Turn Pain to Power

0:01 welcome to a new episode of parenting and you with me Dr shaali you know one of the hardest things in life is experiencing the loss and death of a loved one you know in the west especially we are taught to be afraid of death we're all running away from the pain that death brings about we run away by distracting ourselves or suppressing the feeling or not talking about it too

0:31 much because somehow we see it as a weakness or as a limitation something to be avoided discarded ignored but in the East we deal with death and loss in a slightly different way instead of discarding our feelings instead of running away from the pain that these experiences bring about we try to integrate the feelings we try to express talk about it and be in community around

1:02 the loss and grief so that people don't feel so alone so isolated as if it's a limitation or something to be ashamed about this is what this episode is going to address and it'll offer anyone who's experiencing a challenging time around grief and loss With A New Perspective coming up next I'm going to talk to a mother who is in the throws of her grief around the death of her son who she lost at at Birth 6 months

1:33 ago it's never easy when life throws us an unexpected twist or a turn and we find ourselves facing death or loss we're going to talk to Stacy now she's a mother of two children and she's currently grieving the loss of one of her twin boys who was still born hello Stacy tell us a little bit about your journey I know it's been incredibly difficult for you it has been difficult um like you said I am a mother of two

2:04 grieving one of my boys and I have to say ever since it happened it's been very difficult um connecting with my boy uh uh my four-year-old and even sometimes with my six-month old because um it feels like I've lost the patience because I'm so focused in getting things going for them that for me I basically have no time because when it happened it felt like I

2:35 had to stop grieving and take care of my boys yes so I've been putting them first since then but at the same time I feel like I'm struggling connecting with them I'm less patient I very anxious and they feel it yes so that's what happens right because life through you this wild curve one of your twins was still born so you were in trauma and then you were a new

3:08 mother and you had a four-year-old to take care of so you still had to go on with being a mother but you experienced a huge loss and there was no time for you to process the loss and grieve the loss and integrate the loss right so when we split off from our trauma that doesn't mean the trauma goes away it's affecting you but on a deeper level right you're feeling like you need some space but you don't have the space to

3:37 grieve yes that's exactly that even sometimes let's say that I try to make time for myself but it's it feels like it's always so too short like some days I feel like I need you know a whole day for myself to start crying but I only have like a few minutes okay cry and then okay let bring back that smile and go to taking care of the kids I don't want them to I mean some days of course

4:08 when I can't like when it feels like the the the cup is completely overfilled I just let it go in front of them because I just it's just I just can't yes but days you know I just have to okay go in the bathroom do a a quick cry and then go back to the case let's pretend that everything is okay and whenever we try to pretend that things are okay it always backfires because our emotions

4:38 demand to be nurtured demand to be understood and demand to be integrated so pretending that we don't have emotions will never let the emotions go away in fact they become even stronger so when people come to me around issues of death and loss and grief there are two places that I bring up up that are essential steps on your journey so the first one is going to be a little painful for you so are you okay with me

5:07 taking you to a more painful place because I think it's necessary because our culture teaches us you know let's run away from the grief let's hide from the pain but the only way to heal pain is to go through it so can I take you to a slightly more painful place right now for a few minutes here okay and for all those listening I want you to tune in because this is going to help you on

5:32 your own journey in grieving and loss so I'm sure you had visions of how these twins would be and how life would be with these twin boys did you name both of them before they were born or did you wait I did name over them so the boy who's currently alive who's six months old what is his name he is Nikolai Nikolai and what is the name of the boy who was born still Nicolas Nicolas okay

6:04 very close so now every time you say Nikolai I'm sure that also brings up the memory of Nicolas it does yes so what I want us to realize is that every being that we've encountered but has now passed lives now in our memory and that's where we need to cherish them and that's where we need to celebrate them so is there something you can do every day to remember Nicolas to write a

6:35 little poem to him or a little letter to him every morning because he's still living in your memory and it hurts you that you can't touch him you can't feel him but he's there in your memory so how can we allow that memory to get more processed to get more integrated one of the ways is that we write to that person we talk about them in our Quiet Moments we talk to them and we make this little

7:03 space in our day put his picture up there talk to him about what Nikolai did yesterday and just create that connection with him so that you always have that within you you know the other day I was with someone whose father had just passed on and she felt like you she needed to be brave she needed to be positive for her children and I told her you can only do that when you allow yourself to experience that relationship

7:32 until that relationship Fades on its own so I'm asking you do you think you can allow for that where it's just you and him together for 15 minutes a day where you can kiss his picture or kiss a memory or kiss just you know his vision in your mind so that he's more with you rather than you pushing him aside so you can be brave I can try to do that have you ever done

8:02 that since his passing I've talked to him I've talked to him a lot I don't know I guess sometimes it's um painful to do it but in terms of talking it's it's something that I've done and can you connect with him and just feel him with you and within your space and your your memories and he doesn't have to become a disconnected part of you is what I'm trying to say he doesn't have to be something scary for you to

8:33 remember he doesn't have to be a painful memory that you have to suppress and the only way to allow that grief to become more part of your life rather than something you're scared of is to integrate it so bring him in you know you can even tell Nikolai oh my goodness what would Nicolas do or what would Nicolas say you it's okay you don't don't have to be scared of this grief it's okay for your family to allow

9:06 it in and the more we speak of it the less scared we are and the less scared we are the less we're suppressing and then it doesn't come out as impatience or frustration later you understand it's a different way of grieving people it's bringing them into the situation rather than pretending like we don't have to ever remember them because it's too painful you know the other day I was talking to a young mother who lost her

9:32 partner and was raising a 5-year-old and she was asking me is it okay if I bring up my partner's name my husband's my ex you know now he's passed on his name and I said absolutely celebrate him talk about him bring him in because he's part of our journey he's part of your journey I mean that's one thing I think it's a it's it's a good approach but one thing that I feared was especially for my

10:01 four-year-old I wondered if maybe talking to him because even him I felt like he was very conscious because at the beginning he would talk a lot about it and even when it happened um I didn't really have the courage to talk to people about it and that I didn't even let his school know what had happened and that teacher conference with it teacher and she brought it up and I was shocked because I didn't let the school

10:31 know so he he was actually talking about it so a lot of time when he he brings it up it's like I feel like maybe he cannot handle it so I just try to shut it down yes but maybe it's something that I should try to avoid doing exactly he is showing you that he's actually okay being sad he's accepting

11:02 the sadness see that's what's so beautiful about our children they allow all their feelings in like guests in the house and they allow them a space but we adults because we can't handle the big feelings we shove them aside and then actually make it worse for our children and ourselves your son is telling you hey in a way children accept life and death way more easier than we do because they're not attached to how things should be they enter how they are they

11:33 are not focused on the as if they are focused on the is on the as is and you mommy need to learn from your four-year-old talk about him make songs for him leave him a rose of flour cook and when you cook and bake you can talk about oh he would have loved that too and the more you talk about it and allow it to be part of your existence the less scar it becomes and then Mommy is allowed to cry

12:03 whenever crying comes to her or tears come up mommy doesn't feel she has to be brave or pretend and you're teaching your children this is what love is when we love someone it hurts us when they're not with us your children will realize this is love my mommy will miss me when I'm not there and when I go to school mommy cries when I go to school too and you'll tell tell your two living children I miss you the same way when

12:32 you go to school I'm crying too because I love you so when you frame grief as love as this is how we love people now the grief has a purpose it's about the expression of love you see we're not scared of grief now now we lean into the grief and the second very important thing I need to remind you of is that the most important animportant gift that your Nicholas would want for mommy and

13:03 the rest of the family is to live in the present moment and to enjoy with gratitude all the Bounty you do have and I don't mean this as a way to make you bypass your grief you know sometimes people use gratitude as a way to bypass grief I don't want you to do that but I do want you to remember that you do have two beautiful boys and your way of honoring Nicholas is to honor Nikolai

13:34 and the older brother every time you enjoy them every time you celebrate them and be with them you are honoring his memory so if you really want to honor the child who has passed on he would want for you to be present to his brothers who are living right now that's your way and you can say Nicholas I'm doing this for you it's really hard today but I'm going to do it because this is my way of showing you love this

14:05 is my way of reminding you that you were important to me so I will definitely um incorporate it and try to change that maybe I feel like putting my energy into including him instead of putting my energy in term of pushing that feeling away will be much more positive because it's I feel like I'm using more energy trying to push him away then including him in exactly your son who passed on is

14:36 here to teach you so much more about being an accepting mother a present mother a more loving mother he's here to remind you that although he's passed on your love still exists for those who live and you can use him to remind you of that but yes when when we suppress our grief when we try to push it aside we spend more energy and then we're exhausted and we're living this fake

15:07 pretend life and that never works and your oldest son is showing you he's talking about it with his friends he's talking about it with his teachers he's getting the help he needs and let me tell you by you coming here today and being brave to talk about it you've not only helped me so I thank you but you've helped so many listeners who also think that they should push away their grief and that makes more sense but it really

15:34 doesn't so you're here to remind us all that it's okay to grieve it's okay to integrate that loss in our daily life and let's lean into the pain because our tendency is to run away from Pain our children are here to teach us that it's okay we can handle these big feelings we can do it through love we can do it through acceptance and gratitude so this is your big lesson and your big teaching for us all just talking about it right

16:05 now it feels liberating I have to say people have been telling me you need to get professional help you need to you need to talk about it and I always say yeah I don't have time um I have to take care of the kids I have to do this I have to do that and it actually feels liberating and I thank you for opening that space um um for me to be able to to talk about it oh thank you so much Stacy

16:34 it's been an honor and a pleasure thank you coming up next a mother who is in the throws of struggling with her child's pain we're going to talk to Tracy Tracy is a mother who is parenting her three children alone her children are suffering and so is she because her husband their father passed away with cancer 4 years years ago she's experiencing particular difficulties with her 16-year-old who is having a

17:04 really hard time managing her grief hi Tracy thank you for joining us thank you for having me so I know that this must be the most unbelievably painful struggle you've been in so I feel so honored and humbl that you're willing to share your experience so that others can learn so take a moment to just tell us in your own words how these past four years has been for you since your husband passed

17:35 away yeah I mean it's been a journey um with raising my children solo and you know you kind of ReDiscover who you are as a person on this journey alone I think you become much closer to your children because you know it's all we have of each other I've had to watch them go through their different emotions of grief and it kind of you know goes up and down and I think my 16-year-old has definitely you know kind of bottled up

18:07 her emotions and then you know with her she was a competitive volleyball player and she put her energy into and you know she had a situation at school where was one of her dad's favorite movies that played and ever since that day it just sort of like catapulted her and you know the situational depression and she put ball she hasn't physically gone to school and I'm now enrolling her in a recovery program to make up the credit

18:36 but it it hit her just kind of out of nowhere so how long was uh their father suffering for before he eventually passed away three years so we're talking about a six-year period of grief and upheaval and emotional overwhelm so the family has been going through so much for the past six years yes and uh that would make your daughter almost 10 years old when all this began yeah and we know that you know pre-adolescence is a very

19:09 stormy period especially for girls who are discovering their identity so this happened right in the middle of her own foray into adulthood so you said that she bottled up her emotions for quite a while what do you mean by that well she's not really a person who likes to express herself anyway so I think it just started to kind of erupt and I think maybe part of my kids journey in healing catapulted them into healing because then I kind of did a deep dive

19:40 into my own deep healing and I think them seeing me go through that kind of help them heal a little bit too yes absolutely she was quite functional until this episode at school where she watched this movie and has unraveled since then correct would you say that it's almost as if she had suppressed her grief until now and bottled it up yes a th% and then Here Comes This trigger

20:11 right this movie that was a favorite movie of one of her favorite people who's no longer here and it just evoked the old trauma and she just couldn't contain it anymore correct right so you know that that's quite normal right like that that happens to a lot of people that they experience grief in episodic waves it's not just you know the event happens I process I purge I let go I

20:45 Surrender I transform I move on Grief Works in these very sporadic waves and we don't really know when the next wave is going to come and it sounds it sounds like she just had her real first big you know experience of IM memory being re traumatizing for her yes and she didn't know how to handle it no and I didn't know how to handle it for her as a

21:17 parent cuz I'm also grieving so I'm trying to lift out my children grieving as I'm grieving and that takes a lot of strengths to do that yeah because you're trying to lift the these big boulders with a tiny finger it seems it feels like the proportion of the grief is like a boulder and you're just this tiny little finger in comparison you know maybe you're trying to lift them out has some anchor in your being anxious

21:47 watching them experience that grief so let's go a little deeper and try to understand why are you trying to lift her up well one because he's my daughter and I see her suffering and I'm an empath so I feel it so deeply that I've almost you know stopped my healing to focus on their healing and to help them because I've spent so much time in my own path that I also need to be more

22:18 aware of their path and help them because they need me and I'm all that they had yes I agree with you but I think sometimes we mistake what true help during these very difficult times needs to look like we think sometimes that it needs to look like anything other than it is and we try to move our children out of their deep pain because it makes us so helpless it makes us feel

22:50 like we are failing as parents watching them crumble but sometimes and especially I think in times of grief like this it's important to teach our children not that it is an unhealthy thing to grieve but that it's an unhealthy thing to stop ourselves from feeling our feelings and to believe that we cannot handle it so instead of Shifting the mood let's shift our approach our relationship to the

23:22 mood so for example when you see her crying Your Instinct may be to say you know let's go for a walk or let's dance or let's listen to the birds which are all very good and very important ways to shift someone's mood but what if instead we shifted her relationship to her mood in this way yeah you know I

23:52 understand this is normal you're not alone in feeling like this this is natural so we first validate the experience which I know you do and then you empathize which is by saying you know I felt it too most kids would feel like this and then we normalize her even more and then what we can do is transform that relationship she has to her grief as in we say something like this these feelings are here as a

24:25 messenger to remind you of what a beautiful relationship you had these feelings are here also to remind you that you can cope you are brave the fact that you can feel means that you can handle the feeling as well I think sometimes when we have feelings that feel scary we feel like they're going to drown us and changing our relationship to these feelings means learning that even though the storms and the waves of

24:56 these emotions can come we we have the Lifeboat we have the awe we have the paddle and we have the life jacket all within us and that is a precious gift you can give her but it all comes down to you believing that you have the Lifeboat and the AE and the paddle inside you definitely so when you watch her going through the spiral of grief what comes up for you in that moment I feel like

25:28 I'm grateful that I have done the work internally inside because I feel like I didn't deal with it myself which in turn didn't help my children probably deal with their grief so now I'm in a better spot emotionally to handle it where I'm am solid or I'm not breaking down right about it so I'm I'm I have a good platform where then now I can it's sort of like putting the oxygen mask on

25:59 yourself first and then you help others yes so I pr to do that for myself and then now I'm helping my children because I've done the work for myself yes and I Know It kindy of sounds selfish but I needed to do that yeah so what you're saying is you at first didn't know that you had your own Lifeboat or paddle and life jacket and now you've learned the tools you can survive you can and sustain this

26:30 unimaginable pain you are stronger than the pain right yes you're not so afraid of that pain anymore no and perhaps that's why your daughter waited in a subconscious way to break down when she knew that you would be better equipped to handle it and I think you're right CU I think my healing started their Journey and there's something kind of holistic

27:01 about that approach and you know we do honor him and he's around we feel him like he leaves us messages and signs and numbers and talk like he literally around us and we feel him and my kids feel him too so now your daughter by watching you not be so afraid of the grief by watching how the grief is not tearing you down and breaking you into pieces

27:33 watching you handle the waves of grief but standing anchored is going to give her the strength and the courage that you know yes this grief is so torrential it's so painful it hurts but I can be anchored in my own strength and I can weather this stor however in order to get there you're going to have to witness your daughter

28:03 flounder as you have been so yes it means that she's dropping out of school not participating in activities maybe she needs some individual grief therapy maybe she needs to go to a program so you're going to have to now stand really strong while she drifts away from her duties so to speak as a student and prioritizes herself it's like she has to

28:36 leave mainstream school to go to her school to learn the skills to deal with this unimaginable trauma in her life and it's hard because I feel like I'm giving her a lot of soft love and not tough love because I think that for me as a parent I can't punish her for having these kind of feelings ex he's heavely grieving exactly so I have to be like soft love with her and it's her journey

29:08 I have to kind of like give her guidance but not come down hard because she's a 16-year-old who lost her best friend and she her heart is broken exactly what a wonderful empathic and sensitive mother you're being so I'm here to tell you that you're doing a beautiful job in supporting your daughter and grief has no timetable and grief is not linear and it doesn't follow a script it

29:39 can show up at any time and what's more important is not that it is showing up but how it's being allowed to be processed and that's what you're giving her this invaluable gift of processing her deep authentic grief so that she can integrate it into her life and move on but we cannot move on if we haven't done the work like you said if we haven't worked through the process of feeling

30:13 all those feelings that she had bottled up until now you are saving her from one day becoming perhaps an addict or one day acting it all out because it got so bottled up that it erupted one day you are giving her a gift so instead of seeing her as somebody who is not doing things or not performing beautifully or not checking off the boxes let's reframe this as what a positive thing she is

30:46 doing for herself she is saying that I cannot handle mainstream life right now because I need to honor passing of this beautiful relationship I need to honor these feelings I have bottled up and I care about myself enough to take care of what's happening within me and I'm less concerned about what's happening outside of me what a brave thing she's doing and if you can keep reframing and reinforcing her for her courage then

31:19 this is actually something quote unquote successful right this is actually her passing the most difficult exam of of her life which is integrating the grief of her beloved father yeah I feel like she's going to become like a a better person because of it you know she like becoming like a next level in herself like she's it's it's sort of like you have to you know hit rock bottom to build yourself up back again you know

31:49 exactly and she's actually doing something that she technically quote unquote should have done years ago so she's actually now catching up and I really do believe it's correlated to your checking out and so therefore she was in her body and surviving and now that she's reached the safe harbors of her mother's courage she can now fall apart and you are standing strong a lighthouse an anchor the boat for her to

32:21 stay M you know bobbing on the waves and not drowning under so this is your s opportunity now to show up for your child and I know that there's conflict around college and exams and volleyball and but you know because you've experienced life's most harsh lesson of all those things don't matter when death is at the door yeah sometimes I hear my 14-year-old like sobbing in her room at

32:51 night over her dad and she called his old phone number and she just you know wanted to just see if it was still his phone or not and then it wasn't and it was someone else's number and they're like sorry have the wrong number and you know it's like those little things that still haunt my children you know what I mean about wanting to hear his voice again right just missing him and he was bigger than life and he was like uh Superman an

33:21 Iron Man put together this the fact that like cancer got him is um baffling because he was literally the toughest man we knew and my kids you know they missed him because he had a big personality a big presence you know yes and the more they integrate his Beauty and see it as part of themselves and you then they realize that they don't need to forget about him or yearn for him

33:53 because he exists inside each of you and there's an aspect of him that lives on through you and them and watching your strength and watching your resilience is very very important for them to model after not that you need to be a superhuman and a stoic person but actually when they see that you have a very strong and presence filled connection with your own grief you're not scared of your grief that is the

34:25 root of their healing a strong person is not someone who doesn't experience grief a strong person is someone who's developed a very comfortable and integrated relationship with their grief and their feelings so when they see that you're comfortable that grief doesn't take you down that you're not terrified locking yourself up every time you feel grief but that you can cry and you can drive and you can sing and you can still cry and you can dance and you can still

34:53 move on and you can still cry that is integrated in your life they're going to then realize oh okay I can cry forever I can always miss him but it doesn't mean I have to stop living so that's what integration means that you can bring the grief along with you and it will always be in the car with you all on a drive it'll always be in the bed as you sleep but you can also move on right but when

35:22 we treat grief as if it's antha and it's a curse and we're terrified of it it actually stops us from moving on let's invite the grief into your home let's allow it let's not hide from it we're not scared of it anymore because grief is really a love song to your husband to your beloved you know beautiful father of your children it's not something negative it's something that is speaking to the Beauty and the love in your

35:53 family so that's what integration is so if you can reframe it now you're realizing oh I'm not in a bad place this is actually exactly where I'm supposed to be Tracy don't worry about the grades don't worry about college don't worry about her exams right now your daughter is honoring her grief which is an extremely important thing for her to do yeah I appreciate you saying that and I appreciate you taking the time for me

36:23 today oh thank you so much for sharing thank you we are all afraid of dealing with big painful emotions especially when it has to do with death death is really a tough one for all of us to cope with and it brings us to our knees the only way through the grief around death and loss is to feel all the feelings that come up when we suppress our

36:54 feelings when we hide them when we run away from from them or distract ourselves from them they only become bigger and begin to split off and show up in different ways either through an addiction or through anger or frustration whenever we're experiencing big feelings or when we're grieving the death of a loved one it is always more therapeutic to allow the space to safely feel those feelings 15 minutes a day

37:27 perh perhaps or when we take a walk in the evening or when we sit quietly at night it's always important to find the time to allow ourselves to feel those feelings this is the way through grief anything less than feeling the feelings will show up in a disembodied dysfunctional way in some other part of our Lives when we have children who we are helping through grief it is really

37:57 important to allow them as well to have the space and the safety to feel those big feelings without shame without control it's hard pain is painful but the only way to get to the other side of pain is through it if you've suffered from A Loss or are going through a really hard time grieving then I hope you found this episode helpful and I will see you on the next episode of P parenting and you with me Dr shaali

38:31 parenting and you with Dr shaali is for educational and informational purposes only it is not intended as a substitute for professional medical psychological psychotherapeutic coaching health care or other qualified professional advice diagnosis or treatment