Fresh Start with Dr. David - Season 3 - Episode 7 - Navigating Grief: Insights and Healing with Gary Scott - Healing from Inside Out!
Good afternoon, and welcome back to another episode of the Fresh Start with Dr. David podcast! Dr. David shares some exciting updates and introduces his special guest, Gary Scott, a grief recovery expert. Together, they delve into the profound topic of grief, exploring its impact on mental health and personal circumstances.
Dr. David and Gary discuss the systematic approach to grief, the importance of living in harmony with the seasons, and the necessity of letting go of what no longer serves us. Gary shares his personal journey through loss and recovery, including the challenges he faced and the ultimate healing he found through the Grief Recovery Institute.
This episode is packed with valuable insights, practical advice, and heartfelt stories. Whether you're dealing with grief yourself or supporting someone who is, this conversation offers a compassionate and knowledgeable perspective on the path to healing.
Join Dr. David and Gary Scott for an enlightening discussion that emphasizes the power of resilience, the importance of seeking support, and the transformative process of grief recovery. Don't miss this opportunity to learn from their experiences and gain tools to navigate your own journey.
Don't miss the Pivotal Episode on Grief & Recovery!
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Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Good afternoon. This is Dr. David back with another episode of the Fresh Start with Dr. David podcast.
It's been a couple of weeks, and I have been busy, which I'll be sharing with
you in just a few minutes. Some very, very exciting opportunities.
And I'll be introducing my guest expert today on a topic that I personally love,
(00:24):
love just because the way that we handle it and the way that we look at it and
kind of the analysis that we use for it,
I think it can be applied to so many mental health disorders.
Personal circumstances and situations and challenges and things like that.
I think it's just brilliant.
So I'm really excited about the topic that I'm going to be speaking about today
(00:45):
and conversing with my expert special guest.
And it's also a topic that I've talked about in the the past.
So there is a previous episode, I believe it's during season two,
where I also talked about this topic.
So I'm really, really excited to be back with everybody.
I've had a bunch of new subscribers lately. I'm really excited about that.
So welcome back to the Fresh Start with Dr. David podcast.
(01:07):
It is the spring slash summer of 2024.
We've just entered or June. So this, I, you know, as you know,
I'm a huge believer in the energy and the power of the seasons.
Regardless of your beliefs, we can all acknowledge that certain things happen
(01:28):
on this planet during certain times of the year.
Certain times of the year, this planet gets colder. Other times of the year, it has more daylight.
Other times of the year, we get more rain. Other times of the year,
plants grow and sprout and other times they recede.
So everything on this planet operates according to seasons.
And I try to use that in my own life. One of the things that I try to do in
(01:50):
my own life is I try to plant seeds during certain times of the year.
And then I do things to cultivate and grow and then later harvest them.
So I kind of use that approach.
I try to live my life according to the seasons. I have a course that I do.
If you're ever interested, feel free to get in contact with me and I can tell
you about it. But I do a course every year in concordance with the season.
(02:11):
So I really do believe that you should try to act in accordance and concordance
with the planet and our seasons, the energy of that. And I just think it adds a lot to your life.
So anyway, welcome to this season of energy.
There are a lot of things going on. I'm so happy to announce that.
My office, as you know, I have offices in Buckhead and I also have offices in
(02:36):
Decatur, which are both in the greater Atlanta area.
But I will be closing my office in Decatur between now and the end of July and
opening up a suite of offices with multiple professionals in the Brookhaven area.
And that's going to happen between now and the end of next month.
So I'm really, really excited about that.
That'll be closer to my office in Buckhead. So you'll have the option of having
(02:59):
an appointment at either my Brookhaven offices or my Buckhead office,
whichever is more convenient for you.
And also, you know, as you know, you also have the office, the option of doing
some appointments virtually, if you like.
So with that, let's get started with today.
I've got a very, very special expert guest. His name is Gary Scott.
(03:21):
He's also known as Gare Bear or the Garenator, if you want to take an Arnold
Schwarzenegger Terminator kind of approach to it. But welcome, Gary Scott.
Doctor that was epic that was absolutely the best girl you mean the garenator,
(03:42):
the garenator that was epic i i
have to say thank you for this you know you are kind of like my spirit animal
as far as you know what you do you know where you're taking things the direction
you're going with stop i mean i just have such a strong belief in what you're
(04:03):
doing and and how you're doing it.
So this is really exciting for me. So grateful for your time.
You're so busy. I don't even know how you do all this. So thank you for allowing me in.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'm never too busy. Never too busy.
I am, as you know, I am busy. And people always tell me to slow down.
(04:23):
And I say, well, you know what? That's one of my life lessons.
I have to work on that all day, every day. So I do work on slowing down.
But you're right. A lot of times I work seven days a week. I believe,
not that I'm counting, I believe I've I've had 10 days off since December 27th
when I returned from the holidays last year. But you know what?
A lot of people might complain about it. Typically, I work six,
(04:44):
seven days a week, and I try to work under 80 hours a week, but a lot of times
I try to keep it in the sweet spot of around 60, 65.
But here's the way that I look at it. The way that I look at it is God has given
me so many, God and the universe have given me so many opportunities to share
who I am with the world and to
help other people grow. grow and those opportunities don't last forever.
(05:05):
So my goal is to maximize those, but you're right, work-life balance is also important.
So that is a life lesson that I'm always trying to learn and teach myself and share with others.
But I'm so thrilled to have you. You have such great energy.
You know, for people who don't know, I'm a huge believer in energy.
I think there's so many things that we can see and we can use senses to see
(05:30):
and hear and all those kinds of things.
Things that, you know, that we feel and that we know are there, that we sense.
And when it comes to people, I've always been a person.
I've always been empathic. I've always been someone who sensed things from people,
even if they were going through pain and hiding it, I could always tell.
(05:51):
And when I was a child, I didn't know what to do with that.
But as an adult, it guides a lot of like the healing work that I do.
So I'm so happy to hear, have you here today, Gear Bear, Garenera.
And, you know, with that, how about you, rather than me introduce you,
how about you introduce us to you and tell us all about who you are,
(06:16):
what you do and what you bring, because there's so much there.
Well, right on. Thank you for that. I, you know, I, I, um, just real quick.
I mean, You know, I've always from birth been a health nut.
You know, I was the only geek in high school who ate the one salad that they
would actually put up, you know, while we were eating pizza and all this stuff.
(06:37):
And my friends just made fun of me that my yearbook was full of the salad, dude. Oh, funny.
So I've always been about health, diet, exercise, you know, things like that,
what we're putting in our body, anti-inflammation diets and things like that. Yeah.
It's always been important. I mean, I know how important that is to you.
But how I got here was the greatest life in the world, just such a blessed human.
(07:01):
And then my wife, my first wife, April, got sick. She had cancer.
Fought it for a couple of years. I was her caregiver. It was just the most brutal
couple of years. She passed.
And, of course, this was 2014.
So I went through the massive crash and burn mission that happens many times
when people lose someone who is my childhood sweetheart.
(07:23):
As it happened, a very good friend of mine, he was losing his wife to cancer.
He didn't want to reach out to me because he's like, dude, I don't want to,
you know, I don't want to bring care down.
I mean, but he finally did. And I said, dude, why did you wait to call me?
So we started having these long conversations about what was going on with his
healing and his, and his wife dying and stuff like that.
(07:45):
And then I got cancer. I'm like, wait, double win. Now I get both sides of it.
I can be the caregiver. Right.
And I can also be the victim, not the patient, because with cancer,
there isn't a patient. You're a victim.
And then through that, we created a podcast that we're doing called Grease Pie.
Basically, we were just trying to reach out to men initially to say,
(08:10):
hey, listen, men, you guys don't talk.
You can't bury this stuff. Men are just horrible at being afraid to.
I mean, like in the military, God forbid you say that I'm hurting and they kick you out, right?
It's mad that men aren't allowed to share. So we started this grief podcast.
Through this, just so many people reached out. So many people.
(08:31):
I'm just hearing so many stories.
I'm like, holy cow. I had no idea how much pain was out there, right?
So I got involved with this program called the Grief Recovery Institute.
I got myself certified in the grief recovery method.
(09:14):
I know. So that's my ideal about, you know, you encompass so much of the healing
process, not just one specific thing.
And I just think that's amazing. So anyway, that's how I'm here.
Well, thank you. No, no, that was a great synopsis. And thank you so much for your kind words.
You know, so much of what you just said resonated with me because,
(09:37):
you know, on other podcasts I've talked about, you know, One of the reasons
why I started this podcast in the first place was just because I've always believed,
and I think part of it was my medical education and training,
but I think a part of it was some of the training that I did outside of medical school.
(09:58):
But I started this podcast because, to me, there's so many problems with the
healthcare system. It's like, where do you even start?
You know, a lot of times people start with insurance and stuff like that.
But that's, you know, to me, that's not even really the genesis of where the problems start.
But that's why I started it. And then I also started it because of mental health
and the status of mental health in this country and the crisis.
(10:21):
And I didn't want to just have a podcast or a show where I just talk about challenges,
problems, and dilemmas. I wanted one that was also focused on solutions.
Because to me, you start with a problem, that leads you to a question,
and that question hopefully leads you to search for some answers and find some solutions.
(10:42):
So that's why I started this podcast today.
One of the reasons why I love, and honestly, it blows me away sometimes,
some of the details that I remember from college and high school and things
like that, stuff that other people have totally forgotten. They're like,
you remember that? And I'm like, yeah.
And it's amazing. And in my case, I can actually say that after a 30-year habit
(11:07):
of smoking cigarettes, even if it wasn't a high amount, my memory has totally increased.
East. I made the decision to quit smoking on January 28th of 2019. And absolutely.
And the funny thing about it is when I made that decision, I kind of was,
I guess my thinking and, you know, that was five years or over five years ago,
(11:29):
my thinking was kind of like, you know, my memory's not as sharp.
My thinking's not as sharp. I guess that's just part of getting old,
but actually it was not, it was smoking.
And, you know, one of the biggest messages that I try to send to people,
but whether they're vaping, and vaping is in a lot of ways more addictive than cigarette smoking.
But one of the biggest messages I try to tell people is that,
(11:49):
yeah, smoking is bad for your lungs and it's bad for your body,
but just think about what it does to your brain, honestly.
And so your brain gets fogged up with nicotine. Absolutely, absolutely.
Worse than any place else, actually. So it's funny, but, you know,
I remember specifically, and I can't remember what year this was.
This was obviously during the 90s when I was in college.
(12:11):
But I remember when I read in one of my psychology books about the Kubler-Ross.
The Kubler-Ross theory about grief and the stages of grief and different things like that.
So I do remember covering that in college.
And then later on, I saw where several authors and experts and psychologists
(12:35):
had expanded upon that and had added different things to it.
The thing that I liked about the concept of grief is a couple of different things.
Number one, similar to kind of addiction theories, is that one of the things
about grief is that it's a process.
It's a process that you constantly work through, and it's generally not ever fully 100% resolved.
(13:01):
So I like that kind of idea about it. The other thing that I liked about it
was the systematic approach.
And as a Virgo, as a – Oh, the Virgo male? Yeah, as a male Virgo,
as an ND, very analytical and very systematic about everything for the most part.
In fact, part of my life lessons is to let some things go and go with the flow
(13:26):
and not try to plan everything.
But I love that it has a system. So one of the things that really got me about
grief and some of the latest postulates and theories and methods of coping with
it was the systematic approach to it,
which we'll be diving into today and which I've also talked about during a previous podcast episode.
(13:47):
But in terms of you, if, you know, I would kind of get like to get a sense of
kind of, you know, what it was like for you when you first started kind of dealing with it,
because one of the things that I'm a big believer in is that our brains try to predict the future.
Our brains really work hard to try to piece together ideas and material.
(14:14):
And I really, really do believe that in a lot of ways,
our brains, different parts of our brain, try to deal with grief before it happens,
especially if you're talking about somebody who has a diagnosis or a chronic
illness or something like that.
So I really do believe that we kind of pre-grieve. But tell me a little bit,
if you wouldn't mind, share a little bit about kind of your experiences about
(14:37):
how you about what the things that started to lead you to this direction.
Well, you know, talking to people, hearing their stories, you know,
it's a thing that grief is, you know, we've got grief is about a broken heart,
not a broken brain. Right.
(14:57):
And so, like you said, it's such a process. And even even Kubler-Ross stepped
back from her denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance because she
said, I came up with that for someone who is dying.
Right. For the patient who's dying, the person who's going through the end of
their life, goes through these stages.
The person who survived, the griever, doesn't necessarily go through these stages.
(15:22):
It's not as set in stone as her person who's going through the grief.
And then the people expand it to seven and nine and things like that to try to create that.
But when you look at the grief, you know, when you look at death.
Divorce, loss of a job, loss of a business, loss of a pet is a massive area of grief.
(15:42):
I was shocked at how loss of a pet affects. So when I'm looking at all these
areas, I'm like, holy cow.
And then, like you said, COVID exposed it even more to a degree where people
are like, wow, I'm not going to hide this anymore.
More because so many people are going through it
i'm just going to come out of the closet and go yeah i'm really
(16:03):
suffering and so being an
empath myself being a little empathetic like a virgo oh my
god absolutely absolutely libras libras too from what i've heard right yeah
i just felt very strongly that i needed i needed to do more right i i completely
(16:24):
completely crashed and burned with the passing of my wife.
I mean, mistake after mistake after mistake and then mistake.
So when I'm talking to people and they go, I feel really bad.
I did this. I did that. I'm like, dude, hold my beer.
No way. You know, you have to understand you can't.
Own that you can't blame yourself
(16:45):
for what happened during this period right
because there's so much healing and then then there's something many people
have come to me with something like the loss of a pet or the loss of a spouse
once we go a little deeper yeah that's really not even the foundation right
right or the biggest part of their grief bingo,
(17:07):
Ringo, Ringo, it goes back earlier.
Yeah, it goes back earlier. I say that to my clients all the time.
One of the things that I do, one of the tools that I use that I love in my office, and I will never,
ever, ever have a professional office that doesn't include one is I have a whiteboard
and I do a lot of coaching with my clients and we work through things.
(17:29):
And it doesn't matter whether it's somebody who's got chronic panic attacks
or if they are depressed or if they're anxious or if they've got,
you know, adjustment-oriented issues,
or, you know, problems with life direction or problems with procrastination
or decision-making or whatever, we get on that whiteboard and we work through
it and we get to the bottom of it.
(17:49):
And every single time without fail, 100% of the time, no matter what problem
somebody presents with, it goes back to something during childhood.
I had a client recently who's had having or had panic attacks recently,
which we're starting to overcome and conquer.
And one of the things that we realize is that his panic attacks are emanating
(18:13):
from things that happened to him during his childhood.
So I think, and, you know, we all go through losses at different points in life.
And so the thing about it is I kind of use kind of the thing about like,
you know, like a scab or a scar or a cut.
You know, almost, almost regardless of where you get a cut or,
(18:34):
you know, a sewer or something like that on your arm or your leg,
chances are you should previously had one at some earlier stage.
So, I mean, you know, what you said about that is like, it's like so dead on Dr.
D because, you know, people think of loss is like we said, a pet,
you know, a spouse, a divorce, something like that. But there's,
there's, there's loss of trust.
(18:55):
There's loss of safety, You know, the loss of control over your body,
if you were maybe molested as a child or something like that.
So there's so many different levels of the loss that may be buried under so
much of our life, you know, so much of our garbage that we think it's this.
But it most likely is not.
(19:17):
It's that deeper level, especially the loss of safety when you're a child.
You know, if something's going on with your parents or something's going on
at school or you've been bullying or something like that, that loss is so strong, that loss of safety.
That loss of self. It can stay with you forever. That loss of self.
When you lose safety, when you lose security, you're losing elements that are
(19:41):
within you. So it's a loss of self, too.
Absolutely. It truly is a loss of self. And I was just blown away by the amount
of different things that you're working through, helping people work through.
I mean, it was astounding. I'm like, holy cow, because those things,
if you take – if we tore them into pieces of paper and tore them and put them
(20:04):
in a jar or funnel or whatever.
I mean, it's just so full. And yet you pulled them out.
It's like so many people are going to be able to pull one out and have something in there.
In their past or in their background from what healing that
you're working on so i was like that's that's
amazing i mean and the success you're having is crazy but i
(20:25):
think if if that whiteboard is
epic i love that i if you saw my office it's right now or my my room i take
those big stickies those big huge stickies and i stick them up right as i'm
working with individual people so i could take that sticky off and say here's
what we worked with Here's what I wrote down. You know, let's let's keep this.
(20:47):
And it's magical because you see it. You see what's going on.
And that's that's that's awesome. I love you do that.
Yeah. I mean, because we're visual creatures. I mean, as you may or may not
know, you know, I believe in a lot of kind of outside the cuff of medicine modalities,
things like NLP or neurolinguistic programming, etc.
(21:08):
Hypnosis, hypnotherapy, which was used by Dr. Sigmund Freud,
the father of psychiatry, and Dr.
Milton Erickson, another prominent psychiatrist in history.
So, I mean, I use a lot of outside-the-box techniques, and my assumption is
always that there's not a single answer, that it's a mix and match of different
puzzle pieces that you put together.
(21:29):
And you could start in different places, but it involves a lot of different
modalities and answers and solutions to kind of reach a place of clarity.
And so one of the cool things about my whiteboard is, you know,
when we do a white, when I do a whiteboard exercise with a client,
I never write their name on the board.
We put the problem or the topic at the top, and then we just kind of work through
(21:52):
it. And the funny thing about it is a lot of times, if I haven't erased the
whiteboard, the next client who comes in, they'll be talking about their problem
or some dilemma that they have or a challenge.
And they'll look up at the whiteboard and they're like, oh, my God,
that's the answer to my problem.
And I'm like, that's a process that works for everything. It's amazing.
And then they'll say, you know, can I take a picture of it? Yada,
(22:15):
yada, yada. How does this relate to my problem? And it does.
It's a formula. formula one of the things that that
you mentioned that i think is really really really kind of
key here and important at least kind of my
thinking because i also do consulting work in forensic psychiatry and in addiction
psychiatry and one of the things one of the big concepts in addiction psychiatry
(22:36):
is just kind of the notion that people crash and burn like you know people decide
to get help when something happens some sentinel event you know or they've lost
everything you know i I mean,
the down and out drug addict, that kind of thing. They've hit rock bottom.
One of the things that you mentioned is, you know, when you were starting to encounter.
Some challenges and things like that, you kind of crashed and burned.
(23:00):
I guess that kind of sparked my curiosity.
In terms of you crashing and burning, I know people use that phrase a lot,
but how did that materialize?
What did that mean for you? What was the crash and the burn for you?
The symbols, the signs and symptoms and symbols that let you know that you needed
to kind of regroup and reboot?
(23:22):
Oh, there, there are many. I, uh, my wife passed in December of 2014 and in
March of 2015, I was engaged.
Oh, wow. A young lady that just met a spectacular woman, loved her son.
Her son desperately needed a father figure.
I was just going to adopt this kid. My kids liked her son, did not like her and were mad at her.
(23:48):
And, and so that two years of, I just hurt a lot of people there.
And the interesting thing about that was that everyone blamed her.
And I just, I just felt so bad about that. Like, how could you get with someone
whose wife just died? You know, what were you thinking?
What's wrong with you? But she, she had her needs also. So, you know, she had been divorced.
(24:12):
She had a horrible nine year marriage. You know, her husband forgets to even
send birthday and Christmas cards.
I mean, he was just not a good guy. Right. So I, well, my heart,
I'm a spectacular guy. I'm a great guy. And I would agree.
I agree. 100%. I'm a, I'm a great husband to my current wife.
We're best friends. We're partners. But the thing is, she had needs too.
(24:35):
So she clung on to what she thought was good for her.
There's no blame there at all. And there's no blame on me.
I missed my companion. I missed my partner.
I'm not a dater. I love to be in a relationship, right? So I immediately clung
on to the first person I had a glass of wine with.
But when I left her, when I called everything off, I canceled two weddings and called everything off.
(25:00):
Wow, two weddings? I heard so many people. Yeah, two weddings.
Wait, so this is to the same woman?
Yep. So you were going to get married to her twice and you canceled two weddings.
Two weddings we were set to get married like you know
it's like we got an age in march we're going to get married in october i
had to cancel that and then we're going to get married again on like february i
can't put that one and then down the road i just i moved out there's a movie
(25:23):
about that isn't there a movie about like the runaway bride or something like
that or oh i think there is exactly right or runaway bride or something yeah
oh my god i just thought that was fixed When I left her,
that's when it really spiraled because I compounded everything in my mind.
(25:43):
Not only did I run from the pain of my wife's passing and just completely ignore
it, just completely run from it.
Then I got into a beautiful family, just destroyed those poor folks.
I mean, she was devastated.
The son was devastated. Her family loved me. They were devastated.
Cost myself a lot of money canceling two weddings. and then
through my grief through my pain and
(26:06):
because your body is so much smarter than you
are i went to a real estate conference i'm a
real estate broker right i went to a real estate conference and
i'm standing there looking at a pair of socks talking to this guy
and boom i just next thing i knew i woke
up in a wheelchair with an ambulance and they're
taking me to the hospital i'm like why do you guys have me in
a wheelchair so basically i just had a nervous breakdown down so
(26:29):
through that nervous they put me
through all the tests they said dude you it's a visual vaginal you know what
it is because you're doctors like people see the side of blood and faint was
it a stroke or more of a shock event so it was just it was it was people see
the side of blood and they faint right there's a there's a name for what happens
(26:50):
to your brain when it shuts.
And my brain said, dude, you are in a really bad spot.
I'm going to shut you down. And it did.
Right. And so and then from there, I slowly kind of started to work on myself. I quit drinking.
I got way back into my exercise program, way back into my diet.
(27:13):
And just said, listen, you've got to heal yourself. But most importantly,
you've got to face April's death.
I mean, you just have to. Now, along the way, of course, I made a few more mistakes
and hurt some more people.
But through that, I knew the entire time my gut told me, you know what the challenge is.
(27:33):
And you're just not facing it. And until you do, you're just going to keep screwing
up. Now, let me ask you a question about that. Yeah.
Before you came to that realization, had it been your perception that you had
already worked through that grief or not?
Absolutely. You were convinced that you had worked through it,
(27:55):
right? Yeah, I did not want to face it. Didn't want to look at it.
Couldn't. I mean, I was her caretaker for two years.
I absolutely, my first wife, April, like, no, but we were kids when we got together.
We were, we just love each other. Right. So while she was sick and dying of
cancer, and you know what they put people through when they know they,
you know, they just kill you.
(28:16):
It was so devastating to me that when she finally passed and you have that guilt
of relief, like, oh, my God, thank God they're gone because I'm dying.
She's dying. I don't know how much longer I could have taken it.
Right. So you have the guilt of that and then you have the grief.
Right. So I knew that I wasn't facing either one of them.
(28:38):
Right. I was just running.
Wow. And running. That's that. I love the word that you used running.
Cause that says a lot right there. Fight or flight.
And then after she passed, uh,
you then learned that you had cancer as well? It was about, it was after I remarried, lucky my wife.
(29:04):
And it was about six, six years after she passed, six, seven years after she
had passed, I found out I had cancer.
And so, so I went to my new wife and I said, honey, I want a divorce.
And she said, she was a little shocked. And she said, why? I go,
well, because you are not a caretaker and you're not a caregiver.
(29:27):
I said, no offense. That's nothing. That's your nature. There's nothing wrong
with that. You're, you know, you have, you're a Gemini.
I said, so, so to save, she already has a twin to take care of.
Yeah, exactly. She has no interest in taking out care of someone else.
So it, to, to keep you from going through what I went through and what caretakers
go through and you end up saying, well, he's sick and he's dying and I can't
(29:51):
do this listen to Marshall. I'm leaving. Right.
Right. You leave now. You're going to be proactive about it.
Yeah. That way you aren't the bad guy. If you leave me now, it's like,
yeah, it didn't work out. Whatever.
I just hide the cancer and I just do my stuff and I'm, I'm fine.
You leave when I'm in the weeds and I'm really sick and dying.
(30:12):
You'll never forgive yourself.
It'll be a whole different thing. Right. You leave now. I don't want you to go through.
Yeah. And she's like, well so then
i so what what i did is i completely kept her
away from all treatments i said well if you're going to stay you're not
going to my radiology you're not watching me get fried you're
(30:32):
not going to my chemo you're not going to my surgery you're not doing anything
i need you to go live your life go scuba diving she's a scuba instructor you
go travel you live your life i've got this i've been here i know what to do
fortunately it was caught very early stage one And I got through it.
Well, you can hear my lisp.
I still can't talk because it cut out my tongue and all this other stuff.
(30:53):
But but so I was not going to subject her to that.
And she went along with that? 100%. Wow. Why do you think that is?
Because she knew it was the right thing. Okay. She knew in her gut,
as much as you don't want to admit to yourself, that, hey, but I was not going to accept either.
(31:17):
I was about to say that. I mean, I was going to say. That's why she went along
with it, because she wasn't going to get any other choice, because you understood
the mechanics of it, and she just had to trust you.
You it's either divorce or i'm going
to take care of this and you're going to live your life you're not
going to hear me whine you're not going to hear me snivel um you're
(31:38):
going to watch me get really ugly and sick and i'm
sorry about that but we'll deal
with that as those events occur and so
no she didn't take me to single chemo single radiation she
did you know bring me back from the surgery because i
had to go to go to san diego and have it done
but i mean so she drove me home and but yeah so but
(32:00):
see that felt better to me right because
cancer as you know is an
animal that cannot be controlled right and
we wanted some control over the process yeah you
search desperately for some sort of control in
your life because it's spinning out of control absolutely and and and for me
(32:21):
that was hugely important way to do it wow that's that is amazing because Because
some of my favorite words are words that are about being proactive.
Proactivity, preemptive, all of those things that take into account thinking
and analyzing about things and planning for things before they happen. So I love that approach.
(32:46):
And I think that's incredible that, you know, obviously there's a tremendous
amount of trust between you two for her to go along with that,
because that's basically an ultimatum.
Either we're going to get a divorce or we're going to handle it this way.
So that's an amazing amount of bonding and trust that you guys clearly have
(33:08):
and had in order to allow that to happen that way. Yeah.
Well, you know, we got together during COVID. Oh, okay. Luke,
how we got together, she reached out to me and friended me.
And she chased me down because I'm just that good looking.
And I think we just bonded so strongly over being the way we are.
(33:31):
You know, she's a Gemini. I'm an Aries.
I love the child in the Gemini. I love that it's twins.
You wake up every day. You don't know who you're going to be with.
My first wife was a Gemini. We we both are scuba divers.
We're hikers. We're exercisers. We're golfers. We're gun enthusiasts.
We're we're, you know, we just are really compatible.
(33:53):
I told her, you know, had I had I not been so damn sexually attracted to you,
we would have been really good friends.
Because we're just super compatible so nice we we she's been married three other
times no right to the same yeah twice to the same guy it's kind of a weird story
so she's only been married to two guys but she's been i think that's more common
(34:13):
than we realize honestly,
or maybe it's just the field that i work in well no i mean people being married
to the same person more than once that's a trip isn't it it's true i never realized
how and maybe it's because i work in forensics and do relationship work and things like that.
But I'm amazed at how many people have said that they were either engaged to
(34:34):
the same person twice or they married and then divorced and then remarried the same person again.
It's a weird kind of phenomenon, but I think it happens more often.
It's like stepping in poop twice. You know, you see it again and you go,
I'm going to step in it again, which is a bad analogy.
But just to leave it here is just that because of that and because of what I
(34:56):
went through and who she and I are together is truth.
That's the one thing we said as our foundation because she had been hurt a lot. I had not. But I said –.
You and I will be, you and I will have a relationship that other people will
either be enamored by or horrified by.
(35:16):
Because it's like, you know, we talked about people, all the divorces that happened during COVID.
Because people got stuck at home and they didn't even like each other.
Right. Or didn't even know each other. I hate you. Or didn't even know each other.
So our relation has been grounded in ultimate truth since the day we got together.
(35:37):
And just speak it. Don't hide it. speak it. I could see it in your face, what's going on.
And I think that helped us get through that.
Now, tell me about the, tell me about how you started with, how you found the
center that you found, how your training started, how that whole journey began.
(35:57):
Someone on Facebook had watched a podcast and said, dude, I love your podcast,
but I'll never watch it again. I can't handle it. It's too honest.
It's too deep. You guys just are like, you know, I can't,
I can't watch it okay and i've heard that over and over
and that's why i'm changing the whole foundation of i'm changing
the grief pie into a completely different podcast right it
was just too much for people we were too honest we brought
(36:20):
people in who just you know buried their soul and it was just too tough for
a lot of people right um but but he did say to me do do yourself a favor and
go get a pickup i'm a big big time reader and i and he said get the grief recovery
handbook I just read it. He goes, I think. Can I say that again?
It's called Grief Recovery Handbook. Grief Recovery Handbook.
(36:44):
And it's by the Grief Recovery Institute.
These two guys founded it like 40 some odd years ago. And they are like the
only, I guess they call it accredited grief program with proven results and
things like that. And their process is really great.
So I've read a lot of books on grief and healing and stuff like that.
(37:04):
This one really stuck with me because their bottom line was, you know, you don't.
Grief, although it is a process, it's not a life-term sentence, right?
You know, the person's gone, but you're not, you know?
And so the process that we go through, that we take people through helps them
(37:27):
free themselves, help them be able to say goodbye to the grief without saying
goodbye to the person, right?
And to me, that was so important because having lost someone so close to me, you have that fear.
Well, if I let go, or if I remarry, or I'm happy, God forbid, I'm happy.
Right. I'm betraying the person. Somehow that hurts them. Right.
I'm betraying the person that I lost.
(37:49):
Yeah. So that grief recovery institute was really awesome. So went through the certificate program.
I'm going deeper and deeper into the training with them.
And I just, you know, it's just my passion now.
It's just like, if I never sold another house again and just went broke and
had of eat beans and just like work with people.
That's it. I, I just, this is, I'm just driven by this.
(38:13):
I'm just, I'm like you said, I mean, grief is, it's so massive and,
and there's so many levels of it, Dr.
David, that, I mean, you'll never hit bottom.
You know, one of the principles that I'm a strong believer in and I share with
my clients and it's one of those kind of universal, you know,
I believe in a lot of things. I believe in astrology.
(38:33):
I believe in neurology. I believe in psychology.
I believe in karma. I believe in the law of attraction.
One of the things that I also kind of believe in, aside from those things,
is the concept of transference and balance.
And when I say that, what I mean is I truly, truly believe that a lot of the
(38:56):
things that we claim that we want are on the other side of us letting go of
the things that don't serve us.
I truly believe that. And I use an analogy with people, and I really do believe
this is kind of how we're wired in a lot of ways, but we are collectors.
(39:17):
We collect. Our DNA collects things.
Most of our DNA, people don't know this, most of our DNA is junk DNA or filler DNA.
It just means the same thing repeated over and over again.
Kind of like how a teacher would make you write, I will not talk in class.
While the teacher speaks over and over on a paper. I mean, that's how our DNA is organized.
(39:40):
And most of it is DNA that's just repeated over and over again.
But we collect things. Even it's the same thing over and you'll see people, you know.
These mega billionaires and millionaires who have like the same Bugatti,
just in a different color.
You know, they'll have like 18 Bugattis. It's like, okay, it's a $2 million
car and two wasn't good enough.
(40:03):
Two colors wasn't, you had to have it in every variation.
Like, come on. I mean, seriously, it just makes no sense. That's what we do.
And I always tell people when I work with clients and I see objectively the
things that they're holding onto and trying mind to help them free themselves
from and let go and release,
(40:23):
it's kind of like if you met somebody and they had two, let's say they were an orphan, right?
You met this orphan who's 15 and they've got these two beat up,
busted, scorched earth suitcases with tattered clothing, rags, et cetera, et cetera.
But the things that they've collected as an orphan over the last 15 years,
(40:47):
and then you You meet that person, and you've got two suitcases,
but your suitcases are immaculate, and they're filled with millions of dollars.
And you try to get that person to switch with you, and they go,
well, you know, those clear cases like you see on Let's Make a Deal or whatever,
you know, they look really attractive.
(41:07):
And, oh, my God, you know, I could buy an island and a mansion and all this stuff.
But you know what? These are my suitcases. I'm not giving them up.
And, I mean, that's what we do. And so one of the things that I always try to
share with people and illustrate and show them is that everything you want or
desire is on the other side of the things that you need to give up in order to be free.
(41:31):
And it takes a lot of energy to get that to happen.
Yeah. Outstanding. Yeah. I mean, that is, I know we've gone on here a little bit longer. No, no.
There's no time limit. That to me is so much everything in a nutshell.
It's like they say, we have 80,000 thoughts a day and 70% of them are negative, right?
(41:53):
And probably even more than that. And as big of a portion of that is repetitive.
It's the same negative. We just beat each other up with the same stupid crap
every day because it's ours. We're just holding on to it.
And when you say, well, just why don't you let that go? out.
Just the thought is mind blowing to people like, well, what do you mean?
(42:15):
I can't let that go. You go, well, why not?
And why can't you let that go?
Let's try to work through the process of finding where you started holding that or collecting that.
And then let's help you let it go.
And the thing about it is, it's a double negative anyway.
People are like, I can't let go of what I can't let go of.
(42:38):
Okay, let's reword that again. Two negatives together, that equals a positive.
And that's one of the – I always tell people, so many people seek me out because
they want hypnosis or hypnotherapy.
And hypnosis is a powerful technique. I love it. It works great.
I get to be creative about it.
But I also believe a lot in cognitive behavioral therapies and life coaching.
(43:03):
And I strongly, strongly, strongly believe in the Sedona method.
And a lot of people who, my clients who come to me have no idea what the Sedona method is.
And I tell them about it and I'm like, it's a release technique. It's about letting go.
And I, and I tell them we are engineered back, forward, side,
side, up and down to hold on to things.
(43:23):
And so if you create problems by holding, holding on to too many things,
then the obvious solution is the opposite to let go of it. But a lot of people
do not. And it's a process.
You don't just instantly learn to let go of stuff and including grief.
Grief is a big part of letting go of things.
And I think that's one of the reasons why it's to me, it's such an interesting topic, because to me,
(43:48):
the grieving process or some of the strategic ways that we look at and deal
with and experts do with grief is some of the same things that I see with the Sedona method.
A way of just letting go of the things that you can't control,
that don't serve you, that aren't abundant, that aren't empowering,
and that keep you down and prevent you from getting what you really want.
(44:11):
Yeah. And it's that mindset of...
If I do this, somehow it hurts someone else or somehow this or that.
And that is just your excuse mechanism. You're just hurting yourself.
To continue to hold on to it.
You know logically in your mind that if you become happy and move on and remarry
(44:33):
or do things in your life,
you know logically your past spouse who has died is not going to be hurt by that.
Right. If there is a heaven or if there is spirit or if there is all that stuff,
they're cheering you on.
Like I tell people all the time,
I used to say when I was really in the weeds, I'd say, you know what?
(44:53):
April would be kicking my ass right now. She'd be looking down and going, dude, are you serious?
That's not who I know. That's not my husband. That's not my man.
My man wouldn't be doing that shit. What's wrong with you?
That's what she would be saying. She wouldn't be saying, oh,
please don't move on. Please don't be hurting. That's going to hurt my feelings. on that. Right.
So people have to spin that around. Why are you holding on to that?
(45:17):
You're not holding it on for them because you know, logically,
that's not right. You're holding it on for something else.
Let's figure that out. Let's figure out why you're holding on to that belief.
Until we do, you're going to keep holding on to it. Like you said, a double negative.
Why do you think that loss has come? Like I see so many things about,
you know, and like I mentioned earlier, Anderson Cooper has done a thing on loss.
(45:40):
You know, everybody, a lot of people, not I should say everybody,
most people kind of have a sense of Anderson Cooper's story with his brother
and with his father losing them at early ages.
And then, you know, obviously COVID was not too long ago, but,
you know, grief, loss, bereavement has become a huge topic right now.
And, you know, on top of that, there's kind of an epidemic with suicide right now.
(46:05):
Why do you think that loss and grief and bereavement is at the forefront of things right now?
Do you think there's a pattern to it or a reason why?
I think it's a double-edged sword. I do. I think there's two things working here right now.
I think one, we're in the era of me, me, me, me, me, look at me,
look at me, look at me. I'm going to change my hair purple.
(46:27):
I'm going to pierce every body part.
I'm going to whine on you. I'm going to post something on Facebook that says,
oh, please pray for me and leave no other details.
Right. Right. There's just attention deficit disorder, you know,
or whatever we want to call it. But there's people desperately seeking attention
in any way they can. Right. So I think part of it's that.
(46:49):
But I think the other part is through COVID and through people getting more
in touch with themselves and people knowing that it's OK.
Just start sharing and opening up, especially this, you know,
we got this whole toxic masculinity thing that's floating around.
That is just so ridiculous.
You know, you know, and even when you've got a guy like Jerry Seinfeld coming
(47:11):
out and saying, Hey, I miss masculinity. Right.
You know, that stuff's getting sideways. And I just, I think it's, there's two sides of it.
I mean, one is just, it's just me, me, me, me, me. I'm going to,
I'm going to try to out depress you or out read you or I'm going to show I'm worse than you are.
And the other side of it is just people accepting now that you can actually,
(47:32):
it's okay to open up, right?
Nice. That makes sense. I'd never looked at it like that, but I think you're absolutely right.
I think it's kind of like this balance, this yin and yang of everybody wanting
and needing attention and not knowing sure how to get it.
And then on the other hand, people truly needing and being able to and free to ask for help.
(47:54):
So yeah, no, I think that's That's a perfect dichotomy that describes it.
Let's wrap up here and then I'll let you share how people can get in contact
with you and things like that.
But one of the big questions that I would like to kind of end with is for people
who are experiencing grief or people who just experienced grief or just had
someone to die or just get a diagnosis, things like that.
(48:17):
What is the number one thing that you recommend that they can do right now to
start working through it?
The number one thing that I tell everybody is keep talking.
Keep talking. You are not bugging anybody.
You are not taking anyone's time. You are not overburdening them.
(48:39):
You are not being a pain. We want desperately to hear from you.
We just don't know what to say.
We don't know what to say to you to try to make something better because none of us do.
We all say the wrong words. We say something stupid. But you lost your child
and you go, oh, don't worry. You can have another one. Right. Right.
Absolute worst thing you could say to someone or something like that.
(48:59):
Right. So, so we don't know what to say.
So the griever has to understand, listen, please keep reaching out.
Please keep, it's like, I joke to everybody, that thing about getting casseroles
is a hundred percent true.
When April died, I had all these chicks bringing me casseroles and food,
right? I'm like, that's a real thing. I didn't know.
Really? But, but yeah, it's, it's crazy. But the thing is that peters out because
(49:21):
people have lives you have to understand.
You know, I hear people all the time go Oh, well people stopped reaching out
and I don't hear from anyone and this and that I go because they've moved on Right have life.
It's not because they don't love you. It's not gonna right here.
It's not that they're concerned about you So phones work both ways.
So to answer your question, I'm sorry. I got a little long Is don't stop reaching
(49:44):
out don't wallow in your crap app, understand people want to hear from you and,
and, and you be proactive and reach out.
I love that. And the funny thing about it, how this all ties together is that's
just the opposite of what you said that you were doing in the beginning, which was running away.
(50:05):
Exactly. So instead of running away, you're saying keep the conversation going,
keep talking, keep it active and keep working.
I love that. This has been a great conversation.
I can't wait to have you as a guest again so we can kind of dive into some of
the specific stages of grief and kind of your grief training and what your current
thoughts are on grieving.
(50:26):
Before, though, before we do another episode on my podcast, how can people get in touch with you?
What are some of the ways or some of the social media presences or conduits
or avenues that people can reach out to you if they have questions about grief
or they want to retain your services or something like that?
Okay, the best way to do that is I'm on Facebook, just my name, Gary Scott.
(50:50):
But we also have a Grief Pie on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube.
We have a Facebook, I mean, griefpie.com. So you could reach out to me through
any of the grief pie sources up there.
Like I said, YouTube, it's all over the place, the grief pie or the website.
Really the best way is just go on my personal Facebook and shoot me a DM and
(51:13):
said, Hey dude, you know, I heard your thing. Can we chat for a little bit?
I, I, you know, I love to talk to people. I know people call it a consultation
or whatever initial consultation, whatever.
I just say, just call me, you know, DM me. I, you know, I, I...
I just desperately want to work with people. So thank you, Dr.
(51:35):
David, for giving me this opportunity. Yeah, people just go on my Facebook and
say, dude, I need to talk to you. And that would be the best way.
And tell me, I'm just curious, where did that, I love it because to me it kind
of goes along with the processes of grief and things like that.
But where did grief pie come from?
Is that from the casseroles or is that something?
(51:59):
Actually it came from it came from
me and and my my buddy who were who were we
were doing this together unfortunately just jim's had to step away yeah but
we were doing this together and and i kept laughing because it's like you know
the challenge with with you is and with so many people i don't mean to pinpoint
people and and say you like that but i mean because he and i've I've been friends
(52:23):
for 30 years, so it was easy.
So I said, you eat all this crap.
You've got to stop eating all this crap. Right. Because you're going to kill
yourself. Consuming. You're eating the grief.
So through that, it became grief pie. Yeah.
Two guys eating grief one bite at a time. Oh, wow.
(52:43):
So that's how it kind of came together. And that makes sense.
But unfortunately, that's gone, and I'm sad.
So we're just revamping a little bit and doing something different.
And like I said, you're my spirit animal, man. I mean, what you're doing is
super exciting to me, which is just all encompassing the human and not just
focusing on one thing. And that's just super exciting. No, absolutely.
I think that's why I take the approach that I do is because I think it all fits
(53:06):
a bigger – all the pieces fit into a bigger puzzle.
And we can't see all of them, but we can definitely put as many pieces on the board as we can.
And I think it's all connected, mind, body, spirit, soul, psyche.
All that stuff. So I love that. And the other thing, too, is that makes a lot
of sense because what you said to your friend, you're a consumer,
(53:27):
and that's the same thing as holding on to everything, which is the opposite of letting go.
So it makes sense because if you're a consumer, that's what you do.
And it's funny because so many billionaires in this world, people who've made
it by every kind of marker that we define and characterize success.
Most of them have made pledges to be philanthropists instead of being collectors.
(53:53):
So they've reversed. After they've gotten everything, billions of dollars,
now their whole motto is to give back.
So that makes perfect sense, which is also known as releasing or letting go.
So with that, thank you so much, Gary. you bring so much energy to the space.
I'm serious about us having a follow-up episode where we actually talk about
some of your training and what you learned from it and what you think about
(54:17):
some of the stages of grief and Kepler-Ross and some of the different processes.
We can definitely dive into that. I mean, obviously we could talk about grief
forever, but we could at least give it two episodes, if not three.
But thank you so much for being here today.
I look Look forward to being a guest on your podcast and everybody,
you know, definitely check out Gary Scott's Facebook profile file,
(54:42):
otherwise known as Gear Bear or the Gatornata.
So definitely check him out. And we have so much to learn from him.
Thanks so much, Gary. I look forward to future episodes.
Thank you. Hey, you take care. Bye bye.
Good afternoon. This is Dr. David back with another episode of the Fresh Start with Dr. David podcast.
It's been a couple of weeks, and I have been busy, which I'll be sharing with
you in just a few minutes. Some very, very exciting opportunities.
And I'll be introducing my guest expert today on a topic that I personally love,
(00:24):
love just because the way that we handle it and the way that we look at it and
kind of the analysis that we use for it,
I think it can be applied to so many mental health disorders.
Personal circumstances and situations and challenges and things like that.
I think it's just brilliant.
So I'm really excited about the topic that I'm going to be speaking about today
(00:45):
and conversing with my expert special guest.
And it's also a topic that I've talked about in the the past.
So there is a previous episode, I believe it's during season two,
where I also talked about this topic.
So I'm really, really excited to be back with everybody.
I've had a bunch of new subscribers lately. I'm really excited about that.
So welcome back to the Fresh Start with Dr. David podcast.
(01:07):
It is the spring slash summer of 2024.
We've just entered or June. So this, I, you know, as you know,
I'm a huge believer in the energy and the power of the seasons.
Regardless of your beliefs, we can all acknowledge that certain things happen
(01:28):
on this planet during certain times of the year.
Certain times of the year, this planet gets colder. Other times of the year, it has more daylight.
Other times of the year, we get more rain. Other times of the year,
plants grow and sprout and other times they recede.
So everything on this planet operates according to seasons.
And I try to use that in my own life. One of the things that I try to do in
(01:50):
my own life is I try to plant seeds during certain times of the year.
And then I do things to cultivate and grow and then later harvest them.
So I kind of use that approach.
I try to live my life according to the seasons. I have a course that I do.
If you're ever interested, feel free to get in contact with me and I can tell
you about it. But I do a course every year in concordance with the season.
(02:11):
So I really do believe that you should try to act in accordance and concordance
with the planet and our seasons, the energy of that. And I just think it adds a lot to your life.
So anyway, welcome to this season of energy.
There are a lot of things going on. I'm so happy to announce that.
My office, as you know, I have offices in Buckhead and I also have offices in
(02:36):
Decatur, which are both in the greater Atlanta area.
But I will be closing my office in Decatur between now and the end of July and
opening up a suite of offices with multiple professionals in the Brookhaven area.
And that's going to happen between now and the end of next month.
So I'm really, really excited about that.
That'll be closer to my office in Buckhead. So you'll have the option of having
(02:59):
an appointment at either my Brookhaven offices or my Buckhead office,
whichever is more convenient for you.
And also, you know, as you know, you also have the office, the option of doing
some appointments virtually, if you like.
So with that, let's get started with today.
I've got a very, very special expert guest. His name is Gary Scott.
(03:21):
He's also known as Gare Bear or the Garenator, if you want to take an Arnold
Schwarzenegger Terminator kind of approach to it. But welcome, Gary Scott.
Doctor that was epic that was absolutely the best girl you mean the garenator,
(03:42):
the garenator that was epic i i
have to say thank you for this you know you are kind of like my spirit animal
as far as you know what you do you know where you're taking things the direction
you're going with stop i mean i just have such a strong belief in what you're
(04:03):
doing and and how you're doing it.
So this is really exciting for me. So grateful for your time.
You're so busy. I don't even know how you do all this. So thank you for allowing me in.
Absolutely. Absolutely. And I'm never too busy. Never too busy.
I am, as you know, I am busy. And people always tell me to slow down.
(04:23):
And I say, well, you know what? That's one of my life lessons.
I have to work on that all day, every day. So I do work on slowing down.
But you're right. A lot of times I work seven days a week. I believe,
not that I'm counting, I believe I've I've had 10 days off since December 27th
when I returned from the holidays last year. But you know what?
A lot of people might complain about it. Typically, I work six,
(04:44):
seven days a week, and I try to work under 80 hours a week, but a lot of times
I try to keep it in the sweet spot of around 60, 65.
But here's the way that I look at it. The way that I look at it is God has given
me so many, God and the universe have given me so many opportunities to share
who I am with the world and to
help other people grow. grow and those opportunities don't last forever.
(05:05):
So my goal is to maximize those, but you're right, work-life balance is also important.
So that is a life lesson that I'm always trying to learn and teach myself and share with others.
But I'm so thrilled to have you. You have such great energy.
You know, for people who don't know, I'm a huge believer in energy.
I think there's so many things that we can see and we can use senses to see
(05:30):
and hear and all those kinds of things.
Things that, you know, that we feel and that we know are there, that we sense.
And when it comes to people, I've always been a person.
I've always been empathic. I've always been someone who sensed things from people,
even if they were going through pain and hiding it, I could always tell.
(05:51):
And when I was a child, I didn't know what to do with that.
But as an adult, it guides a lot of like the healing work that I do.
So I'm so happy to hear, have you here today, Gear Bear, Garenera.
And, you know, with that, how about you, rather than me introduce you,
how about you introduce us to you and tell us all about who you are,
(06:16):
what you do and what you bring, because there's so much there.
Well, right on. Thank you for that. I, you know, I, I, um, just real quick.
I mean, You know, I've always from birth been a health nut.
You know, I was the only geek in high school who ate the one salad that they
would actually put up, you know, while we were eating pizza and all this stuff.
(06:37):
And my friends just made fun of me that my yearbook was full of the salad, dude. Oh, funny.
So I've always been about health, diet, exercise, you know, things like that,
what we're putting in our body, anti-inflammation diets and things like that. Yeah.
It's always been important. I mean, I know how important that is to you.
But how I got here was the greatest life in the world, just such a blessed human.
(07:01):
And then my wife, my first wife, April, got sick. She had cancer.
Fought it for a couple of years. I was her caregiver. It was just the most brutal
couple of years. She passed.
And, of course, this was 2014.
So I went through the massive crash and burn mission that happens many times
when people lose someone who is my childhood sweetheart.
(07:23):
As it happened, a very good friend of mine, he was losing his wife to cancer.
He didn't want to reach out to me because he's like, dude, I don't want to,
you know, I don't want to bring care down.
I mean, but he finally did. And I said, dude, why did you wait to call me?
So we started having these long conversations about what was going on with his
healing and his, and his wife dying and stuff like that.
(07:45):
And then I got cancer. I'm like, wait, double win. Now I get both sides of it.
I can be the caregiver. Right.
And I can also be the victim, not the patient, because with cancer,
there isn't a patient. You're a victim.
And then through that, we created a podcast that we're doing called Grease Pie.
Basically, we were just trying to reach out to men initially to say,
(08:10):
hey, listen, men, you guys don't talk.
You can't bury this stuff. Men are just horrible at being afraid to.
I mean, like in the military, God forbid you say that I'm hurting and they kick you out, right?
It's mad that men aren't allowed to share. So we started this grief podcast.
Through this, just so many people reached out. So many people.
(08:31):
I'm just hearing so many stories.
I'm like, holy cow. I had no idea how much pain was out there, right?
So I got involved with this program called the Grief Recovery Institute.
I got myself certified in the grief recovery method.
(09:14):
I know. So that's my ideal about, you know, you encompass so much of the healing
process, not just one specific thing.
And I just think that's amazing. So anyway, that's how I'm here.
Well, thank you. No, no, that was a great synopsis. And thank you so much for your kind words.
You know, so much of what you just said resonated with me because,
(09:37):
you know, on other podcasts I've talked about, you know, One of the reasons
why I started this podcast in the first place was just because I've always believed,
and I think part of it was my medical education and training,
but I think a part of it was some of the training that I did outside of medical school.
(09:58):
But I started this podcast because, to me, there's so many problems with the
healthcare system. It's like, where do you even start?
You know, a lot of times people start with insurance and stuff like that.
But that's, you know, to me, that's not even really the genesis of where the problems start.
But that's why I started it. And then I also started it because of mental health
and the status of mental health in this country and the crisis.
(10:21):
And I didn't want to just have a podcast or a show where I just talk about challenges,
problems, and dilemmas. I wanted one that was also focused on solutions.
Because to me, you start with a problem, that leads you to a question,
and that question hopefully leads you to search for some answers and find some solutions.
(10:42):
So that's why I started this podcast today.
One of the reasons why I love, and honestly, it blows me away sometimes,
some of the details that I remember from college and high school and things
like that, stuff that other people have totally forgotten. They're like,
you remember that? And I'm like, yeah.
And it's amazing. And in my case, I can actually say that after a 30-year habit
(11:07):
of smoking cigarettes, even if it wasn't a high amount, my memory has totally increased.
East. I made the decision to quit smoking on January 28th of 2019. And absolutely.
And the funny thing about it is when I made that decision, I kind of was,
I guess my thinking and, you know, that was five years or over five years ago,
(11:29):
my thinking was kind of like, you know, my memory's not as sharp.
My thinking's not as sharp. I guess that's just part of getting old,
but actually it was not, it was smoking.
And, you know, one of the biggest messages that I try to send to people,
but whether they're vaping, and vaping is in a lot of ways more addictive than cigarette smoking.
But one of the biggest messages I try to tell people is that,
(11:49):
yeah, smoking is bad for your lungs and it's bad for your body,
but just think about what it does to your brain, honestly.
And so your brain gets fogged up with nicotine. Absolutely, absolutely.
Worse than any place else, actually. So it's funny, but, you know,
I remember specifically, and I can't remember what year this was.
This was obviously during the 90s when I was in college.
(12:11):
But I remember when I read in one of my psychology books about the Kubler-Ross.
The Kubler-Ross theory about grief and the stages of grief and different things like that.
So I do remember covering that in college.
And then later on, I saw where several authors and experts and psychologists
(12:35):
had expanded upon that and had added different things to it.
The thing that I liked about the concept of grief is a couple of different things.
Number one, similar to kind of addiction theories, is that one of the things
about grief is that it's a process.
It's a process that you constantly work through, and it's generally not ever fully 100% resolved.
(13:01):
So I like that kind of idea about it. The other thing that I liked about it
was the systematic approach.
And as a Virgo, as a – Oh, the Virgo male? Yeah, as a male Virgo,
as an ND, very analytical and very systematic about everything for the most part.
In fact, part of my life lessons is to let some things go and go with the flow
(13:26):
and not try to plan everything.
But I love that it has a system. So one of the things that really got me about
grief and some of the latest postulates and theories and methods of coping with
it was the systematic approach to it,
which we'll be diving into today and which I've also talked about during a previous podcast episode.
(13:47):
But in terms of you, if, you know, I would kind of get like to get a sense of
kind of, you know, what it was like for you when you first started kind of dealing with it,
because one of the things that I'm a big believer in is that our brains try to predict the future.
Our brains really work hard to try to piece together ideas and material.
(14:14):
And I really, really do believe that in a lot of ways,
our brains, different parts of our brain, try to deal with grief before it happens,
especially if you're talking about somebody who has a diagnosis or a chronic
illness or something like that.
So I really do believe that we kind of pre-grieve. But tell me a little bit,
if you wouldn't mind, share a little bit about kind of your experiences about
(14:37):
how you about what the things that started to lead you to this direction.
Well, you know, talking to people, hearing their stories, you know,
it's a thing that grief is, you know, we've got grief is about a broken heart,
not a broken brain. Right.
(14:57):
And so, like you said, it's such a process. And even even Kubler-Ross stepped
back from her denial, anger, bargaining, depression and acceptance because she
said, I came up with that for someone who is dying.
Right. For the patient who's dying, the person who's going through the end of
their life, goes through these stages.
The person who survived, the griever, doesn't necessarily go through these stages.
(15:22):
It's not as set in stone as her person who's going through the grief.
And then the people expand it to seven and nine and things like that to try to create that.
But when you look at the grief, you know, when you look at death.
Divorce, loss of a job, loss of a business, loss of a pet is a massive area of grief.
(15:42):
I was shocked at how loss of a pet affects. So when I'm looking at all these
areas, I'm like, holy cow.
And then, like you said, COVID exposed it even more to a degree where people
are like, wow, I'm not going to hide this anymore.
More because so many people are going through it
i'm just going to come out of the closet and go yeah i'm really
(16:03):
suffering and so being an
empath myself being a little empathetic like a virgo oh my
god absolutely absolutely libras libras too from what i've heard right yeah
i just felt very strongly that i needed i needed to do more right i i completely
(16:24):
completely crashed and burned with the passing of my wife.
I mean, mistake after mistake after mistake and then mistake.
So when I'm talking to people and they go, I feel really bad.
I did this. I did that. I'm like, dude, hold my beer.
No way. You know, you have to understand you can't.
Own that you can't blame yourself
(16:45):
for what happened during this period right
because there's so much healing and then then there's something many people
have come to me with something like the loss of a pet or the loss of a spouse
once we go a little deeper yeah that's really not even the foundation right
right or the biggest part of their grief bingo,
(17:07):
Ringo, Ringo, it goes back earlier.
Yeah, it goes back earlier. I say that to my clients all the time.
One of the things that I do, one of the tools that I use that I love in my office, and I will never,
ever, ever have a professional office that doesn't include one is I have a whiteboard
and I do a lot of coaching with my clients and we work through things.
(17:29):
And it doesn't matter whether it's somebody who's got chronic panic attacks
or if they are depressed or if they're anxious or if they've got,
you know, adjustment-oriented issues,
or, you know, problems with life direction or problems with procrastination
or decision-making or whatever, we get on that whiteboard and we work through
it and we get to the bottom of it.
(17:49):
And every single time without fail, 100% of the time, no matter what problem
somebody presents with, it goes back to something during childhood.
I had a client recently who's had having or had panic attacks recently,
which we're starting to overcome and conquer.
And one of the things that we realize is that his panic attacks are emanating
(18:13):
from things that happened to him during his childhood.
So I think, and, you know, we all go through losses at different points in life.
And so the thing about it is I kind of use kind of the thing about like,
you know, like a scab or a scar or a cut.
You know, almost, almost regardless of where you get a cut or,
(18:34):
you know, a sewer or something like that on your arm or your leg,
chances are you should previously had one at some earlier stage.
So, I mean, you know, what you said about that is like, it's like so dead on Dr.
D because, you know, people think of loss is like we said, a pet,
you know, a spouse, a divorce, something like that. But there's,
there's, there's loss of trust.
(18:55):
There's loss of safety, You know, the loss of control over your body,
if you were maybe molested as a child or something like that.
So there's so many different levels of the loss that may be buried under so
much of our life, you know, so much of our garbage that we think it's this.
But it most likely is not.
(19:17):
It's that deeper level, especially the loss of safety when you're a child.
You know, if something's going on with your parents or something's going on
at school or you've been bullying or something like that, that loss is so strong, that loss of safety.
That loss of self. It can stay with you forever. That loss of self.
When you lose safety, when you lose security, you're losing elements that are
(19:41):
within you. So it's a loss of self, too.
Absolutely. It truly is a loss of self. And I was just blown away by the amount
of different things that you're working through, helping people work through.
I mean, it was astounding. I'm like, holy cow, because those things,
if you take – if we tore them into pieces of paper and tore them and put them
(20:04):
in a jar or funnel or whatever.
I mean, it's just so full. And yet you pulled them out.
It's like so many people are going to be able to pull one out and have something in there.
In their past or in their background from what healing that
you're working on so i was like that's that's
amazing i mean and the success you're having is crazy but i
(20:25):
think if if that whiteboard is
epic i love that i if you saw my office it's right now or my my room i take
those big stickies those big huge stickies and i stick them up right as i'm
working with individual people so i could take that sticky off and say here's
what we worked with Here's what I wrote down. You know, let's let's keep this.
(20:47):
And it's magical because you see it. You see what's going on.
And that's that's that's awesome. I love you do that.
Yeah. I mean, because we're visual creatures. I mean, as you may or may not
know, you know, I believe in a lot of kind of outside the cuff of medicine modalities,
things like NLP or neurolinguistic programming, etc.
(21:08):
Hypnosis, hypnotherapy, which was used by Dr. Sigmund Freud,
the father of psychiatry, and Dr.
Milton Erickson, another prominent psychiatrist in history.
So, I mean, I use a lot of outside-the-box techniques, and my assumption is
always that there's not a single answer, that it's a mix and match of different
puzzle pieces that you put together.
(21:29):
And you could start in different places, but it involves a lot of different
modalities and answers and solutions to kind of reach a place of clarity.
And so one of the cool things about my whiteboard is, you know,
when we do a white, when I do a whiteboard exercise with a client,
I never write their name on the board.
We put the problem or the topic at the top, and then we just kind of work through
(21:52):
it. And the funny thing about it is a lot of times, if I haven't erased the
whiteboard, the next client who comes in, they'll be talking about their problem
or some dilemma that they have or a challenge.
And they'll look up at the whiteboard and they're like, oh, my God,
that's the answer to my problem.
And I'm like, that's a process that works for everything. It's amazing.
And then they'll say, you know, can I take a picture of it? Yada,
(22:15):
yada, yada. How does this relate to my problem? And it does.
It's a formula. formula one of the things that that
you mentioned that i think is really really really kind of
key here and important at least kind of my
thinking because i also do consulting work in forensic psychiatry and in addiction
psychiatry and one of the things one of the big concepts in addiction psychiatry
(22:36):
is just kind of the notion that people crash and burn like you know people decide
to get help when something happens some sentinel event you know or they've lost
everything you know i I mean,
the down and out drug addict, that kind of thing. They've hit rock bottom.
One of the things that you mentioned is, you know, when you were starting to encounter.
Some challenges and things like that, you kind of crashed and burned.
(23:00):
I guess that kind of sparked my curiosity.
In terms of you crashing and burning, I know people use that phrase a lot,
but how did that materialize?
What did that mean for you? What was the crash and the burn for you?
The symbols, the signs and symptoms and symbols that let you know that you needed
to kind of regroup and reboot?
(23:22):
Oh, there, there are many. I, uh, my wife passed in December of 2014 and in
March of 2015, I was engaged.
Oh, wow. A young lady that just met a spectacular woman, loved her son.
Her son desperately needed a father figure.
I was just going to adopt this kid. My kids liked her son, did not like her and were mad at her.
(23:48):
And, and so that two years of, I just hurt a lot of people there.
And the interesting thing about that was that everyone blamed her.
And I just, I just felt so bad about that. Like, how could you get with someone
whose wife just died? You know, what were you thinking?
What's wrong with you? But she, she had her needs also. So, you know, she had been divorced.
(24:12):
She had a horrible nine year marriage. You know, her husband forgets to even
send birthday and Christmas cards.
I mean, he was just not a good guy. Right. So I, well, my heart,
I'm a spectacular guy. I'm a great guy. And I would agree.
I agree. 100%. I'm a, I'm a great husband to my current wife.
We're best friends. We're partners. But the thing is, she had needs too.
(24:35):
So she clung on to what she thought was good for her.
There's no blame there at all. And there's no blame on me.
I missed my companion. I missed my partner.
I'm not a dater. I love to be in a relationship, right? So I immediately clung
on to the first person I had a glass of wine with.
But when I left her, when I called everything off, I canceled two weddings and called everything off.
(25:00):
Wow, two weddings? I heard so many people. Yeah, two weddings.
Wait, so this is to the same woman?
Yep. So you were going to get married to her twice and you canceled two weddings.
Two weddings we were set to get married like you know
it's like we got an age in march we're going to get married in october i
had to cancel that and then we're going to get married again on like february i
can't put that one and then down the road i just i moved out there's a movie
(25:23):
about that isn't there a movie about like the runaway bride or something like
that or oh i think there is exactly right or runaway bride or something yeah
oh my god i just thought that was fixed When I left her,
that's when it really spiraled because I compounded everything in my mind.
(25:43):
Not only did I run from the pain of my wife's passing and just completely ignore
it, just completely run from it.
Then I got into a beautiful family, just destroyed those poor folks.
I mean, she was devastated.
The son was devastated. Her family loved me. They were devastated.
Cost myself a lot of money canceling two weddings. and then
through my grief through my pain and
(26:06):
because your body is so much smarter than you
are i went to a real estate conference i'm a
real estate broker right i went to a real estate conference and
i'm standing there looking at a pair of socks talking to this guy
and boom i just next thing i knew i woke
up in a wheelchair with an ambulance and they're
taking me to the hospital i'm like why do you guys have me in
a wheelchair so basically i just had a nervous breakdown down so
(26:29):
through that nervous they put me
through all the tests they said dude you it's a visual vaginal you know what
it is because you're doctors like people see the side of blood and faint was
it a stroke or more of a shock event so it was just it was it was people see
the side of blood and they faint right there's a there's a name for what happens
(26:50):
to your brain when it shuts.
And my brain said, dude, you are in a really bad spot.
I'm going to shut you down. And it did.
Right. And so and then from there, I slowly kind of started to work on myself. I quit drinking.
I got way back into my exercise program, way back into my diet.
(27:13):
And just said, listen, you've got to heal yourself. But most importantly,
you've got to face April's death.
I mean, you just have to. Now, along the way, of course, I made a few more mistakes
and hurt some more people.
But through that, I knew the entire time my gut told me, you know what the challenge is.
(27:33):
And you're just not facing it. And until you do, you're just going to keep screwing
up. Now, let me ask you a question about that. Yeah.
Before you came to that realization, had it been your perception that you had
already worked through that grief or not?
Absolutely. You were convinced that you had worked through it,
(27:55):
right? Yeah, I did not want to face it. Didn't want to look at it.
Couldn't. I mean, I was her caretaker for two years.
I absolutely, my first wife, April, like, no, but we were kids when we got together.
We were, we just love each other. Right. So while she was sick and dying of
cancer, and you know what they put people through when they know they,
you know, they just kill you.
(28:16):
It was so devastating to me that when she finally passed and you have that guilt
of relief, like, oh, my God, thank God they're gone because I'm dying.
She's dying. I don't know how much longer I could have taken it.
Right. So you have the guilt of that and then you have the grief.
Right. So I knew that I wasn't facing either one of them.
(28:38):
Right. I was just running.
Wow. And running. That's that. I love the word that you used running.
Cause that says a lot right there. Fight or flight.
And then after she passed, uh,
you then learned that you had cancer as well? It was about, it was after I remarried, lucky my wife.
(29:04):
And it was about six, six years after she passed, six, seven years after she
had passed, I found out I had cancer.
And so, so I went to my new wife and I said, honey, I want a divorce.
And she said, she was a little shocked. And she said, why? I go,
well, because you are not a caretaker and you're not a caregiver.
(29:27):
I said, no offense. That's nothing. That's your nature. There's nothing wrong
with that. You're, you know, you have, you're a Gemini.
I said, so, so to save, she already has a twin to take care of.
Yeah, exactly. She has no interest in taking out care of someone else.
So it, to, to keep you from going through what I went through and what caretakers
go through and you end up saying, well, he's sick and he's dying and I can't
(29:51):
do this listen to Marshall. I'm leaving. Right.
Right. You leave now. You're going to be proactive about it.
Yeah. That way you aren't the bad guy. If you leave me now, it's like,
yeah, it didn't work out. Whatever.
I just hide the cancer and I just do my stuff and I'm, I'm fine.
You leave when I'm in the weeds and I'm really sick and dying.
(30:12):
You'll never forgive yourself.
It'll be a whole different thing. Right. You leave now. I don't want you to go through.
Yeah. And she's like, well so then
i so what what i did is i completely kept her
away from all treatments i said well if you're going to stay you're not
going to my radiology you're not watching me get fried you're
(30:32):
not going to my chemo you're not going to my surgery you're not doing anything
i need you to go live your life go scuba diving she's a scuba instructor you
go travel you live your life i've got this i've been here i know what to do
fortunately it was caught very early stage one And I got through it.
Well, you can hear my lisp.
I still can't talk because it cut out my tongue and all this other stuff.
(30:53):
But but so I was not going to subject her to that.
And she went along with that? 100%. Wow. Why do you think that is?
Because she knew it was the right thing. Okay. She knew in her gut,
as much as you don't want to admit to yourself, that, hey, but I was not going to accept either.
(31:17):
I was about to say that. I mean, I was going to say. That's why she went along
with it, because she wasn't going to get any other choice, because you understood
the mechanics of it, and she just had to trust you.
You it's either divorce or i'm going
to take care of this and you're going to live your life you're not
going to hear me whine you're not going to hear me snivel um you're
(31:38):
going to watch me get really ugly and sick and i'm
sorry about that but we'll deal
with that as those events occur and so
no she didn't take me to single chemo single radiation she
did you know bring me back from the surgery because i
had to go to go to san diego and have it done
but i mean so she drove me home and but yeah so but
(32:00):
see that felt better to me right because
cancer as you know is an
animal that cannot be controlled right and
we wanted some control over the process yeah you
search desperately for some sort of control in
your life because it's spinning out of control absolutely and and and for me
(32:21):
that was hugely important way to do it wow that's that is amazing because Because
some of my favorite words are words that are about being proactive.
Proactivity, preemptive, all of those things that take into account thinking
and analyzing about things and planning for things before they happen. So I love that approach.
(32:46):
And I think that's incredible that, you know, obviously there's a tremendous
amount of trust between you two for her to go along with that,
because that's basically an ultimatum.
Either we're going to get a divorce or we're going to handle it this way.
So that's an amazing amount of bonding and trust that you guys clearly have
(33:08):
and had in order to allow that to happen that way. Yeah.
Well, you know, we got together during COVID. Oh, okay. Luke,
how we got together, she reached out to me and friended me.
And she chased me down because I'm just that good looking.
And I think we just bonded so strongly over being the way we are.
(33:31):
You know, she's a Gemini. I'm an Aries.
I love the child in the Gemini. I love that it's twins.
You wake up every day. You don't know who you're going to be with.
My first wife was a Gemini. We we both are scuba divers.
We're hikers. We're exercisers. We're golfers. We're gun enthusiasts.
We're we're, you know, we just are really compatible.
(33:53):
I told her, you know, had I had I not been so damn sexually attracted to you,
we would have been really good friends.
Because we're just super compatible so nice we we she's been married three other
times no right to the same yeah twice to the same guy it's kind of a weird story
so she's only been married to two guys but she's been i think that's more common
(34:13):
than we realize honestly,
or maybe it's just the field that i work in well no i mean people being married
to the same person more than once that's a trip isn't it it's true i never realized
how and maybe it's because i work in forensics and do relationship work and things like that.
But I'm amazed at how many people have said that they were either engaged to
(34:34):
the same person twice or they married and then divorced and then remarried the same person again.
It's a weird kind of phenomenon, but I think it happens more often.
It's like stepping in poop twice. You know, you see it again and you go,
I'm going to step in it again, which is a bad analogy.
But just to leave it here is just that because of that and because of what I
(34:56):
went through and who she and I are together is truth.
That's the one thing we said as our foundation because she had been hurt a lot. I had not. But I said –.
You and I will be, you and I will have a relationship that other people will
either be enamored by or horrified by.
(35:16):
Because it's like, you know, we talked about people, all the divorces that happened during COVID.
Because people got stuck at home and they didn't even like each other.
Right. Or didn't even know each other. I hate you. Or didn't even know each other.
So our relation has been grounded in ultimate truth since the day we got together.
(35:37):
And just speak it. Don't hide it. speak it. I could see it in your face, what's going on.
And I think that helped us get through that.
Now, tell me about the, tell me about how you started with, how you found the
center that you found, how your training started, how that whole journey began.
(35:57):
Someone on Facebook had watched a podcast and said, dude, I love your podcast,
but I'll never watch it again. I can't handle it. It's too honest.
It's too deep. You guys just are like, you know, I can't,
I can't watch it okay and i've heard that over and over
and that's why i'm changing the whole foundation of i'm changing
the grief pie into a completely different podcast right it
was just too much for people we were too honest we brought
(36:20):
people in who just you know buried their soul and it was just too tough for
a lot of people right um but but he did say to me do do yourself a favor and
go get a pickup i'm a big big time reader and i and he said get the grief recovery
handbook I just read it. He goes, I think. Can I say that again?
It's called Grief Recovery Handbook. Grief Recovery Handbook.
(36:44):
And it's by the Grief Recovery Institute.
These two guys founded it like 40 some odd years ago. And they are like the
only, I guess they call it accredited grief program with proven results and
things like that. And their process is really great.
So I've read a lot of books on grief and healing and stuff like that.
(37:04):
This one really stuck with me because their bottom line was, you know, you don't.
Grief, although it is a process, it's not a life-term sentence, right?
You know, the person's gone, but you're not, you know?
And so the process that we go through, that we take people through helps them
(37:27):
free themselves, help them be able to say goodbye to the grief without saying
goodbye to the person, right?
And to me, that was so important because having lost someone so close to me, you have that fear.
Well, if I let go, or if I remarry, or I'm happy, God forbid, I'm happy.
Right. I'm betraying the person. Somehow that hurts them. Right.
I'm betraying the person that I lost.
(37:49):
Yeah. So that grief recovery institute was really awesome. So went through the certificate program.
I'm going deeper and deeper into the training with them.
And I just, you know, it's just my passion now.
It's just like, if I never sold another house again and just went broke and
had of eat beans and just like work with people.
That's it. I, I just, this is, I'm just driven by this.
(38:13):
I'm just, I'm like you said, I mean, grief is, it's so massive and,
and there's so many levels of it, Dr.
David, that, I mean, you'll never hit bottom.
You know, one of the principles that I'm a strong believer in and I share with
my clients and it's one of those kind of universal, you know,
I believe in a lot of things. I believe in astrology.
(38:33):
I believe in neurology. I believe in psychology.
I believe in karma. I believe in the law of attraction.
One of the things that I also kind of believe in, aside from those things,
is the concept of transference and balance.
And when I say that, what I mean is I truly, truly believe that a lot of the
(38:56):
things that we claim that we want are on the other side of us letting go of
the things that don't serve us.
I truly believe that. And I use an analogy with people, and I really do believe
this is kind of how we're wired in a lot of ways, but we are collectors.
(39:17):
We collect. Our DNA collects things.
Most of our DNA, people don't know this, most of our DNA is junk DNA or filler DNA.
It just means the same thing repeated over and over again.
Kind of like how a teacher would make you write, I will not talk in class.
While the teacher speaks over and over on a paper. I mean, that's how our DNA is organized.
(39:40):
And most of it is DNA that's just repeated over and over again.
But we collect things. Even it's the same thing over and you'll see people, you know.
These mega billionaires and millionaires who have like the same Bugatti,
just in a different color.
You know, they'll have like 18 Bugattis. It's like, okay, it's a $2 million
car and two wasn't good enough.
(40:03):
Two colors wasn't, you had to have it in every variation.
Like, come on. I mean, seriously, it just makes no sense. That's what we do.
And I always tell people when I work with clients and I see objectively the
things that they're holding onto and trying mind to help them free themselves
from and let go and release,
(40:23):
it's kind of like if you met somebody and they had two, let's say they were an orphan, right?
You met this orphan who's 15 and they've got these two beat up,
busted, scorched earth suitcases with tattered clothing, rags, et cetera, et cetera.
But the things that they've collected as an orphan over the last 15 years,
(40:47):
and then you You meet that person, and you've got two suitcases,
but your suitcases are immaculate, and they're filled with millions of dollars.
And you try to get that person to switch with you, and they go,
well, you know, those clear cases like you see on Let's Make a Deal or whatever,
you know, they look really attractive.
(41:07):
And, oh, my God, you know, I could buy an island and a mansion and all this stuff.
But you know what? These are my suitcases. I'm not giving them up.
And, I mean, that's what we do. And so one of the things that I always try to
share with people and illustrate and show them is that everything you want or
desire is on the other side of the things that you need to give up in order to be free.
(41:31):
And it takes a lot of energy to get that to happen.
Yeah. Outstanding. Yeah. I mean, that is, I know we've gone on here a little bit longer. No, no.
There's no time limit. That to me is so much everything in a nutshell.
It's like they say, we have 80,000 thoughts a day and 70% of them are negative, right?
(41:53):
And probably even more than that. And as big of a portion of that is repetitive.
It's the same negative. We just beat each other up with the same stupid crap
every day because it's ours. We're just holding on to it.
And when you say, well, just why don't you let that go? out.
Just the thought is mind blowing to people like, well, what do you mean?
(42:15):
I can't let that go. You go, well, why not?
And why can't you let that go?
Let's try to work through the process of finding where you started holding that or collecting that.
And then let's help you let it go.
And the thing about it is, it's a double negative anyway.
People are like, I can't let go of what I can't let go of.
(42:38):
Okay, let's reword that again. Two negatives together, that equals a positive.
And that's one of the – I always tell people, so many people seek me out because
they want hypnosis or hypnotherapy.
And hypnosis is a powerful technique. I love it. It works great.
I get to be creative about it.
But I also believe a lot in cognitive behavioral therapies and life coaching.
(43:03):
And I strongly, strongly, strongly believe in the Sedona method.
And a lot of people who, my clients who come to me have no idea what the Sedona method is.
And I tell them about it and I'm like, it's a release technique. It's about letting go.
And I, and I tell them we are engineered back, forward, side,
side, up and down to hold on to things.
(43:23):
And so if you create problems by holding, holding on to too many things,
then the obvious solution is the opposite to let go of it. But a lot of people
do not. And it's a process.
You don't just instantly learn to let go of stuff and including grief.
Grief is a big part of letting go of things.
And I think that's one of the reasons why it's to me, it's such an interesting topic, because to me,
(43:48):
the grieving process or some of the strategic ways that we look at and deal
with and experts do with grief is some of the same things that I see with the Sedona method.
A way of just letting go of the things that you can't control,
that don't serve you, that aren't abundant, that aren't empowering,
and that keep you down and prevent you from getting what you really want.
(44:11):
Yeah. And it's that mindset of...
If I do this, somehow it hurts someone else or somehow this or that.
And that is just your excuse mechanism. You're just hurting yourself.
To continue to hold on to it.
You know logically in your mind that if you become happy and move on and remarry
(44:33):
or do things in your life,
you know logically your past spouse who has died is not going to be hurt by that.
Right. If there is a heaven or if there is spirit or if there is all that stuff,
they're cheering you on.
Like I tell people all the time,
I used to say when I was really in the weeds, I'd say, you know what?
(44:53):
April would be kicking my ass right now. She'd be looking down and going, dude, are you serious?
That's not who I know. That's not my husband. That's not my man.
My man wouldn't be doing that shit. What's wrong with you?
That's what she would be saying. She wouldn't be saying, oh,
please don't move on. Please don't be hurting. That's going to hurt my feelings. on that. Right.
So people have to spin that around. Why are you holding on to that?
(45:17):
You're not holding it on for them because you know, logically,
that's not right. You're holding it on for something else.
Let's figure that out. Let's figure out why you're holding on to that belief.
Until we do, you're going to keep holding on to it. Like you said, a double negative.
Why do you think that loss has come? Like I see so many things about,
you know, and like I mentioned earlier, Anderson Cooper has done a thing on loss.
(45:40):
You know, everybody, a lot of people, not I should say everybody,
most people kind of have a sense of Anderson Cooper's story with his brother
and with his father losing them at early ages.
And then, you know, obviously COVID was not too long ago, but,
you know, grief, loss, bereavement has become a huge topic right now.
And, you know, on top of that, there's kind of an epidemic with suicide right now.
(46:05):
Why do you think that loss and grief and bereavement is at the forefront of things right now?
Do you think there's a pattern to it or a reason why?
I think it's a double-edged sword. I do. I think there's two things working here right now.
I think one, we're in the era of me, me, me, me, me, look at me,
look at me, look at me. I'm going to change my hair purple.
(46:27):
I'm going to pierce every body part.
I'm going to whine on you. I'm going to post something on Facebook that says,
oh, please pray for me and leave no other details.
Right. Right. There's just attention deficit disorder, you know,
or whatever we want to call it. But there's people desperately seeking attention
in any way they can. Right. So I think part of it's that.
(46:49):
But I think the other part is through COVID and through people getting more
in touch with themselves and people knowing that it's OK.
Just start sharing and opening up, especially this, you know,
we got this whole toxic masculinity thing that's floating around.
That is just so ridiculous.
You know, you know, and even when you've got a guy like Jerry Seinfeld coming
(47:11):
out and saying, Hey, I miss masculinity. Right.
You know, that stuff's getting sideways. And I just, I think it's, there's two sides of it.
I mean, one is just, it's just me, me, me, me, me. I'm going to,
I'm going to try to out depress you or out read you or I'm going to show I'm worse than you are.
And the other side of it is just people accepting now that you can actually,
(47:32):
it's okay to open up, right?
Nice. That makes sense. I'd never looked at it like that, but I think you're absolutely right.
I think it's kind of like this balance, this yin and yang of everybody wanting
and needing attention and not knowing sure how to get it.
And then on the other hand, people truly needing and being able to and free to ask for help.
(47:54):
So yeah, no, I think that's That's a perfect dichotomy that describes it.
Let's wrap up here and then I'll let you share how people can get in contact
with you and things like that.
But one of the big questions that I would like to kind of end with is for people
who are experiencing grief or people who just experienced grief or just had
someone to die or just get a diagnosis, things like that.
(48:17):
What is the number one thing that you recommend that they can do right now to
start working through it?
The number one thing that I tell everybody is keep talking.
Keep talking. You are not bugging anybody.
You are not taking anyone's time. You are not overburdening them.
(48:39):
You are not being a pain. We want desperately to hear from you.
We just don't know what to say.
We don't know what to say to you to try to make something better because none of us do.
We all say the wrong words. We say something stupid. But you lost your child
and you go, oh, don't worry. You can have another one. Right. Right.
Absolute worst thing you could say to someone or something like that.
(48:59):
Right. So, so we don't know what to say.
So the griever has to understand, listen, please keep reaching out.
Please keep, it's like, I joke to everybody, that thing about getting casseroles
is a hundred percent true.
When April died, I had all these chicks bringing me casseroles and food,
right? I'm like, that's a real thing. I didn't know.
Really? But, but yeah, it's, it's crazy. But the thing is that peters out because
(49:21):
people have lives you have to understand.
You know, I hear people all the time go Oh, well people stopped reaching out
and I don't hear from anyone and this and that I go because they've moved on Right have life.
It's not because they don't love you. It's not gonna right here.
It's not that they're concerned about you So phones work both ways.
So to answer your question, I'm sorry. I got a little long Is don't stop reaching
(49:44):
out don't wallow in your crap app, understand people want to hear from you and,
and, and you be proactive and reach out.
I love that. And the funny thing about it, how this all ties together is that's
just the opposite of what you said that you were doing in the beginning, which was running away.
(50:05):
Exactly. So instead of running away, you're saying keep the conversation going,
keep talking, keep it active and keep working.
I love that. This has been a great conversation.
I can't wait to have you as a guest again so we can kind of dive into some of
the specific stages of grief and kind of your grief training and what your current
thoughts are on grieving.
(50:26):
Before, though, before we do another episode on my podcast, how can people get in touch with you?
What are some of the ways or some of the social media presences or conduits
or avenues that people can reach out to you if they have questions about grief
or they want to retain your services or something like that?
Okay, the best way to do that is I'm on Facebook, just my name, Gary Scott.
(50:50):
But we also have a Grief Pie on Facebook, Instagram, YouTube.
We have a Facebook, I mean, griefpie.com. So you could reach out to me through
any of the grief pie sources up there.
Like I said, YouTube, it's all over the place, the grief pie or the website.
Really the best way is just go on my personal Facebook and shoot me a DM and
(51:13):
said, Hey dude, you know, I heard your thing. Can we chat for a little bit?
I, I, you know, I love to talk to people. I know people call it a consultation
or whatever initial consultation, whatever.
I just say, just call me, you know, DM me. I, you know, I, I...
I just desperately want to work with people. So thank you, Dr.
(51:35):
David, for giving me this opportunity. Yeah, people just go on my Facebook and
say, dude, I need to talk to you. And that would be the best way.
And tell me, I'm just curious, where did that, I love it because to me it kind
of goes along with the processes of grief and things like that.
But where did grief pie come from?
Is that from the casseroles or is that something?
(51:59):
Actually it came from it came from
me and and my my buddy who were who were we
were doing this together unfortunately just jim's had to step away yeah but
we were doing this together and and i kept laughing because it's like you know
the challenge with with you is and with so many people i don't mean to pinpoint
people and and say you like that but i mean because he and i've I've been friends
(52:23):
for 30 years, so it was easy.
So I said, you eat all this crap.
You've got to stop eating all this crap. Right. Because you're going to kill
yourself. Consuming. You're eating the grief.
So through that, it became grief pie. Yeah.
Two guys eating grief one bite at a time. Oh, wow.
(52:43):
So that's how it kind of came together. And that makes sense.
But unfortunately, that's gone, and I'm sad.
So we're just revamping a little bit and doing something different.
And like I said, you're my spirit animal, man. I mean, what you're doing is
super exciting to me, which is just all encompassing the human and not just
focusing on one thing. And that's just super exciting. No, absolutely.
I think that's why I take the approach that I do is because I think it all fits
(53:06):
a bigger – all the pieces fit into a bigger puzzle.
And we can't see all of them, but we can definitely put as many pieces on the board as we can.
And I think it's all connected, mind, body, spirit, soul, psyche.
All that stuff. So I love that. And the other thing, too, is that makes a lot
of sense because what you said to your friend, you're a consumer,
(53:27):
and that's the same thing as holding on to everything, which is the opposite of letting go.
So it makes sense because if you're a consumer, that's what you do.
And it's funny because so many billionaires in this world, people who've made
it by every kind of marker that we define and characterize success.
Most of them have made pledges to be philanthropists instead of being collectors.
(53:53):
So they've reversed. After they've gotten everything, billions of dollars,
now their whole motto is to give back.
So that makes perfect sense, which is also known as releasing or letting go.
So with that, thank you so much, Gary. you bring so much energy to the space.
I'm serious about us having a follow-up episode where we actually talk about
some of your training and what you learned from it and what you think about
(54:17):
some of the stages of grief and Kepler-Ross and some of the different processes.
We can definitely dive into that. I mean, obviously we could talk about grief
forever, but we could at least give it two episodes, if not three.
But thank you so much for being here today.
I look Look forward to being a guest on your podcast and everybody,
you know, definitely check out Gary Scott's Facebook profile file,
(54:42):
otherwise known as Gear Bear or the Gatornata.
So definitely check him out. And we have so much to learn from him.
Thanks so much, Gary. I look forward to future episodes.
Thank you. Hey, you take care. Bye bye.
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