Shocking Near-Death Experience in the Womb! Edy Nathan on Grief and Spiritual Awakening

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Hi there, welcome to Grief to Growth Podcast. Your host is Brian D Smith, spiritual seeker, bestselling author, grief survivor, and life coach. Brian believes that the worst tragedies of life provide the greatest opportunity for growth. Brian says he was planted, not buried, and he is here to help you grow where you've been planted by the difficulties in life. In each episode, Brian and his guests will share what has helped them to survive and thrive. It is his sincere hope this episode helps you today.

Hi, everybody, welcome to Grief to Growth. This is Brian D Smith, and I'm back with a special guest today. Her name is Edie Nathan. Uh, Edie is the bestselling author of It's Grief, where she examines the emotional and devastating impact of loss and trauma. Grief is hard to talk about, as we all know, but Edie teaches us to dance with our grief, to know it as a way to know ourselves. Whether it's the loss of a loved one or the loss of a limb or the loss of the life you once knew, it's your soul that offers the answers to relief. An essential element in Edie's practice is to offer clients a chance to combine psychotherapy with a deeper, more spiritual understanding of the self. She's dedicated to helping people understand their grief, cope with the fear and struggle that holds them back, and learn to live fully. I understand Edie also works with people who have had NDEs to help them integrate that. We're going to talk about that today. And she's had an NDE herself. So we'll touch on that a little bit too. So with that, I want to welcome to Grief to Growth, Edie Nathan.

So good to be here, Brian D Smith.

Yeah, it's really great to have you. We talked a little bit before we started recording. And I understand that you had your own near-death experience at some point. So but I just like to start with people and ask them, how do you get into this line of work? How do you get into dealing with grief? It's not something that most of us like to talk about, let alone face on a daily basis.

You know, you're so right. And I don't know that it's something you choose. I think it chooses you. You know, and it knocks, and it's a knock that you can't shut down or quiet until you start to pay attention. And, you know, you and I, before we started talking here, we mentioned that, like, there are signs that you just can't ignore. And really, I started to see how grief was something that something that people didn't want to tangle with. And I see it as something that not only do we need to tangle with it, we need to partner with it, we need to understand it, because no one escapes it. And it comes in, into us, into our bodies, into our minds, into our physical beings in different ways, and for different reasons. Yes, you know, you, you shared, and I'm sure that your listeners know about the loss of your daughter. And so there are certainly the losses that we, that we have in our lives of loved ones. And then there are the losses that are not defined by the loss of a loved one, but the losses of, of, of the self, the loss of the soul, the loss of a limb, the loss of the life as we knew it, which actually we're very much in right now. And this pandemic, which has really forced us to take ourselves on in ways that we could never have imagined. And there is a death thing that is happening also within the self, I think, as a result of this time.

Yeah, I've said that as we're going through the pandemic, I think everybody's in some level of grief right now. We've all lost something, the sense of ourselves or the ability to move about freely or jobs or what— there's just— there's so much we could go on about. But I understand for you, this kind of happened at a really early age, this calling to explore this. Yeah, I would say that it's probably—

how I relate back to what I consider to have been a near-death experience. Now, it's not as if I can go back and say definitively, and I've got data to prove it. The only data that I have is what I was left with. Now, a lot of people who have had NDEs, and if any of your listeners have had NDEs, a lot of times there's anxiety that follows, there's also just a calm sense about dying and about death. And it's just a, a renewed sense of not having fear, or just kind of inviting in whatever the experience was. And some people who've had near-death experiences also don't want to be back in their bodies. They really just want to go back to that experience, right? So I, I believe that my near-death experience happened really in the birth canal. And which sounds kind of strange and weird, but I was a breech birth. And I don't think that there were complications per se, but it was, it was certainly a very long labor. And I came into this world with a sense of death, a sense of dying, a sense of why was I born if only to die, asking those questions at 2 when I had language. And in doing past life regressions within my own life, and I do past life regressions as a clinician um, when I want to get into in utero, when I want to understand what's going on for someone who doesn't understand why they're maybe having anxiety or why they're having difficulty with their parental unit or just the, the whys of their life. And there's nothing that we can find in, in this present life that would give them information yet. So that past life regression, that hypnosis, can often help them go back in utero. And so when I went back in utero, it seemed very much that I had, I had had moments of not being alive, that I was gone, and then I came back, and then I was born. And so I have always felt unknowing about death, a— I think about it, I think about dying, I think about how to have a conversation with people who are dying and with people who've come back from that place that only someone who's had a near-death experience can envision. Or in body.

Yeah, you know, it's interesting about near-death experiences. You know, as I was telling you, I've studied them for quite a while myself. And for people that kind of casually hear about them, it sounds like a great thing. It's this great experience that we— and we go and feel universal love. And, and those things are true, but there's, there's actually a darker side to the near-death experience, integrating that back into life. So tell people what that's about.

So that's— we could go on and on. I'm sure you know this for hours about this very topic, right? So yes, there's the dark side, and then there's the side that is just alive with blessing and unconditional love, and just that, that feeling of your— of just pure acceptance, you know. But the darker side is not unlike the hero's journey. And the hero's journey is going from the ordinary and your ordinary life and something happens. Something hits you in a way that you just never expected. And it— in this case, for this story, it's that you stop breathing. And you, you traveled and you went to another place, and that place was magic. It was, it was like a drug. It was just so magnetic and caring and loving and all of those good things. And then there's a message, and however you get that message, you find that you're back in your body. The message can be, it's not time yet. The message can be, you've got to go back, you've got unfinished business. The messaging can be, your kids need you. Or the messaging can be, there's things that you still are not only unfinished, but need you. They need you. And so there is a resistance in going back into the body. Now you come back into your body and everybody around you is thrilled. They're like, oh my God, We're so happy to see you. You made it. You're alive. And meanwhile, what's going on inside of you is, I don't want to be here. And so part of this hero's journey of the ordinary life, you're sent back into your body after having left it. And you enter into the cave. And that cave is where you have to battle your shadows. And the shadow might be, How do you find a way to be okay being alive again, being back in your body after you've experienced the haven and the love that you've never experienced here? And it is really having to fight the demons, the voices, the voices that say, kill yourself, you could go back. Although you may not go back if there's a suicide, you may go to another journey or another place. So it is really having to fight that while you are getting messages around you from people who will not understand the complexity of being back for you. And so there's a lot of depression and anxiety and feeling really disoriented and feeling, how am I going to fit in? Or I don't really want to do the job I was doing. It is no longer satisfying to me. And You know, everything about you internally feels very different in the way you respond to the world. And so you come out of that cave, and the hero's journey is something that we repeat over and over and over again. It's not just one journey. And you come out and it's like, okay, so who are my allies, my friends? Who are my enemies? And maybe they aren't enemies, but they are the voices that don't want to understand, who want to stay blind, who want you to be who you were and will refuse to say, okay, so you are forever changed and I'm going to take you and be curious for who you are now. So they become more of an enemy. They become more of someone that you must keep at a distance because it's, it's too much because you look the same, you speak the same, probably your hair is the same. And yet you are forever changed. And so how do you then enter into this new ordinary, being forever changed, and yet looking the same?

Yeah, yeah. I think you explained that so well. Because I've actually been to several IANDS meetings. I used to go to the local chapter where we meet locally. And there is a sense of loneliness, it seems like a lot of times among people that have had near-death experiences. Um, because people want to accept the fact that they've had it, so a lot of them keep it to themselves. I interviewed someone last week, she kept it to herself for over 40 years after having had this experience. So I want, I want people that are listening to try to understand what it must be like to have this incredible message of love and hope and everything, and people around you shutting it down and saying it's all in your head.

Yeah, what's wrong with you? You're crazy, you need medication. And that is the other thing, is that a lot of times, you know, you're then diagnosed as having some kind of psychosis or personality disorder, or you're depressed. Sure, you're depressed, but not, not the kind of depression that they're thinking it is. You're, you're grieving, and you're grieving the loss of something you experienced that no one around you can understand.

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 a 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. So how do you work with people that have had NDEs? How do you help them get over this, this, this thing that we're talking about?

So Brian D Smith, I'd like to introduce a new vernacular, and which the second part title of my book is The Dance of Self-Discovery Through Trauma and Loss. And I'd like to introduce the idea that there's a partnership. And it's not about getting over it. It's about integrating it. It's about moving into a kind of forgiveness of the people around you who are ignorant and don't get it. We're dealing with a lot of ignorance around us right now in so many different ways. And so it is learning how to say, okay, just their ignorance doesn't have to make an implication on or a judgment around me. And it's being able to develop a stronger sense of self. And our mapping skills— people who have had near-death experiences, their mapping skills of other people are on steroids. They're, they're able to pick up a whisper. They're able— their sensibilities, their sensitivity, it's like they're on fire. And they have to learn how to regulate that, because if you don't learn how to regulate it, it's like it's loud, it's chaotic, it's very very noisy, and that can be crazy-making, you know, so that you then even further isolate. So, so I'd like, I'd like to offer up that try to find safe people. Go to, you know, IANDS, go to ACIST, A-C-I-S-T-E, which is an organization that really helps people understand and work with clinicians who understand spiritual experiences, spiritually transformative experiences. Because understanding spiritually transformative experiences as part of what you are dealing with, whether it is a near-death experience, or all of a sudden you've become more psychic, more, you know, or you're seeing auras, or you're feeling things from people that you never felt, and it gets— it can get noisy, it can get very very noisy, or you have a thing with electricity. So I have a thing with electricity. Anything that I purchase— phone, computer— and it's not because I'm psychic, but there's an energy. I can't tell you why I have that energy. I, I make sure that if you can give me 3 ways to, um, have some kind of extra coverage on these, um, on these electrical things, then, then I need it. Because they will, they will shut down, they will break, they will just completely just shut down at, at a moment's notice, especially if there's high energy. Okay, so it's understanding that, that you are maybe walking with a very different energy and to listen to it rather than allowing it to hold you hostage. And I think that a lot of people— I talk about grief And I talk about a lot of different ways that people grieve. And one of my root terms is hostage, that you are being held hostage, and that the hostage taker is your experience, is your grief, is the grief for what you've lost, and is the grief for the people who can no longer understand who you are. And the grief for really being, um, taken off balance. And part of hostage negotiation is the first step is to actively listen, to actively listen. Someone who's had a near-death experience, it is not a choice. They don't say, oh, okay, I'm gonna die on the operating table and then I'm gonna come back, that sounds really cool, Jewel.

No.

You know, right? That's not what happens. So, so it's not a choice. And what is— what does a hostage taker do? They take you by— it's not by choice.

Yeah.

And so now you— what I suggest is let's, let's teach you some hostage negotiation techniques so that you can, can really begin to, to, to rumble with the near-death experience in such a way that you, you listen and you develop some empathy because Good chance there's no empathy around this. Good chance. And then you develop a rapport. And you don't even try to have any kind of behavior change until the end. So these are, these are just some, some thoughts I have around this.

Yeah. And you know, as you were talking, and I know we were talking because I'm fascinated by NDEs, so I want to talk about that. But that's just a subset of grief. That's, that's another type of grief. You know, that's, that's the great— the loss of the person you may have been before, the loss of relationships with people because they've changed, the loss of that, that feeling of being in this place of unconditional love. I remember hearing one near-death experiencer say, I felt like I was a reject from heaven. It's like, you know, I was there and I wasn't good enough to stay. So there's all that. But this, you know, in a larger picture, for people who haven't had an NDE, people that are going through grief, everything you said applies also. This idea of, um, we're off balance, we feel like, you know, we're like we've been taken hostage, and it's something that we didn't choose. It kind of felt— feels like it happened to us. And then what do we do with it? And I like what you said about it's not about fighting it or getting over it, it's learning how to, how to dance with it.

Yeah, yeah. It's like when you, when you have a partner, and, and people have— a lot of people have said dance, how, how could you choose the word dance, you know, and grief. That just doesn't make any sense. But it's like the one thing that we want to do when we lose someone and we're grieving is we want to ignore it. We want to push it away. I mean, we don't want to ignore the loss in terms of, God, I loved, I loved, I loved that person I lost. But we want it to go away or find a place. And if we, if we don't act accordingly, like like heal. And when people say, so are you doing better? There's a, there's a meta-communication which is, are you over it? Yeah, yeah, are you over it? And what I say to that is, I hope I never get over it, because that would mean I, I forgot. I don't want to forget. I, I want to remember peacefully. I want to remember in a way that, that I can take this in and I can say Yeah, it's gonna be with me, and I'm gonna partner with it. And sometimes I'm doing the twist, and sometimes I'm doing freestyle, and sometimes I'm doing the tango where we are just dancing and adversaries at the same time.

Yeah, I love that. I love that metaphor. Because the thing is, you know, as, as I've been doing this for the last 6 and a half years now, this, this dance of grief of loss of my daughter, and as I work with other people, and they ask me, like, when am I going to get over this? Am I going to get over it? And it's the exact same thing you did. I hope I never get over it. I don't— I mean, that's why my daughter's picture is behind me. Um, I don't, I don't want to forget about the relationship that we, that we have. I want to continue that relationship. And some days are better than others, um, you know, but I still have bad times, you know, not bad days usually, but bad times.

I like, I like how you said that, and I love that your, your daughter is right behind your right shoulder, you know, and she's in the room with us, you know, and she's in the room with you. And I, I so appreciate— you just feel her energy. And one of the things that people who are grieving will often do is take all the pictures down, okay? They'll hide them, they'll they'll, they'll, they'll just get rid of them. Or on the other hand, they will so memorialize that you can't get away from the grief. And it's like the grief is part of you. It is not all of you. It doesn't define you. And it is part of you forever.

Yeah, yeah, exactly. I think that was— that's so well put, you know. I want to go back to something you said at the very beginning. It's kind of an aside at this point, but you were talking about how, you know, you felt like you had the experience as you were— as you were being born. That, that, um, my daughter, when she was born, her heart kept slowing down and, and, uh, she was in distress. And it was to the point where I was like, this just get a C-section, get her out of there or something. But she was always special. I mean, of course everybody thinks their kid's special, but she's always special, always just so insightful and stuff. And she never had a fear of death. And she, she was 15 and a half when she passed, but she talked about death not all the time, but enough for a child, and said, I don't— I'm not afraid to die. In fact, including just a few weeks before she passed away, she talked about it. Um, so I think there's As you were saying, I think there's something that sometimes we come in with, some experience that we have that kind of changes who we are on a fundamental level. And so I choose to believe that Shayna had something special that was going on with her. Mm-hmm.

Yeah. Yeah. It's, um, you said it. You said it so prophetically, so poetically, you know, like she knew. She had a knowing. And a friend of mine wrote a book, John Holland, he's a medium, and he wrote a book called Born Knowing. And John and I have done a lot of work together, and it is kind of like just being born knowing, you know, walking around, you know. I used to say that I walked around feeling like, as if like I had a Buddha around me, like, like I looked around and I just wanted to save everybody, you know. I grew up, you know, like, in Chicago, and for the first 7 years I was on the South Side of Chicago. And, you know, there were people on the street, there were stray animals, and I just, you know, 2, 3, 4 years old, I just wanted to bring them all in. I couldn't understand why I couldn't. You know, it was like, no, no, no, you can't keep bringing all these people in. So, you know, there is, and then there's the undoing of it. And because it doesn't fit. And when it doesn't fit, there is that sense of alienation or rejection. And how come other people aren't seeing the world in this way? How come, you know, and even to this day, you know, I carry through because I had to let my Buddha, my beginner's mind, I had to let that go and then re-met it a few years ago because it was like it was something that had been lost within me. And the idea of the beginner's mind, that everything is new and what can I learn and how can I question and how can I be present in in whatever is presented to me, whether it's a homeless woman on the street, or it's, it's a concert, or it's sitting here with you right now.

Yeah. So that brings us to, you know, you're talking about this, we come in with this beginner's mind, and some of us, you know, seem like we're more still more connected to the other side than others are. And then we develop what I guess is called the ego. And I know one— I asked you for some questions before we get started, and one of the questions you gave me was, how does the death of the ego, how can that help us to overcome grief? And so talk about this journey you just did. You just talked about how, you know, you had this beginner's mind, and then we kind of— the world puts this— I don't know, I guess we develop as a defense mechanism or something. And then how does that, how does that relate to grief?

I love how you phrased it, the question. Um, you really expanded it because, um, and so I thank you for that. Um, no one experiences grief in the exact same way. The way you experience it, the way that I experience it, it, it's like our fingerprints, right? And my fingerprint is different than yours, is different than everybody else's in this whole globe. And so how we release our egos or have our egos around this is going to be different. And sadly, people around us will, will want us to grieve in a linear way. And the ego, the good ego, not the ego of being egotistical ego, because we all have ego. We all have ego. We need ego. We— if we didn't have ego, we wouldn't be here right now, okay? I mean, we, we need it. And sadly, it's, I think, been, you know, it's like, oh, it's bad to have ego. Well, you know, the people who don't have ego have a personality disorder rather than, you know, not. So it is our ego that creates and enables us to say, I can fight this, and I've got the I've got the mojo to do that. Um, however, I'm not going to fight it the way you fight it or the way the guy down the street fights it. I'm gonna, I'm gonna fight it in my own way and in my own voice with my own vernacular. And it is the ego that says it's okay just the way it is. Yeah, yeah.

I love what you said about ego, um, because ego does get a bad rap. And I'm glad that you say it because it's interesting when I talk to people sometimes you know, those other egos— bad, we've got to fight the ego. We've got— I'm like, no, we need our egos. Otherwise, as you said, we wouldn't be sitting here. We would have no boundaries. We would, we would never get anything done. Our egos are here to protect us. But there's something about it, seems like they get overdeveloped, you know, they become, they become this defense mechanism. We put up these walls and then nothing can get in, right? So nothing, but we can't get out.

That's right. That's right. So, so it's interesting because in my book I talk about I talk about different personalities. And I guess that's what distinguishes my book from other books on grief is that I look at the self. And the self, you can really learn about the self through the process of grief. There are hard lessons, but like kind of a, who are you? And based on who you are, that's going to help you figure out what are the best tools to help you. So taken from astrology, are you a cardinal personality? Are you much more mutable, or are you fixed? So I'd like you to imagine, if you will, there's a boulder in the middle of the road, and there you are, you're in your car, truck, whatever, and now you've got the boulder. Now the boulder, the metaphorical boulder is really grief. So if you're a fixed personality, you're gonna find a chisel and you're gonna say, "I'm gonna do this on my own and I'm gonna just chisel my way through." The mutables say, "Okay, hold on. I'm gonna stop all of the drivers. I'm gonna have everybody gather with me and we're gonna move this boulder together." And that's what somebody mutable will do. And then the cardinal will say, "I'm climbing this." and I'm gonna go over it. No one can tell me that I'm right or I'm wrong, and, and I'm gonna stand on top and say, see, I've conquered this. And there's ego in all of those. However, there's also— okay, so the Cardinal personality will probably not do well in a group therapy setting may not even do well in individual therapy, but might do well reading. They'll have a discourse with whoever is writing whatever they're writing, but they'll take what they want and then they'll say it's theirs. But that's okay because they've still— right, the mutable will go to group, will go to individual, will read everything, maybe a chapter here and a chapter there, but they'll just be gathering. And then The more fixed will probably be better one-on-one, because the group will be too overwhelming. So you see, they're broken down even by just one's personality.

We'll get back to Grief to Growth in just a few seconds. Did you know that Brian D Smith is an author and a life coach? If you're grieving or know someone who is grieving, his book Grief to Growth is a best-selling, easy-to-read book that might help you or someone you know People work with Brian D Smith as a life coach to break through barriers and live their best lives. You can find out more about Brian D Smith and what he offers at www.grieftogrowth.com, www.grief, the number 2, growth.com. If you'd like to support this podcast, visit www.patreon.com/grieftogrowth. Www.patreon.com/grief2growth to make a financial contribution. And now back to Grief 2 Growth.

Yeah, no, that's awesome. That's really, it's really interesting. Because as you said, we all go through similar experiences, but we go through them differently depending on our personality types. And I've done a lot of work with people that are, you know, in grief counseling or grief counselors and It's an interesting study. I can't remember who did it. I like to cite who did it, but someone did a study and said that grief counseling, uh, is not really beneficial for most people, um, because most people— frankly, I think the conclusion is most people don't need it. It depends on what type of grief we're going through, and it also depends on who we are. Um, some people are going to do better doing it by themselves, but some people are going to— like you said, some people are going to do better in group. So it's kind of figuring out— I like— so it's not one size fits all. I was really interested when I was, you know, learning about you, Edie, that I love that you combine psychotherapy with the spiritual understanding, because I think for me, spiritual understanding is what it's all about. Um, you know, when I, when I talk to people about how do we deal with grief, I don't know how you do it without a spiritual understanding. So how do you, how do you combine those two things together? Um, and what do people— how do you work with people with that?

So it's, it's something that's internal that comes from the internal and then it gets— goes externally. And it, it's, it's not something that I work at. It's something that just is. And so when someone comes in to do some work with me, or when even I'm, I'm speaking to, to a group— I just spoke, um, um, to a group at the University of Michigan, that was on Friday— and, and while, while, while speaking with this group, I talked about the, you know, going back in utero and the trauma that can happen in utero. And, and one of— one statement was, you know, I've rarely heard any therapist ever talk about anything that goes on in utero. So my spiritual perspective comes out through my base— basic language, through my basic perspective. So yes, I've got a couple of masters, and, and I've— I'm, I'm a sex therapist, and, and I, I, I've got so many trainings, and I do EMDR and hypnosis and, and CBT and, you know, blah blah blah blah blah. But the reality is, is that I don't like to talk in what I consider to be the confining language of psychobabble, of I need to diagnose, and from that diagnosed diagnostic category, I will then, you know, I will talk to the client, not the patient, you know. I will talk to the client utilizing these, the, you know, this diagnostic category. My first question is, what are you yearning for? Now, yearning is much more spiritual, I think, than tell me your story and what's wrong. Mm-hmm. So because my perspective is not what's wrong, because I don't know that it's— there's something wrong. I think there's an obstacle. There's the boulder. Whatever else is around the boulder could be beautiful and phenomenal. And the fact that you are now seeking help or wanting to talk about whatever is going on for you, now you've reached out because there's a boulder. And, and so that I, I love to to talk about symbol. I'm very much from a Jungian perspective. There are symbols. There are— there's the collective unconscious that Carl Jung spoke of. And that collective unconscious is— for your listeners, what I'd like you to think about is that we're all connected by a thread. And that thread connects us generationally. It affects us through trauma. It affects us through and connects us through experience. And it goes back hundreds and hundreds of years, and we carry that thread in our lives, in the choices that we make, and that, that collective unconscious is felt in ways that we may not even be able to define. And so when someone comes in or someone is, is processing, there's there's— I'm looking at the thread, I'm looking at generational trauma, I'm looking at how grief is landing with them from that multifaceted grief perspective that I hold.

Wow. Yeah, that's really cool. I, you know, it's— it's— you mentioned Jung, and I need to— I need to find out more about Jung because I didn't— I haven't studied him much, um, but because every time I hear about him, I think more, this, this is so spiritual And again, going back to the NDE, you talked about the collective subconscious. That's one of the lessons, one of the lessons of the NDE. But I, you know, typically we think of like psychotherapists, psychiatrists, my daughter is a psychotherapist. And you know, so she just got her master's, she's, you know, she's been trained and all that stuff.

That's great.

But it's so— and a little bit, she's also extremely intuitive. And so I'm like, you know, I want to encourage her to bring more intuitive side into her work. But I found a lot of times they actually almost even train that out of you, you know.

They do, they, they do, they do. They want to train it out of you, and that's fine because it's important to understand what you're doing and why you're doing it, and for you to have your very, um, secure placement in the room in terms of what you're mapping and what you're looking at. And the client is always mapping you and their— what the trigger points are So I think that those are all really quite important to, to, to understand as the clinician. Whatever you bring in spiritually, I— it must be done with special care. I know that when I was initially starting, and, you know, a touch was much more acceptable back then, I would do hypnosis and I would, with permission, touch, um, touch the knee or touch the shoulder of a, of a client. And what I would find is, because of my own energy, that energy was actually being emitted from me in a way that, um, was sometimes scary for the client. And so I had to account for that. And because I was a new new clinician, I didn't realize the power of that. And it took, it took a little bit of time to say, oh, you know, I need to be aware that especially if I walk with a certain amount of spirituality, or that there's energy within my body, that I need to contain it. And so as clinicians, we need to be containers of our own stuff. Because what, what whatever we're working with is not our stuff. It is the work of the client. And that I can have my spiritual lens, but it is not as an interference. It is only as an addition, and perhaps to give me information subliminally, um, that, that I can work with. And that's where I get to trust my information and then present it went ready, but in a more clinical and professional way.

Yeah, sure. You know, I guess for me, again, not having been a mental health professional, um, and when I would— I did go to a grief counselor for a short period of time after Shayna passed, um, and again, going back to that study, I didn't find it helpful whatsoever. Um, that was just— that was just my experience with this one particular person. But for me, for me, deal with my grief, it has to come from a spiritual perspective. So as for someone that's not coming from that perspective, what is the— what's their path like? How do we— how do you handle grief if you don't have that perspective?

So not everybody deals with grief the same way, right?

You're right. Yeah.

Okay. So Some people will, will, will really envelop themselves with their spiritual world or become more spiritual or find a different spiritual conversation. For other folks, they need data, they need science, they need a prescription, you know. And I'm not one to say take 2 pills and all will be well. However, part of the, the toolbox that I utilize in my book and talk a lot about, again, is, okay, so if one thing doesn't work, try something else. Some people find that the way they work through and with their grief is through exercise, is through conversation, is through writing, is through The word journaling has been just used too much, but just writing down thoughts, writing down one word, making notes in your calendar. I have a whole section on marking your calendar for the year because those calendar markers are so essential and our brains will know there was an anniversary or this is when a diagnosis happened and we just slide right by it. We are very conscious of marking calendars, and then we get reminders a week before. We start to prep for how our bodies might react. So sleep, eating, drugging, drinking, sexing, you know, I mean, there's a lot of coping mechanisms. So those coping mechanisms may be really great and may not be so great. So if you have warning, a warning system in your calendar, then you know, you know what, I need to make sure that I have made plans with a friend, or I need to know that I need to not be at work that week. I need to, to go and get a massage, or I need to go for lots of walks and be outside. So it's gonna be, it's, it's and everyone's spirituality, maybe they don't like the woo-woo sound of spiritual. Okay, so that needs to be honored. But however somebody grounds themselves, to me, that's what it's about. It's about finding— again, I think we, we as a culture overuse the word balance, and when we overuse something, it doesn't have meaning anymore. Or it loses some of its meaning. So I've played around with the idea of calibration. How do we calibrate? It's that place on the seesaw, and most of us have been on seesaws if you ever had a park near you, wherever you grew up, and just, you get to that place of balance, you get to that place of calibration on the seesaw and your feet are off the ground, you're using every muscle to just find that place, that center. And so what's going to help you calibrate? And whether it's just, I'm going to feel my feet on the ground, I'm going to meditate, I'm, I'm going to exercise, it doesn't matter. It's whatever brings you home back to yourself.

Yeah, yeah, that's great. Yeah. And it's interesting, as you're saying that, I realized, for me, I check all the above. Exercise, I have a gratitude practice I do, I meditate, you know, I'm working on getting my sleep proper amount of sleep. I— so I have this 4-letter acronym that I do. I call it GEMS: gratitude, exercise, meditation, and sleep. Um, and that's— but the thing is, there's— I, I was raised as a fundamentalist. I'm not a Christian anymore, but there's a Bible verse that says, you know, we don't grieve like those who have no hope. And so for me, I guess spirituality is just like— that's like the secret weapon. You can, you can grieve without it, I suppose I just wouldn't want to. Knowing that my daughter is still here with me, knowing that her life, I believe, was planned, that this was planned, and being able to find meaning— we could find meaning in it whether we believe it's planned or not. So I always tell people, you don't have to believe that. But to me, that's just kind of like the bonus. That's what really helps me. You know, I feel like get back on my feet faster, maybe.

Sure. And, you know, as you're speaking, What comes to mind is family, and when a couple loses a child, if they both are grieving and they're going to be grieving differently, if one partner, you know, is grieving and holding the grief in the way that you're holding it, but the other partner isn't, it— that there can be grief within the relationship because the way it is being held by each partner is so different that it can feel isolating. And so it's important to bring this up because a child who loses a parent— and let's say it's a two-partner home, okay— um, a child that loses a parent doesn't just lose the parent who died, they lose the parent who's grieving. And so it's, it's, it's also very complicated.

Yeah, we all, we all become different people.

And, you know, it forever changes you. There's the cave.

When my, when my daughter passed, we have another daughter, and, you know, I had to, you know, it's like, well, who am I going to be now for my, for my other daughter? She was only 18 at the time. And, you know, so that is, it affects all of us differently. And I've seen couples where, you know, a child will pass and they're grieving differently. And it, it, they, that causes a big rift between the two of them, you know. And maybe because one's hyper-spiritual, and I'm thinking one example, this couple, just one was just hyper-spiritual and wouldn't really deal with anything. And the other one's like, I can't, you know, I can't deal with that. So we have to respect each other's ways. As you talked about earlier, we've got different ways of navigating this boulder that's been set in front of us. And we all need to learn to respect that. And I think it's, as you were saying, as a therapist, it's important to recognize people are going to have different things that work for them and to give them tools. It sounds like that's what your book does is give people tools. I tell people, you can put this in your tool bag, whatever works for you.

That's right. Whatever works for you. And there are many. So, and part of the tool is also knowing the self, you know, like, are you an introvert, extrovert, ambivert? You know, again, to be able to say, oh, you know what, I do better when I'm alone or with one person, or I do better in a crowd, you know, or I can get really emotional. So when I get really emotional, I need to have people around me who can handle my emotionality. Or I'm barren, I'm kind of like the tide that goes out and I'm ebbing and I'm dry, and you know, you're not going to get much from me, but it doesn't mean that I'm not feeling.

Yes, absolutely. I want to talk to you— I want to ask you, because I know you do EMDR and I know you work with grief, have you heard of RRGT?

No, I have not.

It's— so it's Repair Reattachment Grief Therapy. A lot of times it'll involve EMDR, some sort of bilateral, uh, stimulation. So I'm just— I was just curious if you had heard about it, because it's kind of, I believe, a specialized form the MDR.

Okay, no, uh, and I would love to hear more about it. Would you mind just saying a little bit more about it? And then I can speak a little bit about brain spotting, which is another, another kind of, you know, stimulation that gets to issues.

Yeah, well, I'm not an expert on it. I probably shouldn't have brought it up, but I know someone who is, and I went through a session with her. And so we did this, you know, the eye movement thing. So she had me— it was like almost a full day session. So we went through all my, you know, traumatic experiences. And we would go through each one of them. And we were like, journal them. And then we do the EMDR thing. And then there's a point where actually you can, you can actually go back. And or you can, like, a lot of people have experiences with their loved ones that are in spirit. So for me, it was in my case, it was my daughter. So it's been found to be very beneficial for people that are stuck.

So it's called RRGT?

Yes, yes, yes. So yeah, I just— I guess I just thought I'd bring that up and see if you were, um—

No, I'm glad that you did. It's always— see, it's the beginner's mind. So thank you so much.

Yeah, there's so much out there. So I want— I also want to ask you about, um, ASSIST, and if you could say more about that, because I had not heard of that organization before. I was listening to one of your early interviews I heard you bring it up, and it sounds fascinating.

So ASSIST is just like an amazing, amazing place. So ASSIST actually stands for the American Center for the Integration of Spiritually Transformative Experiences. And I just, I just really, really love who they are. I— they offer classes for clinicians, they offer, um, peer support, they offer trainings. Uh, so, um, we are an organization that, um, really wants to get the message out there that There are a lot of people who do experience spiritually transformative experiences, and they often go misdiagnosed. I mean, they often are diagnosed as psychosis or anxiety or depression when really there's a spiritual emergency. That's going on, or a Kundalini awakening that's going on, which is a very, very deep, deep experience that happens spiritually where kind of every part of you is questioning who you are, existence, what you're doing, and why you're even here. And that Kundalini awakening is just one of the most intense experiences, and they really help people understand what's going on for them.

Yeah, that sounds like a much-needed organization, so I'm glad that we are getting— I like to spread the word on that more.

Absolutely. And I am, um, happy to give you, um, you know, uh, now and, um, whenever, I'm happy to give you a, um, the link for, you know, it's just ACI ste.org.

Okay, that sounds, that sounds really great. Because I know, I said I've done some fair amount of work with IANDS. And I know they're finally starting to make some inroads with the medical community. It's interesting, they won't admit— the medical community will not admit that the NDE is real yet. But they will admit that we have to deal with it. So they're just starting to say, you know, how do we deal with people that are coming in reporting this? And they're starting to ask for some assistance. And I interviewed a guy in England who actually works with the medical community over there. He's had an NDE. And he helps people that are trying to integrate the experience. Because as we said, often the, often the experience of the person who's had that NDE, or an STE, which is a broader category for experiences— oh, you're, you're insane, you're having a psychotic break. What do you mean you left your body and you saw this monk? I could think of one woman that actually wrote a book about her experience and She left her body and she met this ancient monk. I've interviewed enough people and talked to enough people, I know these experiences are real. And for some people, for people to have a therapist that could work with them and just say, it's okay, you know, you can share this with me, it would be so important.

I, I could not agree with you more. And so it, you know, the, the big umbrella of, you know, the meta, the medical world includes our clinicians, includes our social workers, our clinical psychologists, to be able to think When somebody walks into my office, there's a spiritual emergency that's going on rather than let me just completely diagnose them. Because when someone comes in with anxiety or they're coming in with depression or there, there's something else that may very well be going on, but we don't ask those questions. So we may miss a whole slew of really important information, you know. What are some of the dreams? What's been lost? You know, what was your birthing experience? Do you know anything about your birth— birthing experience? Do you have any idea of how your— what your mother, um, what your mother's experience was as she carried you? Did she— did she give you up? Did she not give you up? You know, was— was there a lot of fighting or was there violence while you were in utero? Those are things, those are questions that are not necessarily thought of or asked.

Yeah, well, you know, Western medicine has given us so much, and it's still extremely, extremely important. And, you know, but the thing is, we— I was getting back to this thing where I said I was excited to see that you bring spirituality in your work, because we've— I think we've forgotten who the whole person is. And a lot of times doctors are not trained at— well, not a lot of times, they're never trained to ask the questions you did. Some of them just intuitively do. I remember it was just a little while after my daughter had passed, maybe a year or so, and I was seeing this doctor for the first time. He's asking me all the questions about my eating and my sleeping and all that stuff, my stress level. And I think he asked if I was, you know, if I had any depression. And I said, well, yeah. And he said, well, tell me about that. So my daughter passed away a year ago. And, um, he goes, okay. Well, then he understood, okay, it's normal to be depressed when your daughter, your 15-year-old daughter, passes suddenly, you know. Like that. But a lot of times, you know, doctors— a younger doctor, and I had— I went to another doctor after, there was a younger doctor, she wanted to put me on medication. She's like, oh, you're— if you're depressed, then I need to put you on medication. I'm like, I'm not going on medication. It's normal for me to feel sad because my daughter just passed away.

That's right, that's right. And sadly, you know, we are— we We are in a culture right now that overmedicates, and the pill is the way to just interrupt the anxiety or the depression rather than saying, why don't we teach you how to utilize yourself to help some of the effects of that depression? There are very famous studies— and I think you will appreciate this because you exercise, because you meditate. So they had, you know, 3 groups.

Okay.

They had one group and these were all people who are suffering from anxiety. They had one group and they only gave them medication. They had another group that gave them medication and exercise. And then they had the third group, but it was just exercise alone. And of course, the group that had did the best, they, they— and stuck with the protocol were the people with the exercise.

Yeah, yeah, period. Yeah, it's, it's truly, you know, it's amazing. So I think we're kind of— hopefully we're kind of coming back around to that with people. And I love, like I said, people like yourself who have gotten the technical training as well, but also bring the spiritual aspect to it. And when I understand How do I treat the whole person? How do I get to know this person? You know, not just, not just with, not just their body, you know, just fix this symptom, but how do I get to know the whole person and help them to— and we all have the tools inside to fix it ourselves. If people will just, you know, let us know what those tools are and how we can bring them out.

And I also just want to say one thing about the medication, because it can sound like I'm an anti-medication person. Person, and I am not. Sometimes medication is very much needed. And so if any of your listeners are really, you know, you're down, you're feeling depressed, you're feeling anxious, get help. Have someone, you know, talk with you. If you don't like them, find somebody else, you know. It's because it's— there's, again, it's not, you know, one size fits all here. And sometimes medication can just help you get over the hump. My anxiety level after I lost my, my, my first love was so high, and I ended up taking some medication. Did it, did it help me? Yes, because I couldn't leave my house, so I needed, I needed something. And yet, um, when I was able to then harness my own healing energies, I could then stop the medication. So please, please, listeners, um, understand that sometimes medication is very much needed for however long you need it. And then there is the side of you can also take— tap into your own inner strengths, what I call your superpowers. And a superpower is kind of like being calm in chaos or being able to meditate when you're depressed, even if it's for a minute. Those are superpowers.

Yeah.

Well, and I want to say the same thing because I am not anti-medication. And my daughter said— she's a medical— or she's a psychotherapist. We talk about medication. I actually wrote a book. I think the guy's name is Johann Hari. It's called Lost Connections. It was awesome about the whole medical medication thing. I have been on medication. I was having depression and anxiety. And my doctor recommended medication. I said, I will do it in concert with going to see a therapist. But I also want to have a plan to get off of it because I don't believe medication alone is the way to go. That was for me. And I did not get off of it until my therapist said it was okay. So I'm not anti-medication. I'm not anti-Western medicine. But I think it's got to be both and, right?

If I'm going to do the medication— It's a yes and. It's a yes and. So just, you know, I think it's hard to have a conversation around medication and have a perspective about medication. And it can sound as if it's an anti-medication conversation when indeed It isn't. It's just about finding where the medication fits in and where does the self fit in, in terms of the healing, that the medication doesn't replace the, the ability of the self to also heal.

Right, right. And the whole brain chemistry thing, because I think it's a loop. It's a loop, right? Our thoughts change our brain chemistry and our brain chemistry changes our thoughts.

That's right. Yeah, that's right. Yeah, totally. I mean, the brain, uh, it's, it's, uh, I like to think of the brain the way that I explain the brain is think of the brain, the center of the brain is like the body of the octopus, and then we've got all of these tentacles. And so those are like the neural pathways, and you've got all of these many different neural pathways, and some of them are stress neural pathways and, and anxiety and depression and joy and love and all of these neural pathways. And so it's about saying to some of the neural pathways where there is trauma, I'm going to try to lighten your load. I'm going to try to just, you know, cut you off before you can just completely blossom. And it's going to be the way you talk to that neural pathway. It's going to be the way you exercise with it, because we know that new neural pathways, because of all of the brain science that's out there now that we've got the ability to grow new neural pathways. It's just so exciting. So your brain is one of the greatest superpowers.

Yes. And I'm, I'm, I'm learning that myself. And, and that's what I'm saying, that this thing that, uh, I'm actually taking a coaching course right now. That's, it's a 7-week intensive course. And basically the thing is cutting off these neural pathways and strengthening these. And we, and you said for all these— for people like myself, I'm a chemical engineer, it's my— that's what my degree is in, that we like Western stuff, we like science, okay? They've shown that we can change our brains, you know, so the medications can help, but also learning to control our thoughts, doing them, doing the meditations, doing these exercises. I'm doing things now called PQ reps where you do it multiple times a day to try to develop your neural pathways. These things actually work as well.

So the PQ reps are great.

Oh yeah, yeah, I love it. I'm like halfway through this, the 7 weeks.

Are you? That's great.

It's awesome.

It's awesome. Shazad.

Yeah, yeah. Well, Edie, it's been wonderful getting to meet you. Um, tell me a little bit more about your book. Tell me about where people can contact you and how people can work with you if they'd like to.

Sure. So the book is on Amazon, and, uh, it— my website is edienathan.com. Com. I have lots of blog articles. I write for Medium. I write for Psychology Today. So if you want to see my writing, please just— you can just put my name in and find me on those outlets. And also, if any of your listeners come to my website and say, you know, hey, I heard you on Brian D Smith's show, Grief to Growth, I will send them a— I have a monthly journal and it's called Notes to Self, and I'll send them a 1-month Notes to Self journal via a PDF. And they can, you know, also get my book on my website if they would like. And I'm in the process of actually writing a second book, and it will probably come out 2023, and it's called Sexual Grief. The Human Condition.

Awesome. I want to spell your name for people, because it'll— everything will be in the show notes, but some people don't read the show notes. So it's E-D-Y-N-A-T-H-A-N. So it's edynathan.com. Is that correct?

Yes.

It's been really wonderful talking to you today, getting to know you a little bit. And thanks for being here on Grief to Growth.

Thank you for having me. I've had a great time.

Thanks for listening to Grief to Growth. Brian hopes that you find this episode helpful, and will come back for future episodes. Brian's bestselling book, Grief to Growth: Planted, Not Buried, is a great resource for anyone who is coping with grief or knows someone who is. If you enjoy the podcast and would like to support it, there are 3 things you can do to help. The first is to share the podcast with someone that you think it will help. The second is to go to iTunes, rate and review the episode. The third way you can support the podcast is by becoming a patron. Head over to www.patreon.com/grief2growth. That's P-A-T-R-E-O-N.com/grief, the number 2, growth, and sign up to make a small monthly donation. Patrons get access to exclusive bonus content and knowledge that you are helping to spread the message of grief to growth. For more about Brian and grief to growth, visit www.grief2growth.com.

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