I know all too well the weight of grief and expectation it can bring. That's why I'm thrilled to have the compassionate Liz Kelly join me, sharing her journey from fundraising to therapy and the wisdom found within her transformative new book, "This Book Is Cheaper Than Therapy." LIz offers a comforting blueprint for those seeking to redefine their mental health. Liz's insights are a balm for the soul, encouraging us to craft a life experience that aligns with our unique desires for joy and meaning, devoid of non desired societal demands.
This discussion is more than an exploration of Liz's powerful narrative—it's a vessel for change, equipped with practical action items and reflection questions designed to engage and empower our listeners. Each chapter of Liz's book, and consequently our conversation, ends with these thoughtful prompts, inviting you to selectively interact with the content that resonates most deeply. So whether you are thriving in your life right now or in a period of struggle, our episode stands as a testament to the personal liberation that comes from embracing life in a manner that nourishes your heart and your individual story.
To view the Ted Talk referred in this episode, "There is More to Life Than Being Happy", please click here.
To buy Liz Kelly's book, click here.
Liz Kelly's website can be reached here.
I know all too well the weight of grief and expectation it can bring. That's why I'm thrilled to have the compassionate Liz Kelly join me, sharing her journey from fundraising to therapy and the wisdom found within her transformative new book, "This Book Is Cheaper Than Therapy." LIz offers a comforting blueprint for those seeking to redefine their mental health. Liz's insights are a balm for the soul, encouraging us to craft a life experience that aligns with our unique desires for joy and meaning, devoid of non desired societal demands.
This discussion is more than an exploration of Liz's powerful narrative—it's a vessel for change, equipped with practical action items and reflection questions designed to engage and empower our listeners. Each chapter of Liz's book, and consequently our conversation, ends with these thoughtful prompts, inviting you to selectively interact with the content that resonates most deeply. So whether you are thriving in your life right now or in a period of struggle, our episode stands as a testament to the personal liberation that comes from embracing life in a manner that nourishes your heart and your individual story.
To view the Ted Talk referred in this episode, "There is More to Life Than Being Happy", please click here.
To buy Liz Kelly's book, click here.
Liz Kelly's website can be reached here.
Hi and welcome to Finding your Way Through Therapy. A proud member of the SiteCraft Network, 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:Sassan Tell Ma Professionnaire. It sounds so professional. Hi everyone, and welcome to Episode 143 of Finding your Way Through Therapy. If you haven't listened to Episode 142 with Laura Long, please go listen to it. It was a great interview. I really enjoyed her. I've met her on another podcast that I was on and she was amazing, so I hope you enjoyed the interview.
Speaker 2:Episode 143 is a returning guest and the returning guest is Liz Kelly. Liz Kelly is someone I knew from another company that I worked for for a while and we really got along while we were there. I really enjoyed her company and I'm hoping that you enjoy her book. This book is cheaper than therapy. She's going to talk about that and, among other things, right before we go to the interview, just hear a brief note on GetFreeai and we code Steve50. You get $50 off your first month, so please go and listen. Hey there everyone. You've known me to host this podcast for about 130 something episodes before I put actually any type of commercials on here.
Speaker 2:I'm looking right now at my healthcare professionals, looking to have a real impact with our clients. I really enjoyed this product and I've actually used it personally, and that is why which is very important for me to tell you because that's why I want to share this. I want to introduce Freeed F-R-E-E-D Freeed the app that listens, transcribes, writes your medical documentation for you. With Freeed, you actually can actually pay attention to your clients, do things with your clients, and not be distracted by making sure you're writing notes. What also helps with this app is that the note is saved for about 10 days and it does disappear no longer as there. After a while. Writing down those notes is no longer your responsibility. The AI Freeed will write the note for you and create a progress note for you. It goes also beyond that. What I really like about it is that it can help you set goals and it even creates a letter. You can make any type of edit to it and there's actually a button now for it to learn how you write your own notes. Maybe the first few days you set it up so that Freeed can recognize your note taking process and how you want to create a progress note either soap or what have you. It really helps you with that.
Speaker 2:The best part is very affordable. I really think that at $99 a month, you'll have access to what helps your practice. I can tell you from personal experience taking notes, writing down notes, writing down the goals, writing down any type of letter a client might need. That usually takes me a lot of time during the week. I used to do my notes on Sunday and it used to take me about three hours. Now I think that if it takes me an hour, that's surprising.
Speaker 2:When you think about Freeedai, it's very affordable. For just $99 a month, you can access everything that I just talked about. If you pay for the whole year, you actually save 10%, which is what I did, and I'm looking forward to continuing to use it. Because you hear this podcast, you're my friend, someone I know I have a little treat for you. I'm going to use my code Steve50, again, steve, s-t-e-v-e 50, and you'll get $50 off for your first month. That's right more value for your money. I don't want you to miss out on how to get your practice going and give yourself a freedom to pay attention to what's important, why we did this job. We used to pay attention to the client. Download Freeed today. Don't forget to use my code Steve50, for $50 off the first month. Let's make a difference in our clients' lives and make sure we can pay attention to them. Remember, with Freeed. Your clients always come first.
Speaker 2:Well, hi everyone, and just so happy to see a returning guest. Liz Kelly was on episode 125. And at the time she was completing the editing process of her book and the book is. If you go to YouTube, you will see it. This book is cheaper than therapy. I should probably just cut the top because that top is only for me. But basically this is a book that Liz wrote and I really enjoyed reading it. I actually read everything. You know me guys. You've heard me a hundred times If I didn't read the whole book. When I have an author, I said the truth. I read the whole book. I honestly will give it a five-star review. I also will tell you that if you want to get a good book to give you the basis of pretty much everything I do in therapy, it's like Liz was present in my sessions. So we'll talk about plagiarism later. But all joking aside, liz, welcome again to Finding your Way Through Therapy.
Speaker 3:Hey, thanks so much for having me. I've been looking forward to this.
Speaker 2:You know, after I got your book and I've been reading it off and on and it was just fascinating to me that it was just exactly what I talk about with a lot of my clients and I want to go, I'm jumping in already and then I'm like, oh, you know what People might have missed episode 125. So maybe, liz, if you want to do a quick introduction, please go ahead.
Speaker 3:Sure, I would be happy to. So I'm a therapist in the DC metro area. I live in Northern Virginia. I've been in the mental health field for about 13 years. This is actually a second career for me. I used to do fundraising development, so I know what it's like to kind of live in that hectic, corporate, fast-paced world. So I've done so.
Speaker 3:I did a career switch and became a licensed clinical social worker and have been in the field for a while, and a couple of years ago, during the pandemic, I realized that I was so excited that so many people were interested in getting mental health services. You know, that was so nice to see therapy being normalized and people really understanding that this is a helpful, necessary tool. But there was this disappointment that even though so many people wanted to go to therapy, there still is a lack of access and lack of resources for a lot of folks. So I thought you know, I can't change our entire mental health system overnight on my own, but I can write a book and put the things that I talked to my clients about in the book, and so so then that's when I also added authors to my job title as well.
Speaker 2:Well, that's awesome. And we were working together at the pandemic, if you remember correctly, right, and we were doing these online meetings and we knew the need for the therapy, but unfortunately, we knew that the affordability wasn't always there, right? So it's a great book. I like the disclosure you make right off the top and like, I'm not saying don't go to the therapy, but I would all do respect to that. I get it. But as this is like the incorporation of about 25 or so books that I've read in my life into one simple book, so even if you said they'll go to therapy, I'd say, well, you're investing that book, you'll save yourself about 25 other books at you know, 15 to 20 bucks a piece. So it's a very affordable book when you really think about it that way.
Speaker 3:Oh, thanks. And just to let your listeners know that you know this book is. I don't include self help jargon or I tried to avoid that as much as possible. I tried to avoid psychology buzzwords. I just wanted to explain what happens in therapy and everyday language. I throw in a few swear words when warranted because I think a few f-bombs are necessary for managing the messiness of life. I put that in my disclosure right away. So it's very conversational, very approachable. It is, to a certain extent, mental health 101. So if you are someone who has been really invested in mental health for a long time, you may be really familiar with a lot of these concepts. But if you're new to therapy, if you're curious about it, this is very much a mental health 101. And I try to use humor along with compassion and practical strategies so that you can come away from this book being able to make changes right away.
Speaker 2:Well, you can always swear on my podcast. Just remember that number one, because I believe in authenticity. That's the other reason why I had you back on and, frankly, liz, that's why I always loved you, because you were yourself. I know that we were in meetings with other people, but I got glimpses of that.
Speaker 3:Thanks, I think I realized about myself that I don't tend to swear a lot in everyday conversation, but I think I swear a lot in my head, and so that's why I came out when I was writing the book. So there you go.
Speaker 2:I don't remember you ever swearing per se when we worked together but hey, I don't really care. So please, please, feel free. The other thing that I will say to people is, if you read this book, not only will you get a lot of tricks, you get a little bit of insight on Liz, and I really appreciate these little insight on you that I learned and truly appreciate the journey you've been on the feminist side of you because, as a feminist myself, it's a very important thing. I have two girls now, so even if I wasn't a feminist before, I damn right am right now. But I really appreciate those little glimpses inside of who you are.
Speaker 3:Right, like I value authenticity as well. So when I was writing it, just everything I shared are things that I'm comfortable people with others knowing about me. So I I was very thoughtful about what I shared in the book, you know, and I feel very comfortable with what I, what I shared, but and I felt like what I need, what I shared was necessary to you know, illustrate the book.
Speaker 3:I'm also very respectful of my, my clients, and so you know I I all of the illustrations of the book or the client stories are composites, so they're not there. I'm not using any person's individual story, it's it's. It's basically like a fictionalized accounts of what my work with clients look like.
Speaker 2:Well, thank you for protecting my identity in your book. I appreciate that, but I'll joking aside. You know what I really want to know and I'm not going to spoil the book for you guys at all, but I want to give you good glimpses of my personal parts that I really loved, and the first person I want to know about Liz is actually not you. I want to know about Nelson. Who is Nelson and Nelson's across this book? Guys, you'll see it and maybe you'll get it once. Liz gives it an explanation. But Liz, why is it? Who's Nelson?
Speaker 3:Okay. So that's a great question. Nelson is very present in the book and Nelson is the name that I gave to my inner critic. And your everybody's got an inner critic. That's that little voice in your head that's trying to put you down and criticize you and hold you back and a little you are.
Speaker 3:Inner critics can be really harsh sometimes, and so in order to be able to interact with my inner credit critic a little differently and be able to push back against my inner critic More effectively, I gave my inner critic a name and so I decided to call my inner critic Nelson, and that's no offense to anybody out there named Nelson.
Speaker 3:I'm sure there's a lot of lovely people out there named Nelson, and if you want to name your inner critic Liz, that's totally okay with me, got no problem with that. But by giving my inner critic a name, it's a little bit. It kind of makes it a little funny. So you know, if I'm going about my day and I make a mistake and my inner critic says like gosh, you're such an idiot, or like you're so stupid or you're, so you know you're lazy, you should be doing more like you know. These are things that my inner critic tends to say a lot, and so I can, you know, now in my head I can say knock off Nelson, I'm doing the best I can, or knock off Nelson, like my productivity is not, is not tied to myself worth, and so. So now I can start to, like you know, start to push back a little bit more effectively.
Speaker 3:And what I realized, and what you know what I also talk about in the book is that our inner critics don't mean to be such jerks. They don't mean to be that you know, to be so horrible to us. But what our inner critic is is actually our brain trying to protect us from pain, embarrassment, rejection, from getting hurt. It's trying to you know there are inner critics is focused on keeping us alive. You know our inner, our inner critic, doesn't want us to do anything that's going to reject us from belonging and so and so that's why our inner critics are so active. And so our inner critics tend to mean well, but they just in our modern world and they don't get it quite right.
Speaker 2:I mean, I like Nelson telling you how to dress, I like how Nelson tells you how to show up, I like how Nelson tells you how to live your life, essentially. But you know, I think that it is a protective factor. It's just a protective factor that we got to talk back to once in a while.
Speaker 3:Right, because because our inner critics tend to go overboard and they they want to keep us safe at a cost to connection and a cost to love and a cost to us being able to live authentically. So we have to make sure that our inner critics are overstepping which they typically do, right, I mean, that's just how it is. Right for sure.
Speaker 2:And one of the things that I also liked about your book is that at the end of each chapter there's a little action like little questions or action items action items. That's what I was looking for for, the word I'm like, but those action items are very good and good quite like. To me they're almost like. They're like a workbook type type of thing to where people can read the chapter. Can you tell me more about what the thought process was in regards to those action items?
Speaker 3:Right, well, I don't know about you, but I loved to read. I love to read books on self help, I love to read books on psychology and mental health. But more times, and I can count, I've come away from books and and been like, well, that was a great book, but I don't know how to apply any of these things to my life and I don't know if you're like you know, or really like those concepts, but you know, then you read about it, then you close the book and then you forget about it. And so I wanted you know, for people who were inspired or who wanted to journal or who wanted to think further on on what steps that they could take. I wanted to give some direction in terms of how you could deepen your experience with the book and those you know.
Speaker 3:Action items are completely optional. I didn't want to make it like I didn't want to imply that like, oh, to have a good experience with these items, you don't have to do these things. Like you don't have to do these things. But if you do want to take your experience further, it's an option to be able to reflect on these items or these questions.
Speaker 2:Now my inner critic, liz, told me that I have to do it or I'm a loser.
Speaker 3:So but I talked back. I didn't do them all, but no, I will tell your inner critic that you can do the ones that speak to you and and that's 20.
Speaker 2:And let's not forget a couple of action items, even within chapters. I think that there's a few of them like questions to ask yourself, which I really thought was brilliant too.
Speaker 3:Right. Yeah there's a lot of the book, but it just ended up kind of my style of writing and I'm covering a lot of different concepts in the book, so a lot of the chapters are broken up into the digestible sections. So I wanted it to be information that people could read through and digest easily and be able to flip through and find passages easily as well.
Speaker 2:And I think if you just look at the chapter. The other one thing that I really like is that if you look at the chapter, like the titles, it's actually what you talk about. They're very easy to, like you said, it's simplified in the way that you're going, exactly what you mean. It doesn't just say like the seven pillars of wisdom and you're like I don't even know what that means. What am I, what am I using that? No, the chapter tells you what the chapter is going to be about which is really cool.
Speaker 3:Oh, cool Nice.
Speaker 2:Yeah. So I really like the action Again, the items. I you know obviously I didn't do them all, but just be truthful, but I do do a lot of them and there was no. My inner critic is not Liz, but that's her conversation for outside of here. The other part that I really like is because you know I, december is typically a bad month for me and you know, as my audience may know already, and if you haven't hear some news, you know I had my, my, my grandmother died that in December, my father died in December, me and my ex-wife went through a miscarriage twice during December, among so many other things, uh, and suicide of clients and stuff like that.
Speaker 2:So for me December is just survived. This year was thankfully very busy with the surgery, so I didn't think about it too much, which is, I guess, good. But at the end of the day, I know that for me December's is really hard and I fucking hate the holidays. And your book spoke to me right away because on, uh, when the chapters you talk about fuck the holidays and it's not exactly the same as what I'm saying. So please, uh, liz does it much more eloquently than me, but Liz, can you tell me more about it?
Speaker 3:Yeah, um, well, in my book I do I do have a section that's called up all the holidays because, uh, because there's so much pressure that time of the year and if you love the holidays and you get a lot of joy and pleasure from the holidays, like I don't want to take that away from you. I think that's incredible and I think that's fantastic. So what I do want to impress upon individuals is that, uh, it's okay if the holidays are hard for you and it's okay to have your holiday not look like everyone else's, and it's okay to interpret the holiday the way that you want to interpret the holiday and that that we don't have to box ourselves into spending money we don't have or going to activities we don't want to do or keeping up traditions just because it's a tradition. You know, if those things, if you want to do these things and you have the resources, I mean, you know, go for it. But I just want to give you permission to be able to go through the holidays in a way that feels meaningful and joyful and calm for you or, you know, that brings you a sense of like, joy and peace and meaning.
Speaker 3:I don't. I don't want people to go through the holidays, you know, feeling stressed, and I also want to acknowledge, too that, if you're perplexed, you know, hey, this is, all these great things are going on and seeing family and seeing friends, there's presents, there's all these things but I'm still sad, like that's okay, that's normal, because these, like these special days, can really bring up, can be, can activate feelings of grief of the fact that you know it's not the same, that it was five years ago, or or you know, maybe you're dealing with financial constraints, or maybe you're dealing with the death of a loved one, and so when these special days come along, it can really activate feelings of grief and be be really hard, and and so if you are at a party and you're like I should be enjoying this and you're not, that's okay. There's nothing wrong with you that that happens, and I want you to be kind and gentle with yourself if, if feelings of grief are activated during the holidays.
Speaker 2:And what I like about it too, is that it doesn't have to be just. You know, december or November could be any holiday that triggers you. You know that's right. Sorry for the overgeneralization.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly. And so you know, you know, you know, you know, you know any holiday, any time of year that was significant for you. If you're experiencing some kind of a loss or hardship, that can bring up really tough feelings.
Speaker 2:And it's also kind of like you know, sometimes July 4 brings different things for people here in the United States.
Speaker 3:For sure, and and I also think too, that now with, I mean, there was always advertisements showing these, like, you know, very specific versions of what a family should like look like, and showing someone who had, you know, wealth and all of these things. And so you know, for you know, in my entire life I've been, you know, seeing these images on on TV and you know commercials and advertising. But now we also have social media and we have, you know, we're seeing these influencers having these like beautiful, extravagant holidays, and it's so important to not compare yourself, because most people are not having a perfect holiday, and even those influencers that are showing that tiny glimpse of their life, they are likely not having a perfect holiday either. Well, I think yeah.
Speaker 2:And I remember years ago I got annoyed with that Lexis commercial and yes. Lexis, I'm putting you on, I'm calling you out. Yes, I am, and I'm okay with that.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:And Lexis commercial, like oh you know what? I know you're sad, but here's a 46,000, well, now it's probably like in the 70s car with a big bow, and where the hell do you get those bows? I think you mentioned that in your book too, which I really think is funny yeah absolutely.
Speaker 3:I did write about that on the you know, that commercial with like surprising someone with a car around the holidays, like that doesn't happen or maybe it does me, you know. I'm sure it happens out there somewhere, but for the vast majority of people you're not. We're not getting surprised by cars. So I think it's really helpful to just think about, like you know, holidays are fun, but they're not. You know, they can also just be days, right, they don't have to be this built up magical thing in our heads. They can be what we want it to be.
Speaker 2:Now my daughter thinks she's going to get a car when she originally. She's 16 now and she told me that she wanted one of those cheap pickups. I don't even know the name of them.
Speaker 3:Oh, like ringglers or something. Oh no, there's like a bit.
Speaker 2:It's a pickup in the back.
Speaker 3:Oh, okay.
Speaker 2:Yeah, it's like oh yeah, it starts at 45,000. I'm like look, you're going to start what I started with. You'll get a car, it's cheap, so if you get into an accident it doesn't really matter, so she'll get a car. It just won't be a big bow and it won't be a brand new one Exactly. So I just want to share that because I think it's it's okay to accept that we don't have to do all that.
Speaker 2:And I really like that, you know, and I think you mentioned grief and the other part that I really like is you talked about the types of grief. Have had several guests on my podcast talk about grief and trauma and all that, and because of my first responder experience, you know, the one that really struck, struck me in your book is you talk about cumulative grief and I think that that's exactly what I talk about to a whole lot of people. But I'd like you to tell people more about what cumulative grief is all about.
Speaker 3:Right. Cumulative grief essentially is like grief overload. It's when, I know, during the pandemic, there were occasions where individuals in a family lost or had several family members die within a really short period of time and it can be really hard to grieve all those losses at once. It's a grief overload. So you know when you're, if you've experienced grief overload or cumulative grief, you know, just acknowledging the fact that, like you're dealing with multiple losses and sometimes people have to, even you know one. This is absolutely a time to eat, to find whatever resources for support. You know leaning on friends and family and support groups and grief groups and books and whatever speaks to you in terms of finding an outlet for support. That's essential. But sometimes, even you know recognizing that maybe you might have to just kind of think about. Okay, it's all right if I need to greet this once, one at a time or if you know, if I'm going to give myself permission for, you know, for whatever's coming up right.
Speaker 3:You might think that, like, oh, I should be impacted by this loss the most, but you might not. You might be impacted by another loss, or you might. I talk with clients a lot about Secondary losses, which is kind of the loss that follows the loss, and sometimes those can be just as distressing or, you know, as the loss itself. So, for example, you know someone Experiences the death of close family member. You know that a secondary loss might be a loss of community or a loss of financial security, or a loss of Faith, and and that can actually be Almost as hard, if not harder than, the initial loss itself. And so, you know, being honest with yourself and giving yourself permission to, you know, do I need to greet these losses one at a time? Do I need to acknowledge the secondary losses and recognize that that's what's causing me the most distress? And and also, you know how can I get support for people to freeze?
Speaker 2:and then the loss of, you know, secondary grief that we talked about. I really enjoy talking about that too, because I tell people like the losing my grandmother Was a big loss, but losing the tightness of the family because she was to glue to the family, now that was a much bigger loss. In some ways my grandmother was suffering and I'm not saying that I wish her dead, by the way. I'm just saying that I don't like watching people suffer, right, but then losing that whole family tightness and you know there was not fight for anything, it was just like we just lost the tightness of our family and that's she was.
Speaker 3:yeah, she played a really specific role in in your family and and Keeping up certain traditions, and without her here, hey, nobody knew there. It was a tough transition in terms of who takes that over? Does someone take that over? What does it look like now?
Speaker 2:And it goes to the family now meeting, you know, first funerals, essentially where you know, when my grandmother was alive We'd meet every week. I mean, I was gone, I was here in the United States, obviously my family's up in Montreal, but you know that secondary loss and even going back up there and not having those traditions is really like a hard one for a whole lot of right.
Speaker 2:I like to talk about those secondary losses, because we, you know, any other part too is. You know what I I think that you mentioned too is that you know, losing a pet is like losing a family member, and Recently I've worked with someone who told me well, you know, I lost four people, well, my dog too, but I don't count that. I'm like, no, that's, that's, that's a significant you can count that?
Speaker 3:Yeah, absolutely.
Speaker 2:And the grief that goes with that is tough.
Speaker 3:Right, and part of the reason I wanted to talk about grief is I work with a lot of individuals in there. You know a lot of college students, a lot of young adults, a lot of you know people in their 20s and 30s, and I don't think we talk enough about the grief that comes from. You know people who you graduate from high school and then go into the work world or go to college and they're in this really specific environment for four years and then they graduate and now they're, you know, living in a city, you're living in their hometown and, and and the fact that that's really can feel like a loss that you, you know in college or in high school, you're surrounded by people that are your same age, that are your same, your same Life stage. You know you're all kind of going through some similar experiences and, and you know, in high school and college, you're learning all these things and you're, you know, writing papers about things that you're passionate about and you're learning from individuals who have these, this, these interesting specialties in the world, and and then you graduate and then you get your first job and it's hard. It's really hard, because you may not be surrounded by people that are your same age anymore. You might be living by yourself or with a roommate, or you might be doing things at work that are really boring and and, and it can really feel like a loss to to make those transitions, and I don't don't think we talk about it enough, and so I wanted to talk about this idea of loss and these different types of losses. You know, I used to work for the Wint Center for loss and healing in DC, which is a bereavement counseling center, and they have some really amazing trainings. That one of the and at one of their trainings they talked about.
Speaker 3:Anytime you have change plus loss, you can get grief, or you have grief that follows. And so sometimes, when you're feeling often You're not exactly sure why or you're feeling a lot of different things, because grief isn't just a lot of different things, it's not just one emotion, it's a whole ball of emotions and it can feel like a roller coaster. So if you're feeling all sorts of things irritability, sadness, disappointment, frustration, regret you might be feeling grief. And so I, you know, I wanted to bring different types of losses into the book just so that you know some, because it could be really helpful Just to name it like oh, I Feeling grief because I graduated and I'm in this new stage of life and I miss my old life, you know, even though I might be excited about my new life.
Speaker 2:I mean you know like I'm gonna mention something here and feel free not to go forward with it, I'm okay with that. But you know, when we work for both the same company that I don't mention just because I don't want to give it any credential I, I was happy with my decision of leaving, on my ethical standards and my principles and I'll stand behind that any day of the week. But losing contact with and you mentioned your Jarell and are in your book and you met, you mentioned a, you know I think of you, I'm Angie and Shannon, and I can name a whole lot of bunch of people that I work with and you know I never realized the grief that I had. Maybe it took me about two or three months after leaving. I'm like I may never talk to these people again.
Speaker 2:And there was a like it's not only school. I think that even if you work for a job that you truly believe in, right, and shit happens, I mean to me like, and again, I mean this is very sincerely I was like I'll probably never talk to Liz again and I really did like you. But I, how are you gonna keep in touch? Right, and I'm happy we're in touch, but I sure, as that is another type of grief to absolutely a job loss or a job change.
Speaker 3:You know that could be a huge loss of retirement is, it is, is a, you know, loss of structure, a loss of your social outlets and loss of your colleagues. And you know, and that's why I think it's so important to talk about, because you know, naming it at least and acknowledging it and Acceptance. You know that I've experienced the loss. You know you don't have to like that. You've experienced the loss, you know you don't have to love it.
Speaker 3:You don't have to look for the silver lining, but just just accepting it. That this is what I'm feeling Can can just kind of make you feel like you can breathe a little easier. Like naming it right, name it to tame it Right. So if you can name it, it's a little bit easier to be like oh okay, there's reasons for me to feel this way and it's okay that I feel this way. In the minute you give yourself from, you acknowledge it and give yourself permission to feel it, it's a little easier to deal with at that point.
Speaker 2:It's the stuff that I kind of remind myself to in different parts of my life. Like this, as we probably, like this, will be released in March, I'm finishing up my indoor season of soccer with my daughter's team and coaching them and then the outdoor season starts in April and then by June, after doing 10 years of coaching, I'll be losing that and it's interesting. I'm feeling myself a little teary about it. I'm happy to get rid of some of the freaking stress that goes with volunteering and the stuff that goes with that, and part of me is also very sad because I see these girls like. I see them grow and some of them I'll probably never see again. I know I'm gonna have some grief. In that occurs, I normalize it right away. It doesn't mean that it's wrong or right, it just means I know.
Speaker 3:Right and it's still hard, you know, even after you've named it and accepted it. I mean, it's still really hard, but at least that gives you the tools to be able to figure out how to go forward. You know, and I'm very careful I don't say move on. We don't move on from grief, but we move forward with it. That's actually something that Nora McEarney she writes a lot about grief and I think it in her TED Talk she talks about how we don't move on from grief, we move forward with it, and I think of it as, like the goal is that over time, hopefully, that grief becomes easier to carry. It's still with you, but it doesn't feel quite as heavy.
Speaker 2:And I've had a guest on whose book is called Moving on Doesn't Mean Letting Go, which I also like, because you can move on doesn't mean you let go, and I always talk about grief and trauma being this big old mountain in the middle and we all like to circle it, but we don't like to climb it. And when we climb it we're like, hey, I climbed it. I'm like, yeah, there's a downhill on the other side that's as rough as climbing it. Actually, for me, actually, it's harder to go down and going up.
Speaker 3:Right.
Speaker 2:So it's really. I use a lot of analogies in regards to grief and trauma, and your book really illustrates grief pretty well.
Speaker 3:Thanks, yeah, first talk about it and name it and acknowledge some losses that people may not have recognized as losses, and then just give some tools on how we move forward.
Speaker 2:And I like all the tools. There's a couple of things that you talk about the four pillars of meaning, and that's a deep writing journal shit, but the sense of belonging, transcendence, purpose and storytelling. And for those of you who are on the podcast and not seeing the visual, yes, I looked down, I wrote them down, so it's not like I know them by heart. But I'd love to talk about more about those four pillars of meaning. It's from a TED talk right, right, yeah.
Speaker 3:So yeah, it's a, and maybe you can link the TED talk below so that people can visit it later, because I wanna make sure I get all the details right, so maybe afterwards we can link it. But yes, there's been research done and transcendence. So transcendence is really getting a sense of, of having a sense of flow. It's that feeling where time sort of stops and that you're really kind of in the moment and you're present. So transcendence is like if you're cooking something and you're really into it and you're, you know, got all your senses going and you're losing track of time and you're just really in the moment, that's that feeling. And you know, I sometimes get that when I'm writing. I get that sometimes when I'm, you know, making something or if I'm drawing, you can kind of get that feeling. So wherever you can find that feeling, sometimes people find that when they're, you know, moving their bodies or exercising or playing a sport, so. So that's something that contributes to a meaningful life. And what was that? I want to make sure we go in order.
Speaker 2:The first one was belonging, which you know like.
Speaker 3:I think that I.
Speaker 2:You know I talk about it this way. The reason why AA? Whether you can believe it or not, I don't really care. I'm not an AA guy per se, but the one thing I know about AA is having that group and belonging goes a long way in your substance abuse or controlling and getting into your recovery at least sobriety. But you want to talk more about belonging. That's how.
Speaker 3:I perceive it so where we are wired to belong, you know it goes back to, you know, our survival or caveman days, you know. So, basically, you know, back in the, you know, in the caveman days, you know the people that belonged with their community had a much greater chance of survival. So you know belonging is still wired into us and that's you know. That's why we have our end-of-critic, that is, you know, trying to protect us so that we can maintain our belonging within our community and our families and our friends, and so we're really wired to want to belong and so that also leads to meaning is finding a sense of belonging, and it can take some work but it's absolutely worth investing and I think belonging requires a lot of authenticity. You have to be really honest about what do you like, what don't you like. You know I talk about in the book how I spent a couple of years on my company softball team and I hate softball. I stink at softball, I don't like it.
Speaker 1:It's a great story, and so I had to get honest with myself.
Speaker 3:Like this is not where I get a sense of belonging, and I think after a while I was like listen, I'm just going to bring the snacks Cause. Like I was like that I can do, you know, like play actually play softball not so much. But when it comes to belonging, you have to be really honest about where do I feel like my most authentic self.
Speaker 2:You know, purpose is always hard and you know, one of the things I think you debunk when or maybe it's the Ted Talk or both, I don't know but purpose doesn't have to be like a straight line for the rest of your life, purpose changes of time and situations, and I don't know if you want to talk more about that.
Speaker 3:Yeah, yeah, I think sometimes we get all this pressure to like find your passion. Find your passion and that's a lot of pressure. So you know purpose, I think can be you know feeling useful. You know feeling like you're taking care of your family, feeling like you are a good friend. You know you're when it comes to like purpose and your professional life.
Speaker 3:I love Cal Newport has an amazing book called so Good, they Can't Ignore you, and one of the things he talks about in his book is that passion follows mastery, so you don't have to go out and find your passion and then get good at it and then make that your life's work. He said that you know, just be curious, figure out how you can be useful and like the more you learn about something, the more that your passion is just going to automatically grow. Like, the more you gain mastery over something, the more passionate you're going to naturally become, which I really loved because I think you know this idea to find your passion is so much pressure. So I loved his book and I love that like way to you know shift your view of what purpose is. So you know your purpose doesn't have to relate to your job. It doesn't have to. You know, it can be about the people in your life. It can be a lot of different things.
Speaker 2:And I think it goes a little bit with storytelling. You know, you know I call it your own narrative and your own narrator. You talk about the inner critic. I like the narrative view, how I perceive Steve doing a podcast right now with Liz, and I don't know what Liz thinks. I certainly know what I think. But I think the storytelling is all about like it, how it affects you. Because if I said to myself, ah, liz, I don't mean this, it doesn't like me, just doing this because she has to, and then suddenly my attitude might be like all right, why don't you talk about storytelling there, miss Mighty Pants? And of course the storytelling is a little more than narrative, but that's really what I got from that. I don't know what you want to say about it.
Speaker 3:Yeah, no, absolutely. I think of storytelling. As you know, how can you look at your experiences in a way that feels empowering versus you know we could, you can. I mean the reality is subjective right.
Speaker 1:You know we can look at reality in a million different ways.
Speaker 3:And storytelling really speaks to you know, if you were going to make a movie about your life, you know, if it was like Steve the story of you know, like you know what would your movie title be? You know, or Liz the story of you know, what would that be? And you want to? And so I think of storytelling as looking at your experiences and looking at who you are and what you do in a way that feels empowering, as opposed to looking at it in a way that's going to bring you down or diminish you.
Speaker 2:And that's what you know. That's where Nelson takes over, also, right.
Speaker 3:Right, exactly. Because, Nelson is going to want to tell the story in a way that brings us down and keeps us small, or keeps me small, and so storytelling is being able to put Nelson in his place so that I can tell the story in a way that is going to, you know, help me move forward in a manner that's aligned with my values, right?
Speaker 2:That's why I talked to my inner critic and explained the difference between being humble and putting me down, and so I've learned to be more humble versus being put down.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, I love that.
Speaker 2:You know the one thing I want to, the other thing I want to, that I loved about your book, that I you know fucking soulmates. I so don't believe in soulmates myself because I think that's a hallmark movie. But you talk a little bit about that, that dream that we have a soulmate or whatever. Can you tell me more about that too?
Speaker 3:Sure, so there's a section of the book on relationships, and it's certainly not the end. All be it's. It's one chapter, it's not the end.
Speaker 2:all that be all. She is lying. Don't start, don't read anything else. I'm kidding.
Speaker 3:But I did put in the book that I think we should rethink this idea of soulmates, because the problem with soulmates is that if you think there's one person out there for you and it's you know, and you meet that person, and then all of a sudden you might start to justify things that aren't okay you know that or even abusive, right?
Speaker 3:Or you might start to sweep red flags under the rug because you're like, oh well, you know this person, you know the way they speak to me is unkind, or you know that they're isolating me from my friends. But this is my soulmate, right? Or it could also lead to codependency, this idea of like I can't live without this person. I can't, you know, I need this person to be able to function in my life. Or you know, and so you know this idea of you know, I, you know, absolutely believe in romantic love and I, you know, value my spouse and you know all these things. But I like the idea of being interdependent, like I'm an independent individual, you're an independent individual and together we choose to combine our lives in a way that works for both of us.
Speaker 3:And so you know there's a section on the book that talks about that sort of, asks you to rethink this idea of soulmates, because I think it can lead to you know, thinking that's not going to always be, not going to be the healthiest.
Speaker 2:And I think you talked about attachment to in that chapter, if I remember correctly.
Speaker 3:Right, yeah, and there's a lot of great books out there on attachment. So I, you know I just touched on it briefly but you know, attachment is, you know how we connect with other people and you know, and you know, healthy attachment is, you know, feeling like, you know not being nervous about, you know your connection, like you can go off with your friends and know that, like this person is still there for you, right, you don't have to seek constant validation of what your connection is with this other person. So, yeah, I just wanted to give a brief introduction to attachment in the book.
Speaker 2:But I think that that's a great way to kind of like talk a little bit about your book in general. What I what I said this at the beginning, I'll say it again that's exactly what your book is. It takes a lot of these big books, principles. Like I said, I can buy 25 books. Probably wouldn't get as much as I got in that one book because it talks about you know, is it 20 pages each? No, it's, but it gives you the bubble talk process and then you give some examples that go with that. So I think it's such a healthy book for people to get. I think it's healthy for everyone to kind of pay attention to that stuff and if they want to do more deep dives, so to speak, I think your book is a good place to go from a dad to deep dive or hopefully, a fourth therapy.
Speaker 3:Right, you know, that's that's.
Speaker 3:My hope is that if someone reads this book you know this is an introduction to a lot of concepts that are talked about in therapy and in the mental health space you know, if you see something in the book like you know attachment, or codependency, or you know something that you know, or grief, you know if you're like, oh my goodness, this really strikes, strikes, you know, strikes a nerve, or I'm curious about this.
Speaker 3:You know, I hope that this book will, you know, now give you the language or the tools, or be like, oh, maybe I do need to know more about this or I do want to read more about this. And and then you know, after reading, you know this book you could, or my book, this book is cheaper than therapy, but then you'll be able to be like, you know, I want to learn more about grief, or maybe I need to join a grief support group. Or you know, maybe I need to learn more about attachment, or maybe I need to learn about more about you know how to regulate my nervous system, and so hopefully it'll kind of give you a jumping off point on where to go next.
Speaker 2:I think it's a great jumping off point for a whole lot of different things. I really appreciated the book overall for real, and I think that what I hope people get to is that what Liz talked about in that book, that's what she does. This is stuff to you know. Again, I, like I said, I feel like you were each dropping into my conversations, because that's a lot of the stuff that I talk about with my clients every day, and so I don't say that just to be nice, but she doesn't say you know, your IFS should be really combined with DBT so that your CBT can make more sense with your psychoanalysis, like no, there's no, like jargon BS that we do and frankly, I don't like myself. That's why I do this podcast. It's really meant to be explained really well and you know, as this podcast will be like released it will be the following week, on March 19, 2024, your book will be released. So I would read if you told us a little bit of where we can get it, where we can buy it, stuff like that.
Speaker 3:Sure, absolutely so. It's. The publisher is Bridge City Books, so you can go to Bridge City Books, the website, which is they're an imprint of Pessie, but it's also being sold on Amazon and Barnes, noble and wherever books are sold. Also, in March 19,. There's going to be an electronic version and an audio version. So you know, if you are someone who likes to listen to your books, that will be available. If you want to get it sent to your Kindle or wherever you want to read it, you can get an electronic version. But it's available for pre-sale now. So if you want to get your hard copy, I would love that. And, of course, authors are incredibly grateful for anyone who takes the time to leave a thoughtful, honest review. So I really appreciate all the folks who have done that or who might consider that in the future.
Speaker 2:We were talking before the podcast and I said to you that you know, to me, writing a book was nothing compared to the editor and doing the editing. But I think the most important thing, this is going to show you who Liz is truly. She's like, yeah, but you know what it's? Putting your book, your soul out there, putting yourself out there. That's the hardest part and I certainly agree with that too, and I thought that was just the essence of how great of a human being Liz truly is.
Speaker 3:Well, thank you, I'm incredibly flattered and likewise, I think you are a stellar human being as well, and I'm so grateful for the fact that you have this podcast and put these concepts out into the world and make mental health more accessible. I think the two of us have the same motivation, right. I'm incredibly grateful to all those, to the individuals doing research and, you know, in academia, and you know, I'm so grateful to all those individuals and what I hope to do is to be a little bit of a translator or connector right between the academic and the research base and the general public, who was like well, you know how do I feel better and I want to be that connector.
Speaker 2:And that's our architect. That's our archetypes. That's a different type of psychoanalytic stuff that you can look into. But that is not in the book. It's just a conversation we're having. But Liz, I meant everywhere. I said you've known me long enough. Hopefully I don't BS. I'm going to people listen to me know that. So go buy a pre-order to book now. Whether it's audio, the electronic version or the actual hard copy, I love the hard copy. I'm hoping that at one point I'm going to get a signed one from you.
Speaker 3:Yeah, you bet Absolutely.
Speaker 2:I'm going to get a signed one now and at the end of the day, I just want to say that as a forget about the book. It just is human being. I truly appreciate you, but go get that book. I tell you right now, if you want to learn how about therapy works. In about 250 pages, give or take, it's absolutely the book for you. So thank you, Liz.
Speaker 3:Thanks. Well, thank you so much for this opportunity that it gets to talk about the book and talk about mental health with you, and I would love to chat with you anytime.
Speaker 2:Well, you know what? Maybe one day we should have a bunch of authors all together and we can commiserate how difficult it is for a therapist to write books.
Speaker 3:Let's do it.
Speaker 2:All right, Thanks Liz.
Speaker 3:Thanks.
Speaker 2:Well, this completes episode 143. Liz Kelly, just an interesting conversation again. I hope everyone enjoyed it as much as I did and I can't wait, hopefully to well. We'll talk privately but maybe we'll have you back on at some point. But episode 144 was another former colleague from that company, Ivana Colangelo, and I can't wait to talk to her. She's going to talk about relationships and I'm going to have her on next episode and I hope to see you then.
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 and Canada.