Ever wondered how navigating the realms of grief and trauma can shape and inspire personal growth? Join us as we unravel this complex journey with our esteemed guest, Gina Moffa, a grief and trauma-informed therapist, based in the heart of New York City. In an intimate discussion, Gina shares riveting insights from her latest book, "Moving On Doesn't Mean Letting Go," while revealing the often overlooked connection between therapy and learning. Unearth the unique relationship between a therapist and client, experience the monumental role of personal development, and challenge societal pressures surrounding grief and loss.
Her book is available here.
Grief, an intricate part of the human experience, often leaves a significant impact on mental health. In this season, we bring this experience to light as Gina and your hosts, both therapists with diverse personal narratives, discuss the importance of maintaining an ongoing relationship with a therapist, debunking the myth of therapy as a quick fix. Amidst a global pandemic that has rocked our collective mental health, we also share our journey of crafting a book on grief, striking a balance between acknowledging its endlessness and providing practical tools for navigating through it. We create a safe space for candid conversations, discussing the multifaceted layers of grief, its individual impacts, and the necessity of finding appropriate coping mechanisms and support.
As we conclude this enlightening season, we eagerly anticipate Dr. Hayden Duggan's interview in the upcoming year. Let us remember to take care of our mental health, particularly during the festive season. If you're battling mental health or substance abuse issues, we strongly urge you to seek professional help. You are not alone. Stay connected, share your stories, and help us cultivate a supportive community. Cheers to another season of growth, warmth, and shared stories!
Ever wondered how navigating the realms of grief and trauma can shape and inspire personal growth? Join us as we unravel this complex journey with our esteemed guest, Gina Moffa, a grief and trauma-informed therapist, based in the heart of New York City. In an intimate discussion, Gina shares riveting insights from her latest book, "Moving On Doesn't Mean Letting Go," while revealing the often overlooked connection between therapy and learning. Unearth the unique relationship between a therapist and client, experience the monumental role of personal development, and challenge societal pressures surrounding grief and loss.
Her book is available here.
Grief, an intricate part of the human experience, often leaves a significant impact on mental health. In this season, we bring this experience to light as Gina and your hosts, both therapists with diverse personal narratives, discuss the importance of maintaining an ongoing relationship with a therapist, debunking the myth of therapy as a quick fix. Amidst a global pandemic that has rocked our collective mental health, we also share our journey of crafting a book on grief, striking a balance between acknowledging its endlessness and providing practical tools for navigating through it. We create a safe space for candid conversations, discussing the multifaceted layers of grief, its individual impacts, and the necessity of finding appropriate coping mechanisms and support.
As we conclude this enlightening season, we eagerly anticipate Dr. Hayden Duggan's interview in the upcoming year. Let us remember to take care of our mental health, particularly during the festive season. If you're battling mental health or substance abuse issues, we strongly urge you to seek professional help. You are not alone. Stay connected, share your stories, and help us cultivate a supportive community. Cheers to another season of growth, warmth, and shared stories!
Hi and welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy. The goal of this podcast is to demystify therapy, what can happen in therapy and the wide array of conversations you can have in and about therapy Through personal experiences. Guests will talk about therapy, their experiences with it and how psychology and therapy are present in many places in their lives, with lots of authenticity and a touch of humor. Here is your host, steve Bisson.
Speaker 2:Je ne suis pas d'une de cette introduction. I am not worthy of that introduction. But welcome to Episode 131. If you haven't read it, it's in Episode 130. It was the most downloadable episode of the year with Gordon Pruer, but Episode 131 will be my favorite episode of the year.
Speaker 2:Yes, it's hard to choose. There was so many good interviews between the mental men, the first responder stuff. I think that there was also Tomar and Medford was really cool with Lane Kennedy, but I ultimately chose Gina Moffa. Gina Moffa's book came out a few months ago, gave it to a few clients and I would say that they only got positive reviews and she's just an honest person, a caring person. I really enjoy our interview and here it is and I hope you enjoy it as much as I did. Well, hi everyone and welcome to Episode 113 of Finding your Way Through Therapy.
Speaker 2:I can't tell you how happy I am to see a returning guest but, more importantly, a friend. We make friends over Instagram sometimes and you never know who's going to be the most supportive, and Gina's been very supportive of me and I've tried to return to favor as much as I possibly can. Gina was on Episode 46, and she's back today because she's promoting a book out on August 22nd. The call Moving On doesn't mean letting go, and I've read most of it. Again, I never lied to anyone. I didn't finish it yet, sorry Gina, but I'm working on it and it's going to be highly recommended and I will make sure you guys have a link to buy the book. And I just want to welcome Gina Moffa back to Finding your Way Through Therapy.
Speaker 3:Thank you, Steve. It is always like coming to visit an old friend hanging out with you. So thank you, so so much. I'm grateful.
Speaker 2:You know, you develop these connections with people sometimes and they come and go and we connect it over Instagram and it's one of those things that we connected and you kind of go okay, well, we connect forever or whatever, and I can't wait for you to come to Boston to promote your book so we can have lunch, because we've never met face to face.
Speaker 3:Never, but it feels like we're. I mean, it's been years, so it feels like we're old friends by now. We are old friends by now.
Speaker 2:But I think it's like minded people right.
Speaker 3:Yeah, for sure, when you find your people, you stick with them.
Speaker 2:And I'm so happy. I'm going to go to New York and we're going to grab dinner or something. Just a great human being and you know, I know that people have might have listened to episode 46, but maybe for those who missed episode 46, go back and listen to it. But I'm going to ask the same question. I always ask all my guests, even if they're returning tell us about yourself.
Speaker 3:It's so funny, it's one of the hardest questions. You could ask me anything about trauma, anything about grief, and I'm like great. But when you say tell me about yourself, I'm like I don't know. My name is Gina. Anyway, my name is Gina Mafa. I am a I am a grief and trauma informed and I love and we're going to talk about that therapist in private practice in New York City. I work with people enduring losses of all kinds. Life transitions, changes even good changes can be hard and traumatizing and right now I am promoting a book that's coming out on August 22nd, as Steve just mentioned, and it is a book on grief and navigating loss in this fast-paced society that we're in. So this is where I'm at right now and what a whirlwind.
Speaker 2:And Gina's being very, very modest. Gina's one of the most compassionate people I know and if you ever follow her on Instagram, go see her website. You will see the human being that shows up not only as a therapist but as a human being, and that's probably why we connect so well. I don't show up as fake and you don't either, and I think that probably is one of those things. Gina has her own stuff that she's going to discuss about grief and trauma and everything else, and I think that a person that will go above and beyond for others. If you get to the book, I'm going to spoil a little bit of the intro. During COVID, she had the same guilt, so to speak, as I did, of not being able to help more people, and so to say that Gina's a wonderful human being is an understatement. But there I helped you with your intro.
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness, I would never say that. So I'm really, really, I mean, I don't even know what to say. Thank you, thank you for that. I just love that. We're on the same wavelength and I think just because we're trained and just because we have extra education and specializations and all of that doesn't mean that we're not still being taught and being students and we still have to show up. I learn so much every day from my work and for me, if I didn't have a sense of humility and openness to always learning and being flexible, I don't know that I could do this work personally. We're more than the sum of our degrees and our education.
Speaker 2:The day we stop learning is the day we're no longer here. That's how I perceive it.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And I learn every single day and I try to learn again. Some spoilers here. She talks about how much her clients have taught her, and one of the things that I do and I think I've mentioned it before in the podcast and if I haven't, that's fine. Whenever I terminate with a client, I go out to lunch with them, or supper or coffee or whatever they feel comfortable with, and then I explain to them what they taught me.
Speaker 3:And they always.
Speaker 2:They're always like, oh my God, really, I thought you all done. I'm like, yeah, I didn't know any of this stuff. And they're like, well, you taught me so much. I'm like we're not here to talk about that, we're here to talk about you and what you taught me, and that's why going to school is also being with our patients or clients or whatever we're supposed to call them, but I call them human beings and we're going to talk a lot about this book.
Speaker 2:But I want to mention one thing. I recommend this, obviously for people who are going through their grief process, maybe curious, don't know how to deal with it. I highly recommend that therapists read it because it's not something that we learn in school. I mean, I don't know if you had a grief class. I didn't have a grief class. We had trauma class, but it was like three hours and there you go. You know I'm going to be informed, which we'll be talking about, but I think that that's why I want to mention that.
Speaker 2:But how do we decide to be a therapist? I mean, I know how I decided to be a therapist, but I want to know how Gina wakes up one day and goes you know what? I'm going to be a therapist. How does that?
Speaker 3:You know it's really funny because people always say how did you get into it? And I always say I landed in it, I fell into it. You know I was always really interested in international affairs and international studies and really interested in humanitarian crises and the way that people were treated during war and a lot of this is, as I'm saying this, you can imagine, trauma, trauma, trauma. So I was introduced to trauma really through international relations studies and was always really fascinated on the idea of resiliency and how people in different cultures really got through the most horrific life events. You know genocide we're talking about. You know families being slaughtered and taken away, children being drugged and used as soldiers I mean really human atrocities at the highest level and just really wanting to understand more about how we survived that. And so as I realized that I was more and more interested in the human behavior part of international relations and less about the law, I fell into therapy and social work school at NYU and wanted to 100% knew that I wanted to be in trauma and a trauma therapist. So, and interestingly, at the time there weren't classes specifically on trauma. It was 2001 and it was very you know it was just after September 11th where I did my thesis on terrorism and the psychological aftermath. So I was already sort of starting this journey into trauma work, just not really understanding which road would I take in this way. Would I wind up being a lawyer or would I wind up going into human behavior of some kind? And I didn't know, and you know. But more and more it just felt like I was home, the more that I read about people recovering from things and finding life and beauty again and reading books on trauma. And this was really early on, you know, when we didn't understand what trauma was. You know we thought it was war syndrome. You know, after Vietnam and thank God that you know, judith Herman was there also to really start this and really, you know she was one of the first books that I read on trauma and yeah, and so for me I was really just fascinated with trauma itself and being a therapist sort of fell into that idea of how I would use it and how I would study it and how I would go move, how I would move forward.
Speaker 3:But interestingly, in all of my trauma work, you know, there was something that I always saw missing and it was the understanding of grief, and you know, we talk about healing and integration and all of that, but we don't talk about the things that we have to mourn as part of that process. It seems obvious or it seemed obvious a lot of my career but working with Holocaust survivors really kind of brought it home is when I started doing grief work and having grief specific groups here in New York City and it just felt like, wow, this is a missing link to a lot of things. People just need to talk and come together and feel connected and it's really this that's the overlap in a lot of ways with trauma work and grief work is the idea of connection again, and safety and connection. So I just gave you the country roads on how I became a therapist.
Speaker 3:But it was really interesting for me to kind of come from this place where I was looking at human behavior from a place of diplomacy and theory and now, you know, looking at feelings and emotions behind war. So yeah, that's how it all came to be. It's always a clumsy answer, you know, but it is not always a not always a linear like grief, not always a linear path to where we land in our lives that have the most meaning for us. So a little bit of a messy journey, but the right one.
Speaker 2:You're the third person on this podcast that have gone from the law world to begin being a therapist and certainly I see the same compassion from them that I see from you and realizing that it's that part of the human experience that people look into. And you talk about different authors, you know like Bessel Vendekalk, you know, has an amazing book on that, and Harriet Lerner, I think, has one especially for women. And I think it's called the dance of anger, but it's truly about the grief process.
Speaker 2:And and I love her book too. But you know we talk about all this and how we get to this point. I mean it's not a linear process, because I remember my sixth grade teacher. I'm just going to share this story. He had put two things on the road, on the mat, on the, on the board and this was chalk days put a straight line in the root A to root B, and then he did one A and then he made squiggly lines to root B and he said to us and I was like 11 at the time he says okay, which one is going to teach you the most? And he said that's the one that you need to remember. If it's not, if it's a straight line, what are you learning? If it's all screwed up, but you got to learn throughout the process, it may actually be even better for you. And so I always remember that and this is what I was 11 at the time, so it was a long-term thing, so we need to look.
Speaker 2:We do need those different views. But, you know the other part too. Sometimes people become therapists because maybe of their own experience in therapy. And I always ask the same question Everyone have you ever been in therapy?
Speaker 3:I sure have. Yeah, I'm not currently in therapy, but I've been in therapy, sort of on and off as needed. It's been a minute, you know, I actually could. I think about it sometimes going back in just to deal with right now some imposter syndrome that the therapists are not immune to or exempt from. But yeah, I have been in therapy. I think therapy for me has made me a better therapist. I love the idea that we can really take time to self-reflect with another person. In a way that I don't know. It just airs out the wounds and you know. So I think that for sure, both for better and worse, you know in a way, because I didn't always choose the best therapist for me also and how much we learn just from that, you know, with things not to do ways not to act.
Speaker 2:And it's also very important to know if you get along with your therapist. I certainly encourage people to do that. After a few sessions with me, I'm like is this the type of therapy you want? If you don't, that's fine, I'll find someone else, and I think that I learned that from my own therapy too. So sometimes you get experience that, in order to get it better, it's so true.
Speaker 3:It's so true. I remember being young, before I was going to be a therapist just wanting to be liked by my therapist and wanting to do therapy right and wanted to, you know, be well-behaved and very neat and all of that, and it took some time for me to realize. You know, this is what am I paying for. This is crazy. You know, I would never want someone to come into my office and try to behave or want to do something right. You know I would be so. Oh my God, I'd be so upset if that was something that they felt. But yeah, it's funny. It's funny the things we learned from doing things wrong.
Speaker 2:I had a therapist after I had, like I had three losses in 10 days and started therapy with a new therapist. And you know, I started the first 15 minutes and she looked me in the eye and she says all right, nata, you've told me all the therapist bullshit. You know how? About you start being real and being truthful to me?
Speaker 3:Yes.
Speaker 2:Like that's my therapist right there. She called me on my stuff in 15 minutes.
Speaker 3:I love it.
Speaker 2:yeah, and she let me be sloppy and she accepted me for being sloppy, and that's what therapy is. If it was a easy process, we would just say here's the book, you're all set. Best of luck to you yeah, that's not how it is.
Speaker 3:No, and that's what I think is so hard also about, like the new age that we live in, where society wants very quick fixes and you know where people now would almost prefer to go to coaches, because they're advertising like four easy steps to get through your trauma. You know five ways to heal your childhood abuse and go, and so it definitely feels harder to be a therapist these days, but the journey is life changing life changing.
Speaker 2:You know when my clients once said to me you only get what you want out of therapy if you put yourself out there and be sloppy and not expect a timeframe.
Speaker 3:Absolutely.
Speaker 2:And I was in a therapist. I was a client and I always remind people of that. Like you want me to schedule 12 weeks and you're gonna be better, you know what? I'm not the therapist for you. I'll find someone who claims to do that. I just don't do that. It may be 12 weeks and that would be awesome, but I can't promise anything.
Speaker 3:Yeah. I don't ever promise X amount of weeks. I promise that I don't wanna keep them there forever. Right, and that's what I tell people, that's it.
Speaker 2:We don't want you in therapy for life, but if you need it, like I have at least a handful. They come in every three months and they joke around. I'm like you're my oil change.
Speaker 1:You know everything's good.
Speaker 2:Everything's not so good, whatever we talk about it. And then, like I'm good for three months.
Speaker 3:Yep.
Speaker 2:And so I think I call it the tune up.
Speaker 3:I call it the tune up. I even write about it in my book too. It's so true. So, it's wonderful they come back.
Speaker 2:And I think it's also good for anyone to know that. To me, the goal of this podcast, too, is to realize that mental health is as important as physical health. You don't go to your doctor once you're healthy, all right, you're good for 10 years. No, I mean, make you come every year If you have some medical issues every six months, and so on and so forth. And that's how I see mental health. It's the exact same thing.
Speaker 2:It really is. I'm on the maintenance plan with my therapist now, but he always says you need to come back regularly. I'm open to it.
Speaker 3:I love it. We need to have that. I talk about it at the end of my book, really but even when we think we're doing well and or we terminate, that, the relationship still continues and whether or not we decide to go back for the tune up or the maintenance, that relationship lives inside of you and continues to evolve. So a lot like grief.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and maybe that's a good place to start, like the grief process. We've talked about it not much in school, so to speak. So what made you decide one day, like, based on my experience as a therapist, I'm gonna write a book. What made you decide besides that, like why do we need to process that through a book? Because I think it's a good question to ask.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. This all came about really just during COVID and I was seeing clients. I see people in college, all the way through beginning of college, through graduate school. People are emerging adults, so to speak, and really high functioning people who wanna do the work. And I came to a place during COVID where, like we spoke earlier, there were so many phone calls coming my way, so many people calling from all over the country, all over the world, and in a state of loss not just death losses, but divorce breakups, loss of a pet, fertility challenges, livelihood changes.
Speaker 3:They opened a business, took everything they had put it into a business and lost it during COVID and there was such a sense of helplessness. And so I remember working with some clients who were like, okay, I'm so anxious about what I'm going through, this is my first experience with loss and understanding that I'm grieving. What books do you have for me? So I would name some books and I would give some suggestions and they would go out and they would read them and they would come back and say, okay, it was good, but it wasn't for me, it didn't speak to me, and I started to get this again and again and one of my clients, lesser Heart. This was the therapy I got that day. She said you know, you give such good, you're here giving me the most helpful tidbits and tools and you send me home with reflection and I feel like every week I'm doing something and I'm making my way towards something. That's the kind of book I need and I want you to write it. And I was like oh, I was like laughing, you know, thinking why would I write a book? I'm just, you know, I'm just me, I'm just a therapist in the trenches doing the work. And you know, it kind of struck me that the thought stayed with me for a while and I thought, okay, what could I do? That's not about just me writing a book that makes me look good.
Speaker 3:And you know, I was thinking about it and it was how do I provide access to as close to grief therapy with me as one could get in a book for people who do not have access to therapy, either access through financial reasons or location reasons, or maybe they're, you know, nervous because they've never been to therapy and don't know what to expect. So I wanted to write a book that was almost like the front line to going to therapy. So this is what it would be like if you had a grief and trauma-informed therapist and you were going through a loss of any kind, and that was my mission in writing the book. What would that be like for somebody who had no idea or just couldn't do it for many different reasons, and that's really where it all started. So I wrote a proposal and I thought, if it's meant to be in the world almost took a spiritual bend, you know, and having lost my mother, I wanted to also share that I've I'm not just a trained therapist, but I've been around the block, I've experienced this myself and I learned what didn't work for me also, and so that was sort of my pledge to put it out in the world in a way that felt like it had a mission and a higher good for people and somehow miraculously got a literary agent and a book deal and off I went to the races and it's been a really interesting experience of writing the book and wanting it to speak to so many different losses that we've experienced now since COVID and I understand COVID is still actually happening, but the initial trauma of COVID was very, very hard and so I really do try to speak to that period of time.
Speaker 3:But also since then, and I know you probably understand, social media has taken off. You know, reels have to be seven seconds. The world is so much faster than it was pre COVID, and so you know, you and I talked about this earlier, but I was like, okay, well, what do I do when I have clients coming to me and I'm saying, you know, grief is messy and you know you're gonna feel what you feel and you're gonna feel it for as long as you feel it. Now, if you come in with a history of anxiety or high adrenaline or trauma, hearing that is going to completely upend you and, as a therapist, that felt really irresponsible though true that I would then have to, it doesn't fly.
Speaker 3:And so for me, I wanted to provide something that would give a sense of agency, right, that we can do something and work towards something and still be connected to the endlessness of grief, which is that it will always be with us. But it transforms and it should lessen in intensity and you should find relief and we allow life in again. But nobody knows how to do it. It sounds good, but how do we do it? Where do we start? So that's kind of what I tried to put in this book.
Speaker 3:And I hope you're somewhat through it, so I'm hoping that that came across.
Speaker 2:Of course you mentioned something that you said at the end of the book and I'm like, of course I haven't read the whole thing, so we should get talks about that.
Speaker 3:Well, now, when you read it, you'll be like, oh, there she is, there's the tune up.
Speaker 2:And I think that that's why it's important. Like what I think is so important is I've had clients to come to me and like I wanted to learn about trauma. I got the body keeps the score and I'm like, but I'll do respect, that's really a good technical book for therapists and, again, masterpiece, if you ask me but it's not really written in a way that is helpful for people. In some ways it's helpful for a therapist, but it's not for the general population. One of my clients no, no, I read the whole thing, it was great. And then she comes back the next week. She's like oh no, I listened for 20 minutes and I'm like this is not for me.
Speaker 2:So it's good to have a you wrote a manual, which is really helpful, and I want to, before I forget, the exercises that I've got, like that, go through the book are so helpful and are so simple. So that people know that and the way you describe them are perfect, because I go back. I think it was meditation. People think it's like you gotta get a cushion, sit there for three hours and be enlightened. And that's just not how that works.
Speaker 3:No, it doesn't, and actually it's really much harder for people who have an overactive hyper alert nervous system, and it's all you're gonna do is compound the feeling of failure and anxiety. And yeah, I'm glad you pointed out that my exercises are simple, because I do struggle with are they too simple? But then I think of a grieving brain, and a grieving brain it really can't take in a lot of information that feels too dense. I know I couldn't when I was grieving, and so I wanted to be able to still meet somebody where they were and at least introduce them to these ideas in a way that they can easily metabolize, and so that was my hope with that. So thanks for pointing that out.
Speaker 2:Well, when you're essential nervous system and if I ever refer to it as CNS, I'm just giving everyone a heads up, that's what I call it sometimes is so overactive. Doing meditation for three minutes can seem so overwhelming. So, if you just do a breathing exercise for 30 seconds square breathing, for example, or something like that, even for 30 seconds or a minute, then you're already there and it's helping your central nervous system.
Speaker 2:So, that's why I like the simplicity of it, because you talk about a little bit of what we want in this world. We're also looking for simplicity. If I sat there and said, okay, we gotta get a Bodhi tree, you gotta read the four books on Buddhism that Buddha wrote or his disciples wrote, and then you'll be maybe, perhaps, enlightened. People will be like no way.
Speaker 3:I know it's so true, it's true, and I think sometimes people write things and they're dense and they're made for whoever they're made for. But my book wasn't made to impress my colleagues. My book was made to bolster the work that people do with clients, and that's the most important mission of this, and our clients need things that they can easily digest and learn about.
Speaker 2:So you've impressed at least one colleague and you're looking at.
Speaker 3:Well, I mean I'm. You're a little biased because you are my dear friend, but I do appreciate it. You have no idea, and I would actually need you to tell me if you thought it was really crap.
Speaker 2:So well, between you and me, I've not been known as someone who holds back.
Speaker 3:That is the truth.
Speaker 2:So you know, I feel that way. If I thought I wasn't good, I would be like I wouldn't probably say that on a podcast, but I privately, go. I looked. You know this is like.
Speaker 1:But no, it's really good.
Speaker 2:You know, and. I think, it's and I think about you know the audience listening, you know, sometimes it's looking at what is grief and People want to put a label on it and sometimes it's hard to define and I'm asking you a very complex question with three simple, Four simple words what is grief? Or three?
Speaker 3:Very complex. No, you know, grief is quite simply a natural response to a loss of any kind that feels significant to you, and I think we forget that it can be so much more than death losses and you know, it could even be an old loss that comes up. You know I I was thinking of my childhood home and Missing that, or I was missing this. You know, keychain that I got from my mom who passed, and now I'm grieving a couple of things, you know, and it's very, very layered and very nuanced and very individual. So nobody will ever really be able to tell you that what you're grieving is not significant or meaningful to you. It is any loss and it is a full body experience.
Speaker 2:And it's also something that you will have to read the book, but there's a story about a woman who's having trouble crossing the street and I'm gonna leave it there. So you guys go read the book, but it really explains how it brings up the past as well as a recent loss For that person.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah.
Speaker 2:So I'm just leaving it there.
Speaker 3:That's a tender story.
Speaker 2:I'm just gonna let it flow because I think it's important. Do you think that grief is something that you know? You know like I got a grief better than Gina, and obviously Gina's the best, so I'm gonna grieve as well as she does. The whole competition thing is that something that you encounter sometimes? Is that something that people need to really debunk that myth?
Speaker 3:I think that it's. I think I do encounter it. I do encounter it, not necessarily about competition, but I think we're always looking for a point of reference and I think people look especially to social media on how people are grieving and how or how they're coping with things. A lot of people go to Instagram and create these beautiful, beautiful reels that talk about their heartache. You know, and you know, and it will go on and on, and if some people feel better, even they're kind of like, oh, now I'm looking at this person who's still making these heartbreaking reels. Am am I doing this wrong? For by feeling better, and you know, I think that it's a dangerous territory when we compare, but it's also very human, I think, because grief is such a mystery even to us as Professionals. I think we look for structure, which is why I always say despite the fact that Elizabeth Kubler Ross is five stages of grief, that is not helpful for the modern grieving, the modern grieving paradigm. You know, it was really helpful at the time For people to adopt that as gravers, because it gave them a sense of something to expect. You know, they knew that they would expect these feelings and they would go through these cycles and you know, unfortunately, you know it was made for people who were terminally ill, so there was an endpoint and I think you know that's kind of where it then falls short for sure, because it's messy, it's cyclical and there's no end date, and it's more than just these five things. But I think that at the beginning we're, our human brain, needs something to guide us, and when we're left to our own devices in a sticky tar pit of and void of nothingness and an Overwhelm and, you know, an uncertainty on where we're headed next in this new foreign landscape, I just think it's it can be really dangerous for our mental health. So, yeah, so that's I mean.
Speaker 3:I think that's why it's really important that we don't compare. But I think it's so human of us to compare just because we do need a point of reference. But I always say like it's dangerous when you start saying you're doing it wrong or that you're stuck because somebody else isn't. And that's why I think therapy is good. Or, you know, support groups are good. But even in support groups people compare themselves. You know, I think it's just so normal for us to do that and I think it's okay to do that. But I think when we start to judge ourselves based on that. That's where it goes down a slippery slope. I.
Speaker 2:Think what I was gonna add to it is you know, I grieve the loss of my father in seven days, three hours and 20 minutes. You beat that and I tell people like, well, my circumstances are not the same as Gina losing her mom and it's not the same as my client losing both sisters in a car crash and it's not gonna be like a competition of time and all that and I think you pointed out in the book, but I want to hear a little more about it. So I want to grieve between the hours of 3 pm and 6 pm On August 16th. Is that how that works with making? Do it in that three-hour time frame and get it all out.
Speaker 3:I Mean it, we could joke about it, right and no, doesn't work that way.
Speaker 3:And yet I do think you know more and more as I learned from my own clients is that and I, you know I was telling you earlier I just participated in an article in Well and Good on scheduling our grief. I'm also kind of a component and a champion of people grieving however they can, and so if Scheduling it allows them that sense of safety that they may not feel and their otherwise chaotic busy life, I will take it. You know, as long as that, as long as there's something set aside for you to feel and feel in a safe way. But yeah, I mean, if I were planning it three weeks ahead of time, like I would have probably say there's gonna be some leakage. But yeah, I mean, I think it can feel like we really need to control it and and all of that. But you know, grief is an involuntary response. You know it's a natural, involuntary response, so it will come out in some way, shape or form before you you've scheduled it. You know, between three and six.
Speaker 2:Yeah, and I think that what I was trying to say is that after that three and six, it should be done.
Speaker 2:That's more of what I was saying versus all right, right right you can schedule it and you know, when I work with first responders and there's a lot of loss and that happens especially within the police and fires I always tell them that it's not checking in on someone for the first two weeks, that's everyone can does that. It's checking in on them three weeks later, a month later, two months later, because that's when sometimes that grief comes out in a wanky way, at the risk of sounding English, um, but I think that that's the other part I was pointing out and I think you can speak to that too, is that you know I I had a a guest on crystal partney who said you know, I went, I thought I was over it and I went shopping, where I used to shop, with my sister, at the supermarket, and I broke down. I couldn't even stay there and I thought I was over it, which is another misnomer, I think, about grief 100%.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I mean, I think that one of the things that we don't talk enough about is all of the secondary losses that come up over time, and I talk a lot about how grief is in the layers. You know the first month or so, even the first two months, is, you know, practical stuff and a state of shock. Even if you're expecting a loss, there's still. The loss has now happened and there still can be a state of shock Once all that wears off. You know, and you're also busy with either you know Doing a state work, or you know planning a funeral, or you know giving casserole dishes back to people and fielding phone calls. Um, once that wears off and you're left looking at your life again, at your life as a whole and also what's in front of you, all of these other losses come up in different ways through time, and also you know the idea of being over it.
Speaker 3:There are triggers and grief reminders All the time. That will come up, just as trauma does, and you know it can really feel like it's set us back. But I think one of the things to remember is that it will happen. If we know it will happen, once it happens, we can then prepare for it. But I think just the idea that knowing that you know it's not just a one and done, later on you know you will be in a supermarket or down the street, or even sitting on your couch or getting a smell of something or Picking up the phone, just thinking that your dad or your mom is still alive, is just, by default, your brain forgot that they're dead. You know, and so, yeah, I think one of the the biggest things to remember is that it never goes away, and you know the intensity of the feeling changes, but those reminders are in your body.
Speaker 2:And it never changes in what.
Speaker 2:I what are the other things. They talk about trauma and grief being similar and we're going to talk about that too, but it's not the same. Um, I tell people like trauma and grief is like this big mountain and you can sort you, go around in and circles, go up a little bit and go back, but there you don't get over it. You get through it and the grief process can be quick, could be long, can show up in different ways. I've lost my friend, as everyone knows that part of my being a therapist is losing my friend was 12.
Speaker 3:Yeah.
Speaker 2:I can talk about it today, come labor day, when it's going to be the anniversary We'll talk about maybe I won't have a hard time, maybe I will have a hard time, but there's no way in hell I'm going to judge it and I think that's the other part that's important.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you can't. I mean, that's the most important part is just allowing it to be what it is. You know, and I don't know if you've ever felt this way, but you know, since my mom died, to like every every year, I don't know what to expect. And you know, I may have a good year one year and think, oh wow, this is really shifted, and then the next year I'm flat on my ass in a state of grief and I'm shocked. Even being a grief therapist, I'm like, oh, this one hit me off guard. You know, and that's kind of the Sometimes I call it. The cruel nature of grief and trauma Is that every year, from year to year, it still can be different if it's an anniversary or a milestone or all of that. So just to continue to not judge and be gentle with it every year and plan the best you can to be gentle.
Speaker 2:I don't have it in front of me, but I remember like kind of like going first year was tough with my dad. Second year was Things were okay. Third and fourth year is really, really difficult, and then they got easier. Last year was fine. I don't know what it's gonna be in December, nor am I gonna be like let's predict it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, oh yeah.
Speaker 3:The only thing you can do is Plan and I always say and this is also in my book, I don't know if you got this far, but sort of like the ABC, like really simplifying, kind of like your plan a, your plan B, your plan C, so that you don't feel so overwhelmed that now you feel like you have to do what you planned for that you know fourth or sixth year, and you can plan accordingly, like well, you know it may be hard, but I don't know.
Speaker 3:So I'll try, I'll try to go to this party, or maybe I'll go to work, or maybe I'll go to dinner, and that's my plan a. And if I wake up that day and it's not feeling it and I feel really bombarded by that grief and that loss, like nope we're, we got a plan B, and if that plan B doesn't feel good, let's have something on the horizon after that. Because I think, just knowing that you've already planned something, it it'll fall a little bit more gentler a little bit. A little bit gentler in that way, because, because you're giving it thought and you're sort of preparing, so that sense of anxiety is lessened. But absolutely, if we could predict how we would feel ten years from now. I mean, you and I would be in a different business.
Speaker 2:But right, it would be fun, I'd look forward to it. But I also talk about how, when you're grieving and I think you mentioned that in the book too is that there's not like Jean is gonna grief differently than Steve and Steve's gonna, then John and Jane and Judy and Frank, they were all gonna do it differently. And I think that one of the things that I kind of remind people is that, while we all grief individually differently, I Think that we also got to realize that Grief is not, like we said, a linear process. It is absolutely not a linear process, but there's strength in numbers. You know People who knew my dad are people. Sometimes, when I'm having a hard time, I reach out to them because even though they're not experiencing the same thing, they can really like there's a strength in numbers. I know you, I know you have things to say about that, but I think it's also important to know what your resources are.
Speaker 3:I Think the resources are probably one of the most important things, I think being able to continue the relationship in some way Through people, to be able to talk about him, to talk about their relationship.
Speaker 3:You know we Relationships are complicated, especially parent-child right.
Speaker 3:So I find that even with my mom being gone, that, you know, new things come up every so often that I think about and I'm like, oh, you know, I need to talk about that or I need to process that, and it's sometimes a real comfort to hear from her friends to keep her going or to even I'll talk to her myself Now that I'm hearing back, necessarily, but you know the idea that I can, I can actually have that conversation, but I think, without talking about her, with people and and Processing my feelings with other people at times, when they come up with whether it's her friends or, you know, whether it's honoring her or creating rituals. You know, a lot of my friends sort of know the anniversary of my mom's death, so we'll go and raise a glass of prosecco, which my mom didn't drink often but would celebrate with, and you know, so it's, it's something like that in those moments bring me so much comfort and you know, if I just were to go out on my own and get a glass of prosecco, which is wouldn't I Think I would be sitting in the sense of loss and the void, as opposed to celebrating and and remembering the love. But but also, yeah, I mean grief can feel really complicated. So I think, when things come up and they will through the years, you know, as Relationships continue to evolve or you miss them more or your life is progressed, I mean there's a lot of introspection.
Speaker 3:When it comes to loss, you know, I think it's important to not just process it on your own and to really do whatever you can to make sure that you've got an Army of people there for you that feel safe and don't judge you.
Speaker 3:I mean by the way, I just have to say this as a side note because it's so crazy. As we were talking about this, I have a balcony right outside of my apartment here.
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Speaker 3:Let's create a world where everyone feels supported, understood and connected, and About six pigeons just landed on my table and are looking in at me right now, as you said, people around you, and I'm like huh, there's your, your naming Frank and you're naming all the people, and they started landing. I had to tell you this real-life moment because they're still looking at me. It feels like I have an audience. It's a little bit off-putting. I'm getting stage fright now, steve.
Speaker 2:I'm gonna say you gotta get used to this. This is good. That's gonna happen it over the course of the next Month or few months.
Speaker 3:It's never happened before, it's hilarious, and they're really looking in at me, so it's so. Anyway, I had. I just had to. Sorry, sorry listeners. I had to share that with Steve because it's um, I.
Speaker 2:Think my listeners will love something.
Speaker 3:I'm like look at all these pigeons, just looking at them. They're really it's a little bit invasive, but anyway.
Speaker 2:Pretend you're on the today show and they're all staring in the window like that.
Speaker 3:Oh my god, that's true. That's true. Alright, I'll, I'll. I'll sign some autographs later.
Speaker 2:No, perfect. I'm gonna go back to another part that we I think we talked off-air before this and the importance of the nervous System and how it's rooted in the nervous system.
Speaker 1:Can you tell me more, a little more about that because I think it's absolutely right.
Speaker 2:But so I'm not gonna say anything. We'll let you talk.
Speaker 3:Oh yeah, I mean, look, at the end of the day, you know, our nervous system is there for survival. Our brain has one purpose and it's to keep us alive. And you know, our nervous system, I see, is the smoke alarm. It's always looking out for a fire for us, and loss is a fire, and you know. And so one of the things that I always say this is how I actually Compare grief and trauma. This is where they overlap is in these moments of our nervous system, and this is where a lot of things can feel traumatic about loss, even if you haven't necessarily had a traumatic loss. And I say that with quotations, because there's a frighteningly big definition of what traumatic loss is, and it is really just circumstances that feel traumatic. Great, and that is according to the Journal of Traumatology, european Journal of Traumatology, and so for me, you know, I think the nervous system is the key element when it comes to how a grief or a loss can feel traumatizing. But it may not just be that you had a traumatic loss, such as a violent loss, suicide, a sudden, unexpected loss, even, or an ambiguous loss, which is a loss without any closure, but our nervous systems hold anxiety and High and a high adrenaline. If you are somebody with a history of anxiety, this will be a very traumatizing period of time for you. If you are somebody who just physically, you know, has a higher, is always on high alert with your nervous system, if you go into fight or flight easily, this will be something that feels traumatizing. If you have a history of Trauma or you know traumatic losses, your nervous system will kick right into high gear Because the body remembers, as they say. So there's a lot that happens within the nervous system. Your brain is trying to reorient itself. Right. The brain is used to predictable information for its survival.
Speaker 3:Something that I really appreciated about a Huberman lab was really the way that he broke down grief within the nervous system and the brain, which was right on, and it's really that the idea has this, that the brain has this idea of what's predictable and not predictability. It's our sense of safety, right? So I always know where you are, steve. I always know where you are in space and time. Your it's predictable. You are there, you're alive, you're present and I know basically that you're going to be where you are when that is taken away from us. Now the brain has a lot of work to do because now you're not there where it's in its predictable place. You're not there, there's and there's no idea where you actually are in space and time.
Speaker 3:Right, we can, even if we're religious, we can say, okay, well, steve is in heaven or Steve is wherever Steve is in my religious belief system, but for the majority of people you're really just in an unpredictable place, you're in an unknown place, and the way that, the way that we have to contend with that, is that we actually have to hold on to the relationship but let go of the other two aspects, and that is can be really really Traumatizing for people.
Speaker 3:How do I hold on to the fact that Steve is still in my heart and in my mind without, without the idea that I don't know where Steve is?
Speaker 3:And and even with you know, even with divorces where people don't talk to each other anymore, it's sort of kind of the same idea where we're, we're holding on to something.
Speaker 3:But so, you know, for a lot of people who have, you know, poor coping skills or a history of trauma, or you know, the relationship was Based on survival, you know if this was somebody that was their caretaker or someone they care took, you know it can really complicate the brain's way of processing this loss and we can be thrust into a hyper alert, hyper arousal, and a lot of people won't really understand that it's much more intense than, say, just normal fresh grief, quote-unquote.
Speaker 3:You will really be in a state of hyper arousal to the point that you can't find relief, and that is one of the parts of grief that people don't talk enough about is really that overlap with a sense of trauma and and all of the ways in which something can feel traumatizing to people. So I wanted to point that out in this book because it is important that we don't feel so isolated when we're having what could feel like an abnormal reaction to a loss, but based on our history, our attachment, you know, to that person and really how we can contend with the idea that they are no longer in their predictable place for us.
Speaker 2:And I think that when I go back to you know the central nervous system and all the hormones, I think people who don't understand that. I said, okay, well, what about if I told you you're calling your favorite restaurant or going to your favorite restaurant and it's no longer there? Or they said, oh, we moved to a different town, different part of the city or what have you? Look at your reaction. That's your central nervous system, because there's lack of predictability.
Speaker 2:Suddenly, yeah, and yeah, the other thing that you point out in the book that I really want to point out is that Most people say you know well, I'm feeling this way, it's my central nervous system. The central nervous system doesn't feel anything.
Speaker 3:Yeah, it's true. I mean it's just there to protect you. It's just got the hormones racing out to keep you alive and all of your major you know other major systems functioning and and that's really basically it. But I don't know where you want to go with that one where we talk about it, but I think it is. It is important to to understand that it's your safety, it's responsible for your safety and your survival only.
Speaker 3:And so when we talk about, say, grounding and centering your central nervous system, it really is about sort of getting those hormones into check so that they're not racing around trying to keep you alive or figure out where the fire is in your body that's going off, you know, because that's really their only job. They don't feel anything, they're not feeling scared or you know they're just, they're like let's, hey, it's like the fire. You know the fire department sliding down the pole, you know, getting the hoses ready, getting their gear on and jumping into the truck and Looking for that fire to put out. And it's not, you know, that's their only job. So when we talk about sort of grounding that nervous system, it's what can we do in order to Provide a sense of safety to our body and our nervous system, so that we can then feel.
Speaker 2:Right, and I think that the reason why I mentioned that and it's from Gabor Maté's book on the myth of normal and it talks about how we have, you know, there's one part of here that the brain is what concepts are, which include feelings, people, their concepts. They're up here, your central nervous system is almost your spine, and that's just like safety, safety, safety. Your heart has also a nervous system, and then your gut, which most people forget about and they say that doesn't exist. Well, it does exist.
Speaker 3:Sure does.
Speaker 2:And there's, like all these, nervous systems. So sometimes when we find ways to look at feelings, I always say well, good news, if you're looking for feelings, that means you're in your brain. That's a good sign we can work with that.
Speaker 2:If you don't know what you're feeling and you're all confused and you're afraid of being in my room where it's safe. That brings a different pattern and I guess what I wanted to really bring up is the central nervous system, because I think the other part that's you know, I love chapter five and because I do a lot of trauma work and trauma stuff and you mentioned it earlier and we talked about it pre-interview and to me it's so important to explain to people what trauma-informed truly means.
Speaker 2:And I don't know if you want to talk more about that, but for me it's a very important subject.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. I think we make it more complicated or think it's more complicated than it is. You know even the terms. We were talking about it earlier.
Speaker 3:Trauma-informed feels like it's all about the education and the training and that sure, that's a part of it.
Speaker 3:But if we really boil it down to its most important element, it is the idea that we create safety In any kind of traumatic work that we do.
Speaker 3:We have to understand that people are coming in with their nervous system mostly unregulated or you know able to be or going off in terms of regulation more often, and creating a safe, like creating that safe place, a place where they get to decide, where they're safe, where they can talk and feel free and feel what they have to feel or share, whatever it is their experience is, is it? It is the most important part of trauma-informed care. It is the central tenant of being a trauma-informed therapist, and how you do that is not necessarily something that you have to work towards in terms of building a report, something you actively work on with the client, engaging their sense of safety at all times and being incredibly present with them to what their needs are, not being somebody who needs to hear their story or hear their quote, unquote, trauma or whatever it is that they've come in with. It's really most important that you focus on them feeling safe to be there.
Speaker 2:You talk about the EMDR at the end of that chapter and how to create a safe place or having the container box, which is all good stuff about EMDR and you explained it so beautifully. I'm going to let people read it there. But I also have had experiences working with first responders and the environment that I work with. They're like I'm trauma-informed. I know about PTSD no, that's not what at all. Great that you know, thank you.
Speaker 2:But if you have someone who's a first responder goes to you, they don't want you to know, okay, we are the symptomology and okay, sure, that's great. But what they want is safety and, as one of my firefighter who's been on before said, if you want a rumor telephone or tele-firefighter and keeping that safety is also not sharing these difficulties, and I'm not picking on firefighters, only my police and everyone else. You can listen to what I just said. I put you in the same boat. It's really that safety and we need to figure out how to trauma-informed is about safety. I can have someone who I've known for two weeks, who will spill a lot of the stuff that they because they felt safe with me, whether by history, whether they listened to this podcast. But I also have clients who you know.
Speaker 2:I had a client who had a pretty significant negative experience with a therapist and it took her like after two years she's like all right, I'm ready to be much more authentic, like great. And she said to me you made me feel safe. I needed that because it was not safe in my previous therapist's office, and so I think that that's what I wanted to mention about. You know, when we talk about the central nervous system and the trauma-informed, it's not just, oh, I know about the parasympathetic and the sympathetic nervous system. This is what it. No, that's knowledge that's not informed Absolutely.
Speaker 3:Absolutely. And also it's important to point out that even if you just tell people that you're a safe place, that is not. That is not trauma-informed either. It's understanding, truly, that we don't get to define what feels safe for somebody. They get to define what feels safe so we can think that we're providing something safe. But the work really lies in making sure that we're gauging their sense of safety in all different types of ways and also checking in a lot and allowing them to be the captain of the ship, because if somebody is coming in with a history of trauma, they're used to feeling out of control and they're used to having their voice taken or they're used to, you know, having an experience that is outside of their resources to cope with it, and so the most important thing is not what you say is safe, but what they say is safe in your office.
Speaker 2:And safety is not like. I tell people that sometimes safety is not. You can be in a jail and I worked in a jail for a couple of years and I didn't feel safe there and it's supposed to be the safest place in the world and then feel safe.
Speaker 3:At least safe place.
Speaker 2:And you can be in the middle of New York City, which I went with my daughters a few years ago and my youngest daughter did not like that experience, felt unsafe with so many people. And I felt very safe and I had no problem with that. So safety is not also dictated by other people. Just want to mention that too, 100%.
Speaker 3:That's the most important thing, and I would. If you're somebody who's thinking about going to therapy for any of these things, I would talk about this.
Speaker 2:Right and I think that getting you know, reading a little more about your book and getting some information on that also helps someone feel safe and also trusting that stuff that they get from that. So I really, like I said, I think it's such a great book for individuals who don't know how to deal with their grief necessarily, or they're curious about grief, and can bring you to that next level of what it would look like. And when I talked about the nervous system, again that's my other part about trauma informed. If your gut tells you it's not feeling right, don't overthink it, it's not right, move on, it's okay.
Speaker 2:And when we talk about the grief process in your book. Again, if Gina's your cup of tea and Steve's not your cup of tea, or vice versa, there's no me and you don't feel bad about that. Great, you found someone.
Speaker 3:That's awesome. The right therapist won't feel. Won't take that personally.
Speaker 2:And I think that that's where I tell people like tell us it's okay, there's nothing wrong. I'm, you know, I'm not going to be like oh my God, I'm so devastated. No, I've had therapists and I went like Nope, and you said that earlier Like Nope, that's not for me.
Speaker 3:I wish I had left earlier, yeah, and I always like to check in, sometimes like how, how's it all going? How are you feeling about all of this? You know people. You know I'm grateful that people you know stick with me, or you know my clients have been with me a long time. But I think you know you can't still be too comfortable. I think you have to say you know how is it all feeling? And I think it's important that people always feel safe enough to say you know what. This was great the first year and maybe now I'm not, I'm not feeling it so much or whatever it is. There's not, there's nothing that hurts me more than somebody you know stifling themselves in a therapeutic setting for the sake of someone else. So please don't do that. You know you and I are built at the same cloth. So you know our ego is not in the game. It's really about the work and it's about being the traveling companion, but the right traveling companion.
Speaker 2:And speaking of traveling companion as we approach, the hour already went by so fast it can't go so fast.
Speaker 2:I want to share that your traveling companion if people want to use your book. I think that that's a great way to process any type of grief, because the other thing too that I think we mentioned briefly but I think we should expand grief is not just losing a loved one. Grief is a lot more complex than that losing a job, losing, through a divorce, a treat that you were attached to. I mean to me grief is such a complex thing.
Speaker 3:It is complex and I think what people don't understand right now is that, especially post COVID, grief is the number one mental health burden people are carrying and so many people don't know that that's actually what they're experiencing is grief. You know they may they may see it manifested as anxiety or depression, but if you really dig down and you take a moment to think about what's going on in your life, you might realize that there was a loss somewhere along the way that you didn't. Either you didn't check it off as a loss of any kind or you you minimized it, because society has sometimes taught us to minimize certain losses. But even you know I had a client with a college rejection letter and there was a lot of grief around that. You know that he had planned, you know this was his dream that all of the college paraphernalia for it and you know then was rejected.
Speaker 3:And this is something really hard to work through and you know there's no judgment of anything that feels significant or meaningful to you. Is is really important and it runs. It runs the gamut. And you know I do talk about that a lot in my book. People don't understand your experience, and how could they? It's yours. It's just important that you respect your experience and honor it.
Speaker 2:And I think you mentioned also that if you look around and you you say a study one out of two people is going through grief right now.
Speaker 3:Yeah, so every other person you meet.
Speaker 3:Every other person you are meeting is going through a grief currently. Yeah, that was the Amara Speaks survey, absolutely, and it's. It was astonishing to me to read it, you know, because we we don't tend to think of that. You're like, wow, everybody every other person I've met is is has lost a person. Of course, the statistics went up for sure after COVID because of how many deaths there were, but the loss itself has I mean, it's off the charts in terms of livelihood, houses, you know, sense of identity, sense of safety.
Speaker 3:We went through during COVID and I think we forget that that was a really traumatic time for us as humans in the world. We carry that in a way, you know, because life just sort of went back to normal and and and fast forwarded and we're just moving through things and news cycles. You know there's aliens landing here and we're like, okay, yeah, what we got things to do, you know. So it's. It's really interesting how the human brain is sort of just almost in a way, we're training ourselves to just keep moving through things. But I think it's important to know that there's been a lot of loss and a lot of trauma and a lot that our DNA and our nervous systems are carrying. So just to to give it some grace, you know, if you're having a harder time than usual. That ask yourself is this loss, is this, is this grief that I could be feeling?
Speaker 2:And I found that during the COVID times and I know we're still are in some ways, although the pandemic is over A lot of people went through like, oh, I never processed this grief from the past or I didn't go through this, so it's not, wasn't only current when they brought them up to, because they had time to be with themselves and it created a very complex. So I think this book is absolutely the right time to be released, which you know. I think that for me, I would like to hear more about. You know, I want to mention this before we go on and we we kind of like wrap up and I want to know where to get the book. But don't rush through this book. I think it's important for me to say out loud that you know.
Speaker 2:I go back and the story of I think it was the Dalai Lama. Someone came to them and she said I want to go, I want to be enlightened, and how long does that take? And he said 10 years. And she said Well, I'm in a rush, I want to do it quick. So he goes five years. So five years later she shows back up and sees the Dalai Lama. I did the five years, am I enlightened yet and he turns around, he says 10 years and the point being of that story is that you can't rush these processes. It can be enlightened because you rushed through it. You can't go through grief because you try to process it faster and you're better or worse or whatever.
Speaker 2:So one I want to mention that and having read the book and yes, maybe I read a little quicker because I want to make sure I was informed for our interview, but I truly believe that that advice that I think you give at the beginning, if I remember correctly, is the best advice I can give to anyone who's going to pick up your book.
Speaker 3:Yeah, thank you so much. I think you know my hope is that there will come times in your life that you need to pick it up in different ways, to either look at rituals for carrying on or you know, if you had a hard relationship with someone you've lost, how we retrace our steps and look back at things. You know whether they're. You know death losses or divorces and you know really being able to look at our loss in context of our whole life and how we are. You know the strengths, the relationships, our support system, the way that we care for our body. You know how we cope with hard things in general.
Speaker 3:You know I talk about rhythms that we go, we get into during grief and really it's about the gentleness, it's about the presence, it's about the tenderness, but it's also about showing up for ourselves in the most honest way and not just putting grief on a pedestal.
Speaker 3:In a way. Right, we lose someone or we break up with someone and they're the best thing that's ever happened, and you know it's really about looking honestly at our own lives as a whole and there will be things that you need at certain times of your life that you may not need right now, and so that's why I say if you can keep it on your shelf and come back to it, and if it feels simple, it's because it's meant to be something you can easily metabolize when you're feeling overwhelmed. I'm not something that you have to look up and you know, google, what the meaning of it is, or feel like it has a density. So just know that it's coming from my heart and the hope is that it lands in yours, however you need it, whenever you need it or for someone else who might need it, and that's it is just to really be there for one another and provide a safe and soft landing.
Speaker 2:And I said it better myself the podcast is going to be released on August 21st 2023. So you will be the day before, or no, no, actually lied, August 16th 2023.
Speaker 3:Oh, my goodness Amazing.
Speaker 2:The book is coming out on August 22nd 2023. My copy is already reserved. Even though I got the other book, I still have my copy coming in. Thank you so much. So where can we find the book? Obviously, I know, but I want you to tell our audience about how to get that book.
Speaker 3:Really, you can get it anywhere books are sold. If you're somebody who wants you know a quick order, amazon, it's all over Amazon. If you want to support independent bookshops, it's on bookshoporg, it's on Barnes, noble and it is actually all over the world right now. Uk it will be coming out at the same time as well as the Netherlands and all of the UK provinces, and so, yeah, I mean it will be available everywhere. Books are sold on August 22nd and I obviously would love it if you stay in touch with me and let me know if you're, you know, listening right now. You can find me on Instagram at GinaMafaLCSW, or shoot me an email from my website at GinaMafacom. I really just want this to be something that brings people together and where people feel less alone or they learn how to help people they love, and so really, to me, grief is about witnessing and connection, and the only way to do that is through authentic community, so please stay in touch with me.
Speaker 2:I think that this book is going to be very helpful for so many people and when you have that many books out there, just remember us people, and I know you always do. You've always been there for me, so I appreciate that, and don't forget about this podcast when you want to promote anything else. You obviously know you'll always be invited.
Speaker 3:My favorite podcast. So thank you. I'm biased, I'm biased, but you do amazing work and what you do for people and bringing honesty and, you know, realism to you know, to the therapy experience. You make it less scary for people and I'm just so grateful. I'm grateful to know you as a friend and I'm grateful to have you as a colleague. You know, this world is better for people like you, because of people like you. So thank you, steve, so much, and thank you for having me here and allowing me to spend time with you and your audience, who's amazing because I see their comments.
Speaker 2:Well, I appreciate you and I appreciate your book and I can't wait for your tour when you come to Boston, because I'm going to have lunch or dinner or something and we're going to get together for sure.
Speaker 3:All of it, all of it. Thank you so much, and yeah, I'm just grateful.
Speaker 2:Thank you so much. I've always cherished our time, so thank you. Well, this concludes episode 131. Thank you, gina Mofa. Hope you go get her book. I'll put a link in the show notes. But, more importantly, thank you for the whole year. Season 10 is over. This has been quite a ride. Still enjoy it, and I can't wait for you guys to hear my interview with Dr Hayden Duggan. That'll be the first one of the year, so I hope you join me in the new year, 2024. I can't believe I'm saying that, but I hope you join me in the new year. Have a safe rest of the holiday season and I'll talk to you soon.
Speaker 1:Please like, subscribe and follow this podcast on your favorite platform. A glowing review is always helpful and, as a reminder, this podcast is for informational, educational and entertainment purposes only. If you're struggling with a mental health or substance abuse issue, please reach out to a professional counselor for consultation. If you are in a mental health crisis, call 988 for assistance. This number is available in the United States.