Welcome And Why Adversity Changes Us

SPEAKER_00 0:00

Welcome to my podcast Play Your Dragons with Compassion. And um we're looking here at how adversity shapes our lives and um what we can do in order to live a richer life despite the the struggles that we go through. So I'm very happy to welcome my guest Claire Greenland today.

SPEAKER_03 0:20

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 0:21

And um she's been through unfortunately the same, she's in the same club as me.

SPEAKER_02 0:27

I'd like to talk about the first time I met you.

SPEAKER_00 0:29

Great, let's start there then, Claire.

SPEAKER_02 0:31

Because we were at a party, uh Junior's party, do you remember?

SPEAKER_00 0:34

I do.

SPEAKER_02 0:35

And party situations are really hard. So so uh my son also took his life. Um and at parties people always say, Oh yeah, what do you do? You know, and then you asked me, you said, Do you have children? And I said, Well, I had two, but one died. And then as I said that, I think we both knew, oh God, here we go, you know, because the normal response is, oh my god, like how can that's the worst thing, you know. Or or they just look at you like this, you know, or they look at you like you're a dog heard, like um, so I just said it. I just thought, solid, you know, I'm just gonna say it to this guy, and then you said my daughter died the same morning.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

Oh and that touches me now as I hear it.

SPEAKER_02 1:27

And we just left for, do you remember? We just touched heads, that's all we did. We didn't say anything more, we just touched heads, and it's that it was such a magical moment, you know. You were complete stranger to me. I was waiting for, oh my god, how can you live with that? You know, but I didn't, I got it happened to me too.

SPEAKER_00 1:52

That's a lovely way to start there. I really appreciate it. Going straight into the deep end because I I try and soften it up first of all. But actually, uh I'm really happy that you've you've brought that in because it's just reminded me of that moment. Yeah, and and I think there's something about the shared adversity that creates an intimacy that's yeah that's there. And and I think that that has led to our friendship since then as well.

SPEAKER_02 2:17

Yeah. So that's been very yeah, because we haven't really known each other for that long.

SPEAKER_00 2:20

No, not long.

SPEAKER_02 2:21

And yeah, I feel so connected to you, you know. Uh even though you're, you know, I I'm a meditator, uh so I hang around people that are very careful about what they say. You don't care because it's that way. And you know, a few of these talking. Oh, love my friends dances, you know, so they're dancing a lot, you know, you don't dance, and and it's just amazing, really. And yet we have that, we have such a long, a strong connection and respect for each other. Yeah, because we've both children have taken their lives, and and you know, it's that element, plus it's the whole social, cultural response to that.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 3:02

And that's what you're trudging through. You're not just trudging through your own grief, and it's true, you know, trying to fathom what on earth has happened. You're trudging through all these faces and responses, and you know, it's it's tough.

SPEAKER_00 3:21

It's funny because the year after um Melissa took her life, I went to Skyrovs, which where I go to every year in Greece. And um I have a practice, and I made this practice a long time ago that I will let my feelings come through. I will not block them. Yeah. And it started with Melissa when she was born. It was that she they thought she was going to die in the womb, and it was a cesarean birth, and after 36 hours of caesarean, they finally handed me this baby, and I felt the tears well up, but there were nurses around who I didn't know, and I blocked my feelings. And I thought at that stage, I am going to make a practice in this life of letting my feelings through. So when my dad died and I gave the eulogy, I cried through it, and and I felt very happy with that.

Saying The Unsaid At Parties

SPEAKER_00 4:08

But I went to Skyros and um and uh I was teaching. This is about six months after after it had happened.

SPEAKER_01 4:16

Right.

SPEAKER_00 4:16

And so I'm I'm sharing, I'm the director of the session and talking, and and as I'm talking, tears went up into my eyes. Yeah, and I leave them there and talk about Melissa and someone wrote on the feedback forms, oh, I I think he wasn't ready to be to be teaching so soon after the death of this chart. But actually, I was, and it has changed me. And I can see what's happened for you is is that losing it Alaric. Alaric. Losing Alaric has changed you.

SPEAKER_04 4:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 4:45

And so there's a part of me that goes, when we go through adversity and we find our way through, I mean, this life is full of different landmines that we're gonna we're gonna tread on and and and have to deal with. When we go that there and find our way through, something in us is born.

SPEAKER_03 5:02

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 5:02

So I wonder if you could tell me a bit about how that's impacted for you.

SPEAKER_02 5:06

Yeah, yeah, definitely. I mean, four days after he died, um, I go dancing on a regular basis on a Monday night and talked with Civic Hall. And I wanted to go dancing. And my partner, so my partner and I only met three weeks before this happened.

SPEAKER_04 5:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 5:22

And he sort of looked at me like it wasn't what he expected, and we were walking up the hill, and I'm saying, you know, are we okay? Because he was like, Well, I wasn't expecting you to dance, you know. And and I went in and I hadn't appreciated that that the leader had kind of warned everybody that I might come, what to do. There was a slight panic, you know, people were looking at me as I came in. Um, and I danced, you know, I danced my grief, I was authentic. This I felt was my community, and and yeah, of course, like we don't just dance when we're happy, we we we dance through everything, you know. Um, and that's really what I felt. And I cried and I was like collapsing on the floor, and um, you know, that's what I wanted to do, and and I'll never forget the facilitator came over to me and hugged me. I knew this person, and this person said, Um, I guess it'll hit you later.

SPEAKER_00 6:27

How interesting.

SPEAKER_02 6:29

And I had this sort of, oh my god, it's gonna get worse. Like, what's gonna happen later? Like, you know.

SPEAKER_00 6:39

Actually, what I what I experienced, and I don't have to see how you experience that as well, is that it comes in ways. It doesn't get worse or better. Yeah, it comes so sometimes it'll it'll come upon you and then you deal with it. But actually, it had already hit you and you were dealing with it.

SPEAKER_04 6:53

Yeah, actually.

SPEAKER_00 6:54

So that's what I hear. And and actually you've you found a you found a strategy you didn't consciously.

SPEAKER_02 7:00

I was going, that was that's what I do.

SPEAKER_00 7:03

So you danced your breed.

SPEAKER_02 7:05

So people were really shocked. You know, how can how could I head? I'm thinking, I'm sure some people thought, how could she do that four days after her?

SPEAKER_00 7:15

And so people have all sorts of judgments.

SPEAKER_02 7:17

Oh, yes.

SPEAKER_00 7:18

Go on around. And I remember a friend of mine whose son died, he died of cancer at 24 years old, and she said people would cross the street to avoid seeing her because we don't know how to deal with grief. And I think one of the benefits that have come, it's really hard to talk about benefits, but one of the benefits that have come for me of losing a child is that actually I've had to learn how to be with my own grief and to honour my own grief and all of the twists and turns that happen. But also I think that I'm a better person as a result of it. I'm sure that's true for you as well.

SPEAKER_02 7:54

Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 7:54

I mean because you're broader. You can't help but be broader or squash. Yeah. You're not squash.

SPEAKER_02 8:00

Yeah, no. So um I've been a meditator for a very long time, and I I do day daily qigong, I teach qi gong, and I and I think through those practices, I felt I feel very connected. I feel very connected to life and people and the world. And and I thought that when this happened to me, um, I could remain connected. Like it was for me, it was really normal, and I could, and I was, I mean, I was processing my grief and everything like that, but things were far from normal to everybody around me. Um, and it it was, I had to really practice and I had psychotherapy in DR. My psychotherapist was fantastic, um, to to kind of work through those messages that people because people will look at you and say, Well, that is the worst thing that can happen to you. You know, it's gonna hit you later. Boom.

SPEAKER_00 9:00

How can how do you think, as though they know, and actually grief has its own journey and it will tank us where it wants if we let it do that.

SPEAKER_02 9:10

Yeah, yeah, exactly. So it has really been, you know, processing, composting. So I've just I've just carried on my life, like not as normal, but being with my feelings, um, talking to people as best I can, um, and and and frankly, really appreciating life. You know, I've been I was there, my husband died um just four years before Alaric, uh, and then my mother died in in the same year, and I was with both uh my husband and my mother when they died. Um, and I was with other members of family, and their responses and the whole sort of relationship with death was was really different to mine. Um I for example, when when my husband died, it was like oh my god, like wow, like this is I have life like speeding through my body. This is incredible, you know. That's what I felt.

SPEAKER_00 10:19

And and I take it, you loved your husband, by the way.

SPEAKER_02 10:22

Of course I did, and we'd have got a week he was in uh

Grief As Practice Not Performance

SPEAKER_02 10:27

intensive care. So um, and he was and and we only knew two weeks really uh before he died that he was gonna die. It was all very rapid. And um so we had that time to like talk to each other, and and and every member of the family went into the unit and and talked to him. And um, and he was okay. I mean, I often find that people who are dying, they're like they've had to make their peace. Like they're going through a natural process, it's huge, there's like stuff happening in their body, and they're riding that wave, you know, and they're with it. They've got no other choice, they're with it, and they're going through a very, very natural process, you know. Well, at least my mother and my husband were going, and so really you're with them, and you're your you know, my reassurance with him was relax, go with it, you know. You're okay, this is natural, go with it, you know. Um, so yeah, that was my response, and and but other people's responses were were very different, leading up and afterwards. Um so I've I've kind of learned that I can't um the way I respond is very different to everybody else.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

And I there's not on everybody else. The way you respond will not be able to be received. This is what I this is what I've learned. I'm sure the same thing with you. Will not be able to be received by everybody. No, so some people will will you'll be a pariah, they won't want to give you near you because they don't know, they're scared of grief. Other people will be able to embrace you, and I found that friendships deepened as a result, yeah, but some friendships disappeared as a result as well.

SPEAKER_01 12:16

Yeah, absolutely, absolutely. That really, really did happen to me.

SPEAKER_00 12:20

Yeah, and so the people I'm very touched by the image of you and I touching S at that moment in our shared understanding of our grief.

SPEAKER_02 12:29

We've both been in that place at the party. Somebody's saying, How you got children? One's dying, how did they die? You know, and normally I don't say it, but for some reason I trusted you. And we don't need to smell, yeah, who took his life. And my daughter did so, boom.

SPEAKER_00 12:45

I mean, that's it's funny because sometimes I'll sometimes get asked how many children I've got. Yes. And if I'm in I'm with some, I'm with someone, I don't want to go into it, I'll say two, because I've got two. I've got Michael and Alexandra who are still around.

SPEAKER_04 12:59

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 12:59

Um, but it with someone where I'm prepared to let myself be visible and and it's like using our radar to tune into where we can be received, which is clearly what happened for you at the party as well.

SPEAKER_02 13:12

Yeah, I think I think my process though has been being able to say that I've got two children, and then when I would say that, I'd get very upset. Being able to say I've got two children, I've had I've had two children, not getting upset, then being able to say, I had two children and one died, and not crying, getting upset and overwhelmed, being able to process that, and then being able to say to anybody, I've got two children, one died and he took his own life. Um, and now I'm kind of at the stage where I really want to celebrate him. He was an amazing person, you know, as your daughter was.

SPEAKER_04 13:52

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 13:53

They're amazing people. And I want to be able, you know, it it's it's tragic to think because of the way they died, that we can't talk about them and we can't celebrate them. So that whole process has been really important, and that is in relationship with people, complete strangers, uh, who don't know me, to be able to say that.

SPEAKER_00 14:16

So I got to the stage with you that I could say yes, and and but also you tuned in, and the thing is we tune in beyond words. So you tuned in. I'm just thinking now about a client of mine who um who came from a very stiff upper upper lip family, and her brother, they'd bought him for his 18th birthday a sports car, and he's he died on the road. It he got um a lorry went into him and and he was killed. They removed all the photos from his house. His name was never spoken again, and she was in terrible sort of shock that there was nowhere to go with this. And so she came to one of my ongoing groups and actually then really started to allow it to be seen. And it we we are so death denying. I think this is an important dialogue we're having. I mean, I'm I'm really interested

Death Denial And The Weight Of Stigma

SPEAKER_00 15:12

that we have in in Tarnes, we have uh death doolers, people who are midwives of people dying. And a friend of mine whose wife died, um, he said he wished he'd known about that because he went to the local hospice who were great, but there's something about the loving process with which we can accept that death is a part of our life.

SPEAKER_04 15:30

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:31

Death is a part of our lives.

SPEAKER_04 15:33

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:34

We are all going to die.

SPEAKER_04 15:35

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:36

And I'm not a deathist, which I've been called before in a talk for saying that. It's actually I'm recognizing that part of the journey.

SPEAKER_02 15:43

It's our life. Yes.

SPEAKER_00 15:45

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 15:46

And there are grieving groups and there are grieving groups. And I've been to a lot of grieving groups uh around suicide, where people are stuck in a group. So they'll talk about what happened, they'll talk about uh the devastation, and then they'll talk about that anger around people who are trying to shake them out of that and make them happy. Their anger that spring is coming because now they have to open their curtains and let the sun in and they won't prefer the winter when they can shut away.

SPEAKER_03 16:19

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 16:20

Um, and their loved one has died six, seven, eight years ago.

SPEAKER_00 16:25

Yes. And they're they're stuck.

SPEAKER_02 16:27

They're stuck, and and it's the facilitator is oh, that's terrible. No, you don't have to come out of your house and and and and almost like siding with them, you stay with that, you know. And I'm sorry, I just, you know, I really when I meet people like that, I I really want them to see, wake up to life. Um, you're no good to anybody being in that place. Um, if if your loved one is in the spirit world and and is present with you, which is what I get a sense of, obviously there's no proof. Um, how can they move on when you're in that place and you're not celebrating life? You know, how can they move on? You're not you're not doing any any yourself any favors, you're not helping your other loved ones around you, and you're not you're not celebrating and and and and continuing and living your life is celebration of the person who has died.

SPEAKER_00 17:27

So then what we're forced to look at from what we we're both saying is we have to look at at death and we have to start to come to terms with it, start to face it and recognize it's an inevitable part of life.

SPEAKER_04 17:40

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 17:41

And uh and also I I think what's amazing is the capacity to grieve. But actually, it's not about that we have to fall apart and and become uh almost like we can never live our lives again. Yeah, but there is something about honoring the process. Yeah. For me, what's valuable in that are the rituals that we can create. So I yeah, I think about what what I did for Melissa. Her mother, who's not the mother of my other two children, wouldn't allow me to speak at her funeral, which was a terrible, I felt that was a officious thing to do. Four people spoke and not me. And um, but actually I did my own. So my sister very kindly gave me the use of her large house, and I had a hundred people playing. And then I did speak, and then my ex-wife spoke, it wasn't Melissa's mother, uh, and my son-in-law, Melissa's husband, spoke, and there was a relief, there was a freedom in being able to honour the past. But also, when I was in Skyros, which is one of the, as I mentioned before, it's the place I go to. We created

Rituals That Keep Love Present

SPEAKER_00 18:43

a mosaic uh with the mosaic teacher, which was in honor of Melissa, and that mosaic hangs in one of the circles. So it's this beautiful picture that's been done with mosaic pieces, and it lifts my heart when I see that. Yeah, there's a ritual that's there, and I and I don't know if you've ritualized Alaric's death.

SPEAKER_02 19:02

I'm really curious, how soon after Melissa's death was that?

SPEAKER_00 19:06

We did the mosaic about uh six months after we made the mosaic.

SPEAKER_02 19:10

Okay, I was really stuck in not knowing how to work through a ritual, how to create something as a memorial for Alaric. Um, and partly to do with that was my blocking in, he was very an intrinsic part of the community, but there was a particular person that I had a lot of difficulty with who was really wanting to come to the funeral and was wanting to bring the community with her, was being very vocal at death, uh Adaric's death, and I really struggled with my relationship with that person, and I was really pushing that away and saying the funeral is just for the immediate family. And because of that, I was feeling well, a memorial, um, an event, a community would need to be with the community. But I got really stuck around this problem with this relationship. So I think what comes into play when you have a death like this, as you spoke just now, uh, about Melissa's mother, are our relationships with people around us, not just in the response, but how we can actually function and truly express our feelings in their presence. Um, it's very complex. So it's taken me a long time, but I have now.

SPEAKER_00 20:39

But there's also, I mentioned before about our radar, and and I've written about this in my book as well, that that that actually when we suffer enormous adversity, one of the byproducts of it is that our radar becomes stronger. We tune in to who can receive us.

SPEAKER_04 20:56

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:57

And you've tuned into this woman that she couldn't really honour this process in the way that you were doing. It wasn't a fit.

SPEAKER_04 21:04

Yes.

SPEAKER_00 21:04

And we have to learn to trust our own instincts as well.

SPEAKER_02 21:07

Yes, yes, that's so true. That's so true. Yes, it's so true. I'm so sensitive to people who we can be around and can't be around. That was, I mean, I had one particular friendship. There was just no way I couldn't, and it was a long-term relationship.

SPEAKER_01 21:23

I couldn't be with that person anymore.

SPEAKER_00 21:25

Yeah. I had that as well. And that's that's then I think an inevitability. And Stephen Levine, who's written a lot about death and dying, says that when someone's dying, they know who's authentic and who's not. I mean, we we we do as we become more developed in ourselves anyway. But so the doctor will come into the room and say, How are you feeling today? And they'll answer, Oh, I'm fine, thank you, doctor, because they know he can't perceive what they have. Then the cleaner might come into the room and say, How are you doing? And they'll feel that and they'll tune in, and then they can have a genuine conversation.

SPEAKER_04 21:58

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 21:58

But there's a wisdom in Actually keeping ourselves shielded when someone can't receive us in the place of adversity.

SPEAKER_02 22:06

I think it's because our masks come down.

SPEAKER_00 22:08

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_02 22:09

Sometimes naked. Yeah, we're naked and we kind of think that's okay. And then the masks have to come back because of people's responsibility.

SPEAKER_00 22:17

We choose where we erect our masks.

SPEAKER_02 22:18

Yeah, exactly.

SPEAKER_00 22:19

If we're wise.

SPEAKER_02 22:20

Yeah, yeah. Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 22:22

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:23

Yeah. So it's taken it took a couple of years, and now uh myself, um Alex, uh father, and uh my other son, my oldest son, we plant trees.

SPEAKER_00 22:36

Oh, I know.

SPEAKER_02 22:36

We do gorilla gorilla planting.

SPEAKER_00 22:39

And that's lovely, yeah.

SPEAKER_02 22:41

And we do it for the anniversaries. I'm not an anniversary person at all. That's another thing I'd like to talk about to you. But we plant uh oak trees. So he used to he used to work for more trees as a volunteer. So he learned how to plant oak trees. Um, and he started up his own volunteer group in Plymouth when he went to university too. Um so we plant oak trees, and actually now I'm growing a couple too, and it's huge. I mean, so I do this walk and I and I meet each of these oak trees and and tend to them and maybe give them a bit of water if they need it. But uh what was I gonna say? What was I saying? I'll hold this because I want to.

SPEAKER_00 23:21

Yes. Um the well, the planting of trees, and the other so there's a ritual you've created. And and and whatever it came, it didn't come at the time.

SPEAKER_02 23:32

I couldn't do it because I felt it's gotta include the community, and I haven't been able to include include the community because of that one particular person who who is very vocal and satisfying. That was game would be the would be the talk, would be the you know, the person inviting everybody and yeah, yeah. I was gonna talk about something.

SPEAKER_00 23:52

Well, it comes to you, yeah. Let's see where it goes. Yeah. So let's let's so let's take a look at that how your life has developed since then. So how long ago was this that Alaran died?

SPEAKER_02 24:05

So that was uh uh 2023, January 2023.

SPEAKER_00 24:10

Not very long, so it's three years ago.

SPEAKER_02 24:12

My mum's birthday. Yeah, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:16

And um how has your life changed since then? Where's where's it gone now since then?

SPEAKER_02 24:21

Well, I I inserted uh psychotherapy with someone who was very, very good.

SPEAKER_00 24:27

Um and what makes very, very good?

SPEAKER_02 24:30

When I since I met her, I was trying to find somebody, and when I met her, she said, I really want to help with your continuing relationship with Alaric.

SPEAKER_00 24:39

Oh, that's beautiful.

SPEAKER_02 24:41

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 24:42

That's really so sort of some of the how to meet you rather than oh, you poor thing, I'm so sorry. Well, we don't need a sympathy in these.

SPEAKER_02 24:50

Yeah, the other counselor, I had a meeting and she just she was doing this a lot and then and then looking at me like professionally sort of um lugubrious, yeah. Yeah, yeah, yeah. Yeah. So she was she really wanted to help me with my relationship, so we were doing a lot of the

Therapy, Guilt, And Ongoing Bond

SPEAKER_02 25:08

MTR. So I was going back.

SPEAKER_00 25:10

The MDR, for those who don't know, is um is what?

SPEAKER_02 25:13

I don't I don't know, eye movement, something. But I did it with a hand.

SPEAKER_00 25:17

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_02 25:18

And she took me back to particular uh important relational times with Alaric um before he died, and I was able to work through my feelings at that time and going back to in time for my own life, then coming back to that particular moment and then going back to another time, and really uh strengthening my so strengthening it because to to to kind of exorcise the guilt that I had, all the guilt that I had, yes, to really understand that, to understand where it's coming from in my own life, where that's connected, to clear all that so that I could really meet Alaric. Um, and and now and continue strengthening my relationship with him, um, how how he would feel. I'm now training in in pessaboid and psychotherapy, um, and his presence with all that because he was so into helping the community, he was always doing things for other people, and yeah, uh, I'm very interested in that. So, really feeling his presence on on my journey through through psychotherapy. Um yeah, so he's like he's here now, isn't it? No, he's here now, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

And that's fair because the the conviction with which you say that as well. It's not like you're some fantasist who's sort of like is bringing us through. It's like you can feel his presence.

SPEAKER_02 26:50

I can feel his presence, and I can feel his presence with his how I resonated with him through life and through feeling proud of him and really celebrating him, and being able to be in that place where, yeah, wow, he had this amazing life, rather than getting imploding, feeling really guilty, being really mourning, which obviously I've gone through, but I've been able to compass that, process that, understand it, and and clear away from my you know, very pure relationship with him now.

SPEAKER_00 27:31

And I think there is something about rituals, you know, even the ritual of dancing you did see the fitness out of the way.

SPEAKER_02 27:40

Yeah, I think it's other people's responses that is the trickiest part, and I think it it can undermine our natural grief and presence.

SPEAKER_00 27:49

I think that's right, but then we have to learn how to protect ourselves from being in environments that are going to flatten us or or poison our own experience.

SPEAKER_02 27:59

Yeah, or just be authentic with it and just they've got to deal with it.

SPEAKER_00 28:03

Yeah. No, that's good.

SPEAKER_02 28:05

This is this is how it is. I was in um, so I teach um qig on the meditation retreats, and I happened to be on a retreat where somebody wasn't coming for the sharings, uh, which is perfectly fine. She was looking after herself, but I didn't know why. And the person who was facilitating with me did know she'd spoken to her, and she came to my side and she said, her son has died. And I said, Okay, well, let her know that my son died too. And we met outside um, the retreat sessions, the cheaper sessions, and she she kept looking at me and saying, I don't understand how you can be the way you are. And it's very hard for me to answer that. I mean, I just answer in my own spirit, you know how I really feel things. Um, but she still couldn't understand it. And I can remember her parting when she said goodbye when all the retreatants packed up and she said goodbye, and she just touched my shoulder, looked at me, and looked down and walked away. And I knew that we were on different trajectories.

SPEAKER_00 29:30

We all have to learn our own way and understand.

SPEAKER_02 29:32

Absolutely.

SPEAKER_00 29:33

It's interesting that one of the statistics that's bandied about is that almost no relationship survive where whereas a child has been lost, survive more than five years after that, because we grieve differently. And there is something about the people who grieve by shutting themselves down, and that's they deal with it all internally. People who sort of like go wild out there, but there's something about when you mentioned that you do meditation and chi go on, actually, you're finding a way to integrate Alric's death into your being, and then then you're but also what I hope will be demonstrated in this podcast is that there are different ways of looking at it. It doesn't have to be that this of course it's a tragedy, no one's d will deny that. But we have to find the steps that take us through the tragedy and help us to shunt off the sort of the false self so we become bigger as a result of what happens.

SPEAKER_02 30:32

Yes, yes, yes. And I think with the suicide, I think it's very important to uh always remember and honour that's their decision.

SPEAKER_04 30:43

Yes.

SPEAKER_02 30:43

That is their that's the decision that they have made. It's not our decision. No, and and we are no one's in a position to judge it. That is their decision, you know. Um, however difficult it is for everybody else. Um yeah, we need to we need to honor that. I think the suicide is different. I mean, I've been on a retreat uh where people have lost their children, and there's nobody else there whose child's taking their own lives, you know. Their children have had um more sort of acceptable deaths through illness, and and they've been cared for, you know, they've had a period of time where the mother's cared for them and then they've died. My son took his life, isn't it?

SPEAKER_00 31:33

I mean like Yeah, yeah, yeah. Well, it's interesting that in the in the Jewish tradition, you're not allowed to be buried in the in the sacred ground if you've taken your own life. Well, that was the rule, but then they found a way around it by saying that if you take your own life, you you can't be in the right in in the right mind, therefore you can be merit buried because you haven't sort of done something horrendous. It's compassionate, it is, but it's also that we used to use the terminology, and I was told very much about this by my son-in-law, committing suicide as though it were a crime.

SPEAKER_02 32:10

Oh, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:11

And so actually, those words are unacceptable. Yeah, I know he's used to taking his own your own life.

SPEAKER_02 32:16

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 32:16

His own life.

SPEAKER_02 32:17

Yeah, he did that.

SPEAKER_00 32:19

Yes, and and so, and I think also like if we can use creativity to find our way through. I know for me, writing my book, Slaying the Dragons with Compassion, was not a grief memoir, but it was it was what I'd learned in the process of Melissa dying.

SPEAKER_02 32:34

And I think that's right. I think your book is very much about your own process too, yeah, you know, because grief doesn't leave anything unearthed. Every stone within yourself is uncovered, and the ones that you block and you don't let out is the is the grieving part that you're not releasing it. Yeah, that's right. You don't want to live with that, that creates illnesses.

SPEAKER_00 33:01

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 33:01

And I think your book is very much about now there's another stone.

SPEAKER_00 33:05

Well, it's interesting because I thought I'm writing this manual for people to learn from, and I realized at a later stage, I was writing my own my own journey. Yeah, I was writing the manual I needed to read.

SPEAKER_04 33:17

Yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:18

And and when you said Alex with you here now, yeah, I felt like when I was writing the book, Melissa was with me.

SPEAKER_04 33:23

Yeah, she's there.

SPEAKER_00 33:25

Yeah, it flowed out, it was beautiful. Yeah, it was just like, ah, yeah. This is like this is this is how it is.

SPEAKER_02 33:33

It's a natural process, yes, yeah.

SPEAKER_00 33:37

Yeah, so we go towards the end of our of our of our podcast. I've really enjoyed the dialogue, even though we're talking about quite a grizzly subject. Um, but I what the question I always ask at the end is um, what's the particular driving you've had to slay? What's the hurdle you've had to overcome in the process of becoming who you are at this stage in your life?

SPEAKER_02 34:00

I think uh be brave and do your process the way you want to do it, um, and speak it with everybody, every stranger you meet, every party you go to. Really, yeah, be honest, be open, and and and in that way you serve all the others, all the others that are coming

Brave Honesty And Final Reflections

SPEAKER_02 34:24

behind you.

SPEAKER_04 34:24

Yeah.

SPEAKER_02 34:26

Because you don't know that person that you've you've related to in your natural way, it might help to that.

SPEAKER_00 34:34

And um in some ways, we by the nature of our experiences, we become way showers. Yeah, and it's not in this egotistical, I am a way shower, I'm a guru sort of figure. No, no, it's almost that's I've been through this, it's rule. I've been through this, this is what I've learned. Yeah, and actually I am um I'm sharing who I am in the process of this. Yeah, it doesn't blow away, yeah, but it is we've had to now we've had to find uncovered pathways, yeah, and celebrate life. And celebrate life.

SPEAKER_02 35:06

It's magical, it's a miracle that we're here.

SPEAKER_00 35:09

It is a miracle.

SPEAKER_02 35:10

Celebrator.

SPEAKER_00 35:12

We're a bunch of atoms and and uh for the come together in this very weird structure. Yeah, if we were to look at it.

SPEAKER_02 35:19

Yeah, yeah. Um celebrate your life, and those that have died will be dancing and celebrating with you. No doubt about that.

SPEAKER_00 35:27

That's lovely. That's a lovely, lovely way to finish. Thanks very much, Claire. Appreciate your shows.