Edy Nathan- Learn To Dance With Your Grief

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Now that you're here at grifter growth, I'd like to ask you to do three things.

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Thanks for being here. Close your eyes and imagine what are the things in life that cause us the greatest pain, the things that bring us grief, or challenges, challenges designed to help us grow to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried. But what if like a seed we've been planted, and having been planted, who grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes, open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is grief to growth. And I am your host, Brian Smith. Hi, everybody.

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Welcome to grief to growth. This is Brian Smith, and I'm back with a special guest today. Her name is Ed Nathan. Edie is the best selling author of its grief, where she examines the emotional and devastating impact of loss and trauma. Grief is hard to talk about, as we all know. But he teaches us to dance with our grief to know it as a way to know ourselves. Whether it's the loss of a loved one, or the loss of a limb or the loss of the life you once knew. It's your soul that offers the answers to relief and essential element needies practices to offer clients a chance to combine psychotherapy with a deeper, more spiritual understanding of the self. She's dedicated helping people understand the grief, cope with the fear and struggle that holds them back and learn to live fully understand he also works with people who have had in the East help them integrate that we're going to talk about that today. And she said it in the yourself. So we'll touch on that a little bit soon. So with that, I want to welcome the group to growth at Nathan.

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So good to be here, Brian.

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Yeah, it's really great to have you we talked a little bit before we started recording. And I understand that you had your own near death experience at some point. So but I'd just like to start with people and ask them, How do you get into this line of work? How do you get into dealing with grief, it's not something that most of us like to talk about, let alone face on a daily basis.

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You know, you're so right. And I don't know that it's something you choose, I think it chooses you. You know, and it knocks and it's not that you can't shut down or quiet until you start to pay attention. And, you know, you and I, before we started talking here, we mentioned that, like, there are signs that you just can't ignore. And really I started to, to see how grief was something that people didn't want to tangle with. And I see it as something that not only do we need to tangle with it, we need to partner with it, we need to understand it because no one escapes it. And it comes in in to us into our bodies, into our minds into our physical beings in different ways. And for different reasons. Yes, you know, you, you you shared and I'm sure that your listeners know about the loss of your daughter. And so there are certainly the losses that we that we have in our lives of loved ones. And then there are the losses that are not defined by the loss of a loved one, but the losses of, of the self, the loss of the soul, the loss of a limb, the loss of the life as we knew it, which actually we're very much in right now. And this pandemic which has really forced us to take ourselves on in ways that we could never have imagined. And there is a death thing that is happening also within the self. I think as a result of this time.

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Yeah, I've said that as we're going to the pandemic I think everybody's in some level of grief right now.

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We've all We've all lost something, the sense of ourselves or the ability to move about freely or jobs or what there's just there's so much we could go on about but I understand for you it this kind of happened at a really early age this this calling to to explore this.

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Yeah, I would say that it's probably how I relate back to what I consider to have been a near death experience. Now, it's not as if I can go back and say definitively and I've got data to prove it. The only data that I have is what I was left with. Now, a lot of people who have had nd ease and if any of your listeners have had MDs, a lot of times there's anxiety that follows. There's also just a calm sense about dying, and about death. And it's just a renewed sense of not having fear, or just kind of inviting in whatever the experience was.

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And some people who've had near death experiences also don't want to be back in their bodies, they really just want to go back to that experience, right. So I, I believe that my near death experience happened. I'm really in the birth canal. And which sounds kind of strange and weird, but I was a breech birth.

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And I don't think that there were complications, per se, but it was, it was certainly a very long labor. And I came into this world with a sense of death, a sense of dying, a sense of why was I born if only to die, asking those questions at two, when I had language. And in doing past life regressions within my own life, and I do past life regressions as a clinician, when I want to get into in utero, when I want to understand what's going on for someone who doesn't understand why they're maybe having anxiety or why they're having difficulty with their parental unit to her.

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Just the whys of their life. And there's nothing that we can find in in this present life that would give them information yet, so that past life regression, that hypnosis can often help them go back in utero. And so when I went back in utero, it seemed very much that I had, I had had moments of not being alive, that I was gone, and then I came back. And then I was born. And so I have always felt unknowing about death. I'm a I think about it, I think about about dying, I think about how to have a conversation with people who are dying, and with people who've come back from that, that place that only someone who's had a near death experience can envision, or

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Yeah, you know, it's interesting about near death experiences, you know, I was talking I've studied them for quite a while myself. And for people that kind of casually hear about them, it sounds like a great thing. It says great experience. And we and we go with Phil universal love and, and those things are true. But there's there's actually a darker side at the end of that experience. Integrating that back into life. So tell people what that's about.

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So that's, we could go on and on. I'm sure you know this for hours about this very topic, right? So yes, there's the dark side. And then there's the side that is just alive with blessing and unconditional love, and just that that feeling of you're of just pure acceptance, you know. But the darker side is, is not unlike the journey, the hero's journey. And the hero's journey is going from the ordinary and your ordinary life and something happens, something hits you in a way that you just never expected. And it in this case for this story, it's that you stop breathing. And you You traveled, and you went to another place. And that place was magic. It was it was like a drug. It was just so magnetic and caring and loving and all of those good things and then there's a message and however you get that message, you find that you're back in your body.

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The message can be it's not time yet the message can be you've got to go back you've got unfinished business. The messaging can be your kids need you or the messaging can be there's things that you still are not only unfinished, but but me that need you, they need you.

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And so there is a resistance stance, and going back into the body. Now you come back into your body and everybody around you is thrilled, like, oh my god, we're so happy to see you, were you, you made it, you're alive. And meanwhile, what's going on inside of you is I don't want to be here. And so part of this hero's journey of the ordinary life, you're sent, you're sent back into your body after having left it, and you enter into the cave. And that cave is where you have to battle your shadows. And the shadow might be, how do you find a way to be okay, being alive again, being back in your body, after you've experienced the Haven, and the love that you never experienced here. And it is really having to, to fight the demons, the voices, the voices that say, kill yourself, you could go back, although you may not go back, if there's a suicide, you may go to another journey or another place. So it is really having to fight that while you are getting messages around you, from people who will not understand the complexity of being back for you. And so there's a lot of depression and anxiety and feeling really disoriented and feeling, how am I going to fit in or I don't really want to do the job I was doing, it is no longer satisfying to me. And, you know, everything about you internally feels very different than the way you respond to the world.

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And so you come out of that cave. And the hero's journey is something that we repeat over and over and over again, it's not just one journey, and you come out and it's like, okay, so who are my allies, my friends, who are my enemies, and maybe they aren't enemies, but they are the voices that don't want to understand who want to stay blind, who want you to be who you were, and will refuse to say, okay, so you are forever changed. And I'm going to take you and be curious for who you are now. So they become more of an enemy, they become more of someone that you must keep at a distance, because it's it's too much, because you look the same, you speak the same, probably your hair is the same, and yet you are forever changed. And so how do you then enter into this new ordinary, being forever changed? And yet, looking the same?

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Yeah, yeah, I think he did explain that. So well, you know, because I've actually been to several ions meetings, I see the local chapter when we meet, you know, meet locally.

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And there is a sense of loneliness. It seems like a lot of times among people that have had near death experiences, because people won't accept the fact that they've had it. So a lot of them keep it to themselves. I interviewed someone last week, she kept it to herself for over 40 years after having had this experience. So I want people that are listening to try to understand what it must be like to have this incredible message of love and hope and everything.

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And people around you shutting it down and saying it's all in your head.

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Yeah, what's wrong with you? You're crazy. You need medication. And that is the other thing is that a lot of times, you know, you're then diagnosed as having some kind of psychosis or personality disorder or you're depressed.

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Sure you're depressed, but not not the kind of depression that they're thinking it is. You're you're grieving, and you're grieving the loss of something you experienced that no one around you can understand.

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So how do you work with people that have had in the ears? How do you help them get over this, this, this thing that we're talking about?

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So Brian, I'd like to introduce a new vernacular, and which the second part title of my book is the dance of self discovery through trauma and loss. And I'd like to introduce the idea that there's a partnership. And it's not about getting over it. It's about integrating it. It's about moving into a kind of forgiveness of the people around you who are ignorant and don't get it. And we're dealing with a lot of ignorance around us right now, in so many different ways.

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And so, it is learning how to say okay, just their ignorance doesn't have to make an implication on or a judgment around me. And it being able to develop a stronger sense of self, and our mapping skills.

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People who have had near death experiences, their mapping skills of other people are on steroids. They're there, they're able to pick up a whisper, they're able that their sensibilities, their sensitivity, it's like they're on fire. And they have to learn how to regulate that. Because if you don't learn how to regulate it, it's like it's loud, it's chaotic, it's very, very noisy.

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And that can be crazy making, you know, so that you then even further isolate. So so I'd like I'd like to offer up that try to find safe people go to, you know, AI ads go to assist ACI s t, which is an organization that really helps people understand and work with clinicians who understand spiritual experiences, spiritually transformative experiences, because understanding spiritually transformative experiences, as part of what you are dealing with, whether it is a near death experience, or all of a sudden, you've become more psychic, more, you know, or you're seeing auras, or you're feeling things from people that you never felt and it gets, it can get noisy, it can get very, very noisy, or you have a thing with electricity. So I have a thing with electricity, anything that I purchase phone computer, and it's not because I'm psychic, but there's an energy, I can't tell you why I have that energy, I make sure that if you can give me three ways to have some kind of extra coverage on these on these electrical things, then then I need it.

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Because they will they will shut down, they will break, they will just completely just shut down at at a moment's notice.

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Especially if there's high energy. Okay, so it's understanding that, that you are maybe walking with a very different energy and to listen to it rather than allowing it to hold you hostage. And I think that a lot of people, I talk about grief. And I talked about I've talked about a lot of different ways that people grieve. And one of my, my, my, my root terms is hostage that you are being held hostage, and that the hostage taker is your experience is your grief is the grief for what you've lost, and is the grief for the people who are who can no longer understand who you are. And the grief for really being taken off balance.

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And part of hostage negotiation is the first step is to actively listen. to actively listen, someone who's had a near death experience, that is not a choice. They don't say, oh, okay, I'm gonna die on the operating table, and then I'm gonna come back that sounds really cool jewel. No, you know, right. That's not what happens.

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So so it's not a choice. And what is what does a hostage taker do they take you by, it's not by choice. And so now, you what I suggest is, let's let's teach you some hostage negotiation techniques. So that you can, can really begin to, to, to rumble with the near death experience in such a way that you, you listen, and you develop some empathy, because good chance, there's no empathy around this good chance. And then you develop a rapport. And you don't even try to have any kind of behavior change until that. So these are, these are just some some thoughts I have around this.

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Yeah. And you know, as you were talking, and I know, we were talking because I'm fascinated by Indies. So I wanted to talk about that. But that's just a subset of grief.

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That's, that's another type of grief. You know, that's, that's the great the loss of the person you may have been before the loss of the relationships with people because they've changed the loss of that, that feeling of being in this place of unconditional love. I remember hearing one near death experience to say I felt like I was a reject from heaven. It's like, you know, I was there and I wasn't good enough to stay. So there's all that but this, you know, in a larger picture for people who haven't had an MD people are going for grief, everything you said applies also, this, this idea of we're off balance, we feel like you know, we're like we've been taken hostage, and it's something that we didn't choose the kind of felt feels like it happened to us. And then what do we do with it? And I like what you said about it's not about fighting it or getting over it's learning how to how to dance with it.

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Yeah, Yeah, it's like when you when you have a partner and people have loved people have said dance, how could you choose the word dance? You know, and grief, that just doesn't make any sense. But it's like, the one thing that we want to do when we lose someone, and we're grieving is we want to ignore it. We want to push it away. I mean, we don't want to ignore the loss in terms of God, I loved I love. I love that person I lost, but we want it to go away or find a place. And if we if we don't act accordingly, like, like he'll, and when people say, so are you doing better? There's a there's a meta communication, which is, are you over it? Yeah. Yeah. Are you over it? And what I say to that is, I hope I never get over it.

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Because that would mean I, I forgot. I don't want to forget, I, I want to remember peacefully. I want to remember in a way that that I can take this in, and I can say, yeah, it's going to be with me, and I'm going to partner with it.

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And sometimes I'm doing the twist. And sometimes I'm doing freestyle. And sometimes I'm doing the tango, where we are just dancing and adversaries at the same time.

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Yeah, I love that.

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I love that metaphor. Because the thing is, you know, as I've been doing this for the last six and a half years now, this this dance of grief of loss, my daughter, and as I work with other people, and they asked me, like, When am I going to get over this? Am I going to get over it? And it's the exact same thing you did? I hope I never get over it. And this is why my daughter's pictures behind me. I don't I don't want to forget about the relationship that we that we have. I want to continue that relationship. And some days are better than others. You know, but I still have bad times, not bad days, usually, but bad times.

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I like I like how you said that. And I love that your daughter is right behind your right shoulder, you know, and she's in the room with us, you know, and she's in the room with you. And I so appreciate and just feel her energy. And one of the things that people who are grieving will often do is take all the pictures down. Okay, they'll hide them, though.

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They'll they'll, they'll just get rid of them. Or on the other hand, they will so memorialize that you can't get away from the grief. And it's like to grief is part of you. It is not all of you. It doesn't define you. And it is part of you forever.

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Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think that was that's so well put in I want to go back to something you said the very beginning is kind of an aside at this point. But you were talking about how you felt like you had to experience as you were as you were being born that my daughter when she was born her heart caps slowing down and and she was in distress. And it was to the point where I was like, just get a C section get her out of there something but she was always special. I mean, of course everybody think other cares special, but she's always special, always just so insightful and stuff. And she never had a fear of death. And she she was 15 and a half when she passed. But she talked about death, not all the time but enough for a child and said I don't I'm not afraid to die. In fact, including just a few weeks before she passed away. She talked about it. So I think there's, as you were saying, I think there's something that sometimes we come in with some experience that we have the kind of changes as to we are on a fundamental level. And so I I choose to believe that Shayna had some something special that was going on with her.

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Yeah, yeah, it's, um You said it, you said it. So So prophetically so poetically, you know, like she knew, she had a knowing. And a friend of mine wrote a book, John Holland, he's a medium and he wrote a book called born knowing and John and I have done a lot of work together. And, and it is kind of like, just being born knowing, you know, walking around, you know, I used to say that I walked around feeling like, as if, like, I had a Buddha around me, like, like, I looked around and I just wanted to save everybody. You know, I grew up I grew up, you know, like in in Chicago, and and for the first seven years out I was on the south side of Chicago. And, you know, there were people on the street, there were stray animals, and I just, you know, 234 years old, I just wanted to bring them all in, I couldn't understand why I couldn't, you know, I was like, no, no, no, you can't keep bringing all these people in. So, you know, there is, and then and then there's the undoing of it. And, and because it, it doesn't fit.

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And when it doesn't fit, there is that sense of alienation or rejection? And how come other people aren't seeing the world in this way? How come you know, and even to this day, you know, I carry through, because I had to let my, my Buddha my beginner's mind, I had to let that go. And then reread it a few years ago, because it was like, it was something that had been lost within me. And the idea of the beginner's mind, that, that everything is new, and what can I learn? And how can I question? And how can I be present in in whatever is presented to me, whether it's a homeless woman on the street, or it's, it's a concert, or it's sitting here with you right now?

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Yeah. So that brings us to, you know, you're talking about this, we come in with this beginner's mind. And some of us, you know, seem like we're more still more connected, the other sides and others are, and then we develop what I guess it's called the ego. And I know when I asked you for some questions before we get started, and one of the questions you gave me was, how does the death of the ego How can I help us to overcome grief? And so talk about this journey? You just did? You just talked about how, you know, you had this beginner's mind? And then we kind of the world puts us? I don't know, I guess we develop as a defense mechanism or something. And then how does that how does that relate to grief?

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I love how you phrased it. The question, you really expanded it, it has. And so I thank you for that. No one experiences grief, in the exact same way, the way you experience it the way that I experienced it, it's like our fingerprints, right. And my fingerprint is different than yours is different than everybody else's in this whole globe. And so how we release our egos or have our egos around us is going to be different. And, sadly, people around us will, will want us to grieve in a linear way. And the ego, the good ego, not the ego of being egotistical ego, because we all have ego, we all have ego. We need ego. We, if we didn't have ego, we wouldn't be here right now. Okay, I knew we needed. And sadly, it's I think been, you know, it's like, oh, it's bad to have ego, well, you know, the people who don't have ego, have a personality disorder rather than you know, not. So it is our ego that creates enables us to say, I can fight this, and I've got the I've got the mojo to do that. However, I'm not going to fight it the way you fight it or the way the guy down the street fights it. I'm going to I'm going to fight it in my own way and in my own voice with my own vernacular. And it is the ego that says it's okay, just the way it is.

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Yeah, yeah. I love what you said about ego. Because ego does get a bad rap. And I'm glad to hear you say it because it's interesting when I talk to people sometimes, you know, those other egos bad we've got to fight the ego. We've got unlike no need or egos otherwise, as you said, we wouldn't be sitting here we'd have no boundaries. We wouldn't we would never get anything done, or egos are here to protect us. But there's something about it seems like they get overdeveloped they become they become this defense mechanism. We put up these walls and then nothing can you get in right so nothing but we can't get out.

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That's right. That's right. So so it's interesting because in my book I talk about you know, I talk about different personalities and I guess that's what distinguishes my book from other books on grief is that I look at the self and the self.

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You can really learn about the self through through the process of grief you know if they're hard lessons, but like kind of a cool Are you and based on who you are, that's going to help you figure out what are the best tools to help you. So taken from the you know, taken taken from astrology Are you? Are you? Are you a cardinal personality? Are you much more, you know, mutable? Or are you fixed? So I'd like you to imagine if you will, there's, there's a boulder in the middle of the road. And there you are, you're in your car, truck, whatever. And now you've got the boulder. Now, the boulder, the metaphorical Boulder is really grief. So if you're a fixed personality, you're going to find a chisel.

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And you're going to say, I'm going to do this on my own. And I'm going to just chisel my way through the mutable, say, okay, hold on, I'm going to stop all of the drivers, I'm going to have everybody gather with me.

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And we're going to move this boulder together. And that's what somebody mutable will do.

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And then the cardinal will say, I'm climbing this. And I'm going to go over it, no one can tell me that I'm right, or I'm wrong.

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And and I'm going to stand on top and say, See, I've conquered this. And there's ego in all of those. However, there's also Okay, so the cardinal personality will probably not do well, in a group therapy setting, may not even do well, in individual therapy, but might do well, reading, they'll have a discourse with whoever is writing whatever they're writing, but they'll take what they want. And then they'll say it's theirs. But that's okay.

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Because they've still, right, the mutable will go to group will go to individual will read everything, maybe a chapter here in a chapter there, but they'll just be gathering, and then the more fixed will probably be better one on one, because the group will be too overwhelming.

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So you see, they're broken down, even by just one's personality.

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We'll get back to grief to growth in just a few seconds. Did you know that Brian is an author and a life coach.

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If you're grieving or know someone who is grieving his book, grief to growth is a best selling easy to read book that might help you or someone you know, people work with Brian as a life coach, to break through barriers and live their best lives. You can find out more about Brian and what he offers at WWW dot grief to growth.com www dot g ri E F, the number two gr o w th.com. If you'd like to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/grief to growth www.patren.com/g RI E F, the number two gr O W th to make a financial contribution. And now back to grief to growth.

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Yeah, well, that's awesome. That's really it's really interesting, because you said we all go through similar experiences, but we go through them differently depending on our personality types. And I've done a lot of work with people that are, you know, in grief count or grief counselors, and it's interesting study, I can't remember who did I like to cite who did it but someone did a study into the grief counseling?

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Is that really beneficial for most people? Because most people, frankly, I think the conclusion is most people don't need it. It depends on what type of grief we're going through.

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And also depends on who we are.

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Some people are going to do better doing by themselves, but some people are going to say some people do better in group.

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So it's kind of figuring out like, so it's not one size fits all. I was really interested when I was you know, learning about you at that. I love that you combine psychotherapy with a spiritual understanding. Because I think, for me, spiritual understanding is what it's all about. You know, when I when I talk to people about how do we deal with grief, I don't know how you deal with that a spiritual understanding. So how do you how do you combine those two things together? And what do people How do you work with people with that?

00:34:04.440 --> 00:37:03.989
So it's, it's something that's internal that comes from the internal and then it gets goes externally. And it it's, it's not something that I work at, it's something that just is and so when someone comes in to do some work with me, or when even I'm speaking to to a group, I just spoke to a group at the University of Michigan, that was on Friday. And, and while while while speaking with this group, I talked about the, you know, going back in utero and the trauma that can happen in utero, and and the one on one statement was, you know, I've rarely heard anything therapist ever talk about anything that goes on in utero? So my spiritual perspective comes out through my bass basic language through my basic perspective. So yes, I've got a couple of masters and, and I've, I'm a sex therapist, and, and I got so many trainings and I do EMDR and hypnosis and, and CBT and you know, blah, blah, blah, blah, blah. But the reality is, is that I don't like to talk in what I consider to be the confining language of psychobabble of, I need to diagnose and from that diagnostic diagnostic category, I will then you know, talk to the client, not the patient, you know, I will talk to the client utilizing these the you know, this diagnostic category. My first question is what are you yearning for? Now, yearning is much more spiritual, I think, then tell me your story and what's wrong. So, because my perspective is not what's wrong, because I don't know that it's, there's something wrong, I think there's an obstacle, there's the boulder, whatever else is around the boulder could be beautiful, and phenomenal. And the fact that you are now seeking help, or wanting to talk about whatever is going on for you, now you've reached out because there's a boulder. And, and so that I love to talk about symbol, I'm very much from a union perspective, there are symbols there are, there's the collective unconscious that Carl Jung spoke of, and that collective unconscious is for your, for your listeners, what I like you to think about is that we're all connected by a thread.

00:37:04.860 --> 00:37:20.340
And that thread connects us generationally. It affects us through trauma, it affects us through and connects us through experience. And it goes back hundreds and hundreds of years.

00:37:20.550 --> 00:37:55.800
And we carry that thread in our lives, in the choices that we make. And that that collective unconscious is felt in ways that we may not even be able to define. And so when someone comes in or someone is, is processing, there's, there's I'm looking at the thread, I'm looking at generational trauma, I'm looking at how grief is landing with them from that multifaceted grief perspective that I hope?

00:37:57.030 --> 00:38:02.250
Wow, yeah, that's really cool. I know, it's you mentioned young and I need to, I need to find out more about you.

00:38:02.250 --> 00:38:09.300
And because I didn't, I haven't studied him much. But because every time I hear about him, I think more this is so spiritual.

00:38:09.570 --> 00:38:41.909
And again, going back to the NDA, you talked about the collective subconscious, that's one of the less one of the lessons of being the E. But I, you know, typically we think of like psychotherapists, psychiatrist, my daughter is a psychotherapist. And you know, so she's just got her Master's, she's, you know, she's been trained and all, that's great, but it's so and so. But she's also extremely intuitive. And so I'm like, you know, I want to encourage her to bring border intuitive sided nor work. But I found a lot of times, they actually almost even trained that out of you.

00:38:43.079 --> 00:40:23.159
They do they do, they want to train it out of you. And that's fine. Because it's important to understand what you're doing and why you're doing it. And for you to have your very secure placement in the room, in terms of what you're mapping and what you're looking at. And the client is always mapping you and they're what the trigger points are. So I think that those are all really quite important to, to understand, as the clinician, whatever you bring in spiritually, I, it must be done with special care. I know that it when I was initially starting and you know, a touch was much more acceptable back then. I would do hypnosis, and I would, with permission, touch, touch the knee or touch the shoulder of a, of a client. And what I would find is because of my own energy, that energy was actually being emitted from me in a way that was sometimes scary for the client. And so I had to account for that. And because I was a new clinician I didn't realize the power of that. And it took, it took a little bit of time to say, oh, you know, I need to be aware that, especially if I walk with a certain amount of spirituality, or that there's energy within my body, that I need to contain it. And so as clinicians, we need to be containers of our own stuff.

00:40:23.400 --> 00:40:55.619
Because what what, whatever we're working with is not our stuff, it is the work of the client. And that I can have my spiritual lens, but it is not as an interference, it is only as an addition, and perhaps to give me information subliminally that that I can work with. And that's where I get to trust my information, and then present it when ready, but in a more clinical and professional

00:40:55.619 --> 00:40:59.190
way. Yeah, sure.

00:40:55.619 --> 00:41:33.659
You know, I guess, for me, again, not having been a mental health professional. And when I did go to grief counselor for a short period of time, I have to say in the past. And again, going back to that study, I didn't find it helpful whatsoever. That was just that was just my experience with this one particular person. But for me, for me dealing microwave, it has to come from a spiritual perspective. So as as for someone that's not coming from that perspective, what is the what's their path? Like? How do we how to how do you handle grief if you don't have that perspective? So

00:41:38.400 --> 00:41:41.460
not everybody deals with grief the same way? Right?

00:41:41.519 --> 00:43:33.090
You're right, yeah. Okay. So some people will, will will really envelop themselves with their spiritual world or become more spiritual, or find a different spiritual conversation. For other folks, they need data. They need science, they need a prescription. You know, and I'm not one to say Take two pills, and all will be well, however, part of the toolbox that I utilize in my book and talk a lot about, again, is okay, so if one thing doesn't work, try something else. Some people find that the way they work through and with their grief is through exercise, is through conversation is through writing is through, you know, the word journaling has been like just use too much. But just writing down thoughts, writing down one word, making notes in your calendar, I have a whole section on marking your calendar for the year, because those calendar markers are so essential, and our brains will know there was an anniversary or this is when a diagnosis happened. And we just slide right by it. But if we are very conscious of marking calendars, and then we get reminders a week before we start to prep for how our bodies might react. So sleep, eating, drugging, drinking, sexing, you know, I mean, there's a lot of coping mechanisms. So those coping mechanisms may be really great and may not be so great.

00:43:33.269 --> 00:45:09.030
So if you have warning, a warning system in your calendar, then you know, you know what, I need to make sure that I have made plans with a friend, or I need to know that I need to not be at work that week. I need to, to go and get a massage or I need to go for lots of walks and be outside. So it's gonna be it's it's an everyone spirituality, maybe they don't like the woowoo sound of spiritual, okay, so that needs to be honored. But however, somebody grounds themselves, to me, that's what it's about. It's about finding, again, I think we we, as a culture, overuse the word balance and when we overuse something, it doesn't have meaning anymore, it loses some of its meaning. So I've played around with the idea of calibration. How do we calibrate It's that place on the seesaw, and most of us have been on seesaw as if you ever had a park near you, wherever you grew up, and just you get to that place of balance. You get to that place of calibration on the seesaw and your feet are off the ground. You're using every muscle to just find that place that center. And so what's going to help you calibrate and watch Whether it's just I'm going to feel my feet on the ground, I'm going to meditate. I'm going to exercise. It doesn't matter.

00:45:04.590 --> 00:45:10.260
It's whatever brings you home back to yourself.

00:45:10.440 --> 00:45:30.150
Yeah, yeah, that's great. Yeah. And it's interesting as you're saying that I realized, for me, I check all the above exercise, I have a gratitude practice I do meditate. You know, I'm working on getting my sleep proper amount of sleep i. So I have this four letter acronym that I do. I call it gems, gratitude, exercise, meditation and sleep.

00:45:31.349 --> 00:46:13.710
And that's but the thing is, there's I was raised as a fundamentalist, I'm not Christian anymore. But there's a Bible verse, it says, No, we don't grieve like those who have no hope. And so for me, I guess a spirituality is just like, that's like the secret weapon, you can, you can grieve without it, I suppose I just wouldn't want to I knowing that my daughter is still here with me, knowing that her life, I believe was was planned that this was planned. And being able to find meaning, we could find meaning in it, whether we believe is planned or not. So I always tell people, you don't have to believe that. But to me, that's just kind of like the bonus, that's what really helps me, you know, I feel like get back on my feet faster, maybe.

00:46:13.980 --> 00:47:17.250
Sure. And, you know, as you're as you're speaking, what comes to mind is family and, and when, when a couple loses a child, if they both are grieving, and they're going to be grieving differently. If, if one, one partner, you know, is grieving and holding the grief in the way that you're holding it, but the other partner, isn't it that there can be grief within the relationship, because the way it is being held by each partner is so different, that it can feel isolating. And so it's important to bring this up, because a child who loses a parent, and let's say it's to partner home, okay, a child that loses a parent doesn't just lose the parent who died, they lose the parent who's grieving. And so, it's, it's, it's also very complicated.

00:47:18.389 --> 00:47:20.579
Yeah, we all we all become different people.

00:47:20.610 --> 00:47:23.400
And, you know, for changes you there's the cave,

00:47:23.460 --> 00:48:20.039
where my my daughter passed away, have another daughter, and you know, I had to, you know, it's like, Well, who am I going to be now for my, for my other job, she was only 18 at the time. And, you know, so that it affects all of us differently. And I've seen couples where, you know, a child will pass and agreement differently. And if they caused a big rift between the two of them, you know, maybe because one's hyper spiritual. And I'm thinking one example, this couple, just one was hyper spiritual, I wouldn't really deal with anything. And I was like, I can't, you know, I can't deal with that. So we have to respect each other's ways. As you talked about earlier, we've got different ways of navigating this boulder that's been set in front of us. And we all need to learn to respect that. And I think it's, as you were saying, as a therapist, it's important to recognize people who have different things that work for them, and to give them tools. So it sounds like that's what your book does is give people tools that I tell people, you can put this in your tool bag, whatever works for you.

00:48:20.280 --> 00:48:55.170
That's right, whatever works for you, and there are many so and part of the tool is also knowing the self, you know, like, are you an introvert extrovert ambivert. You know, again, to be able to say, oh, you know what, I do better when I'm alone or with one person, or I do better in a crowd, you know, or I can get really emotional. So when I get really emotional, I need to have people around me who can handle my emotionality. Or I'm Barron, I'm kind of like the tide that goes out. And I'm ebbing and I'm dry.

00:48:51.119 --> 00:48:58.679
And you know, you're not going to get much from me, but it doesn't mean that I'm not feeling

00:48:59.878 --> 00:49:05.849
Yes, absolutely. I want to talk to you. I want to ask you, because I know you do.

00:49:02.998 --> 00:49:05.849
EMDR or you work with grief.

00:49:05.849 --> 00:49:24.478
Have you heard of rgt? No, I have not. It's so it's retired repair reattachment, grief therapy, a lot of times it'll involve EMDR or some sort of bilateral stimulation. So I've just I was just curious if you've heard about it, because it's kind of, I believe, a specialized form of EMDR.

00:49:25.050 --> 00:49:29.460
Okay, no. And I would love to hear more about it.

00:49:29.460 --> 00:49:43.260
Would you mind just saying a little bit more about it? And then I can speak a little bit about brain spotting, which is another another kind of, you know, stimulation that gets to issues.

00:49:43.289 --> 00:49:48.210
Yeah, well, I'm not an expert on it. I probably shouldn't have brought it up.

00:49:45.329 --> 00:50:29.219
But I know someone who is and I went through a session with her and so we did this, you know, eye movement thing. So she had me it was like almost a full day session. So we I went through all my you know, traumatic experiences and we We'd go through each one of them, and we work like journal them. And then we do the EM EMDR thing. And then there's a point where actually you can you can actually go back. And or you can, like a lot of people have experiences with their loved ones that are in spirit. So for me, it was in my case, it was my daughter. So it's been found to be very beneficial for people that are starting to call our rgt. Yes, yes, yes. So yeah, I just I guess I just thought I'd bring it up and see if you were

00:50:29.519 --> 00:50:34.920
no, I'm glad that you did. It's always see it's the beginner's mind. So thank you so much.

00:50:34.949 --> 00:50:47.668
Yeah, there's so much. So I also want to ask you about assist. And if you could say more about that, because I had not heard that organization before I was listening to one of the early interviews are to bring it up. And it sounds fascinating.

00:50:47.820 --> 00:52:22.409
So assist, is just like an amazing, amazing place. So ASSYST actually stands for the American Center for the integration of spiritually transformative experiences. And I just, I just really, really love who they are I, they offer classes for clinicians, they offer peer support, they offer trainings. So we are an organization that really wants to get the message out there that there are a lot of people who do experience spiritually transformative experiences. And they often go misdiagnosed, I mean, they often are diagnosed, as you know, psychosis, or anxiety or depression, when really, there's a spiritual emergency that's going on or a kundalini awakening that's going on, which is a very, very deep, deep experience, that happens spiritually, where kind of every part of you is questioning who you are, existence, what you're doing, and why you're even here.

00:52:23.010 --> 00:52:33.539
And that Kundalini awakening is just one of the most intense experiences and they really help people understand what's going on for them.

00:52:34.289 --> 00:52:37.139
Yeah, that sounds like a much needed organization.

00:52:37.139 --> 00:52:40.380
So I'm glad that we are getting I like to spread the word on that more.

00:52:40.500 --> 00:53:02.250
Absolutely. And I am happy to give you you know, now and whenever I'm happy to give you a the link for you know, it's just ACI s t e dot orc.

00:53:02.610 --> 00:54:12.269
Okay, that sounds that sounds really great, because I know I so I've done some fair amount of work with ions. And I know that they're finally starting to make some inroads with the medical community. It's interesting, they won't admit the medical community will not admit that the end the E is real yet, but they will admit that we have to deal with it. So they're just starting to say, you know, how do we deal with people that are coming in reporting this and is starting to ask for some assistance. And I interviewed a guy in England who actually works with the, the medical community over there, he's had an MD he, and he helps people that are trying to integrate the experience, because, as we said, often they often experience with a person who's had that in the E, or an S T, which is a broader category for experiences. Oh, you're insane. You're having a psychotic break? What do you mean, you left your body and you saw this monk, I could think of one woman that actually wrote a book about her her experience, and she left her body and she met this ancient monk, I've interviewed enough people and talk to people I know these experiences are real. And for some people, for people to have a therapist that could work with them and just say, It's okay, you know, you can share this with me, it would be so important.

00:54:13.170 --> 00:54:35.909
I could not agree with you more. And so it you know, the big umbrella of you know, the meta the medical world, includes our clinicians includes our social workers, our clinical psychologists to be able to think when somebody walks into my office office, there's a spiritual emergency that's going on rather than let me just completely diagnose them.

00:54:36.269 --> 00:55:29.250
Because when someone comes in with anxiety, or they're coming in with depression, or their there's something else that may very well be going on, but we don't ask those questions. So we may miss a whole slew of really important information. You know, what are some of the dreams what's been lost? You know, What was your birthing experience? Do you know anything about your birth birthing experience? Do you have any idea of how your what your mother? What the what your mother's experience was, as she carried you to cheat? Did she give you up to Qi not gives you a, you know, was, was there a lot of fighting? Or was there violence while you were in utero? Those are things those are questions that are not necessarily thought of are

00:55:29.250 --> 00:55:36.570
asked. Yeah, well, you know, Western medicine has given us so much. And it's still extremely, extremely important.

00:55:36.570 --> 00:56:11.159
And it but the thing is, I was getting back to this thing I've said was excited to see that you bring spirituality in your work, because we've I think we've forgotten who the whole person is. And a lot of times doctors not trained at will not a lot of times are never trained to ask the questions you do. Some of them just intuitively do I remember, it was just a little while after my daughter passed, maybe a year or so. And I've seen this doctor for the first time he's asking me all the questions about my eating and my sleeping and all that stuff, my stress level. And I think he asked me if I was, you know, if I had any depression, I said, Well, yeah. And he said, Well, tell me about that. So my daughter passed away a year ago.

00:56:11.670 --> 00:56:37.530
And he goes, Okay, well, then he understood, okay, it's normal, to be depressed when your daughter, your 15 year old daughter passes, suddenly, you know, like that. But a lot of times, you know, doctors, a younger doctor, and I had I went to another doctor after it was younger doctor, she wanted to put me on medication. She's like, Oh, you're if you're depressed, and I need to put you on medication. I'm like, I'm not going on medication. It's normal for me to feel sad, because my daughter just passed away.

00:56:38.519 --> 00:56:44.880
Right? That's right.

00:56:38.519 --> 00:57:06.599
And, sadly, you know, we are we we are in a culture right now that over medicates. And the pill is the way to just interrupt the anxiety or the depression, rather than saying, why don't we teach you how to utilize yourself to help some of the effects of that depression?

00:57:07.380 --> 00:57:11.309
Well, there's a, there's a very, there are very famous studies.

00:57:11.699 --> 00:57:36.269
And I think you will appreciate this because you exercise because you meditate. So they had, you know, three groups, okay, they had one group, and these were all people who are suffering from anxiety, they had one group, and they only gave them medication, they had another group that gave them medication, and exercise. And then they had the third group, but it was just exercise alone.

00:57:31.110 --> 00:57:47.940
And, of course, the group that had did the best they, they and stuck with the protocol, or the people with the exercise. Yeah.

00:57:44.159 --> 00:57:47.940
Yeah, carry?

00:57:48.298 --> 00:58:20.099
Yeah. It's, it's truly, it's amazing. So I think we're kind of hopefully we're kind of coming back around to that with people I love. Like, it's the people like yourself, who have gotten the technical training, as well, but also bring the spiritual aspect to it. And when I understand how do I treat the whole person, how do I get to know this person, you know, not just not just with not just their body, you know, and just fix this symptom, but how we get to know the whole person and help them to, when we all have the tools inside that, to fix it ourselves. And people will just, you know, let us know what those tools are and how we

00:58:20.099 --> 00:58:58.260
can absolutely and and I also just want to say one thing about the medication because it can sound like I'm an anti medication person, and I am not, sometimes medication is very much needed. And so if any of your listeners are really you know, you're down you're you're you're you're feeling depressed, you're feeling anxious, get help have someone you know, talk with you, if you don't like them, find somebody else, you know, it's it's because it's it, there's, again, it's not, you know, one size fits all here.

00:58:54.449 --> 00:59:11.070
And sometimes medication can just help you get over the hump, my anxiety level after I lost my my, my first love was so high and I ended up taking some medication Did Did it help me?

00:59:07.559 --> 00:59:54.989
Yes, because I couldn't leave my house. So I needed I needed something. And yet, when I was able to then harness my own healing energies, I could then stop the medications. So please, please listeners understand that sometimes medication is very much needed for however long you need it. And then there is the side of you can also take how to tap into your own inner strengths, what I call your superpowers, and a superpower is kind of like being common chaos, or being able to meditate when you're depressed, even if it's for a minute. Those are superpowers.

00:59:55.019 --> 01:00:04.769
Yeah. Well, I want to say the same thing because I am not anti medication and my daughter such as she's a medical for she's a psychotherapist and we talked about medication.

01:00:05.250 --> 01:00:18.119
actually read a book, I think the guy's name is Johann Hari, it's called Lost connections was awesome about the whole medical medication thing. I have been on medication, I was having depression and anxiety, and my doctor recommended medication.

01:00:18.119 --> 01:00:39.449
So I will do it in concert with going to see a therapist. But I also want to have a plan to get off of it because I don't believe medication alone is the way to go. That was for me, and I didn't I did not get off of it into my therapist said it was okay. So I'm not anti medication. I'm not anti Western medicine. But I think it's got to be in both AMS right? If I'm gonna do the

01:00:39.750 --> 01:00:43.230
same, it's a Yes, Sam.

01:00:39.750 --> 01:00:50.460
So just, you know, I think it's hard to have a conversation around medication and have a perspective about medication.

01:00:46.860 --> 01:01:07.500
And it can sound as if it's an anti medication conversation, when indeed it isn't. It's just about finding where the medication fits in. And where does the self fit in, in terms of the healing that the medication doesn't replace? The the ability of the self to also heal?

01:01:07.710 --> 01:01:09.690
Right, right, an old brain chemistry thing?

01:01:09.690 --> 01:01:13.110
Because I think it's a loop.

01:01:09.690 --> 01:01:16.739
It's a loop right there. Our thoughts change our brain chemistry and a brain chemistry changes our thoughts.

01:01:16.860 --> 01:01:50.789
That's right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, totally. I mean, the brain, it's, it's, uh, I like to think of the brain, the way that I explained the brain is think of the brain, the center of the brain is like the body of the octopus. And then we've got all of these tentacles. And so those are like neural pathways. And you've got all of these many different neural pathways, and some of them are stressed neural pathways and, and anxiety and depression and joy and love and all of these neural pathways.

01:01:46.409 --> 01:02:25.860
And so it's about saying to some of the neural pathways, where there's trauma, I'm going to try to, to lighten your load, I'm going to try to just, you know, cut you off before, you can just completely blossom, and it's going to be the way to talk to that neural pathway, it's going to be the way you exercise with it. Because we know that new new neural pathways because of all of the brain science that's out there now that we've got the ability to grow new neural pathways, it's just so exciting.

01:02:20.340 --> 01:02:27.449
So your brain is one of the greatest superpowers.

01:02:27.840 --> 01:03:08.460
Yes, and I'm, I'm learning that myself. And and that's what I'm saying that this thing that I'm actually taking a coaching course right now, that's it's a seven week intensive course. And basically, the thing is cutting off these neural pathways and strengthening these and we and you said, for all these people like myself, I'm a chemical engineer, it's my, that's what my degree is in, that we like Western stuff. We like science, okay. They've shown that we can change our brains, you know, so the medications can help. But also learning to control our thoughts, doing them doing the meditations, doing these exercises, I'm doing things now called PQ Reps, where you do it multiple times a day to try to develop your neural pathways.

01:03:05.400 --> 01:03:09.179
These things actually work as well. So

01:03:09.298 --> 01:03:12.898
the PQ Reps are great.

01:03:09.298 --> 01:03:12.898
Oh, yeah. Yeah.

01:03:13.019 --> 01:03:15.929
I love it. I'm like halfway through this the seven.

01:03:16.409 --> 01:03:18.210
That's great. It's awesome.

01:03:18.300 --> 01:03:21.449
It's Shirzad. Yeah, yeah.

01:03:22.139 --> 01:03:31.320
Well, Edie, it's been wonderful getting to meet you. Tell me a little bit more about your book, tell me about where people can contact you and how people can work with you that like to

01:03:31.650 --> 01:04:08.820
Sure. So the book is on Amazon. And my website is Edie Nathan calm. I have lots of blog articles I write for medium I write for Psychology Today. So if you want to see my writing, please just, you could just put my name in and, and find me on those outlets. And also, if any of your listeners come to my website and say, you know, hey, I, I heard you on Brian show, grief to growth, I will send them a I have a monthly journal.

01:04:09.119 --> 01:04:19.920
And it's called notes to self and I'll send them a one month Note to self journal via a PDF.

01:04:13.199 --> 01:04:33.809
And they can, you know, also get my book on on my website if they would like, and I'm in the process of actually writing a second book. And we'll probably come out 2023 And it's called Sexual grief. The Human Condition.

01:04:34.500 --> 01:04:54.360
Awesome. I want to spell your name for people. So because it'll everything will be in the show notes. But some people don't read the show notes. So it's Edie y Na Tha n so it's at Nathan calm, so correct. Yes. Awesome. It's been really wonderful. Talking to you today. Getting to know you a little bit and thanks for being here and grief to grow.

01:04:54.900 --> 01:04:57.599
Thank you for having me. I've had a great time.

01:05:00.000 --> 01:05:07.920
Don't forget to like hit that big red subscribe button and click the notify Bell thanks for being here

Edy Nathan- Learn To Dance With Your Grief

Edy Nathan

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