064 Solace in the Lost and Found

This is Dr. Torrey. Welcome to the Influence Every Day show, where we make every day better and we influence for good.

I recently experienced profound loss. My mother died a few weeks ago, and I was talking to somebody who. Her close friend lost her husband. And we were just talking about how people find solace and peace and tranquility in the loss of a loved one and how we could serve others in that moment. And so I want to share with you a pattern that I've noticed that I've used through the years and I've coached other people on it. This particular pattern with this particular frame, asking this particular question seems to be ultra helpful. In this time, when somebody has a profound loss in their life, they've lost a loved one. I'll describe it to you first, but I. This. It's really important to note that this has to be sincere. It has to come from within. This is not a formula. This is not an algorithm. This is something that. It's just a frame that if you can say it or ask about it in your way, you can actually help people to get through some tremendous difficulty. And so essentially, it starts with listening. Now, that might sound ultra obvious, but if you haven't heard the episode on ting, the Chinese word to listen, and all of the components of listening, this is about listening, wholly listening, with your whole body being fully present. It's hearing, it's thinking, it's feeling, it's focus, it's attention. It's all of those things wrapped up. And so that in your body and your presence is experienced by the other person. They feel heard. They have a space to talk about things and to talk about their feelings and to talk about the good and the bad and their own shortcomings in their relationship or what they could have done better and all those things. But along the way, you're listening for glimpses of ways to move them forward. Now, I don't mean move on, I don't mean forget, I don't mean distractions, but rather to move forward, to grow with it. While you're listening, you might start to see some permission signals that allow you to go a little deeper, that allow you to get closer to a deep rapport where you can have this be extremely effective. So these permission signals, they might be a breath after talking. They might be a transition from telling you facts to moving to stories. So, for example, if I were to tell somebody about my mom's own death, I might talk about she was hospitalized all of July, and then she was home and largely independent for most of August. And then hospitalized all of September. And then we tried a stint in rehab for a few days and that wasn't going well. So we decided to bring her home. And then she died in my home. Those are facts. That's a timeline, that's not a story. But the moment I start to say, we had a bunch of guests over and they were, they were all there talking and praying for her and all these things. And then at one moment, she lifted her head, which she hadn't done in two days. She lifted her head, she opened her eyes and she looked around the room and then looked off in the distance and had the biggest smile I had ever seen in 52 plus years. Now, if I start to tell you that story, which is true, that's what I experienced and that's what all my guests experienced. But if I start to tell you that story, I've moved from facts to story. That is a subtle permission signal that you can go deeper because they are going deeper now. As they go deeper, oftentimes they will slowly reveal positive traits about the other person. I'm really going to miss the way she made people laugh. I'm really going to miss the way he treated his neighbor and the way he was always caring about the other person. I'm really going to miss the way she made all of us feel loved. And they go through these traits. The moment they start to mention a positive trait, that's when you can start to invite expansion on it. Oh, tell me more about how they serve their neighbors. Tell me more about that. Or, oh, in what kind of ways? What did that look like when she was serving her neighbors? What did she do? And then they start to go into details. Oh, she would just bake stuff and bring it over. Food was her love language. And she would bring it over and do this and do that. And then they start to tell you more about it. Now what's happened? They've moved on from the death experience and started to talk about the good traits or the superpowers of that person. And that is an opening. First, you honor it. You say, wow, that's beautiful. I wish more of us were that way with our neighbors. You honor whatever that trait was, if it's a good one. Obviously, if they talk about a superpower that person had, you honor that. You sit with it for a moment. You mention it's beautiful. You mention it's great. You mention, wow, she must have had a lot of impact on people, right? You mention that and honor it and then gently ask, this is the powerful question that Leads to a huge reframe. And that powerful question is, if you started to do some of the stuff that she did for neighbors, what would that look like? Like, how do you think you might do some of what she did? And you ask that question. Now all of a sudden, their head starts going into a place where they are being more like that person. It's not moving on or moving away. It's actually like, more like moving with. And that's a better feeling. When someone's experienced loss, it's almost as if that person is still with them because they have the opportunity to carry it forward. Now it's possible that doesn't work well with them. Like, they're not interested in that. If you offer the invitation, you gently ask, what would that look like? If they start to pooh, pooh it, then move on. Don't linger on that particular shift or that frame. But that is sometimes how we go from having loss to having found. In other words, lost and found. You find solace in the good traits that person brought to the world because you can pay it forward sometimes. That's a really powerful frame for somebody who's experienced loss. It certainly was for me. I received so many letters of condolences and so many visitors, and all. All of them, maybe with the exception of one or two, all of them mentioned how she made other people feel. All of them mentioned her distinct laugh and how she made others comfortable and how she put other people before herself. And specifically, I would then launch into stories about what it was like when she was in the hospital. I overheard nurses talking to the charge nurse about their assignments right before they were coming on. And the nurses were like a friendly battle over they wanted to take care of my mom. They were like, I love that woman. I just. I feel better when I walk into her room and they're talking about all these things. Please let me. Let me take care of her, because I have room, whatever, and you have that give me her, because it'll be. It'll really lift me up. And so to hear them, like, battling over it was over, taking care of my mom really showed me that trait. So I started launching into these stories about it that her physicians that took care of her in the hospital, these are people that are like a hospitalist when they take care of people in the hospital. It's like they're on a shift and then they're not. They showed up at her funeral. And so anyway, I just. I started launching into these stories, and it turns out that along the way, I realized I have a lot of those same traits. I'm not saying the nurses are going to fight over taking care of me, but I am saying that the kindness, the caring for other people, the trying to make their day better in any one interaction, if anything, I feel like I am carrying that forward from my mom. Can you help other people find that trait in the one they lost and help them bring it forward? That pattern that listen first, deeply, wait for prophetic permission signals. They might not come for a long time, but when they do, then start to probe and ask a little bit more. Tell me more about that superpower and then honor it. Honor that. Wow, that's beautiful. That's amazing. I can imagine the impact she had, right? And then gently ask, hey, if you were to do some of that, what would that look like? If you were to put a little more her in your day, what would that look like? How would you show up? And that is a move closer to the person they've lost, not moving on or distracting from. And that feels so much better. It feels so much better. And you can serve them in a big way. And not only that, it will last because every time they remember their loved one, they will remember their traits. And every time they remember their traits, they'll remember the conversation about paying that forward. If you've had a loss, maybe it's time to think about something that they did, some sort of trait or superpower that they had, and it's time for you to pay it forward. I'll see you in the next episode.

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