How You Can Help Others Navigate Grief

Foreign.

Welcome.

Welcome, everyone. I'm so glad you're here. Thank you for joining. I really appreciate everyone and being here today. Thank you so much. I'm excited to be here. And I often, you know, think about the profoundness of helping people who are hurting. And that's what makes it so special to me that you are here. And.

As I get older, I am. And it's also my grief work. It makes me realize the most precious thing we have is our time. So I am so grateful that you are giving your time to be here today. Whether it's being here live, as so many of you are from all around the world, and.

Whether you're watching in the replay, just know I get the preciousness and I thank you. This is live. It's always exciting. Anything can happen. Hopefully no Internet or power issues or those things. But I'm so glad you're here. And, you know, today we're talking about all the grief and trauma in the world, and so much is happening individually. I mean, obviously our loved ones are dying. There's horrible things with, you know, traumas that we are experiencing.

The death rate is still a hundred percent.

And on top of all the individual losses people are experiencing, there's collective grief. Oh, my gosh. There's, you know, there's been the fires here in Los Angeles. There's been plane crashes. There's fires in New York State. And this morning I was watching the weather report, and there's floods coming, you know, that they're concerned about in mudslides to the west. There's a tornado warnings in the Midwest. There are storms about to hit the East Coast. And that was the weather report. That was the weather report. And the state of our world is collectively painful. And so we're at a time where there is collective grief and individual grief. And in the midst of all of this, you are here to learn how to help. You are here to learn how to help, which is pretty extraordinary to me, and I'm so grateful that you are here.

So with so much uncertainty in the world, one thing we know for sure is that love and connections will continue and will continue to grieve. And we're. We're always looking for some way to find agency in our life. And when you're helping others, you are finding agency. You're not just waiting for someone else to take action. You are not being in a victim state. You are standing out, stepping forward. You know, we often have that saying, and we say it so much about.

It takes a village. Well, it can't Take a village. If we're not willing to be villagers and humans need connections and we need community and we need a collective place to help one another. And what an amazing way of making a difference. Because when we change our minds, we change the world. And when you help others, you're also healing yourself. Many of you who are here today or watching in the replay are.

Professionals who have been helping for a long time. Others were thrown into that dark night of despair. And you're here to learn to help others. And the world needs help more than ever.

Some of you are here from small rural communities, others are from the biggest cities in the world. And it just proves how universal grief is. And helping with grief is so important because we live in such a grief illiterate society and there's so much confusion and myths and misunderstandings around how to help people in grief. So I want to thank you again for showing up and for, you know, listening to the call. You're not just showing up, you're showing up for a reason and you're in the right place. If you're wondering how you can help others.

There'S an external call that we get. I only have to look at my social media on any given day. The heartbreaking comments of people who are asking for help and needing help and don't know who to turn to. And.

They'Re just so lost in their grief with no sense of hope. That's the external call. The internal call is that little small voice, maybe it's a loud voice, a big voice that brought you here today. And.

You know, you also know that in the world.

It can just be your neighbor who's asking for help. It can be a co worker. And no one models grief for us. People talk about those who are dealing with grief and trauma isolate themselves. And I always remind the world, we often isolate them. We have a part in their isolation. It's easy to victim, blame and go, oh, they're the isolators. We, the world has a part in that. We weren't willing to see what was going on through their eyes. We wanted to cheer them up, we wanted them to move on. And believe me, they feel like the world is moving on without them and everyone wants to give them a quick fix. In our optimistic society, so many of you have been through that dark night and you know of what I'm talking about. And people are actually getting judged more and more for the time it takes to grieve. And so many people are having a tough time. And as the world steps back from them, you're stepping forward, which is remarkable to me. And none of us can do this alone. So today I want to empower people with tools to help with their grief. And unattended grief is heartbreaking to see, to watch, and feel. I mean, I think back of unattended grief that's been happening, you know, and I'm not even talking about the huge, obvious unattended griefs in the world that are going on. You. You. You just have to look on your social media at the individual stuff. Someone's showing us a video of the ashes that once were their home or the plane crash or the wars, or they're talking about their traumatic grief, desperately trying to get a world to hear them and see them. And we've seen with so many notable people who have died, we hear about their death. And then there's this little footnote that in the past year, they were dealing with the death of a. A child, their parent, their sibling, and it's like their grief didn't get attended to. You know, we know now you can physically die of a broken heart. We know now that that is a reality. And I think about in my online group, I. I.

Share this story because it touched my heart and. And actually hurt my heart so much that a woman shared that her husband had died twice.

When I heard that, I was like, died twice. Did he. Was he. Did he die? Was he resuscitated? Cp? What. What was going on there? And she said that.

Her husband.

Had a child that died. Her stepson, she said when his child died.

He stopped living, that he died and he didn't get any help.

And she said she's watched him, desperate for him to get help.

For these last few years. And then recently.

He physically died himself.

And so he died when his child died emotionally, then physically he died. And it was so heartbreaking because we could see her pain. Here's this woman who watched a stepson die, then watched her spouse die slowly from heartbreak. She stood by him.

She knew how changed his world was. She honored his son and his grief, but she thought they would have more time together.

Even the word bereave means to be robbed. He was robbed of a child.

He was robbed of his life. She was robbed of her spouse. I'm David Kessler. For those of you who may not know me. I've had the honor of working in this field, and this isn't a field that.

Sometimes we choose. It chooses us. And maybe it's choosing you today, or it chose you. Long ago.

I dealt with a mother's death when I was 13.

There was a mass shooting at the same time that I was part of so much grief and trauma at a young age. And I thought there was just no hope for me. And.

I was so lost. I dropped out of high school and finally I learned that I could do this thing called a GED here and.

Test to maybe get a high school equivalent, which I did and finally made it to community college. And I learned there of this woman, Elizabeth Kubler Ross, who teaches and had this book and taught about death and dying. And there were the stages, and even then she said they weren't linear. And oh, my gosh, I had no idea. I thought I was the only person that had had this happen to them. Many of you and many of your clients probably feel like they're the only ones going through this. Suddenly, I wasn't alone, and I began to go into end of life care and hospice and grief work and help other people. Had no idea that someday I would get to work with the amazing Elizabeth Kubler Ross and help her adapt her stages of dying for stages of grief. And we certainly even said back then, the stages aren't linear. There's no one right way to do grief. And oh, my gosh, it has been such an honor over the decades to help people and help people now online deal with their grief and loss. And we know grief doesn't just show up as death, but as divorce, as betrayal. You know, betrayal is the death of the trust and trauma and estrangement, all these different losses. You know, I always say grief is the death of something. Just really, you might want to note that down. It's always the death of something. A breakup is the death of that romantic relationship. A divorce is the death of that marriage, a betrayal, death of trust, job loss, death of that paycheck in that place with that purpose, pet lost that, the loss of our little sweet furry friends. I always say about pet loss, if the love is real, the grief is real. We're dealing with so much home loss also, we're getting more aware of all the other types of grief. You know, I think about.

There'S been so much talk about narcissism. When you are in a relationship with a narcissist, it can be and feel like the death of yourself. And trauma is often the loss of grief, the loss of safety, the loss of childhood, the loss of self. Violence can be the death of safety. So today, oh, my gosh, so many people are here that are working in so many fields or want to. And.

You know, people often ask Wait a minute. What are the techniques for all these different losses? And it's actually the same techniques, whether it's the loss of a limb or the loss of a marriage. There's a few different tweaks, but it's still seeing those losses and the, the tools I'm going to give you today and I'll tell you, you know, like when we talk about breakups or divorce relationships where, where we forget that loss is someone rejected you, who's still alive in the world and rejecting you every day, when we talk about the other losses, like narcissism or abuse, it can feel and be the death of oneself. And, and that's different because it is the only death we can come back from is the death of oneself if we learn the tools. So I hope we're becoming more grief literate. And you know, even in my own life, as I started this quest decades ago, before the death of my mother, I.

Dealt with the impact of my father's addiction, the uncertainty of that, my mother, who would probably now be classified as bipolar. I learned to monitor my surroundings, to become hyper vigilant, to become other oriented, not because I was bad or anything, but because I was trying to survive. I experienced sexual abuse. We had a home loss. I have studied grief professionally, but I also know this personally. And one of the things to write down that's so important is all grief does not have trauma, but all trauma has grief.

And I had so much grief that needed to be attended to. Remember that all grief does not have trauma, but all trauma has grief. And there's so much more work these days around trauma work. But I know I could not fully get through my trauma till I healed the grief. They really do go hand in hand. And I'll tell you, I dealt with, as so many people do, traumatic grief. In my childhood, I thought I was damaged forever. And thank goodness the world is changing because I can tell you now that.

I speak every year at a national conference. I'm just about to go there again. And the interesting thing about speaking there is I started speaking there years ago. And when I started speaking there, it's in this huge hotel. And I literally speaking on the topic of grief, you know what they gave me? They gave me a little converted hotel room to speak in with 10 people. 10 people showed up for my lecture. And over the years I saw 10 grow to 20, grow to a small room that was an actual meeting room. And finally it got big. And now I'm going there to speak again. And I'm on the main Stage twice. And that's not a statement just about me. That's about therapists understanding. This is important work. And I'll tell you, the other thing that happened there is, oh, my gosh.

Last year I got to have lunch with people like Bessel Van Der Kolk, who wrote the Body Keep Score and saw Dick Schwartz, who has written books on ifs. And I'll tell you, there's so many of these people. And I said to one of the folks there, it's amazing to be here with these icons are our elders. And they said to me, and, you know, and they said, we're not the young ones anymore. And I'm like, oh, my gosh, I am getting older and there are these amazing young people coming up. And it's one of the reasons I want to pass this along. I feel like it becomes our duty and certainly my duty. And I'm so honored now that I get to teach with people like Frank Anderson and Gabor Mate. And I, I, I developed so much wisdom, not because I did so many things that were special, but because I've sat at the feet of people in grief and trauma and translated what they were going through into tools that are applicable for all of us. And if you're a professional, I hope some of these tools today are validating. And if you're someone who's been in grief and you turn your pain into purpose, you know, you now have X ray vision. Here's one of the things that's important to know.

We are not fixing. People in grief don't need fixing because they're not broken and it's not, oh, I'm helping from my bigness. I don't think about any kind of hierarchy in grief. I think about, we're here to serve one another. Here's the thing, and I learned this the hard way. You're serving one day, the next day you could need someone to care for you in this world. So I'm sharing a lot of techniques. I'm going to tell you about the six needs of the grieving that I think are going to be so important. And you're going to want to take a lot of notes. And also I am going to, at the end just tell you some exciting news about our grief educator program that, you know, it's been a year and I'm going to do. And I know some of you are waiting for the announcement of who the.

Guest speakers will be, but there's tons of information coming up before that. If it's not right for you, great. Tons of information here. So one of the things is, you know, when someone dies, our grief can get so complicated. And here's the thing.

Sometimes in complicated grief, people hold dearly to their suffering instead of the love. They mistakenly think suffering is how they should honor their loved ones. I'm not talking about grieving. Oh, my gosh, we all have to grieve fully. What I'm talking about is a disloyalty factor. Now, I'll tell you, some of you probably know this. After decades of working with people in grief and thinking, my grief is in my past. Eight years ago, my younger son David died.

Brutal then, brutal now at times. And I can tell you from working with other people and personally.

Pain keeps people in prison by disguising itself as loyalty. Think about that. Pain keeps people in prison by disguising itself as loyalty. Disloyalty is a story in our mind that creates suffering. It can become our identity, and it can then feel distorted way to show love. People think in grief that.

It'S disloyal to live again. When you've gone through those dark nights, weeks, months, sometimes years, sometimes of pain, you know, Continuing to love my son after his death is my loyalty. I'll never give death the power to end my love for my son. Never. So really write this one down because it's important.

Continuing to love those who have died after death is loyalty. It is not a denial of life, but an acknowledgment of love. Continuing to love someone after they died is loyalty. Not a denial of life, but an acknowledgment of love. I try to teach people the importance of grieving fully and living fully.

You know, I think about what I often call projected fragility. It's that tendency to project our fears and insecurities onto others, this projected fragility, and to underestimate their resilience and their ability to cope with difficult situations. We have this black and white thinking that you. You either have to be broken and fragile or completely strong and all that. Here's the thing. People in grief.

Are strong and fragile and resilient. The truth is we're all of that. We're fragile and resilience. And I'll tell you, there's this weird thing in our society now that somehow resilience is climbing the mountaintop and ignoring your feelings. Sometimes resilience and grief is being face down in bed because that's what you need to do sometimes. That's even the face of resilience. We were built to take a number of hits this Lifetime. We were built to handle all of this. You come from a long line of dead people. Everyone that's ever been an ancestor of yours have died. There's some wisdom deep in you that knows how to do this. But our society has squashed a lot of those tools and techniques. And in my teachings, I really try to, of course, validate people's pain, but I can't stop there. I have to help with integration and integrate the love. People in grief are not just their pain, they are also the love. And here's another important thing to really know and write down that love that you have for those who have died or maybe yourself or whatever has happened.

The grief isn't about becoming smaller. The grief doesn't get smaller. We have to begin become bigger. Let me say that again and write that one down. The grief doesn't get smaller. We have to become bigger. And I'll tell you, my son loved my work before he died. His girlfriend, who was a social worker, wanted to come to my lecture. And I saw them both sitting in the back, and he was so proud of my work.

My son would have never wanted his death to constrict my work. He would want to expand it. And in that experience, I find even more love for him. And someone might go, david, you know, when you talk about him, it's been a wow, have you not healed? What's the story there? And here's the thing about that, that people may not realize is I'm not emotional.

I'm feeling love. Those emotions, those. Our love. That's not being emotional. That's feeling the love, and that's the love that will never die. But I'm telling you, we can get stuck in the pain. In this past year, I was privileged to teach with one of just an icon, one of my favorite people in the world, Dr. Edith Eger, a Holocaust survivor, a psychologist. And she talks about.

Our pain and our healing. Not revolving, but evolving. And so many of us have pain that continues to revolve in our life. Here's another one to write down. The mind replays what the heart can't delete. The mind replays what the heart can't delete. The revolving that's going on is your inner wisdom trying to find a way, but it gets stuck in a loop. But things can change with these tools. And the world is changing so much. You know, it used to be.

To get support in this world for grief, you had to go to a therapist. And you, you, you wondered, where did they get to go to school and where they learned and all that. And gosh, with the pandemic and everything else that's changed, people are going to coaches, more going to peer to peer supporters. Most grief groups in the world are run by non professionals, people who have gone through it. And a lot of people get thrown into those positions with no grief education. And even therapists these days who want to help people online across state lines. Some of them are in states that as long as they call themselves a coach, they can do that. So things are changing and there's more resources and to deal with this experience. So many of you can and are helping people out of the grief.

This is another important one. Take this one down. This is troubling to hear. Grief and trauma, as you probably know, can get passed down through generations.

Can get passed down through generations. Here's the thing.

This is what you need to know. It's going to keep getting passed down through generations till someone's willing to feel and heal them. Someone has to be willing to feel and heal them. It's really important. And I'll tell you, the society is changing and the world needs people like you to be willing to help more than ever. And I'm in awe of those changes. I could not have imagined in my lifetime. So many people stepping forward to be helpful. Now here's the thing.

This work is not for everyone. It's not for everyone. A grief talk on how to help people in grief. Not everyone shows up for this talk. Whether you're here live or in the replay.

You'Re there. There's something about you that you've showed up for this. And so it's so important to understand. People get so lost in their pain. And that's part of it. And I can tell you, as a grief professional and as a bereaved son and a bereaved parent, joy is still possible. Happiness is so possible. And I'll tell you, I hope to be evidence for people in those dark nights that all those things are possible. Now, one of the things that's important is a big mistake people make when they are trying to help people in grief is not meeting them where they are, not meeting them where they are. And so we have to have tools to understand that process that's going through because it.

Is in everything in our life. Our old wounds come up in grief. I'll tell you, it's embarrassing. I'm going to let go of the word embarrassing. But it's hard for me to think about the good relationships I probably ruined in my life because of my unhealed abandonment that comes up and those old wounds come up in our relationships.

And we have to hold hope for people and not diminish hope, but not brightside them. And it's really important that we don't rush people and we meet them at their speed, not ours. And here's the thing, people often get worried that.

They didn't attend to their grief or they think their trauma has been unattended or grief got lost. Trauma and grief, this is another one for you to know. Trauma and grief are persistent. They wait for us patiently. They wait for us patiently and they don't go away. And I see grief as really the first early grief, early grief as the first two years. The first two years. And one of the things that one of our amazing psychiatrists in this program out there, folks who are going to be joining us, is one of the things he says is trauma blocks love and love heals trauma. Trauma blocks love and love heals trauma. That's Dr. Frank Anderson, who's going to be teaching this year with us. And I'll tell you, we run from the intense pain, but the truth is what we run from pursues us. What we run from pursues us. And what we face transforms us. And.

People think sometimes because of their childhood wounds that you work with or try to help or you know, or you love that, oh, they're avoider, they're just avoiding things. We are biologically predisposed to avoid pain. And this is the worst pain. Sometimes someone said to me years ago, oh, yeah, no, no, I get it. It's like, it's like touching the hot stove. And I'm going, it's not touching the hot stove. The hot stove fell on you. And we deal with grief and trauma and traumatic grief. People forget about traumatic grief. Traumatic grief can be one, the way someone died can be traumatic. It can be two, your old trauma that's getting projected onto the current grief. Or it could be both. It can be both. And we forget how big this can be. Now we also talk about judgment of grief. We have prolonged grief. The DSM 5 complicated grief is now being called prolonged grief. And this is a new definition in how therapists and clinicians can bill. And it's so important that they get paid for their important grief work. But even the word prolonged, I feel like it's saying you're taking too long in your grief. And how many people.

Judge grief without knowing it? How many people have judged your grief? And the thing is, most people were never taught tools. I feel like sometimes I'm teaching People what our great grandparents knew, how to be with the dying, how to be with the grieving. We were never taught tools. I mean, we were. I was taught algebra, like I've never used algebra. And here's the thing, over and over and over again, throughout my life, therapists said to me they became full on therapists without one class in grief. Without one class in grief. Now, if that shocks you, there's things like that that happen in our world. Like you can literally be a captain. This is changing too, thank goodness. But you could be a captain of a huge ship, an ocean liner, and not know how to swim. So we have to understand not things just academically or professionally, but we have to know what they feel like. That's why these six needs are so important. So here they are. The six needs are. One, to have your pain witnessed. Have your pain witnessed. Two, to express your feelings. And I'm going to go into each one of these. Three, to release the burden of guilt. Four, to be free of old wounds. Five, to integrate the pain and the love. And six, find the meaning in life after loss at your own pace, in your own way. The first one is we need to have our grief witnessed. We need our pain reflected in the eyes of another. Time doesn't heal all. What heals grief and trauma is connection in a supportive, healing way. In my tender hearts group, I often talk. My online group, I often talk about, tell me your loved one's name. They weren't just a loss, they were this amazing people who walked this earth. You know, you're not your trauma, you're not your pain. So you know, even me with my son who died, my parents do die. I'm not a problem to be solved. But we need to see the pain and help people through it. And when we talk about meeting people where they are, people can smell if the person serving you is thinking you should be further along. We all know you've had a friend who thinks you should be further along in your grief. And you can smell their agenda. And the reason why that doesn't work is it subconsciously says to us, we are in the wrong place, we are doing our grief wrong.

So think about the important. You can't have a hint of. You need to change. The second one is express your feelings. You got to be comfortable with your feelings. And people often think from the outside, oh, there's three feelings in grief. There is happy, sad, angry. No, there's a million feelings. Bitter, jealousy, envy, contentment, sadness. We need to identify feelings and let them out. We are not taught all the colors of grief. And we're not taught that one size doesn't fit all. You know, it's. I. I do a technique where I ask people to get into their body and to sort of check it out and to see where they are in their grief and what they're feeling. And anger is a huge emotion. I gotta tell you. Anger people feel unsafe even when I demonstrate how to deal with anger and grief online. They feel unsafe because anger has been modeled so poorly and dangerously. We're also the first generation that has feelings on feelings.

We feel it, judge it, throw it, toss it behind us. The third one is release the burden of guilt. Oh, my gosh. When I was writing my last book, Finding Meaning, amazing editors at Simon and Schuster, and, I mean, there's people who know that more about the difference between a colon and a semicolon and what sounds good and all those things. And when I turned in my first draft, I got the note back like, oh, my gosh, you're being repetitive. You talk about guilt in this chapter and in the general grief chapter, and then the suicide chapter and the death of a child, and you keep going back to guilt. And the editor said to me, I have a solution. And I said, oh, okay. And she said, here's what you can say right at the beginning of the book. Self blame often accompanies grief but is unwarranted.

Oh, my gosh. She said it like, oh. And I. I remember saying, it's a beautiful sentence. I'm not sure. Do you think that would help with people's grief and all their guilt? And she goes, oh, I'm not sure. And I go, I actually am. 99% of my work is around guilt. I said, so I have to come up with tools and techniques, and I don't want to be repetitive. So thank you for that. We'll figure out a way to do it. Here's what you need to know about guilt. The mind would always rather be guilty than helpless. Write that one down. The mind would always rather be guilty than helpless. And you need the right tools to help people move from the what ifs to the even if. What if I would have done this, even if I did that, they still would have died. The fourth one that's so important.

Is to be free of our old wounds. You can't just address the grief. You have to deal with the old wounds. And so when we talk about these old wounds, people bring their old wounds to grief. You want to know why our old wounds come up in a time of Stress. Guess what? Grief is a really big time of stress. So, of course, our old wounds are popping up all over, and we can easily miss the mark by trying to address the grief but not address the old wounds. You know, there was a woman who shared with me how in her grief, she was finally going out. And she had told me how she felt like her husband's death was the hugest rejection. And I thought, interesting that she thinks about it as a rejection. And then she said as she was beginning to go out, she went to this outdoor concert recently, and she went to the front row and she said there was a sign that said reserved. And she sat down anyway. And.

I, I. And she goes, the security guard came over and told me I had to move to another seat. She goes, once again, I was rejected. And I thought about that, and I thought how she for sure chose a seat that she would be rejected in. But rejections come up twice now in her story. And I know there's a reason she's playing this out. And one of the things that I think about, like, I, I, some of you heard the podcast I did with Brene Brown Years ago, when Dr. Perry talks about this, it's not what's wrong with her, it's what happened to her. What happened to her. And so I said to her, hearing that, I said, I hear a lot of rejection.

Were you ever rejected before your husband died? And she teared up and started talking about the rejection in her childhood. So you could see how that's just playing out. And it's playing out not because you're doing something wrong, not you're choosing the wrong people over and over. You're attracted to the wrong. Your, your soul is trying to find a way to heal. A way to heal. We have, like, language that sometimes even professionals have used it, and thank goodness they're not using it anymore. Like, oh, if it's hysterical, it's historical. Well, that's a little bit of a shameful saying. The reality is, if we're bringing intense emotions that feel out of proportion to what's happening, your pain should feel. And here's another thing you want to know. The grief is in proportion to the love. So the grief should be in proportion to the love. That's the good and the bad news. But our old wounds, sometimes we bring a huge reaction to not being able to sit in that particular seat.

The fifth one to mention is to integrate the pain and the love. You've got to really deal with acceptance. It's not one big acceptance. It's A million acceptances. And I'll tell you, when I think of integration, I'm wearing today my father's old Hamilton watch. I don't leave our loved ones behind. I bring them with me. I don't move on from them. And one of the other things I think about is the last place I saw my son, David, is not far from where I lived. And I gave him a hug goodbye. And I didn't know it was going to be the last time. And I'll tell you, I avoided that place like the plague. And I eventually, after avoiding it, found myself there, and I got angry about it and released these feelings. And I'll tell you, the more I work through this, it became this place where it's now a sweet spot on Earth where I walk by and get a hug from him again so we can integrate things. And of course, the last thing is about finding meaning. And when people hear this idea of meaning, I want you to know meaning is not in the death. It's not in the horrible death. It's not in your abuse. It's not in the sexual, you know, it's not in the perpetrator. It's not in the molestation. It's not all those things. Meaning is in us. It's what we do afterwards. And sometimes we want to skip the pain and go there. And I get it. I get it. But I'll tell you, meaning becomes a beautiful cushion if we find it in our own way, in our own time. And it's amazing, the gifts when we open to them. I tell you about my. That place where my son was. I gave him that last hug.

A few years ago, maybe three or four years ago now. I was doing a TV show, and I was invited on a TV show with William Shatner, Captain Kirk, literally. And at the end of the show, he said, hey, we should get together sometimes. And I said, sure, I'd love that. And he asked for my phone number. I gave it to him on Thuno. Probably never hear from him. Called the next day. We had lunch, then dinner, friends. I got to know his family. He's gotten to know mine, my surviving son, all of that. And I told him one day of that story of the last place I saw my son. He said, guess what? Are you ready to evolve even more? I said, sure. He goes, that's my office where you're talking. So. So many different things can happen when we're willing to go through all these different needs with people and to help them. All these needs of the dying are so important. You can't skip one. You can't go past them quickly and they don't happen in any particular order but you have to touch on them. And grief is organic, it comes from nature. And I'll tell you we have to utilize these tools in this world more than ever. As I mentioned, I hope some of these things are so helpful to you. And there's more. I am starting my six Grief Educator program and I'm starting it that's coming up and I couldn't be more excited. I want to tell you who's going to be teaching with me and one of the things I love is those of you who want to do more. I personally mentor grief educators. I personally mentor them and I created it around all the six needs. And we're going to go into all kinds of grief. It's not just death, all kinds, all the ways. You know, grief is a change we didn't want. So we're going to be covering grief and trauma and boundaries and faith and children and culture and how grief is held in the body. So I'll be teaching about all those different kinds. And we've got amazing guest speakers. Two psychiatrist, victims rights advocates. You can get all the information@griefcertificate.com grief educator.com and yeah, check out grief educator.com and here's the thing.

You might get a call someday from someone or it could be a neighbor. The worst that has happened. If you go through the Grief Educator program, you're always going to have these videos to help you. You're always going to have these resources and I'll tell you in 2025, grief is everywhere. Grief is everywhere. And if you're here, you don't want to be a bystander. We need people actively helping. And when tragedy happens, this is a world that things responsibility dissipates. That's why I'm so touched that you are here to learn how to help. Here's how the program works. It is a three month certificate program. We put a lot of thought into this. We didn't want it to be a static teaching that's a bunch of recordings or we wanted it to be real and community and an active discussion. I teach you live literally every week. And this is for people who are therapists, coaches, mental health professionals, first responders, people who want to be peer to peer supporters, turn their pain into purpose. You can get the details@griefeducator.com and I'll tell you the training will make such a difference. Those of you who want to go further, you're going to be part of something special and you'll have the ability to be listed on grief.com as someone who's trained with me and certified. And I'll tell you and there's going to be there's no charge for getting on grief.com people try to pay their way on. The only way to be listed as someone who's been taught by me is to go through the Grief Educator program. Let me give you some details and I know you want to hear who's teaching this year. So it is a weekly teaching with me via Zoom. It's online and you can join live every week or you can watch the replay. If you can't make it live, then we have labs like we had in school and I wanted this to be robust with real world practice. Someone asked me we're going to role play. No, we're not going to role play. But their labs are relaxed and they're informative and you get to ask questions and see how this really works. And we have multiple labs for you to choose from. We have first of all, all three of them that we have throughout the week work for folks in the US and Canada. But we have one that works for Australia. We have another one that works for the uk, Ireland and Europe. We have another one that works for Japan, another one for Israel. Amazing times for people to have choices. And you can do a different one each week. And it's a private training website that only you will have access to to really upgrade your career. If you're always doing already doing this, you'll get a personalized certificate. People frame them, they put it on their walls. We get give you logos that you've been trained by me and grief.com amazing work you can do with this. You can get all the details@grief educator.com and I'll tell you the amazing thing. We have trained counselors, therapists, coaches, peer supporters, equine therapists, art therapists, music therapists. One of the folks in our alumni told me the other day that they were using their training at their local zoo. They realized when one of the animals died at their Zoom, no one went there and supported all these workers who were in grief. People are doing amazing things with this death doulas, people from funeral homes, clergy. Clergy get training on how to do a funeral, but sometimes not enough on grief work, school counselors, people who were dealing with those who are incarcerated, people who are looking for a new specialty. It's really a wonderful mix of people and it can be all kinds of people. Who are volunteering. You know, if your mind is saying this training isn't for you, but you're here, be open to it because people need you. And I'm so proud of all that our alumni are doing. We have amazing training modules that people get access to right away. And here's our guest speakers this year. In addition to me, every week, you're going to have Nancy Levin, a master coach, written books on boundaries. Boundaries are so big. We're going to have amazing therapist and social worker Heidi Horsley, who's worked with nine, 11 firefighters. She also had a brother who died. We're going to have Dr. Frank Anderson, who's a psychiatrist and therapist that's written books on trauma. He's going to be helping us. We're going to have Here's a new person this year and I'm so excited some of the other people came back. One of the people who became a bestseller this year because of her amazing work is hospice nurse Julie. She's trying to really make sure people know the best of hospice so that you know what to expect and understand end of life care care. And because we want everyone to get great hospice care if they so choose it, we're going to have Liz Hernandez. Many of you know her on the west coast. She's from 94.7 radio, the number one radio host here in Los Angeles. She's going to talk about her journey. She works with Maria Shriver, helping people who are dealing with Alzheimer's. Rachel Hanling going to teach us how to tell our story. You know her from the Oprah Winfrey show or Anderson Cooper. Sherry o' Laughlin for Compassionate Friends. Vicki J. From the national alliance of Grieving Children. Christine Mouy, the head psychiatrist at the American foundation of Suicide Prevention. Reverend Cordelia Wallace. Paul Denniston, helping us understand somatic grief and grief in our body. And as well as Kim Goldman, whose brother was murdered and is going to be talking about violence and went through one of the biggest crimes of the century that all of you heard about. I'll tell you, look online, you're going to see these programs for six, eight thousand dollars. We wanted to make this realistic for people and doable. The programs designed to help you really feel confident and have the tools. It begins April 1st. And if for some reason you're like, I'm not sure if it's for me, sign up, grab a space, because I'll tell you, it fills up one of the things someone said to me recently. You do this every year. And I and they go, let me know when it's going to be your last year we know in grief and loss we don't know when it's the last anything. If you feel called please check this out. There's a 30 day money guarantee if you try it and it's not right for you to learn the details go to grief educator.com I am so thrilled to be doing this again. It begins April 1st. Please grab your spot. I'd love to see you there. I'd love to teach you and if just the tips today were enough for you. I'm so grateful that you're going to be in the world helping people. I hope to get to see you in the program and I'll tell you nothing in the world changes until we are there for one each other for one another and we often shy away from the hard times. Thank you for not doing that. I so appreciate you being here and I hope to see you very soon. Thanks so much. Take care.