{"id":19726,"date":"2022-08-19T10:11:33","date_gmt":"2022-08-19T16:11:33","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/?post_type=transcript&p=19726"},"modified":"2022-08-19T10:11:33","modified_gmt":"2022-08-19T16:11:33","slug":"when-grief-lands-with-love","status":"publish","type":"transcript","link":"https:\/\/resources2.soundstrue.com\/transcript\/when-grief-lands-with-love\/","title":{"rendered":"When Grief Lands with Love"},"content":{"rendered":"
\"image_print\"Print Transcript<\/span><\/a><\/div>

Tami Simon:<\/b> Welcome to <\/span>Insights at the <\/span><\/i>Edge, produced by Sounds True. My name\u2019s Tami Simon, I\u2019m the founder of Sounds True, and I\u2019d love to take a moment to introduce you to the Sounds True Foundation. The goal of the Sounds True Foundation is to provide access and eliminate financial barriers to transformational education and resources, such as teachings and trainings on mindfulness, emotional awareness, and self-compassion. If you\u2019d like to learn more and join with us in our efforts, please visit SoundsTrueFoundation.org.<\/span><\/p>\n

In this episode of <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>, my guest is Dr. Sherry Walling. Sherry is a clinical psychologist, a speaker, a podcaster, a yoga teacher, and an entrepreneur. Her life\u2019s work is helping high-achieving people navigate painful and complex experiences. Her podcast, <\/span>ZenFounder<\/span><\/i> has been called a \u201cmust listen\u201d by both <\/span>Forbes<\/span><\/i> and <\/span>Entrepreneur<\/span><\/i> magazines, and it\u2019s been downloaded more than a million times. With Sounds True, Dr. Sherry Walling is the author of a new book. It\u2019s called <\/span>Touching Two Worlds: A Guide for Finding Hope in the Landscape of Loss<\/span><\/i>. As someone who doesn\u2019t always know how to turn to and process grief, sorrow, and loss in a deep and full way, I find Sherry to be such a helpful guide\u2014someone who has been in this territory and has brought back jewels and wisdom for all of us. Here\u2019s my conversation about how to go all the way into grief to find where it lands with love, with Sherry Walling.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Sherry, I\u2019m moved by your new book, <\/span>Touching Two Worlds<\/span><\/i>, in which you share yourself quite vulnerably\u2014what\u2019s happening in your life as you\u2019re writing the book. And by way of introduction, can you share with our listeners the events happening in your life that led up to the writing of <\/span>Touching Two Worlds<\/span><\/i>?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

Sherry Walling: <\/b>I began writing the week that my dad was diagnosed with cancer, and it became clear that it was the kind of cancer that would probably end his life. And I was writing over this two-year period, and I didn\u2019t really write it to become a book, Tami. I was writing because I was waking up in the middle of the night and didn\u2019t have anything to do. And I was writing when I was getting on airplanes, and I was writing when my soul needed some expression, because I was watching my father die. And then in parallel, right at the same time, my brother, who at the time was in his early 30s, really did a deep dive into his experience of depression and addiction to alcohol, and we ended up losing him a few months after we lost my dad. We lost him to suicide.<\/span><\/p>\n

So in this couple year period, these people I loved are unraveling and all I can think of is to write. I didn\u2019t intend it to become a book, but I wrote so much and I found myself sending little essays to people, little paragraphs, little snippets to my consulting clients, to my therapy clients, to my friends, to people in my life who were experiencing grief. And as I was doing that, I observed, like, I want to share these thoughts. I want to share these experiences. So eventually, all that writing turned into this book and turned into <\/span>Touching Two Worlds<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>And tell me more about this notion of touching two worlds, what you mean by that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>I found myself often going back and forth between deep sorrow\u2014between getting really close to death, between the shadowy sadness of what I was experiencing\u2014and then on the other end of the spectrum, really noticing deep joy, relishing in the excitement of watching my children grow, in my own ambition, in my own creativity, in the parts of my life that felt so very alive. So the touching two worlds idea is how to navigate back and forth between the duality that exists on the opposite spectrums of our lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I wanted to ask you about that. And of course, we\u2019re going to go into quite a bit more depth about grief and the loss of both your father and your brother. But before we do, I think a lot of people, and I\u2019ll speak for myself, I know I feel this strange being in two worlds at this time in America\u2019s history, where there\u2019s so much loss and grief and violence. And then in my personal life, I\u2019m actually having a lot of personal breakthroughs and inner bliss. And I\u2019m like, these things are happening, it feels almost like in the same seconds. It\u2019s not even like a good day\/bad day. It\u2019s like living in different worlds simultaneously. And I know you\u2019re a clinical psychologist, so here I am tapping you on the shoulder to help us understand what it\u2019s like to have these different experiences happening at once, seemingly at once.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>Seemingly at once. It\u2019s almost my training in theology and my immersion in spirituality that might be more helpful. But have you noticed that a lot of the most recently released movies are about the metaverse, are about this sense of existing in parallel realities at once? Because I think what you\u2019re describing is something that\u2019s on the consciousness of a lot of people. There\u2019s this sense of: How is it possible that we\u2019re living in a state with so much grief and destruction? And then also that there\u2019s a tremendous amount of gratitude that most people are also dwelling in, in a post-pandemic kind of phase where there\u2019s a renewed sense of what it feels like to be alive and gratitude around that. We like it to be one thing. We like it to be a category. Our brains seek the simplicity of one label. And so the complicated nature of what it means to experience two emotions simultaneously is a little bit difficult on our system. But I think is a more honest appraisal of what it feels like to live in our life, to be in two states at once, two emotions at once.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now, you mentioned writing <\/span>Touching Two Worlds<\/span><\/i> while you were on airplanes and while you were sorting through your own grieving process. And I thought it was really interesting. You say in the book that most of the book was actually written on an airplane. That there you were in whatever seat crying and writing, crying and writing. What was it about the airplane experience that facilitated the writing of <\/span>Touching Two Worlds<\/span><\/i>?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>I think, in an airplane, you have to be still. So I had to sit in my seat and I had to be buckled in and I couldn\u2019t get up and move around, and I had to really be in my own thoughts. And of course I could have watched a movie or read a book, but I feel like none of those things were powerful enough to override the things that I was thinking about and the weight of the emotion that I was carrying. So the stillness of the airplane, I think, forced me toward writing because it was a place where all the thoughts and emotions would bubble up. They needed some expression, and writing was the one that was really available when I was forced to be still.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now I\u2019ve heard people who have written about their own grief talk about how tremendously healing it is to do so. And I wonder if you can talk to that person who feels a bit frozen in their grief and even at the thought of starting to write about it. Isn\u2019t quite sure through what doorway, how do I enter this?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>I think the description of frozen is a really lovely beginning point. Even writing about the blank page can be a starting point. There\u2019s so much that lives inside of us that wants to come out, and I think that the idea of being frozen in reaction to grief is still a reaction. And some movement, some word, some statement, some phrase, even if it\u2019s incomplete, doesn\u2019t have a subject and a predicate, that that\u2019s still some expression that can be the beginning of letting our soul\u2019s work come out from us.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now, Sherry, just in these opening moments of you and I getting to know each other better and our audience getting to know you, I wanted to ask you more about your work in general. On your website, it says Dr. Sherry Walling helps smart people do hard things. And then in your bio it says you help high-achieving people navigate painful and complex experiences. And I thought to myself: Why this emphasis on smart, high-achieving people? And what are their special challenges, if you will?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>The emphasis on smart, high-achieving people, I\u2019m going to blame on my husband. I married a tech entrepreneur with double engineering degrees who has a wonderful, warm heart, but like many of us, can feel a little bit compartmentalized. And so in my relationship with him, I have made this transition toward working much more with entrepreneurs, usually in the high-tech space, who are brilliant. They are world changers. They see what\u2019s possible and they often have great ideas about how to build into possibility. But the challenge that many high-achieving, highly intellectual folks have is that they can overemphasize the power of their cognitive mind and may be a little bit slower to integrate the emotional self or the physical body. And that\u2019s one of the things that I bring to my work, is this sense of reverence for the mind, but also, hey, what about the other parts? Hey, what about the rest? And that\u2019s been a deep part of my work with entrepreneurs and high achievers.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>At the end of <\/span>Touching Two Worlds<\/span><\/i>, towards the end, you write, \u201cAs I honor the griefs that have entered my life, I\u2019ve begun to see my work as a kind of subversive grief boot camp. Without saying it out loud,<\/span>\u2026<\/span>\u201d But of course now I\u2019m here saying it out loud and you kind of said it out loud, because you wrote about it. OK. That was all on the side. \u201cWithout saying it out loud, I\u2019m trying to help the movers and shakers of the world find a sense of comfort in loss, to prepare for the certainty of grief with open eyes and an emotional courage that accepts grief as the trade-off for love and ambition.\u201d So I got really curious about this. The trade-off for love, I think, is maybe obvious to people who have loved people and lost them. The trade-off for ambition, I thought, huh, I really need to hear what Sherry has to say about that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>Ambitious people want things, entrepreneurs in particular\u2014I\u2019ll speak to them since that\u2019s who I primarily work with. But they create things all the time. They take risks all the time. They have lots of things that they want to build. They need people in place to build those things. And there are so many opportunities for loss along that journey. Lots of businesses fail, lots of employees leave, lots of plans don\u2019t play out the way one wishes. And there are a million small griefs that go along with a life that is pressing into the edge of what\u2019s possible. And I think that helping people become more comfortable or more literate with the language of grief gives vibrancy, gives life, to some of the feelings that exist there within them that they don\u2019t necessarily have language or words with which to label them.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Let\u2019s go into that a bit. How do you help these high-achieving, ambitious people become literate? What do you mean? What\u2019s the language that I need to start to be able to know and reference?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>Quite simply, it\u2019s sometimes: How does that feel? How does it feel that that happened? How does it feel that that person left? How does it feel that you have to make this transition? How does it feel that you are exiting your company? Maybe something you\u2019ve been working toward your whole adult life and now it\u2019s finally happening. How does it feel? It\u2019s often a little bit more complicated than it looks from the outside. And so to help people go inside, to be explorers of their own inner world, you do that by asking questions, you do that by using language. Sometimes you do it by engaging their bodies. Where is the pain? Why are you tense? Why is it difficult to breathe? Those are gateways into this sort of inner place that\u2019s beyond what\u2019s directly observable.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now, let me ask you a question, Sherry. With your new book coming out, how does it feel to have poured yourself so nakedly onto the page and for people now to know so much about you and your relationship with both your father and his dying process, and your brother\u2019s suicide? How does all that feel, to be so exposed?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>It does feel vulnerable. On one hand, Tami, I\u2019m really proud of this book. It is the best that I have to offer out of these very painful experiences. It feels like it\u2019s my truth. It feels like it\u2019s the best of my writing ability. So I\u2019m proud of it. I stand by it. At the same time, I would be lying if I said I wasn\u2019t scared. I\u2019m scared that no one will care. I\u2019m scared that people will be critical. I\u2019m scared that people won\u2019t understand it. So I definitely\u2014it feels so different to put a heart project forward and ask everyone I know, hey, look at this. Look at this painful experience that I endured. Look at how I think about it. Look at what it did to me. It\u2019s very scary and also I\u2019m proud of how brave it\u2019s required me to be.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>It\u2019s beautifully written\u2014with short chapters where you share your own inner experience and then invite the reader to do their own inner looking. It\u2019s beautifully written, Sherry, and I\u2019m glad you feel proud of it. You should. And the bravery that you put into it. I know I contacted a lot of feelings that were under the surface reading the book. And I appreciate that so much.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>That means so much coming from you as someone who is immersed in beautiful books all the time. So thank you for those kind words.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now, one of the things I wanted to talk to you about is your brother\u2019s suicide and how you write about that. Because in terms of an area in the grief literature and a place where I think people often feel confused and don\u2019t have language to talk about suicide. Even if you read obituaries, at times, of people who have taken their own life, it doesn\u2019t say they took their own life. It doesn\u2019t say. It just says so-and-so passed. And there\u2019s this mystery and shame and judgment when it comes to suicide, and someone we know. Tell me, how did you work through your own judgment related to your brother and suicide?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>In some ways, I think my training was helpful here, because I\u2019ve been talking to people about their own suicidal thoughts and experiences. I\u2019ve been talking to bereaved survivors for my entire career. So I\u2019m comfortable with the language of suicide and I don\u2019t have a great deal of judgment toward my brother for dying in the way that he did. There\u2019s so much nuance in this conversation and we can dive into it as much as you wish. But I do think that the stigma and the silence around suicide is incredibly unhelpful. It keeps grieving people isolated. It keeps us in secrecy. It keeps us from talking about mental health as the very sort of deadly illness that it can be.<\/span><\/p>\n

It keeps us sort of minimizing the power that our own inner experiences have to bring destruction to us. So I think it\u2019s really, really important to have very open conversations around suicide. If nothing else, the fact that the rate of suicide has increased about 30 percent in the last 20 years, according to the CDC\u2014so there are lots of people who are touched by these stories who don\u2019t necessarily have a lot of space to grieve openly or clearly.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>The stigma and the silence\u2014how do you suggest people talk about it? How have people, friends of yours, people who know you, spoken to you about your brother\u2019s suicide in ways that have been helpful, that have been\u2014I\u2019m not going to let you just be isolated in this, I know how to make contact in a useful way?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>My favorite thing that someone has said to me in the context of my grief around my brother was simply, \u201cWould you like to tell me a story about Dave?\u201d It was simply the invitation to talk about him in the fullness of who he was to me, which was as my brother, not as somebody who died by suicide. Death by suicide has a, it has a violence to it. It has an eyes-wide-open shock to it. People don\u2019t know how to ask about it. But for the person who is bereaved by suicide, they\u2019ve lost someone just like from any other cause. So I think in some ways, treating me as a sister who lost a brother and honoring that is more important than the suicide part of the story. In some ways, again, in talking to somebody who\u2019s in grief, the suicide is not the most important piece of the story. It\u2019s the loss of this loved person that is the most important piece of the story.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Would you like to tell me a story about Dave? That\u2019s a beautiful opening question. I also find it\u2019s a little, sort of, general. Do you have other ideas too for ways that people can open a conversation that invites the person who\u2019s passed to come into the space, for their presence to be known and acknowledged?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>I think in places where there\u2019s opportunity for memory. Around the dinner table, around holidays, around, in our family, the Super Bowl. We kind of invoke those who\u2019ve passed in those moments when we can bring them onto the table. So every holiday, every birthday, we always lay a candle for my dad and for my brother in\u2014sort of in memoriam, in honoring that they\u2019re not there presently, but they\u2019re part of our story. They\u2019re part of the event.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Well, I\u2019ll ask a personal question about this. I lost a nephew to a tragic accident who was 21. And my brother and his wife, of course still grieve tremendously over this loss of Jeremy. And on Jeremy\u2019s death anniversary and on his birthday, when I talk to my brother on the phone, I always feel a little tongue tied. I don\u2019t quite know what to say. I know this is such an important day for my brother and I want to emotionally connect and be there, but I don\u2019t know what language to use. And I\u2019m wondering if you could give me some suggestions.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>What memories are top of mind for you? As you remember this day, in the loss of Jeremy, what\u2019s coming up? Are you thinking about him as a child? Are you thinking about where he would be at this point in his life had he lived? Where\u2019s your mind going in this day today?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>When I think of the reasons people don\u2019t say anything, I think that maybe one of the big reasons to someone they know who\u2019s lost somebody is that, and that adds to the isolation, is they\u2019re just so afraid of saying the wrong thing, something that will be some kind of trigger.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>Yes. And I think gentle curiosity is a nice framework from which to ask any questions or to be present. I also think it\u2019s completely OK to say, I\u2019m not sure what to say. I love you. I\u2019m thinking of you. I\u2019m with you today. You are top of mind for me every moment today. Is there anything that you would like to talk about?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now, as the mother of three children who lost their uncle in Dave\u2019s suicide. How did you talk to them about this?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>This was a hard one. I have an essay in the book where I talk about the contrast in talking to my children about cancer versus the contrast in talking to my children about suicide. And in one way, cancer was easier because you can draw it on a piece of paper. This is what happened to the cells. This is how they formed a tumor and this is how they wreaked havoc in grandpa\u2019s body, and this is what will end his body\u2019s ability to stay alive. Because addiction, depression, it doesn\u2019t show up in our brain scans, at least not really, not the scans we have available to us at this point. We don\u2019t have this kind of biological, cellular understanding. And that was what was hard to talk to my kids about.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

Ultimately, something very simple and honest was what we went with. To tell them first that he died. And then we waited a little while and then my husband and I sat and told them more about how he died, that he did die by suicide, and this is what that means. And I think we actually did talk a lot about the similarity between depression and cancer. That it\u2019s a chronic illness and sometimes it wears down our brains so much that our brain and our body can no longer go on living. And that language is\u2014it\u2019s open-ended. But to talk to an eight year old, it\u2019s important to give them enough detail that they feel like they know the story, but not more detail than they need. We let their questions lead.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now, I\u2019ve heard some parents say, let\u2019s not even talk about death at all until children reach some certain age. And I\u2019m curious what your thoughts are about that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>I think death is all around children. Watch any Disney movie. Look at any fairytale. Death is always part of the story of life. And I think that begins very early in stories that children are familiar with. It begins very early in children\u2019s fears, and it\u2019s pretty natural or common, I\u2019ll say, for children to fear the death of a parent or a loved one. And that begins kind of in middle childhood. So I don\u2019t know that we help children by not giving them language. I think it\u2019s much more helpful to give them language, to acknowledge that death is part of life and to begin to teach them about grief when they are young, so that they are well skilled in this part of life that\u2019s going to come up for them inevitably.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now, as I\u2019ve mentioned a couple of times, you\u2019re very raw, vulnerable, you pour it out, you pour your tears onto the page in <\/span>Touching Two Worlds<\/span><\/i>. And one of the things you write about is how you were also just pouring tears out in your life during this period, in the writing of this book, with these two losses in your life and how that impacted your family. And I\u2019m curious about that. As a mom and now, when you look back, do you think, God, I wished I\u2019d done something differently or not? Or how do you view the whole situation as a mom?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>Oh, I never imagined that I would spend so much time in grief while my children were young. I never imagined that that would be such a big part of our family story, that death and illness would really take center stage in our lives for a couple of years. I guess nobody sort of, nobody plans for that. And so for me, man, there were a lot of times I was gone. I was at the hospital with my dad or visiting my brother. I was on an airplane. I was away from my children. There were a lot of times when I was physically present, but not emotionally available. When I kind of walked around like somebody who was badly sunburned, like everything hurt. I was sensitive to everything. I was maybe short-tempered and not as thoughtful with my children as I wished I could be. There were also times when I could not keep up with the logistics management of what happens when you have three young children. The library books that need to be returned, the school lunches that need to be made, all the permission slips. That got away from me.<\/span><\/p>\n

So there are lots of things about this period of my life as a parent that I could sit in judgment on, or I could recognize, hey, that\u2019s not how I wanted to show up. That\u2019s not what I would\u2019ve chosen. But on the other hand, I\u2019m also grateful that I was able to be present with my kids in this stage of grief, because I think I was able to be really honest and open, and model for them how you show up for people that you love when they\u2019re falling apart. How you talk about and express when you\u2019re feeling a lot of pain. I mean, they\u2019ve seen me cry way more than I ever would\u2019ve wanted. But I think that was in many ways a deepening experience in my connection to them.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Tell me more about that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>They got to know me. They got to see me at my best and my worst in a way that\u2019s a little bit more amplified than what would\u2019ve happened had grief not entered our lives. And my kids also have this tenderness and maturity about them because of these experiences that I think will serve them well as they move on with their lives.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>It reminds me of a quote in the very beginning of the book from a poem by Naomi Shihab Nye that you quote, \u201cBefore you know kindness as the deepest thing inside, you must know sorrow as the other deepest thing.\u201d It\u2019s a very, very beautiful opening quote that you use in <\/span>Touching Two Worlds<\/span><\/i>.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>I love that poem because of the way that it does hold those dualities, the two edges of the world, kindness and sorrow. And that it\u2019s in one that we find the other. And I think children get that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>You mentioned, Sherry, at the beginning of our conversation that you began writing <\/span>Touching Two Worlds<\/span><\/i> not as something necessarily that was going to be a book that you published but as your own journey, your own processing of your experiences. And as I was reading the book, I had the feeling, Sherry is inviting the reader to feel the depth of pain, the depth of pain that can come with sorrow and loss. She\u2019s saying, come on in, come on in here into these feelings. And I\u2019m curious, that was just me, my experience reading. And I\u2019m curious what that sounds like when you hear that.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>Ooh, there\u2019s something in me that does feel a little uncomfortable. Like, ooh, here\u2019s my pain. Come on in. But underneath my initial reaction, I think there\u2019s truth to what you say and I think there\u2019s actually intention in it. Because so many of the folks that I work with when they encounter their own grief, they\u2019re almost shocked by it. It takes them down a dark, deep tunnel. And I\u2019m hoping that by sharing a little bit of my own submersion in that world, I can\u2014it\u2019s like almost preparing people for what you\u2019re going to face. Like, this is what it might feel like when you\u2014this is what it might feel like if you encounter this kind of grief. So by showing that a little bit from my own life, preparing someone, telling them it\u2019s going to happen. It doesn\u2019t save them from those feelings, but I hope they\u2019ll know a little bit about what it takes to move through those feelings, to embrace those feelings, to find their joy in the middle of those feelings.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now, a fiery part of the book, where you took a different kind of posture, was the section where you said, let me tell you what I really dislike when people say\u2014I really dislike it when somebody responds to a grieving person and says everything happens for a reason. And of course, we\u2019ve all heard that about all kinds of things, of losses and misfortunes and griefs that have happened in our life. Why is that so distasteful to you to hear that?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>In so many ways, it shuts down any kind of real grief or emotional process. It takes you to your head. It says, think it through, you\u2019ll find an equation that makes this work. You\u2019ll find a meaning. You\u2019ll find a silver lining. You\u2019ll find a point. And while there are many points of resilience that come from grief, there are positive things that can happen, the rush to conclude that good must come from bad, I find forceful, even violent, and I have a big reaction against it.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>You write, things don\u2019t happen for a reason, but it\u2019s possible to make meaning out of brokenness. Tell me more about the meaning-making process for you and how you help people make meaning without necessarily saying there\u2019s a reason.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>Yes. Reason feels cognitive; meaning feels soulful or existential, feels like it taps at the core of who we are and what we value in our lives. And I think, for example, grief teaches you so much about who you love and what you love and why they matter to you. And so tapping into meaning is about listening for the places that you come alive. The places of fire that exist within you when you\u2019re pressed, when you\u2019re stretched, when you\u2019re under some kind of threat. And it becomes clear that it\u2019s like, no, I want to do this and I don\u2019t want to do that. I want to be with this person and I don\u2019t want to be with that person. Meaning is clarity.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now, another statement that you don\u2019t like that we\u2019ve all heard lots of people say is, God doesn\u2019t give someone more than they can handle. What don\u2019t you like about that?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>I grew up in an evangelical community and I got that one a lot. Because I grew up with a, my mom has MS, she was diagnosed a few years after I was born. And so I grew up with a parent who was visibly disabled and people would often say things like that to me. Like, she\u2019s had so much to bear because she\u2019s so strong. God\u2019s trusting her with more than her share of burdens. And all of that just felt really incongruent with who I understood God to be in my understanding, as a child coming from an evangelical community.<\/span><\/p>\n

But I do think that it\u2014however you identify a God, if you do it all\u2014it makes God into this kind of being that just doles out suffering according to how strong you are. And I don\u2019t think it\u2019s true. It just doesn\u2019t resonate at any part of my being or anything that I\u2019ve seen about how God, whoever that may be, exists. I also think it\u2019s a weird throwback to the just-world hypothesis. The good things happen to good people; bad things happen to bad people. These basic assumptions that we all walk around with and it doesn\u2019t serve anyone.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I wanted to talk with you more about the just-world hypothesis and how you write about that, because I thought it was so interesting. And you\u2019re writing about it from the perspective of someone who says, look, my father died at 65. What a loss. He was young. We didn\u2019t expect it. We didn\u2019t see it coming. It just came. Sudden diagnosis. My brother killed himself. What kind of world is this?\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

And you say that we can rewrite these ideas and you give us this example, I thought it was really brilliant, from the world is benevolent to the world can be benevolent, but it\u2019s not guaranteed to be fair. We can go on with this, because I thought it was just so interesting. So tell me how you entered this process of looking at the just-world ideas that you held and then how you rewrote them to be true for you.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>I mean, this is my training as a trauma psychologist, is understanding how traumatic events change our worldview or change the assumptions with which we see the world. So I\u2019m really drawing from the work of Ronnie Janoff-Bulman here in her book, <\/span>Shattered Assumptions<\/span><\/i>. And it\u2019s been really pivotal to who I am as a psychologist, but I really relished in it as I was trying to make sense of what had happened to me and to my family. And identifying that all of us, just to kind of get out of bed in the morning, operate under this general assumption that the world is benevolent. That there\u2019s no evil force out there trying to undo you. There\u2019s generally goodness in the world.<\/span><\/p>\n

But when you encounter a set of experiences that seem so bad, so malevolent, so coming from this experience of undoing, you need a new way to think about it and a new way to categorize the world. And to be able to hold \u201cthe world isn\u2019t fair\u201d and also \u201cthe world can be good\u201d together in one thought, in one belief system, feels much more balanced. It\u2019s sort of an observation of what we are experiencing in that duality we talked about earlier. The world can be in chaos and also there can be beautiful moments and safe, lovely places at the same time.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>It sounds like what you\u2019re offering to people is this idea that we can look at what our assumptions are. If something happens in our life that shatters those assumptions, that changes it, that it\u2019s important to be able to not just be like, OK, I\u2019m lost. Whatever. That was bullshit. Now I don\u2019t know where I am. But to actually take the time to say, what is true even with this event happening? Accommodating this event.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>Yes. What part of my way of seeing the world can grow and stretch to include this new experience that I\u2019ve had?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Another one of the assumptions that you rewrite, \u201cthe world is meaningful,\u201d and then you write \u201cthe world is often meaningful, but sometimes meaning can elude us in the moment.\u201d I thought that was very helpful too for someone who might be experiencing a loss that makes them feel like everything\u2019s meaningless at the moment.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>Being able to sit in meaninglessness without losing a basic belief in meaning, it\u2019s a little bit tricky to do. But I think to have a worldview that says, no, at my core I believe that life is meaningful. I don\u2019t see it right now. I can\u2019t grasp it right now, but I believe that eventually I will.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Can you share more about how your worldview has changed after these two losses that you went through and what you draw on now, if you will, as your faith, as you\u2019re grounding now?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>I think a very personal answer to that question is that I came into these experiences seeing myself as someone who was very capable of taking care of others, of being helpful, of being of service. I mean, that\u2019s been my whole role in my family and my whole vocation as a psychologist, is to meet people in their dark places and help them not feel quite so dark. And I\u2019m now on the other side of an experience of completely failing at that. I wasn\u2019t able to save my dad or brother, and of course I wasn\u2019t. But I now, I guess, I\u2019ve really had to wrestle, especially with the loss of my brother, with the limits of my own power to be helpful and to be loving, with the limits of my own ability to make a difference.<\/span><\/p>\n

And now that I\u2019m on the other side of that, there\u2019s some ease in not feeling responsible to do that. In not feeling responsible to try to right this ship that was sinking and not feeling responsible to try to help and to save him, but in accepting that his life was unfolding the way that it was unfolding. And so on the other side of me seeing myself as someone who is powerful to be helpful and make a difference, is me seeing myself as someone who is capable of acceptance and capable of observing and loving, but not necessarily needing to intervene. So that\u2019s been an identity shift for me.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Yes. That makes sense. And it sounds like there\u2019s a huge piece of acceptance in that as well, acceptance of limitation.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>Yes. And we all, I think, encounter those limitations in ourselves at various times in our lives. But I, as we\u2019ve talked about, I\u2019ve built my life around being a resource to high-functioning, high-performing people\u2014people relying on me. And I\u2019m honored to step into those spaces when I\u2019m invited. But I now have a much clearer picture of my limits and of the responsibility that each of us individually have in the echo chambers of our own souls to find our own sense of meaning and motivation to stay in our lives. No one else can do that for us.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Now, one of the things you write about in <\/span>Touching Two Worlds<\/span><\/i> that I thought was very helpful\u2014and it comes from your work with people who have suffered traumatic loss\u2014is a way that you work with people to help them with that moment of learning about the loss, that shock and how they can go back inside, internally, and fill themselves with grace and compassion and love in that space to, if you will. And I don\u2019t know if this is quite the language that you would use, but it is working through the trauma in some way. And I wonder if you could share more about that. And if we have someone listening who still has the kind of fear of the phone ringing or something like that, what they could do to help themselves.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>Yes. The context of this came from my experience of receiving the phone call. Those phone-call moments where the other end of the line is a sheriff or a police officer. In this case, it was my mother saying Dave is dead. Dave died. And even in my body, as I say that out loud to you, I feel like the tightening of tears. But in the moment when I experienced it, my whole body just went into this sort of shock. And people who\u2019ve been on the receiving end of those phone calls know this feeling. It sort of implants in your cells, and it can kind of trap your cells in this state of shock. And one of the things that I\u2019ve found to be helpful is, in retrospect, sort of after that moment of shock is over and you\u2019ve hung up the phone and gotten in the car or done what you need to do, but to return to that moment when the shock was at its highest intensity. And in a kind of meditative process, put yourself back in that state, but also infuse the moment with a sense of comfort, of calm. Almost if you could envelop your own self in a hug in that moment. But to fill that moment with as much comfort and consolation as possible. So that that version of you, that version of you that existed in that place and time and in that moment, has some assurance from the present version of you that the shock won\u2019t last forever. That there\u2019s another side of the story. That there\u2019s another piece of the story where you can look back on these events with some calm, with some grace.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Having done that exercise now yourself, can you tell me what the output is? I mean, how has it changed when you now think of getting that phone call from your mother about Dave?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>I don\u2019t remember it with fear. I remember it with tenderness. So it\u2019s like I\u2019m looking back on the movie of myself receiving the phone call. And instead of it being a horror film where there\u2019s high-pitched violin screeching and everybody\u2019s going to wonder what\u2019s going to happen. I look back at it with a different soundtrack and the soundtrack is calmer and more peaceful. And I look at that version of myself in that moment with, oh, this tenderness. Oh, she\u2019s lost her brother. Oh, how painful. How much I extend my care and concern.<\/span><\/p>\n

And it\u2019s a weird thing I\u2019m talking about and I can fully appreciate it. But I think my psychologist brothers and sisters will recognize what I\u2019m doing in trying to overlay a new emotion to an old memory. Because the old memory is infused with such overwhelming emotion, but sometimes the overwhelming emotion is too connected to the memory and it kind of floods the system. So if we can kind of time travel a little bit, go back in time to the old memory and give it a new emotional quality, then we can reflect on the totality of our lives, all of these important moments that have happened, all of these phone-call moments, and it\u2019s not so very painful to travel backwards.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>It\u2019s very helpful. Thank you. Now in reading <\/span>Touching Two Worlds<\/span><\/i>, as I said, you\u2019re welcoming people into the landscape of grief. And I\u2019m curious now, with a little bit of time passing, do you see grief as a journey we go through and we come out the other side like, oh, that journey\u2019s in the past? Or is it something that\u2019s always with you, but at a different volume than it was during the time when you were writing the book? Or how do you see it?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>I think the language of volume resonates. This book was written in a very raw time of my life. And even as I look back at it now, I don\u2019t quite feel the same way that I did about certain things as I did when I wrote about them. And so I don\u2019t think that grief\u2014grief doesn\u2019t stay the same. We don\u2019t sort of go to the land of grief and live there forever, but it has a different emotional quality or volume, as you say, where it goes up and down and undulates throughout life. So today I can speak quite calmly and beautifully about my brother without it hurting me too much. Tomorrow might be a different story. And that\u2019s some of the unpredictability of grief. So I\u2019m sort of here in the land of grief where I now am, vulnerable to grief entering my conscious emotional state at any time, and I don\u2019t think that will ever change. I think I will always have those moments where grief feels more acute, because this is the stage or the phase, the state of my life now.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>It\u2019s interesting, because I think previously, maybe a couple decades ago, I would hear people talk about closure, and it\u2019s important that your grief has closure. And that seems like that\u2019s not accepted right now in the world of psychology in the same way that it was 20 years ago. Now people are like, don\u2019t talk to me about closure. You\u2019re pushing something on me. This is a part of my love and it will always be here. So I wonder how you see that. When you hear the word closure, do you just think of giving someone the finger, or what comes up for you?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>I did have a conversation yesterday with somebody who was telling me about going to a seminar with a hypnotherapist and the hypnotherapist invited someone to come up and participate in the seminar. And the focus of the intervention was all around grief. And the person who was recounting this to me said their grief was healed in like an hour. Like they\u2019d gone from heartache around the loss of this person to feeling peaceful about the fact that that person had been in this life at all. It was this quick transformation.<\/span><\/p>\n

And I started thinking like, if there is an intervention that I could do in an hour that would take my grief away, would I do it? And I think it gets at a lot of questions here. Like, what are we talking about when we talk about grief? Are we talking about an emotional reaction? Are we talking about love? Are we talking about all these layers of different feelings that go into our relationships? So my thought about the seminar was like, that sounds like a robot. That sounds like we can switch emotional states quite easily and it doesn\u2019t have this sense of fluidity or flow that I think is part of the kind of mystery and beauty of the human experience. You asked me though about closure and being on the other side, the ending of things.<\/span><\/p>\n

And it\u2019s just not one thing. At one point I had this very open grief around a sense of guilt related to my brother\u2019s death. I think that is closed now. I think I\u2019ve had some healing in that piece of it. So that\u2019s one element of grief. Will I always think of my dad on Thanksgiving? Yes. Is that an element of grief that will probably stay open? Yes. So I think it\u2019s just not as simple as open or closed. There are definitely parts of the experience that I want to heal from and be on the other side of, and there are definitely parts of this experience that I will hold onto for my whole life, because they\u2019re precious.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Tell me about those parts, the parts that you\u2019ll hold onto.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>And this is where grief lands with love, the grief that is the reminder. What it felt like for me to be present at my dad\u2019s death and to kind of walk him up to the gate, and to hold his hand and hold him and say goodbye and send him on his way, wherever he went\u2014that was one of the most sacred and important experiences of my life. I take no joy in him dying, but the honor of being with him for that moment and in the days leading up to that, I will hold onto that tightly. It has the same sort of sacredness of the moments that I birthed my children. This only happens a few times in life and you\u2019re present at these edge states. Talk about insights from the edge. And I will honor that experience forever and I never want to forget what it felt like to be there in that moment.\u00a0<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>And then finally, Sherry, I asked you earlier in our conversation what it was like for you to have <\/span>Touching Two Worlds<\/span><\/i> come out to the public. What do you hope the reader will get from the book? What\u2019s your hope for the reader?<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>My hope is that the reader who is wrestling with pain will feel less alone, will maybe have a few ideas about how to engage with their grief and pain in ways they hadn\u2019t thought about before. I hope also though that people will laugh a little bit.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>There\u2019s some funny parts. There\u2019s some laugh-out-loud parts\u2014<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>There\u2019s some funny parts.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>\u2014and very irreverent in various sections, right in the middle of a deep grief story. You\u2019ll definitely have the reader fall off their chair with a laugh.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>So I want to normalize that that\u2019s all part of it. It\u2019s funny. It\u2019s sacred. It\u2019s sad. It\u2019s beautiful. So jump on into the whole mess of what it means to be human, especially human in grief.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>I\u2019ve been speaking with Dr. Sherry Walling. Sherry is the author of the new book, <\/span>Touching Two Worlds: A Guide for Finding Hope in the Landscape of Loss<\/span><\/i>, a beautiful book filled with short chapters. So helpful. So comforting. So illuminating. Thank you so much, Sherry.<\/span><\/p>\n

 <\/p>\n

SW: <\/b>Thanks so much for having me, Tami.<\/span><\/p>\n

TS: <\/b>Thanks for being with us. Thanks for listening to <\/span>Insights at the Edge<\/span><\/i>. You can read a full transcript of today\u2019s interview at resources2.soundstrue.com\\podcast. That\u2019s resources2.soundstrue.com\\podcast. If you\u2019re interested, hit the Subscribe button in your podcast app, and if you feel inspired, head to iTunes and leave <\/span>Insights at the Edge <\/span><\/i>a review. I absolutely love getting your feedback and being connected. Sounds True: waking up the world.<\/span><\/p>\n","protected":false},"template":"","meta":{"_expiration-date-status":"","_expiration-date":0,"_expiration-date-type":"","_expiration-date-categories":[],"_expiration-date-options":[]},"class_list":["post-19726","transcript","type-transcript","status-publish","hentry"],"yoast_head":"\nWhen Grief Lands With Love - Transcript | Sounds True<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Read the full transcript from this Sounds True conversation with When Grief Lands With Love. 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