so writing the letter ofgoodbye, explaining where I'm at,
what I'm feeling, how I'mexperiencing life now you see a lot
(37:34):
of these things.
The interesting thing betweenmen and women is they do these rituals
differently.
Men will do them privately andwomen will do them in community in
a lot of cases.
Good example, some of you willremember is George Burns and Gracie
died and he had a ritual everyweek to go out to the cemetery to
(37:56):
sit by her grave and to tellher about the kids and life and everything
else.
And that was part of thatlittle ritual, actually.
It's captured in.
And I'm enough of a movie geekthat you find that out of me eventually
is the final Rocky film.
And he actually stores a chairin the tree by Adrian's grave so
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he could go there and spendtime with her and see.
These things tend to mark timeand importance for us and are important
for all of us in a lot of ways.
And then finally the last one,which I think we can anticipate,
of course, is fall.
And in fall the colors come back.
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A lot of times that's exactlya direct quote is up until this time
that all the color has washedout of My life.
And now it feels like that Iam seeing colors again.
And the key task here is toremember the one that has been lost
while embarking on the rest ofthe person's life.
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And it's not ever forgetting.
It's not ever forgetting.
As a psychologist, I remindpeople we were not designed to forget,
we were designed to remember.
All you have to do is readthrough the Old Testament.
And God counts on peopleremembering because it marks time
(39:28):
and importance again, so.
So the colors return andremembering the person who's been
lost while embarking on life itself.
Some of the features hereinclude feelings of dishonoring or
disloyalty.
I engage a new relationship.
I had a young lady who I wastalking to many years ago, and her
(39:53):
mom had died and her dad wasin another relationship.
And she said, I don't want toconnect with this person because
I feel like I'm being disloyalto my mom.
And so we end up kind ofregressing in our understanding of
what love is, that itmultiplies instead of is addition
(40:14):
in some fashion.
And once I lose something,then I don't have anything to give,
or I give to someone else andI have nothing to give to anyone
else.
So the frightened of theprospect of reinvesting in life,
it's like, what do I do?
How do I do this relationshipthing again?
I kind of had it so easy,quote, unquote.
(40:36):
And so there are people thatnever choose to love again.
My mom was very much of a casestudy in that she never remarried.
And it was the disloyalty, I'mconvinced it was very much a part
of.
Of the way that she did it.
So she hangs on to past attachments.
The interesting thing about itis we have tokens of past attachment.
(40:58):
I wear one around my neck.
It's the dog tag from my dad,but it's a token of remembrance,
not anything else.
And then.
So the features here areimportant to keep in mind.
And then, of course, when weget to the tools, writing a letter
or saying of goodbye.
In a lot of cases, the letterof goodbye has multiple iterations
(41:21):
over the process of grieving.
It will change because Ichange as I engage this process,
continuing to journal, of course.
And a lot of times by thisstage in the seasons of their grief,
they get more and morecomfortable of taking the thoughts
that they have and puttingthem on paper and being able to see
(41:42):
them.
And so they're comforted bywhat they see instead of threatened
by what they see.
Allowing new relationships,counseling if necessary, of course
and developing a healthyspiritual perspective on this.
And that's there's so muchcontained in each one.
As you can tell.
I do a class in 16 weeks on this.
(42:03):
So yeah, I don't think we have30 hours to do this too.
So that's the flyover of, ofthe seasons.
The question of course becomesis what does this have to do with
the next generation?
And like I said at the verybeginning, it kind of opens a window
of conversation that wewouldn't otherwise have because this
(42:26):
generation is fleeingconnection, even though they long
for connection, which isironic really, because the connection
between loss and Gen Z.
I can tell you I never thoughtI had a lot of students when I first
offered this class.
They would come in and I'dhave them write journals.
(42:50):
Go figure, right?
And a lot of them will put in there.
I don't know why I'm takingthis class.
This is going to be the mostdepressing class I've ever taken
in my life.
And it's like, okay, thattells me through everything about
how you see grief.
But it opened a window that Icouldn't have if I were talking about
(43:11):
relationships even it's thelosses that do that.
And so research tells us thatGen Z is less likely to read the
Bible than previous generations.
They're also more likely to goto college, believe the government
should do more and have aTikTok account, hence why it's so
(43:34):
popular.
And we were on the verge ofrebellion when a president decided
to ban it.
So there are five keycharacteristics I want to mention
to you just to provide somecontext for this and where there's
an interplay between thelosses and this is always an avenue
(43:54):
I keep open when I'm sittingand talking to my students because
sooner or later I have earsfor loss, apparently.
And so the first feature orcharacteristic is that the research,
I think I've mentioned this already.
The first characteristic isthey are atheistic, sort of.
(44:18):
They're less religious thanany other generation on record.
Now again, we have to defineour terms as far as what religiousness
means to them because it'svery different than what it means
to most of us.
Their faith connection is totheir grandparents, not their parents.
(44:40):
And it's an importantconnection to keep in mind.
They're more actually agnosticwhen you move in far and ask more
questions.
They don't know about God andthey're not real sure it's worth
the energy to get to know them.
They really are aboutconservation of energy in spite of
(45:00):
the fact that they spend a lotof energy, a lot of energy.
Doom scrolling and all theother things they tend to do.
But that's different.
That's different.
So they are less likely thanprevious generations to be familiar
with the Bible, how to use,use it, believe the Bible contains
(45:21):
everything that's necessaryfor living life.
And the remarkable thing Iteach students in a subset, all right,
Christian students coming fromChristian homes.
I still see this.
They have very loose grip.
Now our bib studies students,they're all in.
Okay.
But at the same time there'stwo different levels, and I was talking
(45:45):
about this with Ken before we started.
There are two different levelsof knowledge that they have.
They have explicit knowledgeabout God, but then they have implicit
relational knowledge of Godand that's very, very different.
So they'll say I knoweverything there is about God, but
I don't feel close to him.
And that's that implicitknowledge that we don't really do
(46:09):
much to identify oftentimes.
So they are atheistic, sort of.
They're more agnostic.
They don't believe.
If you've ever, and I'll justmention this in passing, but if you
ever have an opportunity tolook up mtd, Moralistic therapeutic
deism.
(46:29):
It is a trademark of a lot ofour students and not just at ccu,
but I think anywhere else.
The second one is they'relooking for community.
Even before COVID Gen Z waslabeled the loneliest generation
(46:51):
on record.
Now it's remarkable becauseI've had plenty of people of my generation
looking.
Huh?
How could they be lonely?
They're on constantly.
But connection is not mediatedthrough a screen.
And we all remember back inpandemic days and zoom doom because
(47:16):
we did not.
We couldn't flourish withoutthe interpersonal cues like breathing.
We take in breath when we'regoing to talk and it becomes a sharing
activity.
And when we talk that way,that wasn't there with that and that's
their lives.
It's little wonder if they'renot connected.
(47:39):
They are now alone.
There seems to be almost anemotional object permanence that
is lacking in this generation.
So they are very muchenveloped in an idealistic portrayal
of relationships.
I can't imagine where thatcomes from because everybody's sharing
(48:02):
their highlight reel, they'renot their real reel.
And so their desire is forrelationship, but they don't have
the first clue how to connect.
That is why my groups are so threatening.
But it's also why our groups,by the time we get to the end of
the semester, they are weepingthat they can't continue and begging
(48:28):
for more.
I've had so many groups thatstill are connecting with one another
through various means becauseof that connection.
And that was a time when I wasdoing grief and loss in a week, which
is frightening.
Talk about a fire hose.
And so they're still lookingfor community, even though they don't
(48:51):
know about relationship very much.
And I think there lies an opportunity.
They may flee the church andwalk into our offices and we can't
be a community, we can be partof one.
But that's one of mycommitments has been groups bring
something new to the table, adynamic that you can't have with
(49:15):
a therapist.
Not diminishing.
I've been doing this for along time, so I'm not diminishing
its value, but I sure can in avariety of ways and create a space
for them to connect that theylearn on the fly with one another.
And so the thirdcharacteristic is they are anxiously
(49:37):
digital.
The minute they are disconnected.
One author said the level ofpanic is high.
Everything is out there insocial media.
And ultimately they are livinga double bind.
The double bind, of course, iswhen they disengage from it.
(49:58):
They feel disconnected, butthey get connected to it and they
feel diminished.
And so oftentimes what youfind is they have multiple times
of getting on and getting offand getting on and getting off time
and time again, over and over again.
(50:19):
And so they are anxiously digital.
The fourth one is that theyare fervently principled.
Now, the principal, we mighthave questions about what those principles
are, but Gen Z feels stronglyabout some principles, not challenging
(50:40):
someone's beliefs, forexample, and less strongly about
others, like lying.
The moral principles, theydon't believe.
The moral principles don'tchange with the society that they're
in.
And so value for them isactions and words have to match,
(51:00):
which is essentially appliedto the people that they interact
with as well, is they have to match.
A lot of times you find theirdisenchantment with the church is
because leaders don't relatethe way they talk from the pulpit.
And so there's a lack ofconsistency between those things
(51:20):
and they walk out.
And there's a sensitivity tomaking a difference in the world.
If they get onto something,there is no stopping them.
They are a walking tippingpoint once they get going on something.
And their standards, though,are always idealistic because it's
not realism requires the topicwe're talking about.
(51:44):
You know, we got to losesomething to be realistic, and we
got to accept the reality ofthat in order to have that be part
of our relationship with people.
And so they are ferventlyprincipled and they can be exceedingly
passionate, Talking to anumber of leaders across the country
that work with Gen Z, whetherin the inner city or other universities,
(52:05):
and they will say, oncethey're in, you cannot get them stopped.
And then the last one I'dmention is living a curated life.
Their life is curated, theyshow, and they bend their life experience
to happiness and comfort.
(52:26):
I had one student a coupleyears back that was part of my men's
group and also part of my.
One of my groups, of my classes.
And he said, we're addicted tohappiness, any, anything now.
Remember, happiness, not joy,but happiness.
We're addicted to that becauseanything that hints at interfering
(52:48):
with it or intruding on itwere fleeing immediately.
And I thought, holy cow,somebody has just caught the holy
grail of the nature of relationships.
They show only what they wantto be seen, and in so doing, they
become unseen.
And so they are committed tohaving a controlling life rather
(53:13):
than actually living it.
The thing I would highlight,and one of the things that tends
to be the most convicting tomy students about the things that
I talk about, is that controland trust cannot coexist.
And so if they're committed tocontrolling people's perceptions
of them, how they are viewedabout safety in relationships, controlling
(53:37):
everything about it, it is exhausting.
And they think that is alltheir life, all that life is.
And they also wonder, whycan't I connect to people when I'm
so busy trying to control them?
I can't connect.
I can't connect.
(53:58):
And so the whole idea of thenature of relationships and curated
actually led into what?
The last kind of pitch I havefor you is the window of opportunity
that I think we have with this generation.
I think the role of loss andgrief in their lives is consistently
(54:23):
there.
Stained Glass International Iformed two years ago, actually, the
insistence, prompting andharassing of a number of students
because I talk about a conceptin my classes, particularly shame
and grace, about somethingthat I call the stained glass self.
(54:43):
And it really creates this image.
It's the curated life, essentially.
It creates the image orappearance of being Christian, of
being accepting, beingconnected, but then I am safely behind
it without anybody knowing whoI really am.
And again, the double bind.
(55:05):
I invite people with theappearance I show, but I can't really
be in it with them.
And so stained glass self, Ispend time in one of my classes talking
about it from all the way frominfancy to young adulthood and beyond.
And what do we show Are weWYSIWYG people?
(55:25):
Some of you might understandthat term.
What you see is what you get,which is what pure glass is about.
And so the window ofopportunity we took advantage of
and put together and createdan organization called Stained Glass
International.
There were three differentthings that I emphasized is the retreats.
(55:46):
Now, this is different.
This is not more teaching retreats.
I actually introduce the youngpeople to silence and solitude.
And it strips away.
It strips away a lot of this stuff.
I'm firmly convinced that Godreveals himself in our silence in
(56:11):
remarkable ways.
I had a good friend of mine,he is the voice of Daily Audio Bible.
And he came and actuallyvisited and was part of our silent
retreats and was blown away bythe students in simply two and a
half days.
What happened in that amountof time?
Because we leave on a Thursdaynight, we come back on Sunday after
(56:34):
lunch, and they are in silence22 hours of the day.
The one thing that we add toit, because it's got to be stylized
to this generation, is is wedo a debrief at the end of every
day.
So there's a connection piece.
And they're talking abouttheir experiences with God and my
friend.
And that's what I was getting to.
(56:55):
What my friend said was, andhe's been a Christian all of his
life, grew up in a church.
And he said, nobody ever toldme that silence is inhabited.
Someone is waiting for us there.
And that's what's sounnerving, I think.
And so the retreats are notteaching retreats.
(57:15):
They're connecting retreats,connecting with God and with each
other.
And they're in silence duringall of that time.
And it's remarkable what happens.
And one of the biggestchallenges we have is Gen Z doesn't
have a lot of money.
And so it's raising the fundsto be able to have a scholarship
(57:37):
fund that allows me to bringstudents on these retreats and make
it possible to them for themto be a part of it.
Because otherwise theywouldn't go.
If their friend said, this is amazing.
There's that word again.
They'll go.
They'll go in a heartbeat.
But if it's silence, oh, no, Icould never do that.
I've had a lot of students saythat, and somebody leaned on them
(58:00):
and they went.
And it's like, now they're mygreatest evangelists for the silent
retreats.
And we've been doing those.
I started those 14 years ago.
We started with five studentsand one retreat, and now we're up
to two a year.
And 10 students each.
I serve as a spiritualdirector for them.
So sometimes I'll meetindividually, sometimes I won't.
(58:23):
And I equip them with twothings, or they equip themselves
a journal.
Surprise of surprise.
You might notice the theme andtheir Bible, if they so choose.
I have a particular book thatsometimes I will have them work their
way through if they want to,during the time they're there.
It's called the center ofquiet, and it is a little bit more
(58:48):
structured.
That's what they come intomost of the time.
When they come into theretreats, we'll sit down for the
very first session and starttalking about, you know, what's.
What's to be expected andthings like that.
And one of the first questionsI'll get is, so what do I do?
I said, nothing.
It's like, uh, oh, okay, whatdo I do?
(59:12):
It's like, no assignments,just you and God.
Take the time to spend timewith him and see what he has to say
to you.
So there's that.
And then, of course, as itmentions up up here, what I'm talking
about is outpost groups, and Icall it outpost because it's outposts
for the heart.
And the nature of what it isabout is creating that space that
(59:36):
is not necessarily connectedto a church, where they can connect
and begin to discover actuallythe embodiment of truth in their
relationships.
Because it's in relationshipsthat implicit knowledge is contained,
and it's in relationships thatit can be changed.
And I've seen it happen toomany times.
(59:57):
And of course, the last one, Ithink, is Relationship Resources.
Within the next month, I'll bereleasing an E course on shame and
grace.
And that E course is forgroups, it is for individuals, and
it allows anybody that isinterested to see my contention.
I have a bone to pick withBrene Brown.
(01:00:17):
I know that's kind of Davidand Goliath, but the bone to pick
is that the solution for shameis not just connection.
It's learning the fullunderstanding of what grace means.
Not just grace to save us, butgrace to live in.
And that is what that courseis about.
(01:00:40):
16 weeks.
I can bore you in half thattime if you want to pay half price.
And that's really what theresources are.
There are a variety of other resources.
We release a newsletter everycouple of months, whatever I can
put together, the next onecoming out is actually about journaling
(01:01:01):
and a structure for journaling.
So sign up.
It's sgi-net.org I think I mayhave put this up there.
Yeah, it's there it is.
And I brought a couple bookswith me.
Grieving the Loss of Someoneyoue Love.
That little book hasabsolutely stunned me.
I wrote that book in 1993.
(01:01:26):
I was 12.
And it's remarkable lifespan.
It really is.
And so there's that one.
And then my newly releasedbook in January, which I also brought
along is the Seasons of OurGrief, which I basically introduced
to you.
The thing is, it is not adidactic book.
(01:01:48):
I wrote it for Gen Z.
And so they follow twopeople's journey through grief and
they tell their stories infiction, but there's teaching and
that's, that's a way ofconnecting with them.
I wrote it for that express purpose.
(01:02:09):
So that brings us to the end.
I'm getting circled out here.
So do we have time for questions?
Okay, thank you.
Well, I hope you enjoyed thattalk that I gave.
(01:02:31):
It was to a group ofcounselors in Colorado Springs Christian
Counselor Fellowship that Iwas asked to present to.
They were a great group and wehad a great time answering lots of
questions on the backside of it.
So I hope you enjoyed it.
(01:02:52):
I hope it gave you some plentyto think about.
And thanks for joining me.
SGI-net.org that's the homefor the SGI community and you can
follow us on three differentsocial media channels.
Instagram, GIInternational,Facebook, Stained Glass International,
(01:03:13):
all one word, and LinkedInStained Glass International as well.
You can find wherever youconsume podcasts, you can find us.
So wherever you might look,you can listen either into the Outpost
podcast, which is part of SGIMedia, but also this unscripted,
(01:03:36):
which I started off a year agoat the prompting of saying goodbye
to a dear friend.
And I have spent the yeartalking about various aspects of
the grieving process and whatit looks like and including the seasons
of grief and including anumber of different topics.
(01:03:57):
This is episode 19, so thereare 18 different episodes to catch
up on if you're so inclined.
And so if you're looking forthe books themselves, there are two
different books I wrote on grief.
One's called Grieving the Lossof someone you Love.
And the newest one is theSeasons of Our Grief, which can also
(01:04:19):
be found@seasonsofargrief.comon that webpage you will see not
only the presentation if you'dlike to watch it on video and a variety
of items that give you somebackground about the book itself
and what is significant about it.
You can subscribe to ouronline community as soon as you hit
(01:04:42):
sgi-net.org you will beinvited to become part of it.
If you do so, we will not sendyou any spam, but there will be an
occasional email newslettercoming out to inform you of some
of the retreats that arecoming up, opportunities for groups
and other opportunities.
(01:05:03):
I generally have been writingan article in there for Thought and
Challenge and that would be aplace for you to keep up with what's
going on in the community itself.
If you are interested inpartnering with us, we would be ever
so grateful to continue todevelop the Ministry of SGI which
(01:05:27):
you now have a little bit ofan understanding based on the presentation
I gave.
SGI Media is a tax deductibleorganization, so all of your gifts
are tax deductible as well.
And and you can give that tosupport our silent retreats, our
groups and funding andsupporting training for our leaders
(01:05:49):
in the groups and also othermaterials and resources.
Before too long we will have abrand new E course that I will be
announcing here on the podcastfor people to engage in.
It will be designed not onlyfor groups but also for individuals
that you might findinteresting as well.
(01:06:12):
So if you would rather send usa check, you're welcome to do that
as well.
Physical check.
Just make it out to SGI andsend it to P.O.
box 322, Eastlake, Colorado 80614.
And that's it for tonight.
Blessings to you all and untilnext time, love you later.
(01:06:33):
Bye.
SA.
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