Episode 493: Cannabis and Grief: Opening the Heart After Losing a Loved One

Welcome to Cannabis Health Radio, where we share powerful real-life stories from people around the world who are using cannabis as medicine. The goal of this podcast is to raise awareness of the healing potential of cannabis and is not intended as medical advice. And now, here's your host, Ian Jessop.

Welcome to the Cannabis Health Radio podcast. I'm Ian Jessop. Before we start, a big thanks to Swan Apothecary for supporting Cannabis Health Radio. They help make episodes like this possible. Now, what I love about Swan Apothecary is how much care goes into their products. Every item is lab-tested, thoughtfully made, and and designed with your health in mind. Whether you're new to cannabis or a seasoned user, they'll help you find something that works for you. If you want to explore their products, reach out to Swan Apothecary directly or check them out at cannabishealtheradio.com. And don't forget to use the code CANABISHALTH for 15% off. Because at Swan Apothecary, how it's made really matters. Now on this podcast, we often hear stories about of cannabis physically, people using this remarkable plant to help with cancer, chronic pain, epilepsy, and many other serious conditions. But healing doesn't always happen in the body. Sometimes the deepest healing takes place in the heart. The story you're about to hear is a little different from many of the guests we've had on this program. Now, after losing her husband, our guest found herself navigating the overwhelming emotions that come with profound grief. Profound loss. During that time, cannabis became a tool that helped her process her grief, open her heart, and begin to move forward. Today, she helps others who are walking through their own journey of loss and healing. And joining us from New Mexico is Miranda May. Miranda, thanks for joining us. I greatly appreciate it.

Oh, Ian, just, I appreciate you saying yes. I've been wanting to reach out to you for a couple of years now, and And here we are. So thank you for opening up the space to let me share this story.

No, it's interesting. Now, what's the legal status of cannabis in New Mexico?

It's legal medicinal and recreational. Ah.

Now, we want to get into—

Yes, so it's fully legal.

We want to get into your story. How long were you and your husband married?

We were only married a year.

Oh.

Yes. So I married really early in life, um, I guess to today's standards. Um, I married at 26, and then, uh, 1 year and 1 month after our anniversary, my husband was hit on his motorcycle and he passed away. And so I was a 27-year-old widow just trying to figure it out.

And how old was he?

He was 36.

36.

Mm-hmm.

That must have been a hell of a shock when you found out.

I mean, yes, it is. When sometimes we have those silent thoughts to ourselves of, what if I get that call, or what would happen if you know, I heard about my greatest love or the greatest person in my life who died. And it is— it's unfathomable until you experience it. Then you can kind of understand of what it, what it really means to lose a partner or your best friend.

Did you retreat into yourself emotionally afterwards?

No, no, that came 9 years later. So it was 9 years of, um, there was a lot of suffering, um, there was a lot of blame, there was guilt, there was grief. Uh, I was, but then I don't want to say I completely suppressed it. I did allow myself to cry. I did allow myself, you know, to feel it and feel into it. I also allowed myself to open my mind to something that might be bigger than I thought, meaning, is he still here? Is he still with me? When he had died, I wasn't religious. I didn't practice a faith. I wasn't spiritual. I truly was a lost soul. Even when I had to go back and really understand what had happened 9 years later, I realized, wow, I was actually quite lost before I met him. And then now I'm left alone to not only pick up the pieces of trying to understand death, I have to go find myself. But what I've been understanding and realizing is this is, this is part of that grief healing journey is to go find yourself. Like, I wanted to go find that part of Miranda that was connected to him, but that, that part was gone. And so once I realized, oh, I need to recreate myself, that's when I— things started really opening up.

Why do you think it took 9 years, Miranda?

Because I think working through those really hard and difficult emotions is something that I didn't want to face. So, um, and death for me brought up a lot of other trauma, you know, I mean, or trauma and drama that happened in my life, you know, with my parents divorcing when I was 5 and him, you know, my father leaving, and just these abandonment issues came up. And then I had shame of getting remarried quite quickly after my husband died, and that second marriage turned turned into a divorce one year later. And so now I'm widowed and now I'm divorced. And when you want to talk about Dark Night of the Soul, or how can I live on, I was, I was there. I was there.

Yeah, you have to discover yourself, don't you?

Oh, and I think that's I think that's sometimes the hardest part because in order to discover ourselves, we have to really face those difficult emotions. And once we can process them and work through them, I think that's when self-forgiveness comes in. That's when joy can come in. That's when love comes in. And all of those— that heavy grief I was carrying that depression I was carrying was truly blocking me from where I am today.

Yeah, I think everyone seems to assume that success comes from the outside. How much money you make, what kind of home you have, what kind of car you drive. It's got to be flashy, people have to see you. But that's not really living. That is living for the ego. You have to live for your soul, and to do that, you have to go inside. You have to go inside yourself and discover who you are. And I find that you do that by being alone.

Yes, 100%. Finding what that word solitude means.

Yeah.

What is— how comfortable are you being alone and with your own thoughts?

Yeah, it's interesting you say that, being alone, because I recently heard a story of a fellow. He was from the UK. He lived in Argentina, and he was smuggling cocaine from Argentina into the UK, and he got caught, and he was sentenced to 10 years in prison, 4 years in solitary confinement. And in solitary confinement, It was difficult for him. I mean, he said he cried for 2 weeks and then he went and discovered himself through meditation, through yoga, through movement and things like that. And he said when he got out of prison he had $80. After having all the cars, the houses, the luxury, everything you'd want in life, he had $80. And the first thing he did on his plane flight back to the UK, he just sat at the back of the plane and watched people fidget. And he was very quiet with himself. You nod when you hear that.

Yeah, yeah. But that's our society right now. We can't put our phones down. We can't sit and observe. And I imagine I want to go back to that story when you said that he sat in solitary confinement for 4 years and the first 2 weeks he just cried. If I were to have a cup of coffee with him, I would ask him, what were you crying about? Like, what was it? Is it because you're in solitary confinement or was it because you finally had the time and the space to reflect on all of this crap that he had to deal with from a child, from a teenager to adult, what led him to solitary confinement. And he took that opportunity, those 4 years, and looked at it as a gift to transform his life.

Yeah.

And I think that's the whole point of life is any obstacle that is thrown our way, whether we go to jail, whether we lose our husband, whether we lose a job, like what, how are we going to view that challenge and how are we gonna turn it around? And again, that part is kind of where we can get stuck because do we give ourselves the time to really sit down and cry for 2 weeks? So interesting, interesting story. Yeah. Appreciate you sharing that.

Now, Miranda, before your husband passed away, were you involved with cannabis at all?

No. No, and he passed away in 2009. This was 17 years ago.

Wow.

And social media wasn't hardly around. We lived in Las Vegas at the time, in Nevada, so that definitely wasn't medicinal then. And I, so to answer your question, no, I was not.

When did cannabis enter the picture for you?

It entered, I mean, the first time I did, we call it smoking weed, obviously, and I'm gonna use that slang because that's what it was. It was in high school, you smoke weed. And when he died, it was still smoking weed. And I remember, and she's still a very dear friend of mine. I've known, she's been in my life for 33 years, But after Lance died, I would go to her house and it was every Tuesday. I remember it. She says she has no recollection of this. I'm like, this is what saved my life. And there was no alcohol involved. It was just her and I. And the only thing we could score at that time was just schwag. It was oregano. It was awful. But even the lowest quality of weed that we were able to get, still calmed my nerves. And I remember being in that space of high and not drinking, and I'm like, God, like, I actually, I can process this. I can feel. I want to eat. Oh, I feel like sleeping. And it was really the first time where I felt my quality of life change. But it was so hard to get and it was, there's a stigma around it and the group I was walking with, we don't, you don't smoke weed. So it was very, very hush-hush. It then came into my life, hopefully I don't wanna jump ahead, but we're on the roll. It really came into my life when I met my third husband. So I've been married 3 times, and my 3rd husband, who we're now been together for 12 years, we have a child together, he is a veteran smoker. And when we were getting together, I really had to contemplate that. I'm like, how do I feel about being with, you know, a stoner, a pothead? And that's how I viewed cannabis at that time when he came into my life. And then I realized, I'm like, he is a very productive pothead. Oh wow, he cleans the house. Oh wow, he's running a successful business. So then like my idea around cannabis started changing. And my husband now, his wife had died. And so we were both widows and we were able to both relate to that. And cannabis has always been in his life. He's never really stopped.

Mm-hmm.

But him using that plant to help process her death, which was very, very, very traumatic, um, I thought maybe there's something to this because I started heavily relying on alcohol when I stopped smoking. You know, the, those Tuesdays ended. In 2009. They kind of, you know, no more. So then I started relying on alcohol. And then when I met my husband, my, uh, Michael— I'll just say his name, it's fine— Michael, um, he doesn't drink. And I'm like, oh, how fascinating, like I attracted a man into my life who doesn't drink. And alcohol played a very, very big part of my life, and it was really scary to be with someone who didn't drink. Who was partaking in this, to me, weed that was frowned upon. So I really had to change the way I thought about it and shift my ideas and my judgments. And I was starting to look at the recycling bin of all of these wine bottles and I'm like, hmm, those are all mine. And wow, I'm really unhappy. When I should be happy? What's going on here? And that's, and this was in 2018, so it's been 9 years now since my first husband has passed. And my husband and I have this beautiful child. We live in a beautiful part of New Mexico, and I was really struggling of why I couldn't be happy. And then it started dawning on me of like, hmm, I haven't really fully healed my husband's death. Oh, okay, I still have some residual deep emotions about my divorce. Okay, now I'm turning to alcohol. I have no purpose in life. And it was really, really scary. Really scary. And then I remember one night where I wasn't drinking, and then my husband and I smoked, and I was just laying in bed, and I kind of called out. I didn't know what I was calling out to. Again, I'm not connected with a faith or a religion, but I was calling out to something, and I'm like, I need help. And then I heard the words, you need to do the work. And that made no sense to me. I'm like, do the work? I mean, what do you mean by do the work? And where is this voice coming from? Then I came across a book that changed, truly changed my life, and it gave me purpose. And then I started to realize, oh, this would— this is what it means to do the work. So I had to go back into my relationship with my first husband, and I realized, wow, there's some unfinished— there's some unfinished business in between us. And it was really hard for me because I'm like, well, I'm living and he's dead. Like, how, how am I going to heal this? How am I going to do this? And I just kept like replaying like arguments that never got solved. And I'm like, ooh, I remember that fight. That fight actually kind of still hurts my heart. And then I realized, okay, I need to heal this relationship in order for me to, to be happy right now. So I actually had to go back in time 9 years later and essentially recreate a new relationship with my deceased husband and I started talking to him. And this isn't really anything new because I opened myself up right after he had passed away and started asking some big questions to him. And he was answering them in very mystical ways that I can't explain.

Hmm.

And that kind of gave me proof of, oh, he's still here. And of course, during that time in 2009, you don't, I don't talk about that. You don't talk about your dead husband connecting with you and you connecting with him. That is very, very taboo. I think this today, that conversation is shifting a lot. And I think it's amazing because I think if— actually, no, I'm going to just stop there. I don't know. The grief journey is so personal, and we really have to find our own ways of what brings us that peace. But if you are open to recreating a new relationship with your person in spirit, it changes everything. So then in 2018, I started to heal that marriage and him. And once you quiet your mind, once I started quieting my mind and listening to the silence, I could hear him talk back to me, like, "I'm sorry and I love you." And those words that we just wish we could have heard one more time. And I know so many people would say, "But you can't prove it. You can't prove it. How do you know it was him?" It's like, I don't need to prove it to you. Because there was a moment in that, there was a peace in that moment that just healed my heart.

That's right, it's from your heart. It's not from your head. What you say is really interesting because my wife has this feeling that if you have something negative from your past, go back and recreate it in in a positive vein, not in a negative vein. And I had issues with my mother, and she says, go back and sit quietly and then talk to your mother.

Yeah.

And some people will say that that's nonsense. It's not nonsense. You go into yourself, you go into your heart. It's not a head issue, it's a heart issue, which is exactly what you're talking about.

If when people come to me and say, what, what can I do? What can I do to help me connect with my, my loved one? What can I do to help me get to that next step in my grief journey? The first thing I say is we have to heal the heart. The heart is like, I mean, the heart sends off its own frequency, its own magnetic field. I mean, the heart is, it's a part of us, but it's also it leads the way. And when we can connect our heart and our mind together, when those are aligned, that's, that's truly when the magic happens.

Yeah. How much cannabis do you smoke a day now?

Um, well, the way I metabolize it compared to my husband is very, very different. So I'm only able to partake in the evenings, and, um, that helps me just calm down, unwind. It helps me sleep. I'm in perimenopausal stage right now, so it helps me with that. I'm not able to partake all day because I would be a very unmotivated human in this world if I smoked all day.

You get pretty high, do you?

I do, I do, yeah. 2.5 milligrams is, my sweet spot, half of a 5 milligrams. So very, very small doses. But I've learned my limit because I don't want to be too high. I don't want to— I don't like that feeling of when I overdo it because when people say, oh, I get really paranoid or I get really anxious when I do it, and it's probably like, well, you probably took too much.

Yeah.

But also when that happens, and I say this too, feel into that. Like, I truly now look at cannabis as medicine, and when the plant is kind of talking to us and all of our anxious emotions come up, or we just, we feel very panicky, we feel paranoid, remove yourself from the situation, go lay in bed and breathe through it and let let the medicine talk to you. What are you anxious about? What happened that day, or what event has come up recently that you really need to work through? So using cannabis with intent was really key for me.

The interesting thing about cannabis, it creates homeostasis, which is a balance in your body, both physically and emotionally. And if you take too much, you become anxious. So you've got to find your sweet spot, which you have found. And I think all of us have a sweet spot. I'm sure your husband's sweet spot is much higher than yours.

Yes.

And he doesn't drink alcohol. Has this stopped you from drinking?

No, I would— no, it hasn't.

I'm not talking about— I'm just saying, you have the occasional glass of wine or?

Yes, yes, I do have the occasional glass of wine. I did have to stop for a little bit because I had to recreate a relationship with alcohol. I had to understand why I was leaning towards it. What was the reason why I was turning towards it? Because it really did become a habit in my life for a very long time. And that is something I wish someone told me when I was 27 years old, that the last thing you want to do to try and work through your husband's death is to turn to alcohol. But that wasn't— but it's, it's part of my story. It, um, I'm not, I'm not upset with myself that I let it get to a place where, you know, it was controlling me. But through stillness, through meditation, through the practices, I had to abstain for a little bit. And now I'm like, I literally, I can take it and leave it now. And I don't use it to escape. It is, it ended up being a social thing for me. And it's good. But I'll tell you, even after like my second glass of wine, I'm like, this is stupid. Like, I don't, Like, I feel nothing, you know? I don't know why I did this. And you're bloated the next morning, and it's bad. It's just not good.

Yeah, yeah, I hear you. It's really interesting. When did you realize, or was it that smoking in bed with your husband, you realized that I'm heading in the wrong direction with alcohol, I'm gonna switch to cannabis? Was, was there a specific time that you found that, or was it just a constant feeling that you had within you?

I mean, it was, it was a constant feeling, but in order for me to let go of alcohol, I had to, um, I had to work through those suppressed emotions. And I think, um, It was probably— it was around 2022 when it— yeah, so not too long ago where I'm like that, you know, alcohol isn't working for me anymore. It was a process. It was a very long suffering process of letting go this identity. Alcohol was part of my going out. Dinners, ballgames, what you name it. I was in every social setting where alcohol was, was a part. And I'm lucky, you know, that, you know, Michael never judged me for it. You know, I never got to a point where it was affecting our marriage. But, you know, I'm laying in bed at night and I've, I've had a whole bottle of wine to myself at 2:00 AM, that 2:00 AM hangover where your liver's metabolizing all of those toxins and you're just reviewing your life. And I think those 2:00 AM reviews are some of the hardest visions, thoughts that I had. And I'm, and then I, I think when I really got deep into my own spiritual practices and, and teachers and people just reminding me of like, you don't have to suffer anymore, Miranda. You don't, you don't have to put yourself through this. And that's when I'm like, I, I got to do something different.

God, Miranda, a whole bottle of wine.

Yes. Oh yeah, that's—

yeah, for me that's, that's tough.

Yeah, I mean, when you build a tolerance for over 15 years, 20 years.

Yeah, it makes you wonder how many people would get— how many alcoholics would no longer drink if they were taught properly how to use cannabis and how to deal with their issues.

I think that's one of the reasons why I, I, I'm here and I'm sharing this story, but If alcoholics turn to cannabis, thoughts are gonna come up, childhood's gonna come up, those emotions will come up. And I would suggest finding someone you can trust to help you work through that. I think that's really important is having support, having a community where, okay, I've let go of the alcohol, And, you know, Dad's coming up. The fight with my brother's coming up, and then he died a week later. You know, like, we— things come up. So, wouldn't it be amazing if all the alcoholics turned to cannabis?

Yeah, it would. It would. I don't think the alcohol industry would allow that to happen, though.

Oh, no.

Yeah. Now, because of what you've been through, you help other people. You?

Hmm, I do when I can. Yes.

Yeah.

Yeah.

How does it feel when you do that?

I'll tell you, Ian, it has taken me decades, decades since I was— you know, I joined the military. I was in the military for 6 years, and I was in college, and I dropped out of college because I'm nothing Nothing was there. I didn't know what I wanted to do. So to find your purpose, and I'm in, you know, my mid-40s, it's beautiful. It's just, it's amazing where I'm at today. Yeah. And well, I help people through death and grief.

Yeah. What are some of the common struggles that people face when they're grieving?

Well, I can only speak from, from the grief of death because grief will show up in so many different, different ways. I would say what people struggle with most is obviously their physical absence, not being able to hear their voice, not being able to touch them, to feel them. That, that is the biggest hang-up, but I A lot of people hold on, or not, I don't want to say hold on. A lot of people struggle with what words that were not said, unsaid words, and not being able to have the opportunity to say what they needed to say. Um, I think that, that, that's a big component. It's, it's different for everybody. I mean, everyone has such a different story and what they bring to the table and what they're going through. I mean, the initial shock of a death, expected or unexpected, is such a process in itself. And so, you know, I, I help people in a few different ways, but one way I do help people is I teach them how to recreate that relationship with their loved one on the other side. Okay? And that is through really healing the heart. And I say that first, you know, if you may need to get through the shock and the trauma of the death before we go to this next step. And that does take, I think, a professional therapist. Sometimes it takes a, you know, a community group. Sometimes people will trust me with that, and it is not something I encourage people to do right at the beginning. It's a feeling inside of, okay, I'm ready for this next step. You know, you have to be in a certain frame of mind, a certain space to be able to open up and start talking to them. Because it can be detrimental if you haven't gone through the necessary steps of grief. I do believe that. I heard a story on a podcast. This gentleman, Danny Miranda, was interviewing this woman, and her friend had passed away. And I believe it was— I think he took his own life. And she went into therapy, and the therapist brought her in, and there was an empty chair, and the therapist said, okay, pretend your friend's there. What do you, what do you need to say? And she was like, I, I— she's like, that was the most harmful thing he could have done to me. And she's right. For some people, it could have really helped, and maybe that therapist has found success through that way. But for her, she needed to talk about the relationship. She needed to talk about the way he had passed away. Maybe she even needed to talk about some other grief that happened before. So sometimes, like, for some reason, a lot of parents come to me. I have a lot of conversations with parents who've lost children. And it's really, really, really hard to rank which death comes, you know, what is the worst death? Yeah, because we really do kind of go through the same emotions, but I would have to say the loss of a child would be an experience that takes some more love because patience, because it's some—

it's, it's a life that you've brought into this world.

Yes.

And then it's taken away from you.

It's taken away from you. And sometimes the parents aren't ready to reconnect with their, with their child. And, and it's usually because, you know, what were the deaths? Did you have any deaths before your child had passed away? Yes, mom had passed. Okay, what was that relationship with your mom? You know, do we need to work through the timeline first and then get to that death that is the hardest to even think about. So sometimes when it is wise to kind of write down, like, what is all the stuff you've been through, and then work through all of that stuff, and then your heart's feeling a little bit more complete, and then you can go on to that, the death of the child and understanding that, and then recreating a relationship with them. That makes sense.

Miranda, you've mentioned an interesting word. You said work, and it is work. You have to work through it. You have to deal with the emotional part of it, and because you have to dig down deep and go into your heart.

Yeah.

And most people don't want to do that, or they don't know how to do that.

And that's when cannabis comes in.

That's right. Now, do you suggest the use of cannabis to help people?

Ooh! It's so tricky.

Yeah.

It is so tricky, and I have to vet out the person who I'm talking to, and it ends up kind of being kind of an intuitive thing. It's like, are they into this, are they not? And I wish it wasn't that case. I think that's another reason why I'm here, is to kind of remove that stigma. Stigma of it. So will I recommend it? Yes, I will. But I'll also say this: you don't need a psychoactive drug to get through grief. You don't. There, there are other tools. But when you lose that child—

yeah—

or that husband or that sister and you don't know what to do, find someone who you can trust, you can— who can lay next to you and smoke a little bit, take a little edible, whatever it is, a little bit, little, and then just be with that and open up that heart and just say whatever comes to mind. Say whatever the feelings that arise from the death, from, from being your life completely turned around. And the plant helps us open up. For me, it has anyway.

Miranda, how can people get in touch with you, or do you want people to get in touch with you?

Absolutely. Well, my primary job or career— I don't want to work, I I don't know how to say it. What I absolutely love doing is I lead funerals. I'm a funeral celebrant. And so if people reach out to me, my website is all about helping people plan a memorial service. I don't advertise doing these healing sessions or helping people connect. It's kind of like a word-of-mouth thing. If someone hears this episode and feels they're ready for that next step, yeah, of course they can reach out to me. But I don't want anyone to go, you know, go to mirandamay.net and see a funeral celebrant, like, who is— what's going on here? So, you know, sharing this story about using cannabis to heal grief, sharing the story of spirituality and death and connecting with our loved ones, it's a truth that It's a part of who I am that I'm kind of tiptoeing out, you know? I'm not out there yet.

You've opened the door a little but not fully.

I'm opening the door but not fully. And, you know, it's like, at what point am I just going to fully open the door and not care what other people think? And I'm there. Feels like it. So, answer your question the long way. People can get a hold of me at mirandamay.net, M-I-R-A-N-D-A-M-A-Y dot net. And my email is tribute@mirandamay.net.

Miranda, I'm so glad you reached out to me, and because your story is fascinating. It's different than most of the stories on Cannabis Health Radio. And I think it's extremely valuable for people to look at themselves, look at their heart, and get out of their head and get into their heart.

Yes, I am with you on that. I'm here to help make that movement happen as well. So you have done an incredible job. I've been a listener for a few years now, which is a big thing. You know, when a podcast can keep a listener for many, many years, that's a big deal. Just amazing work that you're doing as well and helping people go into their heart. And just a lot of respect and love for you guys.

And you as well. Thank you.

Oh, thank you.

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