The Many Facets of Grief w/Ladybird Morgan and Dani Chammas
Our podcast is hosted on Spotify and Anchor.
Mettle Health counselor Ladybird Morgan, RN and MSW, and Dani Chammas, MD host an informal and interactive conversation on the many aspects of grief. As a fundamental human process, grief is unavoidable. As such, it pays to lean into grief rather than to run away from it, and that requires patience, time, and lots of support.
We discuss:
0:00 Introductions
2:40 What IS grief? The pain we feel in the face of loss, not a medical condition - it’s an experience
5:04 WHAT do we grieve? The death or loss of a person, but there’s so much more that we grieve: sense of security, the dreams we held for the future, a loss of function
9:35 HOW do we grieve? Grief can look so different from one person to the next
11:38 Different expressions of grief: laughter, dancing, baking
13:17 Grief is dynamic, it can look different from moment to moment
15:41 Grief changes us: we are never the same, it doesn’t mean we don’t heal or rebuild, but we find a way to move forward in a new way
19:10 What helps with grief? There are no short-cuts, it has to be felt to work through it. Time helps, self care helps, rituals help, self-compassion helps. Find a place to share your grief
24:56 The complicated side of grief, it’s not always clean. If you do not feel any relief after around 6 months post loss, you may slip out of grief and into something more serious
28:39 Grief vs. depression, depression is not dynamic
29:54 Suggestions for people who have a hard time with grief at night?
34:15 Talking about the threshold space between a change in states. You’re grieving what you’re not going to be anymore, but you’re not there yet. Even positive thresholds have many steps to move from one state to another. Medicine is also not good at the “in-between” phase
36:48 Feeling lonely in the space of being grateful for small moments and not being able to share it with others in the care circle. How to be present in your experience and present with others
45:36 Thoughts on the “last” breath of a loved one? Other “lasts” that we experience
52:21 How does grief show up before someone dies? For both family and the person who is dying
55:00 What about grief when there isn’t love felt between the person who is dying and the survivors? There are many layers to what is being lost
57:28 Ideas for grieving your lost self in the theme of serious illness?
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