Speaker 1: A Boundless Authenticity podcast.
Speaker 2: Thanks for tuning in to the Boundless Authenticity Podcast Today,
Speaker 2: I'm joined by David J. Roberts, who became a parent
Speaker 2: who experienced the death of a child when his daughter
Speaker 2: Janine died of cancer on March first, two thousand and three,
Speaker 2: at the age of eighteen. He is a retired addiction
Speaker 2: professional and an adjunct professor in the Psychology Child Life
Speaker 2: Department at.
Speaker 1: Utica University in Utica, New York.
Speaker 2: Dave also teaches psychology classes at Pratt Munson's School of
Speaker 2: Art and Design. He is the host of the Teaching
Speaker 2: Journey's podcast, which can be found on most podcast platforms.
Speaker 2: Dave has presented workshops at national conferences of the Compassionate
Speaker 2: Friends as well as for the Bereaved Parents of the USA.
Speaker 2: He was also a keynote speaker at the twenty eleven
Speaker 2: and twenty fifteen national gatherings of the Bereaved Parents of
Speaker 2: the USA. Dave also co presented a workshop titled Helping
Speaker 2: Faculty after Traumatic Loss for the Parkland, Florida community in
Speaker 2: May of twenty eighteen, in the aftermath of the mass
Speaker 2: shootings at Stoneman.
Speaker 1: Douglas High School.
Speaker 2: Dave has been a past huff Post contributor and has
Speaker 2: contributed articles to medium, Open to Hope Foundation, Mindfulness and Grief,
Speaker 2: Thrive Global, and the Recovering the Self Journal. He has
Speaker 2: also appeared on numerous podcasts as well as Open to
Speaker 2: Hope Television. He co authored a book with Reverend Patti
Speaker 2: Farino titled When the Psychology Professor Met the Minister, which
Speaker 2: was published on March first, twenty twenty one. So I'm
Speaker 2: going to start today's podcast with a quote that I
Speaker 2: found on Dave's website and it goes like this sorrow
Speaker 2: makes us all children again, destroys all differences of intellect.
Speaker 2: The wisest know nothing. Ralph Waldo Emerson, Dave, how's it going.
Speaker 3: Johannah's going very well. That's a pleasure to be on
Speaker 3: your podcast. Have a look forward to to our conversation
Speaker 3: for some time now.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm glad to have you on.
Speaker 2: This would be the third time that we're talking, and
Speaker 2: I have to say I've really taken a liking to you, Dave.
Speaker 2: So you might be a permanent fixture here on the podcast.
Speaker 3: That's not a bad thing, particularly as I get older.
Speaker 3: The more permanent fixtures I can be anywhere the better
Speaker 3: off I am. So I'm grateful for any type of
Speaker 3: permitive fixture offering. I can beat anybody at this point.
Speaker 1: So great.
Speaker 2: So, Dave, if you could just expand on some of
Speaker 2: the things that we read about you in your biography,
Speaker 2: that would be good.
Speaker 3: Well, there's a couple of couple of things that I
Speaker 3: can I can expand on. First of all, the life
Speaker 3: that I am leading now. The path that I am
Speaker 3: walking now now is never a path I ever thought
Speaker 3: i'd be walking. No parent, I think, ever comes on
Speaker 3: earth and anticipating that they're going to bury one of
Speaker 3: their children. We all always believe that our children are
Speaker 3: going to carry our legacy, as opposed us carrying our
Speaker 3: children's legacy. But my life started out very literally, very predictably.
Speaker 3: I graduated from Mutich University in nineteen seventy seven, had
Speaker 3: a couple of different jobs, and then found my calling
Speaker 3: in the addictions field. In nineteen eighty six, I was
Speaker 3: hired at the McPike Addiction Treatment Center, a state run
Speaker 3: facility in Utica, New York. I was there for twenty
Speaker 3: seven years, and I retired in twenty twelve, about sixteen,
Speaker 3: about seventeen years into my career as an addictions professional.
Speaker 3: I was hired as an adjunct at the time at
Speaker 3: adjunct lucture of Yutika University, and I'm now an adjunct
Speaker 3: professor and I've been there for twenty one years. But
Speaker 3: in between all of that came. So I'm very, you know,
Speaker 3: very dark times in my life. And I want to
Speaker 3: give Johan you and your listeners three specific dates that
Speaker 3: are sort of the center centerpiece of my story and
Speaker 3: how I've embraced the path that I'm on, and also
Speaker 3: to to show you how life can kind of just
Speaker 3: turn out a dime. May second, my daughter, Janine's first
Speaker 3: and only daughter, Brianna, was born May second, two thousand
Speaker 3: and two. Brian is now twenty two years old and
Speaker 3: she has two children of her own, so I am
Speaker 3: now a great grandfather. On May nineteenth, a twenty five
Speaker 3: year journey to obtain my master's and social work degree
Speaker 3: ended when I officially got conferred my degree on May nineteenth,
Speaker 3: two thousand and two, from the State University of York
Speaker 3: in Abany. And on May twenty sixth my daughter was
Speaker 3: diagnosed with a malignant tumor. Malignant tumor and foot cancer's
Speaker 3: tumor in her foot. That diagnosis was confirmed June second
Speaker 3: by the Data Farber Research Hospital, Research Center and Hospital
Speaker 3: in Boston, where I was told that she had a
Speaker 3: rare form of cancer called a velia rabdomiosarcoma, which was
Speaker 3: a connective muscle tissue cancer, that the primary site was
Speaker 3: her right foot that she had injured in a freak
Speaker 3: action during pregnancy. Traditional interventions to deal with the swollen
Speaker 3: foot did not work. Every one of us and our
Speaker 3: family thought that it was her swalt foot was simply
Speaker 3: some complications from pregnancy, but it turned out that that
Speaker 3: injury activated some dormant cancer cells and pregnancy massed to
Speaker 3: diagnosis and she was diagnosed with a stage four tumor.
Speaker 3: We were told in Boston that with bone marrow, lipno involvement,
Speaker 3: and we were told that her cancer was incurable. That
Speaker 3: the only cure we were going to have, or chances
Speaker 3: we're going to have for a cure, is if her
Speaker 3: cancer is put into remission until a cure could be found.
Speaker 3: So what my herd and my daughter heard, and I
Speaker 3: think in her significant other and my wife, Sherry heard
Speaker 3: was that unless there's a miracle, your daughter's going to die.
Speaker 3: So I went from the exhilaration of being your grandfather,
Speaker 3: to the contentment of attaining an educational goal twenty five
Speaker 3: years in the making, to now being an unwitting participant
Speaker 3: and a caregiver to a daughter who was now terminally
Speaker 3: ill and an all likelihood was going to die. And
Speaker 3: ten months after she was diagnosed, even after six rounds
Speaker 3: of chemotherapy, which did not put her cancer in total remission,
Speaker 3: she died, or as I now call it, transition from
Speaker 3: the physical world to the spiritual world. And that sent
Speaker 3: me off on a path that at all that, all
Speaker 3: the training in the world, all the therapy that I did
Speaker 3: with clients who had their own trauma is due to
Speaker 3: addiction and not due to addiction, none of that began
Speaker 3: to even prepare me for the path that I was
Speaker 3: about to walk. I was a forty seven year old
Speaker 3: man who is now living in a world that was
Speaker 3: totally alien and very terrifying, you know, trying to think
Speaker 3: moving forward, how am I going to live in a
Speaker 3: world where my only daughter is now at present? And
Speaker 3: I do have two other other sons, one older than
Speaker 3: my daughter, Jeanine, and one younger, and I'm both very
Speaker 3: very proud of them. They're great kids, they're great young men.
Speaker 3: They've got their own families, they've got their own careers,
Speaker 3: and they've been very successful in their own right. But
Speaker 3: my world stopped. My world stopped when my daughter transitioned.
Speaker 3: So that kind of gives you and the listeners some
Speaker 3: additional context to what's going on.
Speaker 2: Yeah, that gives a tremendous amount of context. Do you
Speaker 2: think that there is anything that could have happened that
Speaker 2: would ever have been able to prepare you for that
Speaker 2: kind of loss?
Speaker 3: No? No, I never even jahad allowed myself to even
Speaker 3: go go there. I never allowed myself to even visualize
Speaker 3: what it would be like without one of my children
Speaker 3: physically present. And I was what a friend of mine
Speaker 3: would call one of those fortunate others. I would read
Speaker 3: accounts of parents who had lost a child in my
Speaker 3: heart would go out to them, but simultaneously I was
Speaker 3: glad it wasn't me. But then it became me, and
Speaker 3: my whole perspective shifted. Every time now that I saw
Speaker 3: a parent, I brought about a parent a paper's child
Speaker 3: had died. The amount of empathy and compare ashion and
Speaker 3: shared pain that I had for a person that I
Speaker 3: did not even know, but yeah, we were bound together
Speaker 3: by the unthinkable changed. And I think one of the
Speaker 3: things that's happened over the twenty one years is that
Speaker 3: my compassion has grown not only the people that I know,
Speaker 3: not only to my students or to other people that
Speaker 3: are in my life, but to people that I don't
Speaker 3: even know who've experienced life altering loss, and particularly that
Speaker 3: involving the death of a child. Because I can say
Speaker 3: I know what it's like. Unfortunately I can say I
Speaker 3: know what it's like.
Speaker 2: Let's get into understanding a bit about grief. Could you
Speaker 2: explain what grief is and how it can manifest differently
Speaker 2: in people.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, with any loss, there are consistent
Speaker 3: changes that occur physically, psychologically, cognitively, and socially. And I
Speaker 3: have found that to be consistent with those individuals that
Speaker 3: I have companioned after loss, things like inability to sleep,
Speaker 3: fatigue beyond fatigue, compromised immune systems due to the excessive
Speaker 3: stress of grief. You know, you talk about release a cortisol,
Speaker 3: which is a stress hormone, and inability to sleep probably
Speaker 3: six months after the death of a child, disorientation, disorganization, confusion,
Speaker 3: obsessive rumination, which is playing over over and over the
Speaker 3: last day of that person's life, regardless of cause of death.
Speaker 3: And it isn't obsessive. Rumination isn't indicative of a mental illness.
Speaker 3: It's our mind, it's our bodies and our soul's desire
Speaker 3: to make sense out of what happened. So we replay
Speaker 3: that story over and over and over again until we
Speaker 3: can come to terms with it and accept what has happened.
Speaker 3: Acceptance does not mean closure. Acceptance means that I can
Speaker 3: accept that I am now living in a world where
Speaker 3: my loved ones are not physically present. But I am
Speaker 3: committed to service. I am committed to re engaging in
Speaker 3: life with purpose, with passion in spite of what's happened. Socially,
Speaker 3: relationships change, and I tell people expect that they're going
Speaker 3: to change. The people that you thought were going to
Speaker 3: step up, don't step up. The people that you never
Speaker 3: expected to step up do step up. But when a
Speaker 3: lot of times in early grief and then I can
Speaker 3: speak for myself, and I've also talked to others. When
Speaker 3: we ruminate over are the people that aren't there when
Speaker 3: we should be, When we need to be grateful for
Speaker 3: the people that are many individuals I have discovered did
Speaker 3: not know how to how to handle my grief. They
Speaker 3: did not know how to approach me. They were afraid
Speaker 3: that if they mentioned my daughter's name, you know, they
Speaker 3: were going to upset me. Little did they know that
Speaker 3: I was already upset and mentioning her name would have
Speaker 3: been of great comfort to me. And there are other things. Physically,
Speaker 3: we are under a tremendous amount of stress, particularly within
Speaker 3: that first twenty four hours to a week, where we're
Speaker 3: susceptible to heart attack, We're susceptible to stroke, you know,
Speaker 3: just you know, just because of the elevated levels of stress,
Speaker 3: but we're particularly susceptible within that time period. So and
Speaker 3: those those those conditions, those characteristics of grief will happen
Speaker 3: with every loss. Just because I've come to it, to
Speaker 3: accept and come to peace with the terms of my dog,
Speaker 3: my daughter's loss doesn't mean that I can take that
Speaker 3: bank that and automatically apply that on any other losses
Speaker 3: that I have and will experience. I need to go through.
Speaker 3: I will go through that same process with each and
Speaker 3: every loss. And it's a process that needs to be
Speaker 3: gone through. It's a process that needs to be expected,
Speaker 3: and more so it's a process that needs to be honored.
Speaker 2: What are some things that someone can do to overcome
Speaker 2: the obsessive rumination?
Speaker 3: I think one particularly the obsessive rumination is going to occur,
Speaker 3: you know, I think throughout particularly early grief, but particularly
Speaker 3: becomes more prominent as we get closer to specific milestone
Speaker 3: dates such as the data that person's not their transition
Speaker 3: or passing birthdays, any other significant milestone events that could
Speaker 3: have involved that individual, like what of a friend, a
Speaker 3: wedding of another setbling in that family. So what I
Speaker 3: encourage individuals to do is one prepare for that, understand
Speaker 3: that the obsessive rumination is going to probably become more talent.
Speaker 3: And it's at that moment that to find some support
Speaker 3: with individuals who are willing to hear where you're at,
Speaker 3: to hear your particularly particular story, which is going to
Speaker 3: continue to evolve each year that you grieve, and it
Speaker 3: is going to be willing the hold space for whatever
Speaker 3: you need to you need to talk about and you
Speaker 3: need to come to terms with, particularly in that the
Speaker 3: last moments or the last day of that person's life.
Speaker 3: So it's about finding support. I think it's also about
Speaker 3: trying to read as much literature as you can on
Speaker 3: grief and memoirs of individuals who have experienced the same
Speaker 3: type of loss to find out what they did to
Speaker 3: get through at how they handled the obsessive rumination, how
Speaker 3: they handled the anticipation leading up to specific milestone dates.
Speaker 3: I found all of that to be specifically helpful for me,
Speaker 3: as well as finding a really good support group that
Speaker 3: could align with the specific loss that I had.
Speaker 2: What are some common misconceptions about grief that maybe you
Speaker 2: experienced or you know that other people have experienced.
Speaker 3: Well, one is that one of our common misconceptions is
Speaker 3: grief is linear and that it's time limited. And I
Speaker 3: think Jahan this all started when Kubel A. Ross came
Speaker 3: out I think of nineteen sixty nine with the Stages
Speaker 3: of Grief. Elizabeth Koopbler Ross came out with the Stages
Speaker 3: of Grief to give individuals who were dying an end
Speaker 3: of life vocabulary to conceptualizer end of life chapter. But
Speaker 3: in what happened, I think many in Western society said, oh, great,
Speaker 3: this is how we grieve in general. So the expectation
Speaker 3: began that we would start out with denial. What's progressed
Speaker 3: to anger, with progress to bargain, and all of this
Speaker 3: would go in a linear fashion for a six month
Speaker 3: to one year period of time, which after that time
Speaker 3: we would bury our grief in a little box, put
Speaker 3: it aside, and move on as if nothing has happened.
Speaker 3: The reality is that grief is very circular. The row
Speaker 3: pain of grief can come up at any time, depending
Speaker 3: on what's going on at that particular moment. I'll give
Speaker 3: you an example in my own journey. Janine was eighteen
Speaker 3: years old when she transitioned. In the seventeenth year of
Speaker 3: her physical absence, I was beginning to experience grief as
Speaker 3: if it was like day one. I couldn't you know.
Speaker 3: I was having some physical pain. I was lethargic, I
Speaker 3: was irritated. And then as I sat back and ref
Speaker 3: and I also talked to another fellow travel around on
Speaker 3: a path that we never thought we'd be embracing, she said,
Speaker 3: you know, you're coming up on the eighteenth year. That
Speaker 3: means your daughter will have been in spirit as long
Speaker 3: as she was alive. And that was a milestone that
Speaker 3: a lot of veteran grievers have gone through. And I
Speaker 3: hadn't understood that until I experienced that. So that's the
Speaker 3: example of circularity. It just come up at any time.
Speaker 3: It's something. As I've gotten older in grief, I've learned
Speaker 3: to expect. I've learned to look at that as just
Speaker 3: another part of the deal. And you know, that's uh,
Speaker 3: that that's so that's one of the that's again. So
Speaker 3: that's one of the misconceptions grief is. Grief is not linear.
Speaker 3: It's very circular. The other thing is, you know, the
Speaker 3: other misconceptions I think about grief is that we are
Speaker 3: going to upset those individuals if we bring up that
Speaker 3: person's loved one, you know, and in reality, where it's
Speaker 3: the greatest gift when you've remembered and you want to
Speaker 3: talk about that loved one and you acknowledge their presence,
Speaker 3: you acknowledge that they have lived, that's the greatest gift
Speaker 3: to somebody. And the the other thing with then we're
Speaker 3: going to get to some gender specific stuff with with
Speaker 3: men and with women. The other conception is that men
Speaker 3: don't feel their grief. What is true is that men
Speaker 3: feel grief. Most men feel grief. We just deal with
Speaker 3: grief differently. We feel feelings as intensely as our female counterparts.
Speaker 3: We're just can We've just been conditioned to deal with
Speaker 3: it differently. Women it's been reinforced. And it's that they
Speaker 3: can emote, they can seek support. Men have a great
Speaker 3: deal of difficulty seeking and directly emoting their their emotions.
Speaker 3: But what men tend to do is work through their emotions.
Speaker 3: They tend to be active with that. If we're feeling
Speaker 3: we're feeling upset, we distract ourselves from our emotions through
Speaker 3: doing activity. And the misconception is that men men don't
Speaker 3: have feelings like we do. We just we just express those,
Speaker 3: we just deal with them differently. And I think what
Speaker 3: I've told women in the past who have asked me,
Speaker 3: why is them I mean can't express emotions well? Expressing
Speaker 3: emotions for men have with it some great risks, the
Speaker 3: risk of vulnerability, the risk of being seen is weak.
Speaker 3: And this is not for all men. Maybe seventy five
Speaker 3: percent of the cases you might you might find this.
Speaker 3: But and the other thing is with men is that
Speaker 3: you know that men are do not like it when
Speaker 3: they're Women in their lives cry okay, there was a
Speaker 3: woman's tears represent symbolically what a man couldn't do, and
Speaker 3: that was protect their family. Every Time I saw my
Speaker 3: wife crying, every time I saw my two sons in despair,
Speaker 3: it reminded me that at that time I failed as
Speaker 3: my job as a father's and I couldn't protect my daughter.
Speaker 3: I couldn't protect my family from what had happened, and
Speaker 3: that was there was a tremendous burden for me to
Speaker 3: carry until I with the help with the help of
Speaker 3: a lot of very supportive individuals, I realized that I
Speaker 3: had no control over a disease that was incurable. I
Speaker 3: had the illusion of control that I didn't have control,
Speaker 3: and I was realizing that I did the best that
Speaker 3: I could given the circumstances that were dealt to me,
Speaker 3: and given the hand the cards that were dealt to me.
Speaker 3: And the other thing is that you know, with all
Speaker 3: the questions I asked in the world, it was very
Speaker 3: simply in Sacred Law was my daughter's time to go?
Speaker 3: Years was enough for her soul to to learn the
Speaker 3: lessons that you needed to learn in her physical body
Speaker 3: and then go after a new existence and the human
Speaker 3: lae eighteen law Eighteen years wasn't enough, and it took
Speaker 3: me quite a while until I met Reverend Patty Farino,
Speaker 3: it took me quite a while to know the difference
Speaker 3: between human law and sacred law as it relates to
Speaker 3: an individual, to individual's death, and the answers are questions
Speaker 3: surrounding that.
Speaker 2: Okay, yeah, I totally get that. So with that, what
Speaker 2: could be some healthy coping mechanisms that you could recommend?
Speaker 3: Wow, First of all, I like journaling. I think whether
Speaker 3: it's an audio journal that you keep where a written journal.
Speaker 3: I like journaling, particularly in the early phases. You can
Speaker 3: get all your feelings out uncensored, and it also gives
Speaker 3: you a written a written record of your progress as
Speaker 3: you continue to journal. I encourage individuals journaling when they
Speaker 3: feel a nudge to journal and to really keep it,
Speaker 3: to keep it going, and then take a look at
Speaker 3: the progress that you've made. And even you know, even
Speaker 3: if you take two steps forward to one step back,
Speaker 3: or just still one step back, and you still make progress,
Speaker 3: but celebrate the progress that you've made. Journaling in a
Speaker 3: written record of that or an audio record of that
Speaker 3: that you can listen to or or read can be
Speaker 3: very powerful. The second thing, even in kind of the
Speaker 3: worst days of our lives, there's usually something good that
Speaker 3: will happen to us, and I can encourage individuals to
Speaker 3: try to keep a gratitude journal in terms of just
Speaker 3: you know, just write down one thing a day that
Speaker 3: happened that you could be grateful for. So that's the
Speaker 3: other part of the other thing is support support in
Speaker 3: a community that will will uplift to you, that will
Speaker 3: validate your grief. So, for example, if it's an individual
Speaker 3: who has lost a husband or a wife, espousal support
Speaker 3: group would be ideal, or even a general grief support
Speaker 3: group with a variety of different losses could work. Death
Speaker 3: of a child, I would find a parent support group,
Speaker 3: either through the Compassionate Friends with the Brief Parents of
Speaker 3: the USA or through your local community. A lot of
Speaker 3: times funeral homes will sponsor those types of meetings. Read
Speaker 3: as much as you can, as much as you're capable of.
Speaker 3: The Open to Hope Foundation has some very good brief
Speaker 3: five hundred to one thousand word articles that for individuals
Speaker 3: and early grief that may be all they can process.
Speaker 3: The ability to concentrate increases, they can begin to read
Speaker 3: more and more specifically memoirs of individuals who have transcended
Speaker 3: grief or other challenges. The other thing that I have
Speaker 3: I have found very helpful. And again this is what
Speaker 3: the assistance of you know, the conversations I had with
Speaker 3: you know, Reverend Patty far Reno was transforming the relationship
Speaker 3: with my daughter by forming continuing bonds with her. The
Speaker 3: best parts of who my daughter are now integrated into
Speaker 3: who I am. So when you get me, you're going
Speaker 3: to give me and you're going to get my daughter
Speaker 3: as well too. We have become a packaged deal. And
Speaker 3: symbolically I've integrated my grief. I have carried my grief
Speaker 3: and I've carried her with me, and that has that
Speaker 3: has given me, That has given me peace. And don't
Speaker 3: get me wrong, there are days that I yearned for
Speaker 3: her physical presence, but those yearnings are temporary. I also
Speaker 3: understand that that's part of my permanent existence now. I happiness,
Speaker 3: joy sadness, confus usual, anger, all of that are going
Speaker 3: to be a part of my existence, and in reality,
Speaker 3: it's a part of all of our existence, regardless of
Speaker 3: whether we've experienced laws or not. I don't know if
Speaker 3: I think I may have told you this in other
Speaker 3: and other conversations we've had. I don't hang around with
Speaker 3: happy people anymore. And I would encourage individuals in grief
Speaker 3: to hang around with genuine people, people who are going
Speaker 3: to be receptive to When they ask you how you're
Speaker 3: doing and you tell them, boy, today really sucks, they're
Speaker 3: going to sit and create space for that. And I
Speaker 3: also tell individuals don't ask a grieving person how they're
Speaker 3: doing unless you're prepared to spend some time with them,
Speaker 3: because they may need to talk. And this isn't just
Speaker 3: going to be like a you know, courtesy social great,
Speaker 3: Yeah I'm doing great. They may not be doing great,
Speaker 3: and you just can't say, well, i'll see you later.
Speaker 3: You know you're going to You need to be prepared
Speaker 3: to hold space for that. If you're not, don't ask
Speaker 3: the question. The other thing is don't be afraid or
Speaker 3: fearful of painful emotions. We're meant to experience those emotions.
Speaker 3: Embrace it to the extent that you can learn from it.
Speaker 3: Learn that you can survive it, Learn that maybe in
Speaker 3: need your worst amount of worst moments of sadness, the
Speaker 3: most compassionate person could could have emerged from that. So
Speaker 3: try to take a look at the positives in the
Speaker 3: negatives as well too, especially once you've distanced yourself from that,
Speaker 3: and expect that the worst loss that you've ever had
Speaker 3: in your life isn't going to be the only loss
Speaker 3: that you're going to have. They'll be as long as
Speaker 3: we live, we're going to experience loss. I'm sixty nine
Speaker 3: years old now, and just because I mean, the worst
Speaker 3: loss I've experienced in my life is obviously Janine. However,
Speaker 3: I've experienced other losses as well too that have been
Speaker 3: traumatic for me as well. Expect that loss is going
Speaker 3: to be a part of life, and that our ability
Speaker 3: to lead a quality life is how we handle the
Speaker 3: challenges that are presented to us, and loss is going
Speaker 3: to be as much a part of our life as
Speaker 3: life itself.
Speaker 2: I'm really glad you said that, because in my practice
Speaker 2: I have come across endless people who use things like
Speaker 2: that as their reason as to why they actually cannot
Speaker 2: move forward. Is this really bad thing happened to me
Speaker 2: and now I'm broken and I'll never ever be the
Speaker 2: same again, and there's nothing that I can do about it.
Speaker 2: I also try to stay away from what I like
Speaker 2: to call chronic new agers and positive mindset people, because
Speaker 2: sometimes they're actually the most unhappy, ungrateful people out there.
Speaker 2: They don't know how to deal with their issues, and
Speaker 2: so they're trying to love and light away or refra
Speaker 2: aim everything that happens without actually taking a good, deep,
Speaker 2: genuinely honest look at what that could mean for them
Speaker 2: and what they need to do about it, who they
Speaker 2: could become all those things.
Speaker 1: Do you agree?
Speaker 3: Oh? Absolutely? And I think a lot of times people
Speaker 3: buy into this Western society mindset that happiness is the
Speaker 3: key to fulfillment, and happiness is a part of it.
Speaker 3: But I don't know anybody that's happy twenty four hours
Speaker 3: a day, seven days a week in lesser and total
Speaker 3: denial about the rest of their emotional experience, or they've
Speaker 3: so bought into this narrative that, jeez, I can't have
Speaker 3: negative emotions in my life because it's going to interfere
Speaker 3: with productivity, which is why individuals get upset if people
Speaker 3: are grieving six months to a year, because you're interfering
Speaker 3: with that whole productivity narrative. You've got to get better.
Speaker 3: I can't deal with that. But here's the thing. Second
Speaker 3: year is worse in many cases than the first year
Speaker 3: of grief. So you can throw that linear, you know,
Speaker 3: projection of grief right out the window because the second
Speaker 3: year for me, once one year and one day hit
Speaker 3: for me, the reality of the fact that my daughter
Speaker 3: was never coming back hit me. The first year, I
Speaker 3: was thinking, ah, you know, she was going to peer
Speaker 3: down from from heaven and just say, hey, Dad, just kidding.
Speaker 3: You know, this was I just took a vacation, or
Speaker 3: that God or whoever was in charge of the universe
Speaker 3: at the time, was going to come down and say,
Speaker 3: we're going to give your life back. We made a mistake.
Speaker 3: We're going to give you your life back the way
Speaker 3: the way you knew it. But that never happened, and
Speaker 3: it wasn't going to happen. But yet that first year,
Speaker 3: we kind of are in that between shock and surreal
Speaker 3: mode where we're thinking that, well, maybe this was all
Speaker 3: a dream. But then when you hit that second year,
Speaker 3: you realize that this is reality now. So but I
Speaker 3: mean for me, I mean Debbie Ford wrote a book
Speaker 3: called The Dark Side of the Light Chasers, and she
Speaker 3: took off with Carl Jung's work with the shadow element.
Speaker 3: Carl Young said, the shadow was a person that you
Speaker 3: don't want to be. That's I'm paraphrasing that. But she
Speaker 3: also talked about something very profound, saying that we are
Speaker 3: the microcosm of the macrocosm. We contain every emotion, good
Speaker 3: and bad that's known everybody in the universe, and then
Speaker 3: that we can be in service to each other, and
Speaker 3: that a lot of times we don't want to what
Speaker 3: we see in others is things we don't want to
Speaker 3: say in ourselves. But in order to develop genuineness, we
Speaker 3: need to be able to embrace that dark side, so
Speaker 3: to speak. We need to be able to make peace
Speaker 3: with it, to make friends with it, to allow us
Speaker 3: to teach us about ourselves and allow us to become
Speaker 3: whole and genuine. I think Nietzsche Frederic Nietzsche has said
Speaker 3: something to the effect that if you deny your past,
Speaker 3: you're denying your existence. And a lot of the negative
Speaker 3: qualities that people don't want us to see are based
Speaker 3: on a lot of it is based on decisions we've
Speaker 3: made in our past, and our past basically is our
Speaker 3: teacher anyway. So to disown the past means that we're
Speaker 3: disowning a part of our existence that we can learn from.
Speaker 3: And for me Jahan with the and for anybody with
Speaker 3: life altering lass, I had to look at everything, all
Speaker 3: of my beliefs, all of my attitudes, all of my
Speaker 3: priorities I had to tell and I take all that
Speaker 3: involved me taking a deep, dark look at my past
Speaker 3: and you know, letting the past be my teacher and
Speaker 3: just saying okay, based on the life that I've lived.
Speaker 3: At the age of forty seven, when my daughter transitioned,
Speaker 3: what beliefs do I want to stay, Which beliefs do
Speaker 3: I want to expand? Which beliefs no longer serve me?
Speaker 3: So I went through kind of a death of a
Speaker 3: different sorts of death of those parts of me that
Speaker 3: no longer served me in my new reality going forward.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I'm just curious.
Speaker 2: What are some things that parents can do to help
Speaker 2: children process prieve.
Speaker 3: I think one is not shield them from it. I think,
Speaker 3: you know, for me, and I've made this mistake as
Speaker 3: a parent. You know, when my mother transitioned to nineteen
Speaker 3: ninety four, my two kids at the time, because my
Speaker 3: son Matt wasn't born yet, she transitioned ninety four, but
Speaker 3: my son Dan and Jeanine were very close to her,
Speaker 3: and what we did was we only allowed them to
Speaker 3: have a private showing, go to a private showing we
Speaker 3: didn't give them the option to go to the funeral.
Speaker 3: We didn't give them the option to go to calling hours.
Speaker 3: We mistakenly thought we were shielding them. So one, don't
Speaker 3: shield your kids. Give them an opportunity to participate in
Speaker 3: a funeral to the extent that they want to. Maybe
Speaker 3: they want to make a car to put in the casket,
Speaker 3: or maybe they want to participate in picking out pictures
Speaker 3: or other memorabilia for a memory board, either digital or
Speaker 3: you know, just a quirkboard type of thing. Given the opportunity,
Speaker 3: if they say no, that's okay, that you've given them
Speaker 3: the option. The other thing is, don't use youthh in
Speaker 3: hissms with especially with the younger children. If you tell
Speaker 3: the younger children that grandpa went away, literally they're going
Speaker 3: to ask you one is they coming back? Or grandpa
Speaker 3: is sleeping. They may be afraid to go to sleep
Speaker 3: because they feel if he's sleeping, he's not waking up.
Speaker 3: They're not going to wake up. So, and there's a
Speaker 3: lot of good age appropriate books out there to teach
Speaker 3: children about what happens when when the body dies and
Speaker 3: and you know, the soul goes to heaven or you know,
Speaker 3: whatever there's a there's a lot of good belief, you know,
Speaker 3: good age appropriate books that can introduce children to death.
Speaker 3: And I think for parents, I think if they can
Speaker 3: model healthy grieving for their children, and eventually children at
Speaker 3: a young age, their sensorymoter, you know, you're two or six,
Speaker 3: they tend to imitate what their parents they do. So
Speaker 3: if their parents are imitating healthy coping mechanisms or grief,
Speaker 3: whether it's you know, showing their emotions freely reaching out
Speaker 3: for support, one, it's going to be I think of
Speaker 3: stabilizing influence for that child. And it's also going to
Speaker 3: model this is what we do during crisis. Also allow
Speaker 3: children to be as creative as they want. Kids will
Speaker 3: be creative through play, they'll talk, they'll to plate therapy,
Speaker 3: they'll they'll talk about different transitions that are going on
Speaker 3: in their house. For older children or adolescents who are creative, music, poetry,
Speaker 3: you know, any any type of you know, poetry, literature,
Speaker 3: music that they're into can also be a vehicle for
Speaker 3: them expressing their emotions. Don't light to children, don't lie
Speaker 3: especially you know about it. Just be as upfront with
Speaker 3: them as possible as you know. And if you don't
Speaker 3: if there's there's an information about a death that requires
Speaker 3: that is kind of ongoing where you know, I think
Speaker 3: particularly in mass shootings, where information is always, you know, always,
Speaker 3: you know, evolving, You tell individuals what they need to know.
Speaker 3: With the president, you tell them what you don't know,
Speaker 3: and you tell them that as soon as we get updates,
Speaker 3: we'll let you know. Being honest, Also normalizing the grief process,
Speaker 3: that crying is okay. That yeah, if you're if you're
Speaker 3: having mood swings, it's normal. If you're feeling fatigued, it's normal.
Speaker 3: If you're constantly thinking about the person you've lost, that's normal.
Speaker 3: So between normalization creating an open space for honest discussion
Speaker 3: and not shielding children, giving them the option to participate
Speaker 3: in the funeral process as much as they wish to,
Speaker 3: or if not at all, at least give them that
Speaker 3: option and find a age appropriate ways to to help
Speaker 3: them front dot and the realization.
Speaker 2: Of, yeah, something happened with you know my partner, I
Speaker 2: told you this last time we spoke. She just lost
Speaker 2: her grandfather and for all intents and purposes, he was
Speaker 2: her father. So it's been a journey with that. But
Speaker 2: I've also taken note of how the various children spread
Speaker 2: out across the family have dealt with things. And one
Speaker 2: of the most interesting ones is that one of the
Speaker 2: little ones, she's only two years old, and she tells
Speaker 2: her mother she goes to the bedroom at night because
Speaker 2: she's going to play with pap before she goes to bed,
Speaker 2: and so it kind of bothered them, but it didn't.
Speaker 2: It didn't bother me or my partner hearing that.
Speaker 1: You know.
Speaker 2: Also, like my partner's youngest child, also she has moments
Speaker 2: where she will look at his picture and just start
Speaker 2: crying and stuff like that, and you know, the best
Speaker 2: thing you can do is just let her go through
Speaker 2: the motions, you know. Mm hmm, So what were you
Speaker 2: going to say?
Speaker 3: I was going to say that doesn't surprise me because
Speaker 3: kids are children are highly intuitive between three and seven anyway,
Speaker 3: and I think because of their alpha brainwave activities, they
Speaker 3: are available between this world and the and the afterlife
Speaker 3: or another other dimensions are non existent, so they can
Speaker 3: readily communicate with loved ones, and they have that they're
Speaker 3: they're parent herb spirit and kids at the kids at
Speaker 3: that age aren't capable of lying anyway. There's another instance
Speaker 3: where I was working with a parent whose son died
Speaker 3: in a in a home accident and his younger brother
Speaker 3: that he left behind. She'd be in he'd be in
Speaker 3: the corner talking and so she'd say, well, who are
Speaker 3: you talking to? I'm talking to my brother and he
Speaker 3: has a message for you. So this is quite common.
Speaker 3: I mean, you know kids, I mean, obviously they do
Speaker 3: imaginary play, but this is not a manage play. This
Speaker 3: is a very specific conversation. I'm talking to Papa, I'm
Speaker 3: talking to Grandpa, I'm talking to grandma. This is very specific.
Speaker 3: This goes beyond imaginary play. Kids can also have shared
Speaker 3: death expirit can participate and share death experiences to an
Speaker 3: extent as well too. And and how this might happen.
Speaker 3: And I had another instance where one of my former
Speaker 3: students her niece, their niece's uncle passed away and the
Speaker 3: police came to I think her parents' store, yet his
Speaker 3: parents' store, and she was there to say that, you know,
Speaker 3: and she looked up and said, is this about Uncle
Speaker 3: Brian who she knew? Uncle who she knew. He died
Speaker 3: before the rest of the family doing before the police
Speaker 3: communicated that. So what I think had happened is he
Speaker 3: left his spirit, He left his body, came to comforter
Speaker 3: and said, I'm always going to be with you, and
Speaker 3: took off to the to the other side. On share
Speaker 3: death experiences, you know what near death experiences will. People
Speaker 3: will leave their bodies, they'll go to another dimension, which
Speaker 3: is the afterlife. They learn what they're supposed to learn,
Speaker 3: and then they're put back in their bodies to complete
Speaker 3: their life mission and share death experiences where the bystanders
Speaker 3: sharing sharing that experience where they actually see the spirit
Speaker 3: leave the body, where they actually can sometimes even accompany
Speaker 3: the spirit of their deceased loved ones to that just
Speaker 3: to the entrance of that dark tunnel which immediately turns
Speaker 3: into light, so they can actually participate in that. It's
Speaker 3: got the same features as the near death experience, but
Speaker 3: the bystanders have an opportunity to participate in that. This
Speaker 3: young girl probably had a witness saw her the spirit
Speaker 3: of her uncle who had left his body. She came
Speaker 3: to comforter, and then he went off into we went
Speaker 3: off into another dimension. And so when kids, especially between
Speaker 3: the ages of three seven, talk about these kinds of things,
Speaker 3: they're very specific interactions that they've had to go beyond
Speaker 3: imaginary play.
Speaker 2: Let's talk a bit about grief and its impact on
Speaker 2: mental health. A lot of people struggle with depression or
Speaker 2: anxiety as a result of grief. What can someone do
Speaker 2: to deal with that strange relationship between grief and for
Speaker 2: mental health, and when should someone consider seeking professional help
Speaker 2: for that well.
Speaker 3: First and foremost, one of the things I caution individuals
Speaker 3: on is confusing the normal sadness of grief with clinical depression.
Speaker 3: And a lot of times what happens, and this is
Speaker 3: a pet peeve of mind, is that the sadness of
Speaker 3: grief automatically gets will soon get well, very soon after
Speaker 3: that person's transitioned or died or passed away, get diagnosis depression,
Speaker 3: and they're put on some type of SSRI is all
Speaker 3: off or you prosact, when really what is needed is
Speaker 3: just for them to work through the sadness of their
Speaker 3: grief through support through other means. Now, it's not to
Speaker 3: say that grief can't turn into the sadness of grief
Speaker 3: can't turn into depression. There's a couple of different instances
Speaker 3: where I think it can. One instances of complicated grief
Speaker 3: where you know, I mean, all death is traumatic, but
Speaker 3: traumatic death may be due to suicide, homicide, mass shootings.
Speaker 3: If there is no movement from the raw pain of
Speaker 3: grief to eventually making a decision to re engage in
Speaker 3: life with meeting and purpose in spite of what's happened,
Speaker 3: and that person stays stuck in the muck of grief,
Speaker 3: that sadness can definitely turn into depression. If an individual
Speaker 3: has had a prior diagnosis of clinical depression or anxiety,
Speaker 3: then mental health practitioners or coaches need to be mindful
Speaker 3: of reminding them to do to utilize the coping strategies
Speaker 3: that they've used to deal with their mental health and
Speaker 3: continue to do that, maybe continue to seek out additional
Speaker 3: support and augment that with additional support resources that can
Speaker 3: help them through grief. The other thing with anxiety, you know,
Speaker 3: panic and fear is a normal emotional reaction, particularly the
Speaker 3: panic of losing more. If you're talking about a fear
Speaker 3: of losing more. If you're talking about a parent who's
Speaker 3: like myself, has experienced the death of a child, first
Speaker 3: thing that closes our mind is that it can happen again.
Speaker 3: Because that safety net, that illusion of safety and predictability
Speaker 3: was now shattered and the reality is that this happened
Speaker 3: to me once, This can happen to me twice, It
Speaker 3: can happen to me three times. So that in and
Speaker 3: of itself that fear, we can either do one two
Speaker 3: days that fear can paralyze us, or we could channel
Speaker 3: that fear productively to say that for our ever long
Speaker 3: I have in my life, regardless of what happens, I'm
Speaker 3: going to lead with each day of my life to
Speaker 3: its fullest and be the best person that I can
Speaker 3: possibly be to myself, to my family, and to those
Speaker 3: who need support for me. But a lot of times
Speaker 3: we path of you know, we uh, you know, we
Speaker 3: we put a pathological label on grief. As I think
Speaker 3: the d s M five R now has something that
Speaker 3: if the symptoms of grief don't subside after two weeks,
Speaker 3: then it's, you know, we go to clinical depression, which
Speaker 3: to me is a bunch of hogwash, because again, when
Speaker 3: you take a look at even even cooble Rosa's stages
Speaker 3: of grief, even society gave individuals six months to a year.
Speaker 3: The d s M four is going to give you
Speaker 3: two weeks and then you know, well, the diagnosed with
Speaker 3: clinical depression puts you on medication, and that could be
Speaker 3: the worst thing is to medicate grief because a lot
Speaker 3: of times they can deaden the feeling of grief and
Speaker 3: we need to feel it to go through it.
Speaker 1: Yeah, I agree with you.
Speaker 2: What about grieving the loss of a pet.
Speaker 3: I want to backtrack the one thing that you said
Speaker 3: about your significant others grandfather who she saw as a father.
Speaker 3: Here's the other thing that we need to understand. We
Speaker 3: grieve what the not only we have to honor the
Speaker 3: grief of how that person saw the relationship. It wasn't
Speaker 3: just a grandfather, she saw him as a father figure.
Speaker 3: That takes grief to a whole new level. It's losing
Speaker 3: a grandparent, which has its own set of grief that
Speaker 3: goes with it, and also losing somebody they have seen
Speaker 3: as a parent also has its own set of grief
Speaker 3: and we need to honor that. We need to as practitioners,
Speaker 3: find out what the what the relationship was. You can
Speaker 3: have two non biological friends that see each other as
Speaker 3: brothers and sisters from different mothers, and if one of
Speaker 3: them them die, they're going to look at that as
Speaker 3: not losing just a friend, but an adoptive family member.
Speaker 3: And those the depth of those relationships need to be honored.
Speaker 3: Death of a pet a lot of times it becomes
Speaker 3: disenfranchised grief or grief that is an honored because a
Speaker 3: lot of people say, it's just a dog, it's just
Speaker 3: a cat. You can you can get another animal. Well,
Speaker 3: for individuals, couples, you know, whether they're headinormative couples, same
Speaker 3: sex couples. If they're they're not going to have any
Speaker 3: kids or adopt any kids, their pets become part of
Speaker 3: their family. Their pets become as if they're their children.
Speaker 3: Then they're objectified as their children. So it has they
Speaker 3: lose that they lose a pet, they've lost They've they've
Speaker 3: lost a member, not only member of their family, but
Speaker 3: one who they've been uniquely bonded to and will consider
Speaker 3: to be not only a member of their family, one
Speaker 3: of their children. The other thing, if they're a service
Speaker 3: animal or an emotional support animal, the individual has now
Speaker 3: lost a part of their autonomy, a part of their independence,
Speaker 3: a part of their emotional comfort zone that can't be replaced.
Speaker 3: So I mean I've transitioned. I've lost seven pets into
Speaker 3: my life, Johann and every one of them have had
Speaker 3: significance for me, particularly my daughter's cat, Bootsy, who was
Speaker 3: after Jeanine transitioned. He would get me up at four
Speaker 3: point thirty in the morning, whether I wanted to or not,
Speaker 3: just to get me moving, and he showed me love,
Speaker 3: you know, when I had trouble loving myself. So that
Speaker 3: cat as my granddaughter, who by the way, heard her
Speaker 3: significant other who lived with us for four years after
Speaker 3: Jeanine transition. They had moved into us when she moved
Speaker 3: into our house when they she got sick. But as
Speaker 3: Brianna got my wife Sherry moving, Bootsy got me moving
Speaker 3: when he transitioned. It was a very traumatic time for me.
Speaker 3: Animals are, I think, are some of our greatest teachers.
Speaker 3: If you take a look at the Native American teachings
Speaker 3: of animals in nature, they consider animals to be revered.
Speaker 3: Animals were here long before we were. They consider their
Speaker 3: spirits to be precious, to be honored and to be
Speaker 3: and that they have a lot to teach us, and
Speaker 3: animals can teach us more about humanity than sometimes humans can.
Speaker 3: So so honor pet loss as you would any other loss.
Speaker 3: It's significant to the individuals going through It holds space
Speaker 3: for that share hold stories for it.
Speaker 2: I have.
Speaker 3: Two of my cats remains remains right up over my
Speaker 3: desk as I'm speaking to you, and one of them
Speaker 3: isn't Bootsy. Bootsy is in the backyard because he lived
Speaker 3: here for twenty one years. But Zoe, who is another
Speaker 3: rescue cat that I inherited from my son. My oldest
Speaker 3: son was a cad who just showed me, you know,
Speaker 3: maybe would make me laugh out loud, and that part
Speaker 3: of me had had died a little bit after Jeanine passed,
Speaker 3: but he would she would just do like really, you know,
Speaker 3: fun stuff, fun things, and just make me laugh and
Speaker 3: bring joy in my life. So but yeah, pat loss
Speaker 3: can be disenfranchised, but don't let it be honored and
Speaker 3: treated as any his loss, as any significant as human loss.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, Dave, I think we are coming up to
Speaker 2: the end of the hour. Let's move on to our
Speaker 2: final thoughts. What is one key takeaway that you'd like
Speaker 2: for the listeners to remember about grief.
Speaker 3: Well, first of all, this is a term. It's terma.
Speaker 3: It's always probably been. You use and overused grief as
Speaker 3: a marathon. It's not a sprint. Progress is not linear,
Speaker 3: but progress will be made As I mentioned earlier, we
Speaker 3: take two steps forward and one step back, you're still
Speaker 3: one step ahead. Show grace to yourself. Give up any
Speaker 3: sense of control you thought your head you had, because
Speaker 3: control is simply just an illusion. The only control we
Speaker 3: have is the control of our how we react to things,
Speaker 3: how we treat ourselves, how we treat our loved ones,
Speaker 3: and how we choose to transcend challenge. Show grace to yourself,
Speaker 3: Be gentle with yourself, don't hesitate to ask for help
Speaker 3: and support. And I will leave you with a quote
Speaker 3: from one of my favorite musicians and drummers of all time,
Speaker 3: Neil Peart. This is from his book Ghostwriter Travels on
Speaker 3: the Healing Road. We are all islands to each other,
Speaker 3: building hopeful bridges and the trouble seas, and so let's
Speaker 3: be islands to each other during time of challenge, and
Speaker 3: let's build those bridges between us so we can we
Speaker 3: can help each other through challenging times.
Speaker 2: I like it well, Dave, it's been really awesome talking
Speaker 2: with you, and I think that this is a subject
Speaker 2: that many people need to have your level of insight on.
Speaker 2: Can you tell us where we can find you.
Speaker 3: Well, you can find me Mike give you. You can
Speaker 3: find me on Facebook, you can find me on LinkedIn,
Speaker 3: you can find me on Instagram. You can also go
Speaker 3: to my website David robertsimsw dot com. It has my
Speaker 3: contact information there if you want to go to my
Speaker 3: author page or mine in Breverend Patti Farino's author page,
Speaker 3: it's Psychology professorandminister dot com. You'll see some reviews about
Speaker 3: the book. You'll see some blog postings as well some
Speaker 3: other reviews that were not on Amazon. For the book
Speaker 3: and a way to purchase the book and for those
Speaker 3: who want to know more about my continued transformation from grief.
Speaker 3: This book lays it all out say there's nothing you
Speaker 3: won't know about me in this book. It's very I'm
Speaker 3: very transparent with my journey, transparent with the conversations I
Speaker 3: had with with Reverend Farino and how she was instrumental
Speaker 3: in helping me integrate both spirituality and psychology to cre
Speaker 3: gain a better understanding of myself in the world, and
Speaker 3: how she taught me how to transform the relationship with
Speaker 3: my daughter too, so I have an ongoing relationship with
Speaker 3: her in spirit. So that's how you can get in
Speaker 3: touch with me, and also if you wanted one one thing.
Speaker 3: If you want to, you want to listen to the
Speaker 3: Teaching Journeys podcast. Our episode with me and johann will
Speaker 3: be coming out very soon. You can you can find
Speaker 3: it at any any major you know podcast platform, Apple, Spotify,
Speaker 3: so feel free to check it out. And I also
Speaker 3: have a youth We also have it on YouTube as
Speaker 3: well too, so so that's how you can find me,
Speaker 3: find out what I'm doing, and connect with me.
Speaker 2: Okay, well, Dave, thanks for being on the Boundless Authenticity podcast.
Speaker 3: I love the name because I only have people in
Speaker 3: my surf circle now with Boundless Authenticity.
Speaker 1: All right, Dave, thanks for being here.
Speaker 3: My pleasure. Thanks Johanna, it was a break talking with it.
Speaker 2: I'm Johannes Satur, a CTAA, accredited cognitive behavioral therapist, hypnotherapist,
Speaker 2: nutrition coach, mindfulness teacher, and specialist in the area of
Speaker 2: subconscious self sabotage.
Speaker 1: You may also know me.
Speaker 2: As the host of Boundless Authenticity. I assist by showing
Speaker 2: people of all walks of life how to be mindful
Speaker 2: and allow the negative automatic thoughts about the events of
Speaker 2: the external and the associated programs to reveal themselves fully.
Speaker 2: So that they can learn to establish deep inner peace
Speaker 2: and operate from purpose and passion. Much of my work
Speaker 2: focuses on removing the disempowering thoughts and beliefs from the
Speaker 2: subconscious mind, which cause us to create less than favorable
Speaker 2: emotional consequences and circumstances. I teach you various ways to
Speaker 2: change internal dialogue, clear harsh memories and emotions, and delete
Speaker 2: useless information from the subconscious. I also teach when to meditate,
Speaker 2: how to meditate, and why you have certain thoughts and
Speaker 2: feelings during meditation and how to handle them effectively. If
Speaker 2: you or someone you know are struggling with self sabotaging
Speaker 2: behaviors and harsh emotional consequences, please do contact me at
Speaker 2: self Sabotage Info at proton dot me. You're listening to
Speaker 2: the Boundless Authenticity podcast where we discuss everything related to
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Speaker 3: Leastilian to understand. The United States bills bunkers, which are
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Speaker 2: Your months, your lot seller in solution you Creativity.
Speaker 4: And imagination unchanged, So conscious sis and you and recat.
Speaker 3: Wolde for your arte quote for the soul by how
Speaker 3: are cultures and spectology cultures.
Speaker 1: So Waria for your pity.
Speaker 4: We live in a multidimensional reality, whether it comes through
Speaker 4: esitaric information in the spiritual realms, or the UFO people experiences,
Speaker 4: or mainstream on the physics and through natrom science. Now
Speaker 4: realizing that parallel dimensions probablys is we're all spiritual means
Speaker 4: we're all having these human experiences.
Speaker 3: We've heard that phrase over and over and.
Speaker 1: Over, but what does that really mean? You know, all
Speaker 1: of the questions about we have these answers inside of
Speaker 1: our souls.
Speaker 4: We're ultimately studying the nature of what it is to
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