Why Grief Demands a Witness (With David Kessler)

[Music]

There is no timeline in grief. If you are it's a week ago, it's a month ago, I'm sitting there witnessing. You're 4 years in, aren't getting out of the house, or you're not getting back in relationships. I'm going to be a little tougher coach. There you go. Yeah.

What's up? What's going on? This is John with the Dr. John Deloney Show. I'm so glad you're with us. We're talking about your emotional mental health, your relationships, whatever you got going on in your life. I'm going to sit here, I'm going to sit with you, and we're going to figure out what's the next right move.

On today's episode, we have a second part of one of my favorite conversations I've ever had with one of my heroes, the great David Kessler. David Kessler is a world-renowned expert on grief. And nobody likes to talk about grief, but grief impacts every single person living and breathing right now, including you, including me. And we have to grieve the big things, the small things. And we have a grief-illiterate world, as he says. And so, in this part two, we're talking about grief demanding a witness, something that I've been saying forever and ever, and I got the line from him. And so much more.

So, I've got his book here, by the way, "The Six Stages of Grief Workbook" for anyone who's struggling. And we'll link to it in the show notes. So, check out the second part of my conversation with the great David Kessler right here.

The most powerful line you've given me is, "Grief demands a witness." Grief demands a witness. Every civilization, every faith community, in all of human history, have had a moment where people sit down and say, "Tell them your story." And so often, like, "I lost my husband, lost my..." What was his name? Like, we're going to, we're going to tell the story. I want... There's something so powerful. Let me ask you this. You, you manage these amazing global online grief communities. I have made the case, and tell me if I'm wrong, um, that in many ways, storytelling, being with, if you will, um, digitally, is like Twinkies. It's calories, but it's not rich food. Is there a, have you noticed a difference between in-person and online?

I started there, okay? I mean, listen, I love being wrong. So, tell me if I'm wrong. When the pandemic hit, yeah, people were like, "You got to move online." And I was like, "I don't know that emotions translate." And one of my buddies said, "Have you ever seen a movie?" Oh, and I'm like, "Oh, all right." Yeah. Now, here's the thing. On a Zoom call, I see your face just like this. Mhm. I mean, I wish I could tell you. I mean, look, if you came in and you smelled bad, I wouldn't know it on a Zoom, right? But every other thing I get, every little expression. And here's the thing. You know, people go, "When they hear there's a grief group, they go, 'Oh, I don't want to be online with six people.'" That's... I'm like, "No, no, there's hundreds. There's hundreds." And the shocking thing about it is, there are some people who are like, "Hey, I got a question." I went, "You've asked a question yesterday." Like, "Let's have..." You know? But there's other people who are in the back, have never turned their Zoom on, they've never, you know, you can be anonymous or you can be in the front row. Yeah. And one of the things that's shocking about it is, I do topics, we do check-ins, and I do one-on-ones. And in the one-on-ones, it's me and that person. And hundreds of people are watching it. They don't get seen in that moment. We find each other in each other's stories. That's it. And we find our healing in each other's stories. I mean, I get tons of emails of people who go, "Oh my gosh, that person asked the question I didn't even know was the question I had. That was the one I needed for my healing." Yeah. Like, "Ah, I would have never even thought to ask that." And they did. And you went there, and you healed them. And I go, "I didn't heal them. They healed them." Yeah. And you found your healing in them, and then in yourself. So, I think it does work. It does work. Excellent. It does work. Thank you for changing my mind on that.

I am never going to, like, be face-to-face with people in Australia, New Zealand, and the UK, and, you know, all over the US. And it's like, and boy, let me tell you, when there's like, sometimes I'll do these free online events, we have 40,000 people. Right. Right. You talk about how universal grief is. That, like, I speak the same language. Wait, you're in rural Alaska, you haven't seen another person in weeks, and yet you hurt too. We're connected. You hurt too. Yeah. It, I guess, man, listening to you talk about that makes me think, I am in charge of food distribution after a, a huge traumatic weather event, and I hold back the food because it's not, you know, Michelin-star quality. People are hungry. Let's get food. Let's get food. Yeah. And let's not negotiate calories right now.

Look, I tell people, if there's an amazing grief group down the block at your church, you don't need us, right? And I'll tell you, grief is overwhelming and exhausting. That it's like, people are like, "Oh, no, I need the church group, I need your group, and I need my counselor, and I need my clergy." Like, and it's still barely enough to hold me together. You know, the answer should be yes. Yeah. Especially in our world, we have, we're so lonely, right? And we don't have regular people to, regular groups of people in our lives, just as a way of being to help. And people in those groups, the first question I ask, you come on, you start to talk, and I go, "How long has your loved one been dead?" And I tell the group, and here's why I'm asking. There is no timeline in grief, right? But if you are, it's a week ago, it's a month ago, I'm sitting there witnessing. That's it. Being there, sitting with you in compassion. Yeah. Your four years in, and you aren't getting out of the house, or you're not getting back in relationships, or you're not living life. I'm, I'm going to be a little tougher coach. There you go. Yeah. You know, like, there's different moments. There's, there's not one size fits all. Yeah. I often tell folks who just experience loss, you probably will not remember this conversation. I want you to remember you exhaled once, right? And I want you to remember that, right? You're not going to remember the exact. In fact, they used to tell us, "Bring a, bring a brochure or something," because they, no one's going to remember. They can't. That's okay, right?

What do you tell the person who is sitting, not so much in the loss moment yet, but it's the "not fair" moment? Luckily, I had so many teachers to draw on. You know, um, I'm a reserve specialist with my local police department. MH. I ran a group for police officers whose children died by suicide with the officer's gun. Wait, wait. You're protecting our world. You're showing up in a dangerous world, and your child died. I, oh, that's, that doesn't make cosmic sense to me. Right? It's extra not right. It's extra not right. You know, there's so many situations like that that I would sit with people. I remember there was, um, a couple that came to a retreat, and I think I even wrote about them in there, whose 2-year-old daughter went out with Grandma in New York, and a, they're sitting on a bench, and a random brick falls. No, man. And kills the child. I'm sorry, what? What? What? Like a random brick? Yeah. And here's the thing about this. I worked with her on her anger. And I remember she kept saying, "I can't say it. I can't say it." And we're in a room with hundreds of people. And I said, "What if you just said it? What if we understood it, and you said it?" And she goes, "I hate old people." M. And I go, "Okay. Good." MH. "Let's, let's release the shame of that." And there were some people who were a little older in the room. And I said, "I wonder, could you like, really scream this out or hit the pillow or whatever? Could you release this anger?" And she goes, "I can't." And I said, "We're going to do it with you." And I had the room going, "We hate old people! We!" And like, to hear it, it would have sounded crazy, right? Right. And then she fell down in tears as she released it. And then the truth was spoken. You don't really hate old people. You hate that we live in a world that this person got 80 years and says they're not that happy, and your daughter got two years. You're not angry at old people. You're angry at the unfairness of the world. Yeah. So, yeah, the grief expert, son dies, someone, and she's in the faith community, a brick falls, a police officer. This is our world. Yeah.

Now, one of the things when we look at the psychological world, personalization does not help us. Death is the most personal thing that happens. When you're getting a divorce, feels pretty personal. And then you have to go, "The betrayal, the divorce, it actually isn't about me. It's happening to me, but it's not about me." I don't believe there is a God that looked down and went, "David Kessler, I'm going to get him. I'm going to..." Oh, this is, that's not the God that I believe in. Correct. I don't think there was a personal nature to it. And it's, it's the most personal, brutal thing that's happened to me. And I don't think that that brick chose that girl. I don't think those. I think this is a life where loss happens, tragedy happens, period. That hurricane is not picking the houses, right? It is. It just is. It just is. So, those are like, those are nuances to get to. I would never get to these nuances with someone newly. We're talking nuances here. Yeah. And we're also, I think the meta here for me is, we are story-making creatures, correct? And on the back end of something so horrific, once I'm able to breathe, right? I get to pick the story that I write next, correct? And one of those stories will imprison me forever, right? And one of those stories will set me free. And you may have been victimized, but it does not have to be a final victim story, right? In, in fact, power is, I'm not letting you victimize me anymore, correct? And I'm not going to victimize myself by living that story after the traumatic event has happened, right? I always say, "Bad enough this stuff happened once. Like, who wants to relive it every day?" Yes. Which means there's a, I hate to use this word because it's unpopular, there's a choice, right? And that's why, you know, we were talking about this book, this workbook is because I always say to people, like, "Someone goes, 'I was told I have to talk to you and do my grief work.'" What's grief work? And I'm like, "I'm going to take the tools and techniques that I've been teaching coaches and therapists for years and put them in a workbook." Like, "We're sitting at your kitchen table, and I'm walking you through some things." Yes.

Now, as you know, you know, my teacher was Kbler-Ross with the five stages: denial, anger, bargaining, depression, acceptance. I hear her always telling me, "Tell them they're not linear. There's no model. There's not linear." We've said that till, you know, we're just blown in the face. I know. But that's just the only way that new scientists, we want to reduce our, right? You know, look crazy. You know, shut up helps. There was a big study at Yale that said, you know, it's, it's not denial, it's disbelief. Just shut up. And shut up. I'm like, "Okay. Tomatoes, tomatoes." You know who, you know who does those studies? And this is me being critical. It's people who don't regularly sit with hurting people. Because you know who doesn't care to parse somebody who just lost their kid or somebody whose marriage just blew up? They don't listen. "Disel, shut, stop, stop, stop, stop." And, you know, can we just sit with hurting people? Right? Right. And it really is, many times, it's the academic world. I got to tell you, people go, "Which is the right grief model for?" I'm like, "No one in grief ever says to me, 'Which model? Which mo?'" I mean, look, people sit with me and they go, "I heard of you. You were taught by Kbler-Ross. I love the stages. I hate the stages. They're wrong." I'm like, "So tell me, like, it's good to meet you. Tell me, name." Yeah. "I'm not like, we're not even going to." And Kbler-Ross was that way, right? On our book, like, page one, we said, "Please let go of that." But, you know, to me, when I wrote about meaning, the first reaction from people when they hear meaning is, "There's no meaning in a horrible divorce, betrayal, death, murder." Of course not. Meaning is in us. It's what we do after. Next. Yeah. It's what we do after. I find the biggest thing I wrestled with was acceptance. We think there's one big acceptance. There's a million of them. And I just want to see if I can find this for you here, just to take in this, because people go, "I know I'm trying to accept it," and they're just sort of like, they're just wrestling with finding a big acceptance. I wanted to break this down. Let me just give you a few of these. If I truly accept this death, and that could mean the death of the marriage, the death of betrayal, the death of whatever. If I truly accepted this death, one thing I would change would be... Okay. If I truly accepted this death, I would stop... You know, would that be revolving in my mind? If I truly accepted this death, I could finally... I mean, I have a co-author of this book. It's the person that's going to write it. Like, I want to help you tease out the places where you have accepted, where you can't accept, where you're, you know. I mean, I was just at a conference and, you know, a woman bought three books and she said, "This is for the me today. This is for me in 3 months. This is the me in 6 months and in a year." Like, she knows it's all going to keep changing, and she's going to keep growing. And the fact that she knows she's going to keep changing and growing, and that there's not one state. Okay. Okay.

Let's talk about Cozy Earth. The holidays are coming in hot, and there's buying things and traveling, and the Little Drummer Boy on repeat in every store. And more than ever at this time of year, your physical and mental and relational health is probably getting a little bit frazzled, and you need to take a break from the madness and create a peaceful sleep environment. I call my peaceful sleep environment my sleep sanctuary. And for me and my family, a big part of all of our sleep sanctuaries includes products from Cozy Earth. Their bed sheets are incredible. They're so comfortable. They're made from Visos from bamboo, and they're so smooth, and they are so tough. And my wife is in love with the Cozy Earth's long-sleeve bamboo pajama set. And I personally love their cityscape hoodies and crewnecks. And they come in men's and women's and kids' sizes. Also, I recently got this giant weighted Cozy Earth blanket, and my whole family has been loving piling underneath it to watch a movie. And don't forget, during gift-giving season, Cozy Earth offers a 10-year warranty on all of their bedding. So when you find yourself in the middle of holiday chaos, come on, establish your peaceful sleep sanctuary with help from Cozy Earth. Go to Cozyearth.com/deloney and use code DELONEY for an exclusive discount of up to 40, yes, 40% off. That's Cozyearth.com/deloney. And if you get a post-purchase survey, say that you heard about Cozy Earth on this show. Okay. Okay.

It's time to talk about Organifi. Our bodies do a lot for us. Our bodies keep us alive, filter toxins, deal with the onslaught of the wild news cycles. Our bodies move us around. Our bodies do pretty much everything. And let's be honest, we don't always treat our bodies the best. So I want everyone to stop for just a second and say, "Thank you to your body." Just exhale and say, "Thank you." And beyond just saying thank you, we can also start to live out our thanks and our gratitude to our bodies by changing how we move, how we exercise, how we engage in close relationships. And we can change how we nourish our bodies with food and great food blends. One great way that I honor my body is with the products from Organifi. I love Organifi because they're super, super selective about what goes into their whole food blends. And Organifi will help all of us be grateful and say thank you to our bodies because they use ingredients with integrity: plant-based, certified organic, vegan, dairy-free, soy-free, and glyphosate residue-free. Glyphosate's a horrific pesticide, you do not want in your body. And it's so easy to get the benefits with Organifi. You just mix your favorite Organifi food blend with your favorite beverage or water. Personally, I love the green juice and red juice in the morning, mixed with cold water for natural, sustained energy. And I still love my Happy Drops. And I take the Better Biome gummies for digestion. And I often wind down in the evening with the Gold Chocolate hot cocoa. It's so good and it's naturally calming. Go to Organifi.com/deloney right now to save 20% off at checkout with code DELONEY. That's Organifi, O-R-G-A-N-I-F-I.com/deloney and code DELONEY for 20% off.

You write in "Finding Meaning," my experience tells me that grief may be postponed, but it can't be eradicated. I'm often talking about the importance of markers, ceremonies. And people often raise an eyebrow to me when they say, "Hey, I don't want to take my 12-year-old to the funeral." And I say, "No, no, no, no. They have to go, right?" Um, or when they say, "When I say, you think you've been in a, you've been in a rough, abusive marriage, it's going to shock you the day your attorney sends you the paper and says, 'It's over.' Plan a small funeral. Write a letter to your 7-year-old self that says, 'I'm sorry that Dad did that to you.'" What is the, would you talk about the importance of markers and of, of ceremony, of, of action towards this period at the end of a sentence? Yeah.

The first of all, you mentioned kids. I have to just start with children. We are a grief-illiterate world in general. We are unbelievably grief-illiterate when it comes to our children. I mean, people will tell me, you know, "Oh, you know, the other day, the goldfish died, and, you know, our 6-year-old was so sad." And I go, "What did you say?" And they'll go, "Oh, we flushed it down the toilet. We told them it swam to the ocean." And I'm like, "You just stole from them. You missed an opportunity." "Well, I don't want to inflict pain." And I went, "Let me tell you, you are teaching them that if you cross the street without looking, pain will happen. And you want to spare them that pain by giving them information about the experience." Your child, 100%, like, the stats are in, 100% is going to go through loss this lifetime, correct? They're going to go through breakups, they're going to go through stuff, they're going to go through loss. Boyfriends, girlfriends break up with them, stuff's going to happen. And you're not going to teach about that? You're going to skip? "Well, when they're older." I'm like, "What are you going to do when they're older? Sacrifice a dog?" I mean, people go, "But when do I begin teaching?" When the goldfish dies. When the neighbor dies. When Grandpa. That is the moment. Like, when life happens is when you teach. So, I, I want to tell a quick story. Um, a buddy of mine had, in my life, it's been the most adjacent, um, horrific experience ever with loss of a child. And fast forward several years later, I've got a 4-year-old. My boy is 4 years old, and his dog dies. I took, I took the dog. The dog was very, very sick. Took the dog to put the dog down. And they come in, and they put the dog down. And I wasn't particularly close to this dog. I was just being the dad. And we were going out to his ranch. He had a ranch on Texas. And they put the dog down. And then they take the dog. And I come to find out they take the dog and all the dogs to a local incinerator in the city. And there we go. And something didn't sit right. And I hadn't connected the dots. And so I called this buddy and said, "Hey, I'm at the vet. I'm putting my dog down. Before I come out, and I know my son and my wife are already out there, I have a weird feeling about this. Would it be weird if I brought the dog out there and me and my son buried it out of your place out in the woods?" Long pause. And in his classic, very Texas rancher way, he said, "If you don't take this opportunity to teach your son about loss, you are failing him as a father." Yeah. And, oh, okay. And I went out there. And we had to, it was a whole rigmarole to for them to let me take the dog, um, the dog's body. We got out there. There was a small shovel and a big shovel that my buddy had leaned up against a tree. And then later on, maybe two or three days later, I got an email. He said, "I don't believe in capturing holy moments on film. So feel free to delete this. But there is a picture, and it's off in the distance, of me and my 4-year-old digging a hole." And it's the most sacred photo I have. But more importantly than a photo is shortly thereafter, my granddad died. Shortly thereafter, my grandmother died. Shortly thereafter, shortly thereafter, the reference point for my 4-year-old to anchor himself into love, and anchor himself into his own body, but also absorb loss, all came back to that goofy dog. Yeah. And so I thought, "Oh, my. The greatest gift I gave my child is to be with him in that moment." Right? And now we can go, "Remember the dog? This is like Granddad." Right? All right. "Remember the dog? That's like Grandmother." Remember the dog. Those rituals. It's so... I always say, when people go, "I don't understand that." I'll go, "Think of it this way. When we have a birthday party, we get together, and 'Happy Birthday' is another way we say, 'I love you.'" And now that Grandpa's died, or the dog died, we gather again at the end to say, "I love you." That gathering, goodbye, is another way we say, "I love you." And I'll tell you, I don't know that I've talked about this on a podcast. Just, it came up for me, so I'll say it. When my son died, my older son, Richard, I knew this was going to happen. MH. And I have an amazing goddaughter who is the epitome of elegance. I mean, she went to school in London. She is naturally elegant in a way I will, like, when I'm with her, I'm like, "Which fork?" No, ever those words to describe me. She was always, she was always so elegant. Yeah. When my younger son, David, died, we're at the funeral. We're done. And all of a sudden, the cemetery folks descend with the shovels, and they're going to, you know, pack the dirt on the grave. And of course, my older son, Richard, goes, "No, no, no, no, no. That's me. He's going to do it." And then, like, I knew that would be him. And then in her most gorgeous black dress, my goddaughter picked up a shovel. And I'm like, "That's, that's like a ritual. That's like unforgettable." No. You know? And it's that's saying goodbye. And you wouldn't think shoveling is a way to say goodbye and I love you. And one thing, just to say, just since we're here about pet loss, after David died, I don't know, probably eight, nine months later, sweet dog of 17 years. Of course, it did. Course. And people want to go, "Well, clearly that didn't count after David's death, or which was the worst?" And I'm like, "Folks, there is no worst in this. These are two horrible events. They are two loves. I don't need to find a hierarchy." So you can organize this in your brain. These are horrible events. A divorce is a horrible event for the person getting divorced. Betrayal is. Pet loss is. If the grief is real, if the love is real, the grief is real. There is no hierarchy in loss. Let that go. Oh, man. And, and we could go down a whole route. Thank you for sharing that. Um, there's, there's, I think that's my personal belief is those are things that our bodies adapted over millions of years to to learn how to process. And we have just outsourced all of it, right? Um, even, even my grandmother's house had a room called "The Parlor." Right? And now the Emy van shows up, takes the body away, they take care of it. I get 30 minutes, and I get maybe an open casket, and then it's over. And all of that grief stays here. And I, I, I believe in my guts, there's something about shoveling, there's something about movement, there's something about that process that we've just stolen from ourselves. Emotions need motion. Yeah. Oh, I like that. Say that again. Emotions need motion. I'll tell you, we feel bad every time we're giving tips. We say, "You got to go walk." And it's like, we go, "We can't recommend walking again." And then a study comes out that says how walking is so amazing. And we're like, "It, we feel like simplistic." For God's sakes, we can't keep saying, "Walk. Write a letter. And go for a walk, man." But it needs. And just that this workbook is taking the pain out of you and putting it on paper. Yes. Let yourself see your pain on on the paper.

How do you talk to somebody who experiences grief because they've got cancer and they're being betrayed by their own body, or they have some sort of heart challenge, they've got a child with special needs, they've got a marriage that somebody violated the marriage and they're going to work on it, but that there's always going to be a sign of a crack in the foundation that's been that you can always see the repair. How do you teach somebody to grieve something that is still present in real time?

Really, what we're grieving is a picture of what we wanted to be true that no longer is true, correct? You know, that is really sitting with the imperfections of life. Okay, we wanted a perfect marriage. That's gone. It, that's gone, right? That's gone. Okay. And, you know, whether there's, there's a million analogies out there, whether it's the broken vase, sure, that, you know, the vase can be put back together, whether it's a broken bone becomes stronger after the break. MH. You know, I, this is a really hard one. Would I rather have a perfect good marriage or a real one? And I think I opt for perfect good, right? But that doesn't seem to be possible. I mean, we're all going to have, we're gonna hurt people. Like, listen, everyone I know struggles with something. I promise you. Everyone who has the perfect marriage, there's something there, doesn't it? There. You know? And look, it may not be the biggest infidelity, but there's something there. You know, uh, uh, all relationships, it's all pretty imperfect. And when we can allow that, and it kind of goes back to, you know, like, "I need to keep up with the Joneses." No, you don't. No, you don't. It's all kind of imperfect to begin with. Yeah. Yeah. And so it is the experience of life. I mean, I always try to opt for authentic over good. Yeah. Or over great overage, right? Yeah. Right. But I'd rather have something that's real. M. You know? And, and one of the things that I, it's, it's funny because it was an Oprah producer that did this for me. I used to call, you can imagine this, I used to get the pre-interview calls. M. And they would hear me talk to me, and then they'd go, "Thanks very much," and they would not choose me. Uh-huh. Same producer. Yeah. And I remember finally saying to this producer, and she changed my life, I said, "Why do you never choose me?" And she said to me, "Because you're the grief expert." And I said, "I don't understand." And she goes, "David, before we get to the pitch, you're making, I really like you. And you don't understand. We don't want to know the grief expert. We want to sit down and have a beer with our buddy that just happens to know a lot about loss." Yeah. And when you can let go of the illusion that you're our expert, we'll connect with you. Oh my gosh. What a favor she did for me. Because she was really saying, because I was like, early in my career, she was like, "Dude, take the suit off. Let it go. Like, just be you." I had, I had that same gift here. Yes. Yeah. Yeah. Yeah. And, and what I found is my answers, my academics was, was a suit of armor, right? Is the way I protected, "Look how smart I am. Look how smart I am." And one woman, one time, in a siding line, said, "You know, you're the big brother we've never had." Wow. And I was like, "That's the greatest compliment I've ever received in this world, right? Is I'll tell you the truth, and you know I love you all, right?" It's both. [Music]

Hands. Hey everybody, listen to this. Helix, the makers of the best mattresses in the universe, is having an end-of-year sale going on right now. I'm traveling a lot this holiday season, and when I'm out on the road, I count down the days till I can get back to my Helix mattress. Sleeping on my Helix mattress has transformed my rest, and I'm getting into new levels of deep, refreshing sleep. And I say this all the time, every one of these commercials, I say this, all of my family members sleep on a Helix mattress now. And my family is different, just like all of you are different. And since everyone sleeps in their own unique way, Helix has created different mattress models designed for side sleepers, stomach sleepers, back sleepers, for everyone. And if your spine needs a little extra love, they have mattresses for you too. Helix offers a 100-night trial, and all Helix mattresses come with either a 10 or 15-year warranty. Just take the Helix sleep quiz, just like I did, and you'll find the perfect mattress for your sleep preferences in less than 2 minutes. And here's the radest part: Helix end-of-year sale is going on right now. 25% off all mattress orders plus a free bedding bundle. Go to helixsleep.com/deloney for details and to save 25% off. That's Helix, H-E-L-I-X, helixsleep.com/deloney. With Helix, better sleep starts right now.

I have found it easier to grieve God's got a bigger plan, or loss just happened, or I don't understand cancer, it just is, right? I have learned to grieve that. Right? What I personally continue to struggle with is, no, I did say that. I did hurt that person. How do you grieve loss, relationship breakups? How do you grieve death when you did play a role? And I'm thinking of the parent who, here's where it comes to me most. There's an alcoholic, abusive parent. The other parent didn't intervene in a way, and there's some sort of cascading event that ends up in their children experiencing some sort of poor relationship or, um, addiction or some sort of challenges down the road. And as they heal, and they begin to put two and two together, they say, "I didn't protect my kid from that abuser. I kept inviting that man into our home." Or, "I..." Right? How do you grieve when you did play a role?

It's a huge question. Our mind would always rather be guilty than helpless. You want to blame. So it's about power. Everything on that moment, someone died because of that moment. The betrayal happened because of that moment. Whatever, you know, that was the moment. Most moments are complex with a lot of different factors. Now, for your one moment, if I was working with that person in the one moment, we would talk about the decisions you made, or probably out of your wounds. Doesn't excuse you. Doesn't let you off the hook from anything. They were out of your wounds. They were out of your fears. They were out of the lowest part of you. You know, you've made mistakes, but so have I. And so that's where we have to begin. And then we also have to begin forgiveness. Forgiveness. Yeah. And that's just simply the practice of saying, "I'm not going to carry that anymore." It's a, it's a lot of work. I often say forgiveness starts with a 30-day practice. Yeah. Like, people like, "I thought it didn't work." I'm like, "That's that word all time. You got to practice the practice to practice." Yeah. Okay.

I have so much in here about guilt. I know there's like four different exercises. I take it. It's the biggest chunk of the book. Okay. Um, and people can go right to this book. They don't have to have bought the original. They go right to this. Okay. All right. Last one. Yeah. Um, so I am working through "Finding Meaning." Years ago, yeah. And I read this part and I literally slammed it down and I thought, "David's right, and I don't like what you're saying." Great. Great. And yet, this is me on the heels of years of working through what I think has become my, it's, it's the greatest challenge. I think it's a gift, and it's also one of my greatest challenges, which is what I would call empathetic rumination. I will sit on a feeling or a thing I've done, and I will loop, and I will loop, and I will loop. And I will, my body will go back to that thing I said in seventh grade to that girl who said, "I like you," and I embarrassed her in front of everybody. I still can feel that right now. How I hurt her. I can still go back to the things I've done and said to my wife that still haunt me, to the things I've said to myself. I can live in it. And then you had the audacity, yeah. What did I say? God, what did I say? Let's hear it. To come out and right, and so honest and truthful. With practice, you can control your thoughts. And at the end of the day, that parent who is just eating breakfast, and that lightning bolt of that picture of their child in the casket, they can't control that lightning bolt, but they can control every thought after that. Or the person who finds out, you know, accidentally, somebody's text message pops up on the family iPad, and there's some pretty gratuitous texts between your husband and his mistress, and that image flashes with him in bed with somebody else, and it can't get out of your head. The idea that, yeah, I can. And the idea that, like, it is heartbreaking that they betrayed you. Yes. In that affair, that night, those years, whatever it is. Oh, it's equally heartbreaking that you betray yourself every day. God, it pisses me off. Replay it. You replay it. No one betrays me like I betray myself. Yeah. Now, here's the thing about this. When we talk about this, people go, "Wait, wait. But trauma, you don't have control." Absolutely. The images are going to pop up. You can't control those horrible things that are going to pop up. Yeah. You control how long you stay there. That's it. How long you linger. I'll give you another example. A woman said to me, "David, it's been 5 years. I cannot get the picture out of my mind of my child in the casket." And I go, "Of course. Of course you can't. Of course you can't. But it doesn't have to be where you live." I said, "How often do you picture it?" And she goes, "Every time my phone rings." It was her screen saver. Oh, God. And I was like, "Oh, dear one. Yeah. Dear one, there's some help here. There's some hope, dear one." That's the, you're keeping that horrific moment. That does not define your child. Their death does not define them. Yeah. So we have control over the images on our phone and the images in our mind. Yeah. We have control.

You mentioned something in in this book, and it's an exercise that I think is incredibly instructive. And it's one of the, the classic gurus. I don't remember if it was, I, I, Adler is the one that comes to mind. But I remember a really profound statement that was, "I thought if I took away my clients' or patients' anxiety and depression, that they would be healed." And what I found is when I just took away their anxiety and depression, they were empty. And I love the exercise that you give that it's not a matter of just saying, "Stop thinking about that," but it's the affirmative practice. "I am going to have a picture on my phone of my child laughing their head off." If I have chosen to stay in a marriage and rebuild something from the ground up after betrayal, I'm going to put a picture of us dying laughing together on my phone. I have a picture of a really lovely memory of when I showed up for my wife. So that when I'm sad, and I haven't eaten well, and I'm not sleeping, and I'm exhausted, and that hungry, angry, lightning bolt of, "Oh yeah, remember when..." It's always when I'm counseling somebody. I'm sitting with somebody on how to be a good husband. And it's like, "Who do you think you are?" It's that, "Oh, I got a picture to replace it." And if I want my spouse to be committed to a healthy marriage, a healthy relationship, I can't stay committed to the betrayal. I got to go all in and risk getting hurt again. Absolutely. That's the only way. It's the only path. And that's the grace. And that's the grace. It's the grace. And it's your only shot at a healthy relation. We know how many of us take the bricks of the ruined moment in the relationship and try to use those bricks to rebuild the next relationship. Start over, man. Yeah. But similar, you can stay graveside watching your daughter, your goddaughter shovel dirt. You can stay there. Or I can see she just had a baby. Yeah. I can watch. She just had a baby. There's new life. Absolutely. Horrible death, and there's new life. And I want to be present for both. Yeah. I want to grieve fully and live fully. Some of us know how to attend to the grieving and not the living. Some of us know how to live and not attend the grief. I want to know how to do both on behalf of my family and my friends and ancestors that I'm trying to bring peace to their grandkids. Thank you. Oh, thank you for dedicating your life to this. Um, you're, I'm always nervous about people's body energy when they write something great, and you meet them, and it's a little bit. Thank you for just being a graceful person. It's a blessing. It's my honor, man. You're one of my people. I like watching you. I love listening to the podcast. You're a gift. Thank you, my brother. And I wish you, wish you much grace. And then can't wait to get you back. Thank you. I agree.

Hey folks, the colder weather is finally here, and that means I'm wearing more flannel and denim shirts from the only shirt maker I wear, Ponto. The world's best performance shirts for men. Ponto shirts are all amazing, and I especially love their flannels and their faded denim shirts in the cold weather. I love Ponto flannels and denims because they're super soft and super durable. You can't destroy them. I've been trying, and I can't. And they have a little bit of stretch, they move with you, and they dry quickly. And they have slim and regular fits for different body types. Remember, you have a couple days left. Ponto shirts make great gifts for the men in your family this holiday season. Head to pontooutdoors.com and check out all of their shirt styles. And right now, use code DELONSHOW at checkout, and you'll get a gift with every purchase of a button-down shirt. Go to pontooutdoors.com, use code DELONSHOW. All right, that was my conversation with the great David Kessler. If you're watching this on YouTube, you saw that I was taking notes throughout the entire conversation. And if you were listening to it, I hope that you learned a lot too. And if you're watching, I hope you learned a lot also. All of his stuff, his books, his website, everything is linked in the show notes. And again, I've got his "Finding Meaning" workbook, "Working Through the Six Stages of Grief." And there is a fake one going around on the internets. And so I told him that I would let all you all know that there's a fake one on the internets. If you get online to buy "Finding Meaning: The Sixth Stage of Grief Workbook," make sure it's actually by David Kessler. Thank you, everyone who joined us for this two-part conversation, and I can't wait to see y'all soon right here on the Dr. John Deloney Show.

Hey, what's up, good folks? Did you know the Dr. John Deloney Show is now available on video in the Ramsey Network app? Plus, you can watch episodes a full week early, but only in the app. And that's not all. My docu-series, "The United States of Anxiety," is also streaming exclusively in the Ramsey Network app. This series follows real people from my show as they embark on a 90-day journey to transform their lives, and I personally walk alongside them every step of the way. So if you want to get all the show stuff early, exclusive, and for free, and check out the docu-series, click the link in the show notes to download the Ramsey Network app today. Okay, now here's a sneak peek of what "The United States of Anxiety" is all about.

I've lived with crippling anxiety for as long as I can remember. Paint me a picture of that. We're going to check in with Kelsey, 30 days, 60 days, 90 days. I cannot even function because I'm just crying. My mom left us when I was four. I truly felt like I had no family. She's experiencing things that really hurt a long time ago. Tell me about this boy. He triggers me a lot. Scared of losing Paul. Scared of doing the wrong thing. Scared of not being enough. It just feels like it would be exhausting to be Kelsey. It is. Whenever somebody's playing whack-a-mole with their anxiety, when it just keeps moving, that tells me the underlying system's not okay. How do I get my inner child out of this relationship? 'Cause I feel like she's running the show. One of two people that's supposed to never leave took off. How is this burden, your burden, to the one person who should carry all of it? Did you ever tell that little girl that it wasn't her fault? I don't know what to do.