🌱 Finding Meaning in Grief with David Kessler 🌱 EP 391

You know you need something, you're just not sure what. You've been listening, you're doing the work, but there's still this feeling that you're circling the same place, like you're waiting for the thing that finally moves you. Now maybe you've thought about working with me one-on-one. Maybe something's held you back, the timing, the money, or you're just not sure you're ready yet.

I get that. And I want you to know there's still a place for you.

I built a resource for exactly this moment, guided meditations for when the waves hit and you just need to breathe. Workbooks to help you get out of your head and onto the page, ebooks on what near-death experiences tell us about the people we've lost, and whether they're really gone, a full course for widows and widowers who are ready to find their way back to living, and a full course for the evidence of the afterlife. And all of it is available for pay what you want. Nobody gets turned away because of money. I think these resources are valuable, but I don't want to hold them back because you don't have the money to pay for them. You don't have to wait until you're ready for coaching.

The next step might be a lot smaller than you think.

To find out, go to grief2growth.com/store. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/store. And check out the resources I've made for you. Close your eyes and imagine. What are the things in life that cause us the greatest pain? The things that bring us grief are challenges, challenges designed to help us grow, to ultimately become what we were always meant to be. We feel like we've been buried. But what if, like a seed, we've been planted? And having been planted, we grow to become a mighty tree. Now, open your eyes. Open your eyes to this way of viewing life. Come with me as we explore your true, infinite, eternal nature. This is Grief to Growth. And I am your host, Brian D Smith.

Hey there, I'm Brian D Smith. I'm your host of Grief 2 Growth, where we explore life's most profound questions: who we are, why we're here, and where we're going, especially through the lens of grief and personal transformation. So whether you're joining us for the first time, you've been in this journey with us for a while, I'm grateful that you're here. And today is a very special day. Today I'm honored to have with me one of the most respected voices in grief counseling. His name is David Kessler. You probably already know who David is, but he's the world's foremost expert on grief, with decades of experience guiding thousands through the darkest moments of their lives. You may recognize David from his work with legends like Elisabeth Kübler-Ross, with whom he co-authored on Grief and Grieving and Life Lessons. He's also worked with Louise Hay on You Can Heal Your Heart. And his acclaimed books like Finding Meaning and The Needs of the Dying continue to offer profound insights into navigating life's most difficult moments. David's unique experience from working with terminally ill patients to serving as a Los Angeles Police Department reserve officer gives him unparalleled understanding of both the medical and emotional aspects of grief. He's also been featured on major platforms like CNN, PBS, and the Dr. Oz Show. And today we're gonna be diving deep into topics from his latest release. I happen to have David here on launch day, and it's called Finding Meaning: Grief Workbook. Which again, just hits bookstores actually today. Now I've had the privilege of personally learning from David through his grief educator certification. And I had the honor of introducing David at the Helping Parents Heal conference in 2022. So I'm, I'm so— I'm very familiar with David's work. And his work continues to inspire so many people, including myself. David and I also share the fact that we have both had children who have transitioned. I don't like to use the word loss, but David and I both have children who have transitioned. So we've got that in common as well. In our conversation, we'll explore self-reflective tools for releasing pain, for navigating complicated grief, and for finding meaning in loss. So stay with us as we uncover the wisdom of David's work and join me afterwards at grieftogrowth.com/community to continue the conversation with— there. With that, I'd like to welcome David Kessler.

Great to be with you here and see you again.

Yeah, I'm really excited to have you here, David. As I said, you know, I've taken your grief educators program, I've introduced you at Helping Parents Heal. So I feel like I know you a little bit. Now, you are one of the world's foremost experts on grief, and you've been working in the grief field for a long time. But I know you've also experienced the loss of your son. So how did that— how have things changed for you since, you know, before that? And what did you learn actually going through that grief yourself?

Well, you know, I had so much pain when I was a child with my mother's death. She was in one of the first mass shootings in the US while she was dying at a hospital. And I will tell you, I thought my pain was behind me. And my role in life was helping others. And when my younger son died unexpectedly, I was thrown back into the epicenter of pain. And, you know, I don't know whether it's that— I think it's we just can't know anyone else's pain when you're not in it, or whether my pain had been so long ago. I mean, I knew how horrible it was in my childhood, But when I was thrown back into the epicenter of it, I wanted to write every parent I had counseled a note saying, I didn't know the pain was that bad. And I also had a, you know, this mind of my work that had to take my own medicine. I had to go to a grief counselor. I had to go to a grief group. And by the way, Brian D Smith, I used to hand out, go to a grief counselor, go to a grief group like it was candy. Okay, yeah, you go to a grief group. Let me know how that goes. I live in Los Angeles. When I had to go to a grief group, it took me 3 times, my friend. I Got to the group and there was no parking. I couldn't go in. The next time there was too much traffic. I couldn't get there. I forgot how hard it was to show up for yourself in pain. And not only that, I also had had that experience of going to a grief group. And I wanted to be the grief expert. And I had to sit in a chair 5 feet from my own books, had a cap on, no one knew that was me. And I couldn't say, oh, that's me over there. I'm the grief expert. I had to be the father that had to bury a child. So it's been a real huge experience in my life, as anyone would know that it would be.

I appreciate you sharing that. I think it's really important for us to understand that it's difficult to go through this. And, you know, sometimes I find people that just don't seem like they're quite ready to do that thing, right, to take that step to go to the grief group or go see a grief guide or grief, grief expert. Because it's just so— it's, it's like, it's— you really can't understand it till you've been through it, right?

Yeah, absolutely. And to understand, you know, when someone's like, oh, here's what someone else did when they were in pain, like, okay, they had a different loved one. I'm a different person. Our pain is all different because our relationships and our loved ones are so different.

Yeah, and that's another really good point, that, that the relationships are different, because we do find, um, we're not supposed to compare grief, but we do find ourselves, right? And I thought, I was actually once talking to someone once, and I said, there's nothing like losing a child. And they reminded me they just lost a spouse, and they said, you know, it's, it's all different. We can't, you can't quantify grief.

Well, let's talk about that, Brian. You know, the important thing is around this is people always want to know whose grief is the worst. And it would be easy, and I could get a lot of traction on, it's probably a child's death. But then someone says, but you don't understand, my spouse of 50 years was murdered in front of me. And I'm like, oh, I don't know that I can say that wasn't as hard as mine. That sounds pretty hard there. That sounds pretty gruesome. And then, you know, there's this thing about, well, there must be a hierarchy. Which is the worst death? Is it a child? Is it a spouse? Is it a murder? Is it a long illness where they're dying, you know, inch by inch? Is it, you know, all these different things? And I always say the worst loss is yours. The worst loss is yours. I mean, Brian, I can't know. I really can't even compare my loss and yours. We both had children that died. I, you know, you could talk about it for a week and I still will never know what it's like to be Brian. And have to say goodbye, and nor will you know what it's like to be me. So the truth is, we can never know anyone else's grief, right? So the challenge becomes this: to understand when we're comparing, we're in our mind, not in our heart. And we don't have a broken mind, we have a broken heart. But the other piece is, if you run across someone who's going, how dare them go on and on about their fiancée, or can you believe she's going on and on about her miscarriage or her stillbirth? I mean, have a 16-year-old child, you know, all— whenever anyone's saying they're getting too much for their loss, what we're really saying is my grief hasn't been witnessed enough. I have— if I'm saying Brian D Smith shouldn't be getting all that sympathy, I'm really telling people I haven't gotten enough. That's often what's sometimes underlying it. And I have what I call security in my grief. Anyone around me can talk about their grief. I live in a world where there's room enough for all our griefs. Your grief doesn't take away from mine. It's not like a sum total pie that if Brian gets more, David has less. That's the reality. And you know, I say to people, sometimes they go, but David, just between us bereaved parents, You gotta know it's the worst. And I'll say, you know what? My younger— my older son walked in and found his brother. He's still so devastated. I don't know that I can tell them that grief doesn't count as much as mine. I think all tears count.

Yeah, that is such a brilliant ex— observation. And I noticed even in Helping Parents Heal organization that I'm part of, we— I don't know what it is about human nature, we tend to want to do that, you know. And I know parents who have lost their children over long periods of time, as you said, and that sounds horrible and horrifying. But you know, then we'll say, well, at least they got to say goodbye. With me and my daughter, it was sudden. So sometimes we do still have that human nature that says, I want to compare mine to yours.

Right. And it's a way that we distance ourselves from connecting with one another.

Yeah. Yeah.

We distance ourselves. And that's a sad part that, you know, the more we can go, all tears count. Yours doesn't take away from mine.

Yes. I think that's, I think that's a wonderful observation that we all need to keep in mind as we go through this. I'm curious, you know, you're, you're the foremost expert on grief. People, everybody knows, there's a bunch of us.

So I wanted to ask you, here's one of the other things I say, everyone is listening here who has probably had to become a reluctant expert on grief.

Yeah, yeah.

Experts.

So, so my question for you is, which experts do you look to? What, who inspires you?

Stay with us.

We'll be right back.

You know, one of the hardest things about grief? Most of the people in your life just don't get it. They want you to be further along than you are. They get uncomfortable when you bring it up, so you stop bringing it up. And that's why I started writing. My Substack is where I go deeper. Thoughts I don't always get to on the podcast. Essays on consciousness, on continuing bonds, on what it actually means to carry loss and still build a life. The stuff that used to keep me up at night written out in a way that I hope meets you in the morning. But here's what I didn't expect when I started it.

The community that showed up.

People who are doing exactly what you're doing. Listening, learning, trying to find their footing. Readers who comment, who share their own stories, who remind each other that none of us are as alone in this as we feel. And that's what the Substack has become. A place to go deeper with me and to find your people. It's free to subscribe. Find me at grief2growth.com/substack. That's grief, the numeral 2, growth.com/substack. Or just go to Substack and search for Grief to Growth.

I hope to see you there.

You know, I gotta tell you, there's people like in my online Tender Hearts group, there are people who have been with us. They're even now, they're helping as moderators for other people. And I see the pain they showed up in, and I see where they have gone from and what they have gone through. And so I think they're, they're really my heroes with this. And you know, one of the things that As you know, with the Grief Educator program and with my online group, I— the real teachers of me have been the people who have been in grief and who I've gotten the privilege to work with. And you know, with this new workbook I have, it's really so much of what I've seen in the people, and they're the true heroes to me, that they found ways to work through their what-ifs and their guilts and their if-onlys and, and all those things that I think, you know, the day-to-day people are the ones I look up to the most.

Yeah, yeah. Thank you. That's a great, that's a great answer. Now, I know for myself, spirituality has played a big role in my, my processing for my grief. What role does spirituality play for you? Or what do you recommend for people that are going through grief in terms of spiritual practice?

Well, I think one of the challenges is sometimes unknowingly, we comfort people with spirituality. And if you walk into your clergy, or you open a conversation about spirituality, you want that and you expect that. Unfortunately, There's times people are in the human experience. I'll give you an example. Someone says, David, I live in a neighborhood right around the school. My child came home every day. I gave them a snack. I heard them run outside. I heard all the kids playing outside every day. That happened all the time. And David, all those kids are outside my door still, and you don't know the emptiness of me just listening. Or someone said, I'm doing a group for, uh, bereaved spouses. Someone said, sitting at dinner and my spouse is no longer there. And we say things to them like Oh, your son is always with you. Oh, your, uh, husband's always there at dinner with you. We're comforting them with spirituality and missing the human experience. So I'll give you one more example. I don't know, 2 months after my son had died, A friend of mine who writes books on spirituality, she writes books on these. She called me up and she said, how are you doing today? And I said, I am angry. I'm angry at my son. I'm angry at God. I'm angry at the universe. And she says to me, do you want the human or the spiritual response? And I'm like, ooh. And I said, I actually want the human and then the spiritual. She said, okay. She said, I hear your anger. I hear your anger, and I'm surprised you haven't broken furniture. And I'm like, wow, she really gets me, that she sort of knows I could, like, I'm so angry I could snap a couch in half. I'm that angry. And we talked about my anger and she patiently listened. And then at a certain point she said, are you ready to hear the spiritual? And I said, yes. And she goes, David can't die. David's eternal. His body is over. David is eternal. And so I think, to me, spirituality, you know, when I think what is spirituality, spirituality is love. It's the love that connects us. And my love for my son can't die.

Yeah, thank you. That is, it's a wonderful illustration, I think, of we are, we have to remember we're both human and, and spirit. And, you know, we talked, you talked to the term that we, you didn't use, but we talked about spiritual bypassing, where we try to say, I'm just, I'm not going to do, I'm not going to be human, I'm going to rise above that. I think one of the important things about witnessing grief with someone is understanding that, that anger and depression and sadness and all that is a part of it. And we're not here to bypass those human feelings.

Right, exactly. And, you know, we try, it doesn't always work, though.

Yeah, well, again, we're— I think we have to— we're both— we have to remember that we're both, and we can't just— I mean, that idea, and I've seen people in some examples of the people that I've worked with, that with two partners, where one is doing that and just quoting the Bible all the time and saying there's nothing going, you know, I don't feel bad, I don't feel angry. And the other one's actually angry at that person, because they're not being human.

Of course, right. And the truth is, you know, we all have to be where we are and who we are. You know, I did a TV show. And the TV show that I did, the host was William Shatner, Captain Kirk. Yeah, and he was lovely, and he's had a, a wife that died, so he— and he's taught— he's been on my podcast, and he knows that story of like having to deal with grief and loss. But I'll tell you, Star Trek had what they called on the TV show a prime directive. If they went to a planet and the planet didn't have a wheel They couldn't teach him how to do the wheel. They had— each place, each society had to discover their own wheel. So many times people want to tell people in grief what the next step is, what they should do, how they should do it. And you know, each of us have to discover our own path, and you can't rush that.

Yeah, no, not rushing. That is another really important thing, I think, because society will tell us, it's been 6 weeks, it's been 6 months, it's been whatever, you should be here. And that, I think, places undue pressure on people to, to get over it.

And, you know, one of the things that I loved being able to do in this workbook is I have, uh, no one can see it, I'm sure, but hopefully they'll see the workbook. I'll show it to you. I have this page that it talks about, I'm private in my grief, I'm completely open, and then it walks you through these scenarios when you're meeting a stranger at work and all that, and it helps you understand how open or if you have any shame. Some of us have shame in our grief. Yeah, some of us feel ashamed that we're still grieving, and sometimes it's because the outside world is, quote, shaming us.

Yeah, very often.

Even, you know, the new term now, prolonged grief. I feel like prolonged grief sounds like we think you're grieving too long.

Yes. Yeah, it's a very, it's a very controversial term. And I know people have asked you, and how long is my grief going to last? What's your answer to that?

How long is the person going to be dead? Yeah, if the person's going to be dead for a really long time, you're going to grieve for a really long time. You're going to grieve for a really long time. And doesn't mean we'll always grieve with pain. Hopefully, we'll grieve with more love than pain. But we really got to get there in our own way, in our own time, and at our own pace.

Yes, yes. And I, again, I've learned so much from you. And that's one of the things I always quote you on when people ask me, is my grief going, you know, how long is it going to last? And it's been 9 years for me now, we're coming up on 10 years in June. And I anticipate, I know it'll be as long as I'm alive. Now, it doesn't feel the same as it did 9 years ago. But there are days when it still hurts. And that's okay.

And it's always changing.

Yeah.

You know, this last year was my 8th year since I had to say goodbye to my son here on Earth. And I gotta tell you, this year, because his birthday and death day are really close, his birthday Oh my gosh, it just was brutal. It was— it took me down deep. His death day didn't faze me. I, and I was prepped for the other. I was prepped for, oh, I know what happens. His birthday, I'm going to get a little cupcake. I'm gonna wish, you know, that's going to be okay. It's been a lot of years. And then the death day is going to be hard. Ooh, this year it caught me by surprise. It was the complete opposite. Like, it's not like his death day was a good day. I mean, but the day that really got me this year, and every year is different.

Yes, I've had the same experience. Every year is different. I don't know how it's actually going to be on that day. It's always, for me, it's always bittersweet. You know, the birthday, of course, because we want to celebrate. And with our daughter, we have a little ritual. We get— we go out and we get pizza, we have ice cream, because that's what she loves. And, you know, but still, there's some times when I wake up in the morning on that day, and I'm like, you know, it's another year that, that, you know, she's not here. Those days still, they do activate us in certain ways. And that's— and again, I appreciate you sharing this, because I want people to— we need to, I think, normalize these feelings that that's okay. So if there are—

and people must think, you and I, you're— I'm 8 years, you're 9. People are like, well, I'm sure that's over, right? No, that's not over, right? No, that's not over. And then, you know, you and I can also say, I bet we both live in a world where people are like, well, it's been so long. Do we mention their kids? Ooh, Brian looks like he's okay. I don't want to mention No, we always want our kids— Matt Minow mentioned, we always want, you know, their names to still be around.

Yeah, absolutely. Absolutely.

It's not bereaved parents, that's sort of, you know, everyone.

I think one of the big fears that people have when, when someone passes is that they'll be forgotten. I've heard this from people who have lost fathers, spouses, children, pets, whatever it is. We all want them to be remembered, and we want their names to be spoken.

And people in grief are also afraid of that. Other people are afraid, but I think we're the ones that are really afraid. And people around me don't mention my son's name, but I got to tell you, anytime, I'm always the first to bring it up. If I'm like, oh my gosh, you know, I was thinking about David the other day, and gosh, he would have been thinking this about this, or this is a moment, I wonder— they're right there with me. They're like, so funny you say that, I thought about David the other— I mean, they're, you know, our loved ones really aren't forgotten by anyone. But we sometimes think in our grief If I'm not hearing it, it really does mean they all forgot and they didn't.

Yeah, well, there's that, there is that little dance, right? Where they're— I've heard people say, well, I don't want to mention it because I don't want to make them sad. Or, I brought her name up and then they started crying, so I've made them think about, about their daughter again, spouse, whatever it is. Not, not understanding we think about them all the time. And, and for me, it's very intentional. And you can see my daughter's picture behind me on my watch face. Every time I look at it, it's a picture of her. I want to remember her. I want to remember her every day.

Right. Absolutely.

So in your opinion, are there things about society, society's view on grief that we would like to change? If you could, if you could wave a magic wand and say, this is what you don't understand about grief and bring an understanding to society, what would that be?

How deep and thick it is, and how long the shadow of grief is. I have in this new workbook so many exercises And I had a couple of questions I did live with some people in grief today online, just a small question on acceptance, people who were a little further out like you and I. And I'll tell you if you want to hear it.

Yeah, please.

It's, it's fascinating to me. And because people think, like, I'll give you an example. Someone in my son's class years ago said to me, oh, I read your new book in an afternoon. This is years ago. It was a nice read. And you know, it's, it's, it's like, it's important. We know all that. And I was really hurt. Yeah, I was like, it's a nice afternoon read. Do you not understand this is a grief book? Right. Here's the thing. She wasn't in grief. That same person said to me years later, like, I, you know, our mind is like Teflon, the good things don't stick, the bad things, you know, get stuck like Velcro. And I remembered that comment. And oh my gosh, years later, she goes, David, my parent just died. I went back and reread that book. Oh my God, I sat with that first page for weeks. It just meant— and I'm like, oh, she didn't mean the book didn't really— she wasn't in grief. So I think what people don't understand is, like, we were talking about acceptance. And just a couple of questions. And by the way, in the workbook, I've got like checklists and things like that because people think, oh Lord, this is going to be hard. And you know, they think, I don't want to go into my pain. Why do I want to go into that book? And I'll go, dear one, the pain isn't in the book. You can keep the book on the shelf and you're not keeping the pain on the shelf. The pain is in you. And that's why I created a free 3-part series for anyone who gets the book now at griefbook.com, so that we'll start the book together and they'll see me doing it too. But we were talking about acceptance. The world thinks there's like one big acceptance and you and I had to say yes to it at one time and then we were done, right? Just these 2 questions. Took us an hour to talk about and sit with. The parts of this death I have accepted are— the parts I still cannot accept are— if I accept my loved one's death fully, it means this. Just little things like that. People who are further along You know, what do you think? Like, if you had to answer one of those questions, what would you think?

Well, the parts that I've accepted about, about her passing is that I won't see her again physically, you know, in this lifetime. The part that I haven't accepted yet is that I won't see her again, that, you know, all the things that I'm going to miss as, as my other daughter goes through her milestones. It's been been, it's been 9 years now, right? So she'll never— I'll never see her get married, and I'll never see her have children. And when she passed, she was 15, and I didn't— that didn't affect me. I didn't really think about that. I mean, some people do. I'm not the kind of person that thinks that far out ahead. But for me now, you know, being at the age I am now, it's like, oh, you know, her, her cousins and her, her friends are getting married and stuff like that. And I'm like, wow, Shayna, will never have that. She'll never be— I'll never see her as an adult. So that's still something that sits with me.

And it's fascinating to the outside world. You and I are years out. Acceptance was done long ago, right? No, daily practice, practically. Like, I had to accept, oh my gosh, there's year 8. Holy cow, year 8 might mean there's going to be a year 10. Wow. Like, wait a minute. This is really like a long time.

Yeah.

Yeah. People think like we just work through these things in an afternoon. And that's not the way this works.

Yeah, same thing for me. Well, Shayna was 15 when she passed, and I made a deal. And I haven't discussed this openly, but I was like, okay, she was here for 15 years, maybe I can make it 15 years after, you know. So if I, if I can make it 15 years, then that's— to me, that seemed like that's long enough. I don't want to be here any longer than that. And now I'm like, okay, I'm coming up on 10. It's going to be 10 in June. Um, so yeah, those, those thoughts still go through your head, you know, 9, 10 years later. And you said, if we can— I could tell myself It's not that long, but now it's like, yeah, it's a long time.

You have to keep wrapping your mind around it.

Mm-hmm.

It's tough work. It's tough work. So, you know, the outside world would go, oh yeah, I bet Brian and David had a tough first year accepting it, but they're all good now. That's not how it works.

No, it's not. But, you know, I don't want it to— I also don't want to say that, um, it's all gloom and doom because it's, it's not. There's— yeah, sorry, I was gonna say there's, there's also— I hate the term silver linings, but it's just true. There, there are silver linings. There are blessings that come along with it. And— but it is daily work. It is. It's literally a daily practice for me. Right.

And I'll tell you, one of the things in this workbook is that I do help people, uh, excavate some of that pain they don't even realize they're holding on to— the disloyalty, the shame. But I'll tell you, we get towards the end, there's the 7 questions that are around, you know, not finding that post-traumatic stress but the post-traumatic growth. And one of the things I put in here that I love is the hero's journey. I don't know if you remember, we talked about that in the grief certificate program you went through.

Mm-hmm.

But all those movies we love, any of the DC Comics, Marvel Comics, they're all about the hero's journey. And what the hero does is they're going through life normally, and then their life gets turned upside down, usually by death, and they have to go into the dark nights. And then they come out the other end after the refusal of the call— I'll never be happy again— all those things we do. We come out to realize we are the hero of our own journey and I like not only put those hero journeys in the book, but I put a place for people to write down their hero journey because I wanted— I've done a couple of books now on my own. I wanted a co-author, and the co-author of this new book, new workbook, is everyone who does it with me. They're writing their book. And, you know, people ask, do I have to go back to the original Finding Meaning to do this workbook? Nope, you can start right there.

Yeah. Well, I tell you, one of the, one of the great things about doing the work that I do is I do get to see people on that hero's journey, and I do get to see the transformations. I interviewed a young man yesterday who, after his father passed, started a whole brand new business doing something that doesn't even— hadn't even existed before. And he's doing it because of his father's passing, you know, not even really in spite of it. So I, I get to see that. So, um, it's not something we can talk to people about when they're first in that early part of that journey, but, um, there is— so when people look at me and say, oh, you're 9 years out and you're still going through difficulty, I'm like, yeah, but I'm 9 years out. I'm also a totally different person than I was, and, and I think, I think a good way Yeah, and look, I have happiness and I have joy.

And I'll tell you something, uh, I don't do it anymore, but I used to, you know, do 30 cities and 3 countries and do all those meetings and lectures. And I'm older now, I'm sitting in front of my computer here, but, um, I would go to these hotels, 200-300 people in a meeting, In the room next to us, the meeting room next to us was the nurses. Down the hall was the Realtors. Down the hall was the Rotary Club or whatever it was, wedding, all that. The staff would say to me afterwards, hey, your group is laughing the most. Why is that? What were you teaching? And I would say grief. And they would go, grief? What kind of grief are people laughing with? What they didn't understand is those of us who have been through these dark nights, we can go deeper, we can cry, we can sit in the pain. But you know what else? We laugh a little harder. Yeah, we get— you know, look, sitting here looking at your daughter's just face looking back, we get the most precious thing we have here with one another is time.

Yeah.

So, you know, you get, let me make the most of this. Let me connect. Let me live while I'm here. I want to do two things. I want to grieve fully around my son, and I want to live fully in honor of him.

Yeah.

Wow. I love that. Yeah, I think that's so— I completely agree. And as you were saying that, I've been to three Helping Parents Heal conferences now. And my experience in that first one was, was the same thing you're talking about. I mean, it was just so— being with 500 people that shared that experience and could go— we could go deep like, like that. You'd sit down with lunch with somebody, or breakfast with somebody you never met before. And in 5 minutes, you know, you knew you had that thing in common. And you knew that they were there for that reason. And we just got back from Helping Parents Heal, like, I guess about a month ago. And it's such an uplifting experience. It's like, it's like being in heaven. It's really, it's hard to explain to somebody that hasn't been there. So there is this transformation that we can make. We have a choice to make when we go through this process.

Right. So true, my friend. And what we run from pursues us. And what we face transforms us.

Yes. Yes, absolutely. So, David, you've written many, many books on grief, and people are familiar with your work. So tell people how this new book is different.

Well, you know, people always talk about, oh, do your grief work. Well, what's my grief work? And I always say, well, your grief work is anytime you're really spending time with your grief. But I've had the privilege of teaching therapists for years, tools and techniques. And I really thought about, let me put these tools and techniques into a book for people in grief and for people who maybe want to learn and be helpers themselves. You know, so many of us are like, I can sit with someone else in grief, but I'd love a little more tools and techniques. So that's what this is. And you know what, you can literally Gently open it to any page and do it, or you can do it front to back. There's tougher questions like acceptance that we talked about. There's the hero's journey. There's the 7 questions. There's the feeling wheel. We think we have 3 feelings: angry, sad, you know, um, happy. But there's so many feelings, and how do you process those? So It's really as if you and I are sitting together at your kitchen table and I'm walking you through things gently that can help. A little disloyalty checklist you could do in 2 minutes if you just want to dive in, in case the book scares you. You're like, let me just do that little checklist. So it's filled with those things and I'm so thrilled that, um, You know, I'm hoping when this airs it is all over, but it is sold out on Amazon, Barnes Noble. They're all trying to get more. I didn't know that there would be such demand, but when this is on, it'll be all back up and reprinted. But boy, people need to know. I don't know where to begin, right? I don't know what to do. So that's what I hope the Finding Meaning workbook is. And Brian D Smith, in our new modern world, I got to tell you something that I'm sorry to tell you. There's AI copycats on Amazon. And they aren't even good AI. They didn't even come up with good grief questions. So for anyone who's going to buy this, please look for the teal book, right? All teal, and I am the author. So look for the Finding Meaning workbook. But even better, if folks go to griefbook.com, griefbook.com, I have 3 free classes that I'm going to teach on it for anyone who gets it. And there's a link to Amazon, Barnes Noble, your independent bookstore to make sure you get the right book.

Awesome.

I want people to get the real one.

Yeah, it's good to know. And the AI is— that can be a real issue. So I'm glad that you brought that up. But I think And this kind of circles back around to the very beginning when you talked about you, even as the grief expert, taking that first step, you know, going to a grief group. And that could be so daunting for people. It's like, I don't, I don't know if I'm ready for this. I don't know if I want to open up. I don't know if I want to cry in front of people. This is something you can do that's, that's a low-risk thing, right? It's not a substitution for talking to a person, but it might be a great first step to start to work through and understand those feelings. Like the feeling wheel— explain to people what that is, because I didn't know it till I took your program, and it's— it's— I think it's awesome.

Yeah, it's a big wheel that I've got tons of feelings on, tons of them. And I just ask people to like name a few feelings, like any given moment, we're like, I don't know what I am. And like to really look at it and go, are you loving? Are you serene? Are you lonely? Are you isolated? Are you hurt? Are you jealous? Do you feel rejected? Are you discouraged? I mean, there's a million feelings we don't even think about until we're like, oh, oh yeah, there's a lot of the— like, because you've seen it. I say to people all the time, what are you feeling? They're like, I don't know. I'll put the feeling up and they're like— I'll say, name 5. And they're like, 5? I can't find one. And then they look at the feeling wheel, they're like I'm this, I'm that, I'm that. It's easy. We're a lot of feelings. We're full of feelings.

We are. That's what we are. We are people that make meaning out of things. And it's all about feelings. You talked earlier about the head and the heart. And it's, it's that it's getting to that heart. And it's getting those, getting those feelings out, processing those feelings, expressing those feelings, and in whatever way it takes, and finding tools sometimes it takes to do that, because we're not We're not taught by society. I think especially— I'm gonna, I'm gonna generalize here— especially men, um, because typically we ask— a lot of times we ask men what they feel. They're like, I don't know what a feeling is, right? Yeah, I'm happy or I'm angry.

We haven't been taught the language. Yeah, teaching us the language.

Well, I've also been taught to suppress what it is we feel too.

So I was told stay strong. Yeah, they strong means take care of everyone else and don't have no feelings of your own.

My daughter passed away and my parents came down a few weeks later, and several times it was my family, they're here to support me, it was great, I'm glad they were here. But several times I left the room, I'd go up to my bedroom and cry, or I'd go outside and I'd cry or something. And I'll never forget when my mother was leaving, she said, it was a great day, nobody cried. Um, that's the family that I was raised in. We don't, we don't share feelings in front of each other. And, you know, it's something that I'm still working through. But, you know, especially then I was like, wow, okay, we're not supposed to cry. You know, my daughter just passed away, her granddaughter, 15-year-old, but it was a great day because nobody cried. And, you know, that's nothing against my mother. That's just the nature of our family. We're taught to be strong. And I'll be working with clients sometimes and they'll apologize. For crying. And I'm like, no, you don't understand. This is a good thing. I'm glad that you're crying. Because they always— you always feel better.

Tears are evidence of love, you know?

Yeah. Yeah, absolutely. Well, David, again, thank you so much for doing this today. It's been great talking to you again. Remind people of the name of the real book and the website where they can get it.

Finding Meaning Workbook. Finding Meaning Workbook. Um, and David Kessler is the author. Look for the teal one that's completely teal. It's the Finding Meaning Workbook.

Awesome. Well, thanks for being here, David. Enjoy the rest of your day.

Thank you so much, Brian. Thank you for all the work you're doing in the world.

Thank you.

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