114: Opposing & Shared Views of Grief - a Debate

All right. When I sat down to record today's episode with John Connolly, what came out was not what I expected, but I think it is perfectly perfect. Why? Well, John and I actually had some pretty different views on grief. John holding some opinions and beliefs and thoughts around his work in grief and what he's keeping, he's created as an published author and as an expert in the field, really contrasts with my experiences and my belief. Now, we had certain places of middle ground, of course, but what I really think is beautiful here within the context of our conversation, within our differing views, whether you align with mine or his or both of ours or parts of each of ours, is perfect. But what I think is really powerful, really potent, that's laced in between it, is how it's okay to have different views, how you can hold space for each other, how you can respect each other, how an emotionally charged topic like grief or finances or love or life's purpose, whatever it may be, how multiple truths can exist. Because John's truth is his truth and my truth is my truth. Now, I'm never going to make somebody wrong, and just like I'll never allow somebody to make me wrong. Right. When we really step away from right or wrong and we step into alignment and choice and the freedom for us to each align with what authentically works for us now, that's when we're in a massive space of co creation, of learning, of evolution. Something else I want to invite you into is there was a time where the beliefs I have now, even early, earlier episodes of this podcast, the beliefs I have now have shifted, right? They've evolved. That's what we do when we're learning and we're growing. So if we get so attached to how something needs to be and something has to be right and this way and that is it. Well, we're not leaving any room for growth, for unfolding, for curiosity, for discovery. So if we know that, chances are in five months, five years, 15 years, we're going to feel differently about something. Can we allow the beauty and the sacredness. You'll see why I chose the word sacredness later on in this episode. Can we allow the beauty and the sacredness of us each being on our own path just be that. I hope you enjoy. All right, everybody, welcome back to the show. I got another amazing guest here today who we've already declared that we are now lifelong new friends, even though we have only recently met. But that is just how it works when you combine or really connect with like minded people and certain energies. So I'M so excited to introduce you to my new friend, John Conley, who is not only just an amazing pioneer in the space of grief, he is the published author of two books. And we are specifically going to be diving into a little bit more around his second book called Grief is Sacred, and some of his work around rapid resolution therapy. So please join me in welcoming John to the show.

Thanks so much. Just a tiny correction. The title of the book is Grief is Not Sacred.

Did I say Grief is Sacred?

You did, because thinking about stuff, I.

Think, John, that's because I saw it and I was like, wow, we're really going to talk about how I will often reference things as sacred and yet your title is sacred. So I was aware of that, and I think my subconscious just took over.

I just wanted to get that one clear.

Yes, thank you for doing that. So why don't you let the listener know where. Where you're dialing in from and just a little bit about you and the work that you do?

Sure. Well, I'm. I'm in Florida, and what I do is I do a lot of training and a process I develop called Rapid Resolution therapy. People who take my training are often people who are in the mental health industry or the coaching industry, or just people who are looking to be able to make their own lives better. And I think what's different about us is a lot of the personal improvement workshops are just about that. Ours are always about how you can be better for others and yourself at the same time. Actually, the best way to have the best life is to be interested in not only what you can acquire for yourself, but of which you can be providing and giving to others. Which is not a message you need to hear from me because you've been doing that over and over and doing it well.

Thank you. So how does rapid resolution therapy, how would somebody begin to step into that work? Or what would that look like?

Well, let me tell you a little bit about how it's different. One way it's different, I believe, is that the people who are being trained to be rapid Resolution therapy facilitators actually take responsibility for getting people better. I ask people who tell me they've had numerous experiences with people in the mental health industry that didn't get them better. And I'll say, well, do you remember when your therapist, counselor, psychologist, social worker told you that they were sorry that they didn't have the skill to assist you and that that was what the problem was? And nobody remembers that. People remember being told they weren't ready to change. They were resistant. They were too defensive. They didn't put themselves into it. They didn't have enough motivation. But. But they never encountered somebody who is a therapist who said, sorry, I screwed it up. I didn't do a good job for you. So one big difference is that, by the way, most mental health professionals don't even take responsibility. They say, hey, I'm glad to meet you. I'm looking forward to working with you. It's your job to get better, and I'll be here while you're doing that. It just doesn't make sense to me. I think if you are going to go through the trouble of connecting with me, then it's my job to get you better. I don't want to go for a haircut and have the gal hand me a pair of scissors and say, I'm going to hold the mirror.

Right?

I love that analogy and try rubbing my own back. So I want to make people get better, and I want to teach other people how to do that and how to take responsibility for that and actually have the skill to do it and to do it fast and to do it painlessly. We like to get people way better quickly and without causing them to get worse, without causing them to feel bad. So much of what's going on in the mental health industry that I feel like people are trying to squeeze every droplet of pain out of somebody. And by the way, certainly in the grief industry, and grief, I think, is an industry, and we try to squeeze every droplet of that pain. And when people are grieving, they tend to be maybe sent to a counselor or grief therapist who maybe likes to get them into a group where people are able to trigger each other. And if you got somebody in the group and she starts crying and somebody across the room starts crying with them, well, that's a good group. I mean, I don't think so. I think that sounds like a group that really sucked. But the whole notion that the way to get over feeling bad is to feel bad is hugely inherent, particularly in, well, in the grief industry, particularly in the whole psychotherapy thing. But, boy, grief counselors really are into making sure that you have the opportunity to feel bad. So I was looking at. I'm going to actually shut up in a second and let you talk. But I was looking at other. All these books on grief, because I wrote a book on grief and I wanted to see what do the other groups say? And of course, they have the other books. They all have a unique perspective. But there's something everybody seems to agree on all of these books on grief. And they all seem to say it's really okay not to be okay. Yeah, every one of them say it's okay to not be okay. Well, you know what, Melissa? It's not freaking okay with me. And if I saw that you weren't okay, I wouldn't be okay with it. I'd say, whoa, I don't like to see that she's not okay. I got to get her okay, not tell her it's okay that she's not okay. What the heck? So we have a little more, I guess, challenging thing to do. We're looking to actually get people clear and free and feeling good rather than blessing their pain. Sacred. I don't think your pain is sacred. I don't freaking like it and would like to eliminate it.

So it's really interesting to hear because there are so many things I agree with you on, and then there are things that I'm like, oh, no, that doesn't. That doesn't resonate with me. Which I think is beautiful, because there's space for all of these conversations. Right? Like that I think is. Is beautiful. And one thing that I take a hard stand against is toxic positivity, which is like, just think positive or be happy and you'll be happy.

I hate that. How are you doing? Awesome. Yeah, awesome.

Yeah.

How are you? Depressed.

Whoa.

What's it matter? You being awesome makes me depressed. That's all. Yeah, we totally agree on that one. So when I'm saying it's okay to be okay, and it's not okay to not be okay, it doesn't mean it's better if you say you're okay even though you're not. Because, boy, we live in a culture where it went from, how are you doing? Fine all the way to how you doing? Amazing. Look at my post. Here I am. This is what I had for lunch. This is the pool I swim in. And it looks like all these people out there are feeling fabulous. I'm lucky, because those people come to me, the people everybody wants to be. They're miserable. So next time you feel bad because somebody tells you they're fine, they're lying.

Yeah. Yeah. So I hear you in that, and I think what comes up for me is like, what is. What approach do you take? So you spoke a little bit about what you're not. Right? Not the modern therapy, not the mirror, not the self massage, not the grief is sacred. So what does the rapid resolution therapy entail?

Okay, I think that the processor. This is a call Processor, that's mind outside of conscious awareness, that is processing info and responding to that info. And that prime directive of that processor. I learned prime directive from Captain Kirk. The prime directive is to cause, survive. And to cause, survive, it's about causing things to happen. I believe that the most complicated and essential things are the things that are going on internally. Circulation, respiration, digestion. It's responding to that and making shifts to keep us alive. But if it's going to get Bill's stomach to be digesting, it also has to get Bill to go in the kitchen, make a sandwich, take a bite. And so in order to do that, I believe our mind causes emotion, sensation, thought, impulse, habit. And the point of all of that is to cause an action. So I think if somebody is experiencing depression, anxiety, grief, turmoil, regret, shame, that what's causing it is that individual's mind. But I don't think the person's mind is trying to make them feel bad. I think that our minds are out of the box, dysfunctional. And so it becomes my job to tune it up so that it's able to navigate this environment that we will inhabit. So I think that when it comes to survival, that we survive better with connection. So here, this is designed to make you wrong. If zebra is running from lion, what does she have to run faster than in order to survive?

The lion?

Well, it's actually the slowest zebra. So if she's by herself, guess who she is? The slowest zebra. And so I think that to survive and propagate, it's hard to propagate when you're by yourself. And it's even harder to survive when you're by yourself. So I think our minds do things to try to get us connecting to other people in order to cause the survival of ourselves, our offspring and the species. And then all of the emotions are caused in order to cause an action. Fear is designed to cause them to run away. Anger is designed to cause him to attack and bite. Hunger, I guess, is designed to cause him to eat something. But it's a dysfunctional system. It doesn't work right by itself. If you have any doubt about that, look at the front page of the newspaper. I wouldn't suggest you open it because it just keeps getting worse. But it tells you everything you want to know about how things are completely dysfunctional right on the front page. But I believe our minds can be tuned up from outside by somebody that knows what they're doing to cause all of those terribly painful experiences to dial way down and to cause people to Then act in a way that is better for themselves, which is to be much more loving to others. And so I would say grief is being caused always by the mind of the person grieving one, and it's a dysfunction. It doesn't have value. And we would prefer to tune it so that that is no longer causing harm to the person who's suffering and the people that relate to them.

Right. Yeah. I think that that's really powerful, especially as you talk about connection and loneliness, because a huge part of the grief journey and the suffering is around the loneliness that can be experienced. Right. And as we can build connection, it's a huge part of our. Our healing.

Exactly. But. But the loneliness isn't caused, in my view, from being alone. It's caused by the mind trying to get us to connect. So when I used to feel really lonely, Melissa, if Mom said, well, why don't you go out, meet people, do something. No, I'm not going out there and meet people. Why not? I'm too lonely. That's dysfunctional. Right. I mean, my mind is making me lonely in order to get me to meet people. And I'm not meeting people because I'm lonely, which makes me feel inadequate, which makes me want to, you know, hide under the covers. So I think that can be fixed, and it's my job to fix it, and it's my job to teach other people how to fix it, and that's what I do.

So powerful. So a lot of reprogramming, right. A lot of breaking patterns, a lot of getting unstuck. So if you say grief is not, what would you say grief is?

A dysfunction. Can you elaborate on that functional thing where mind is causing. Mind is attempting to cause her to connect to the loved person in a way that no longer works, and in so doing, preventing her from connecting to the loved person in a way that would work. So if I'm going to meet with somebody who's grieving, I know right off the bat that there will be an objection, probably many, to being okay, I got to get past that. So you go talk to somebody who's just grieving because a lover died or child died or friend died or whatever. And if you were to just say to that person, how you doing? And he says, well, I'm miserable. You know, Ralph died yesterday. And if you say, boy, I hate to see you miserable. Hey, I have a quick thing I can do for you. You'll be. So come over. Let's get it done. I don't think that person's going to Say, oh, cool. Get started. They're going to say, whoa, no, you can't take away my misery. And so the first job for us is to navigate around that so that you're okay with not being okay. And in order to do that, I have to identify why it wouldn't be okay. And here's why it wouldn't be okay. People say, no, I don't want to have the grief disappear. I mean, you go over to somebody, you talk to people grieving all the time. If you say to them, hey, I figured out a thing that makes it go away. It's amazing. All you do is tap this spot on the forehead twice. Here, I'll show you how to do it. Now everybody do it. I bet most people don't do it, particularly if they believe you and think it'll work, because they believe that it's important to grieve. And here's why they think it's important to grieve. One is they think it's a testimonial to the loved person. It isn't right. The person who loves you is not thinking that. The fact that you feel like crap is an honor.

Right.

Who is? People don't want to give up grieving because they believe that grief is the only connection they have left with the loved person.

Right.

It's not a connection. What if I'm sitting feeling miserable because you're not there? That's not a connection with you.

Right?

So we got to first navigate the objections to being okay. And another one is, the more I'm hurting, the more I love. It's not true. Yeah, it's not true. I have a friend who. He was married, like, 40 years, and when his wife would walk into the room, I'd like to yell at them. I'd say, will you guys get a room or something? I mean, 40 years of marriage. She walks in, and he starts breathing heavy and his eyes dilate. So what the heck, kids, you know? And then she died. I was terrified to even talk to him. I said, this is going to be, like, overwhelming. And I said to him, how you doing, Mike? You know? And he said, oh, man, amazing. Well, did you hear about your wife dying yesterday, dude? He says, yeah, I'm feeling so good. She's right here. We're just as connected as ever. I had another gal who used to come to me when I used to see people weekly for therapy because I didn't know what the hell I was doing or how to actually help them. And this woman would come every week and she would Talk about this guy that she was involved with, and she would talk about him with disgust, hatred, and contempt. It would make my skin crawl. When he died, that was the most overwhelming grief I ever saw from her. So grief is not a measurement of love. You can be really loving a person without it being grieving. And some people are grieving people they never loved at all.

I completely agree with that. I completely.

Wow. Nobody agrees with me. Melissa, we should go for coffee. That's.

I've got my coffee right here. Well, I mean, what I. What I believe is that, you know, in my own grief journey, there was a time where I didn't want to be happy. I didn't want to smile. I didn't want to laugh. I felt like I was betraying my daughter or I felt like I was.

Moving on, you know, like she would be happy to see you miserable. She wasn't. She's happy to see you happy right now.

Right, exactly. But I had to go kind of through my journey of, like, understanding that and realizing that I can be very connected to her and not actually grieving her not being here. She's just. We're connected in a different way, right?

Absolutely. But you got to get that across to people.

I mean, working on it.

I'm totally with you on it, but you're. You. You're relentless. You're, like, doing this over and over. I'm so excited to know you.

Thank you. So what advice would you have for somebody who's navigating grief right now and they feel overwhelmed or they're not really sure, you know, what to do? Because for some people, to be honest, John, your messages are going to be inaccessible. Meaning it's going to feel like, too hard, too out of reach. Like, that might be a step eight. Right. And somebody might be looking for their step one or their step two. So what advice do you have for somebody who's really kind of like, just trying to figure out how to navigate their grief journey?

Well, step one is understand that the thing that's causing the emotion is your own mind not conscious, outside of conscious awareness. And your mind is not interested in you feeling bad. It's interested in you first surviving and then thriving. So if your own mind, if you're feeling bad, no matter. I mean, the way normal people think. I got kicked out of the normal club a long time ago. But the way normal people think is they understand emotion based on situation. Why is he so angry? Well, because somebody's kicking him. Why is she so nervous being with this nice guy? Because a guy Attacked her previously. So that's how we understand stuff. I have a different perspective. The thing that's causing the emotion is the mind of the person who's experiencing it. I like to think that way because when people come to see me, they always bring their mind. Hence, it's right there in front of me. It's accessible. And since I know it's my job to tune it, fix it, and get it in better shape, and it's right there in front of me, and I know it's my job, I can then do it. And so I think that the first step actually is get with somebody who knows what they're doing and actually thinks that it's all right for you to be all right. It's not all right for you to not be all right, and tells you that it's their job to get you all right and tells you this is how long it'll take. This is the beginning, middle, and end, and we'll get it done within a handful of meetings or less.

Yeah, I think definitely finding the right support is important. You know, I think everyone's timeline is very different based on the tools they have, the intensity of the grief. So for anyone listening, like, being aware, like, a set timeline could be really hard, but you definitely 100% want to be in the room with somebody who is moving you forward, not keeping you stuck in it, stagnant in it, wallowing in it, but allowing you to kind of, like, work through it and check through it and go through it.

Well, when you say stuck in it and wallowing in it, the problem, I think, Melissa, and I want to hear your opinion on it, is that is what is out there as the thing you're supposed to do to get better. They actually put you places where they encourage you to feel, to really express all those feelings in order. And what you have to do to express them is feel them. And if you say, well, I still feel bad, well, the person thinks that's because you haven't felt bad enough.

Yeah, I think it's a balance. I think there is an element of what I see and what I choose to interpret as the it's okay to not be okay. The part that I interpret that is positive about that is there can be layers of shame around feeling pain or embarrassment. Like, I have to hide it. And then people feel a pressure to hide it or be like, I'm great, right? And so I think there's a level of acceptance of, like, I kind of feel shitty today, but I'm continuing to move forward. That Is what I think is important. I think when we put shame on it, like, there's something wrong with somebody if they're feeling pain, that, to me, actually just compounds and makes it worse. So first we got to allow the space for it, but then we want to keep moving forward, which is truly what my book is doing. My book is designed to give action steps for how to move forward and how to keep moving forward while still honoring. Like, you're gonna have some shit days, you're gonna have some shit hours, you're gonna have this or that. But, like, it's continually making the choice to move forward.

100% agree with you as you say that if we can eliminate the shame around feeling bad about anything, about grief or anything, that is an essential step toward getting rid of that problem. So, yes, go ahead and get people free of being ashamed of feeling bad, but the solution isn't to feel bad.

No, I think there's a difference between choosing to feel bad and allowing the emotions to come up and move them through you. But I do a lot around embodiment and actually moving energy, which is like, literally letting. Because there's evidence of, like, these emotions can get trapped in our body. Like, we got to get it out, right? We got to get it out, and we let it move out. But I don't know.

Yeah, I. I kind of think we gotta get the mind to stop causing it rather than we gotta find a way to get it out. The getting it out seems to be causing people in the grief industry to be doing a lot of encouraging people to feel it and then express it in order to release it. That's how I would treat a cyst on somebody's butt. This. You have to slice it open and squeeze it out. But that's not how I would. How I would treat anxiety, depression, or grief. I think we can get. This thing is trying to get you to connect to this loved person. I want to find a way to get that connection to happen so that it's good. I'm looking for the connection. And you talked about a living, loving connection with your child, which I find really inspirational.

Yeah, I think, you know, John, I think there's different ways of approaching it. Like, for me, in order to get to where I got, I had to go through some of the other parts.

Of course you did.

And I had to do a lot of work on nervous system regulation and the ways in which trauma was stored in my body, which for me was a really, real thing. Really, really work on feeling safe in my body in order to even have this connection I have with her. So I think there, I don't think there's a one, one path for anybody. I do agree that. I don't think it's positive to just talk in circles and talk about it and talk about it and talk about it. I don't think. I do think people can form unhealthy attachments to their pain or even form subconscious ways of being where they are. They're seeking validation or connection or comfort through being in breakdown, right? And now we're enabling the breakdown because they feel love and connection through being broken. So I think it's a really interesting topic to begin to talk about. But for sure, talking in circles isn't going to help, right? And, and waiting for it to get better. Toxic positivity, that's not going to do it either. And I think what's most important is finding that person who can really support you and how you are continuing to move forward. For sure.

What's exciting to me meeting with you there is we are coming at this thing from pretty different places and yet I'm noticing that with all that we're like really in it in terms of understanding each other, getting that point of view, really hearing it, and, and kind of like how are we going to wrestle with this thing so that we both end up in better shape.

And I love sharing different perspectives here. I think it's really important. I think it's really, really important. And I trust that when people are listening, certain things will resonate with them that they're ready for and that they can begin looking into and exploring more and going deeper. So thank you for that.

So I would like to share, if I could, Melissa, that there, there are a couple of ways to interface with us that are, that are easy. One is the, the two books that are available through Amazon, Life Changing Conversations is one and Grief Is Not Sacred is the other. The other thing is I have weekly a gathering. We call it Solutions. It's Mondays at 7pm Eastern time, but people are tuning in from, gosh, all around the world. Some people are tuning in where it's 3am their time and, and what we, we do there is really welcome whatever somebody's issue or concern is. And I do what I can to offer a different perspective quickly. It's the shallow end of the rapid resolution therapy pool because, I mean, I might be going through 25 people in two and a half, three hours, so can't get too very deep with anybody. But I'm finding the thing that's most exciting is we're getting all these letters from people who didn't participate, whose hands that didn't go up but found that the solution that somebody else was given applied to them and they write to us talking about how lives are better. So a good way to get kind of an exposure to this and see could I even tolerate this guy is to tune into that. And it's all available through the website which is rapidresolutiontherapy.net rapidresolutiontherapy.com and that way you can be in there and be part of it. I did think of a quick story I'd like to share with you if you have another minute. A number of years ago a gal came to me and the grief she was experiencing over the death from a traffic accident drunk driver for her sister was so crazy intense that it was causing seizures. And she had been in a wheelchair wearing a helmet or sometimes she could get up and walk with a three pronged cane for a little while and all of that was a grief issue. And she had been getting treatment with medical people and psychologists and even treatment at world renowned Mayo Clinic Clinic, not getting, I mean getting a little better but not able to get out of the wheelchair better. And she and I met and she's never had another seizure. She went on and did a TED talk. She's got about 2 million views and now is an ally out there getting other people free of disabling grief. Kristin Rivas is her name and people might want to check out her TED Talk as a pretty dramatic testament both to the pain that grief can cause and to what it's like to have it on.

That sounds amazing. So we can definitely include that in the show notes. And John, thank you for your work. Thank you for sharing.

Thanks for being with Melissa. You're just so lovely. I had a great time.

Thank you and anyone listening so you can check out his work@rapidresolutiontherapy.com join in on those Monday night offerings and we will talk to you all soon. Thanks John.

Thanks Melissa.

Thank you all so much for being here at Grief and Guts as Laden's mom, being able to survive, spread the stories, the strategies, the lessons I have learned through Laden and from Laden is the thing that means the most to me in this world and allowing my daughter's short life to have long and lasting impact by shining her light. Truly, nothing means more if you align with and believe in the work that we're doing here in these messages. The best way to give back and to spread this out into the world is to rate and review on Spotify and on itunes. Thank you for taking just a moment to do that. Feel free to shoot me a message. Let me know what you want to hear more of, what you want to see more of. I am here to serve. I'm grateful to do so, and I'm cheering you on in your journeys, always.