Taboo Grief: Forbidden Emotions We Don’t Talk About

Secrets. Betrayal. Anger. Disgust. In this solo chat, I share shockingly real client stories as we delve into the raw, unfiltered emotions that can surface after losing a loved one. Culturally, we often consider these thoughts and feelings forbidden, keeping them to ourselves and suffering in silence. This episode reassures us that we are not alone, even in the most difficult of these taboo emotions, and offers a path to true healing. 

Can you see yourself (or anyone you know) in any of these stories?

Trigger Warning: This episode contains mentions of suicide, infidelity, domestic violence, addiction, and S/A. These triggers are briefly mentioned as part of the overall stories, with little to no explicit details shared.

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Transcript

Hey beautiful soul Welcome to Spirit Speakeasy. I'm Joy Giovanni, Joyful Medium. I'm a working psychic medium energy healer and spiritual gifts mentor. This podcast is like a seat at the table in a secret club, but with mediums, mystics and the spiritual luminaries of our time. So come behind the velvet ropes with me and see inside my world is I chat insider style with profoundly different souls. We go deep share juicy stories laugh a lot and it wouldn't be a speakeasy without great insider secrets and tips. You might even learn that you have some gifts of your own. So step inside the spirit speakeasy. Hey, beautiful soul Welcome back or welcome in for another episode of spirit speakeasy. Today, we're gonna talk about something of that we don't usually talk about taboo grief, forbidden emotions that we are just told not to talk about. I have a little request right up front in this episode. And then I have a little announcement. So my request is that you listen to this episode with an open heart and mind, I'm going to share a few clients stories to illustrate their taboo grief, because I think sometimes the best way to understand and to see ourselves is in other people's stories. So I'm going to be sharing some client stories, you may find yourself in some of these stories, you may find yourself feeling judgmental about some of these experiences, have an open heart and mind and be kind. These are real stories, the names have been changed to protect the privacy of the clients. But yeah, so be kind. And all of you if you're listening to this are highly sensitive, and empathetic. So try to have empathy, even if you don't see yourself in these situations. Or if you haven't experienced these taboo emotions, while grieving, I do have a little trigger warning I want to throw on the front of this too. I want to say I'm going to mention in a cursory way, these following triggers, I'm merely mentioning these triggers as a part of the overall stories, but little to no detail are actually shared about these triggers. So I'm not going to give specific details, graphic details, none of that. It's just mentioning the word or the idea of completion of suicide, infidelity, domestic violence, addiction and essay. So trigger warning, if just the mention of any of those topics are triggering for you, or traumatic for you skip this episode. But like I said, I'm not going into graphic detail about any of those. It's just not necessary to the stories. So the first taboo emotion that I want to talk about these forbidding feelings of grief are feelings of anger and resentment towards the person who has crossed over. This is probably more common than you might think. And maybe you might even see yourself in this story. So I'm going to tell you the story of Charlie and Teresa imagine a married couple creating a life together. They have two beautiful boys a lovely house, picturesque holidays complete with the family pictures with the matching sweaters, right? The Instagram where the pictures look pretty, but the ugly truth is just below the surface. As the kids grow. So does Teresa's resentment, learning to raise her own kids really triggers some of her own unhealed childhood traumas. And the marriage is in trouble with all of these little arguments that feel like 1000 cuts. Somewhere along the way, Theresa has started drinking more and more she refuses therapy and help of any kind and the fighting gets worse and worse. At some point, Charlie can't take it anymore, and he decides to separate. Teresa moves out and she starts having new friends and going out more and she also at some point starts abusing drugs. Charlie feels like his kids are in danger at this point. But ultimately he really wants the marriage to reconcile he didn't want to separate in the first place but just thought it was the only way to get through to her. So his intention is still to get back together and work this out. He hasn't been going to therapy either. He's feeling angry and stressed and overwhelmed and also kind of jealous that Theresa has been seeing someone else in their separation. Theresa is deep in the illness of her addiction. And although she loves her kids, she's not ready to get help. And she's in and out of the hospital and in and out of bouts of sobriety versus bouts of her addiction. On this day, she is desperate to See the kids. And the younger one has a basketball tournament. So they agree that she'll come to the game, and maybe they'll even get some pizza afterwards with the boys. Teresa's running late, which isn't totally uncommon for her at this point. She's calling and calling Charlie and he can hear in the messages that she sounds like she's been drinking again. And Charlie tells her you know, why don't come on, I'm not answering your calls anymore. So he stops answering her calls after he's told her just just don't bother coming. And he turns off his phone for the rest of the day, they finish the game, and everything's fine. The next morning, Charlie sees that he has an email message from some time really late the night before. It's from Teresa. And that's really weird, because obviously she calls and texts him. But this is an email. And as he opens it, he realizes Oh, my God, this is a suicide note. And in that note, she blames Charlie and tells him in no uncertain terms, that this is all his fault. That that her her drinking is his fault, the separation is his fault, and that her intention is to complete suicide. And that's his fault, too. And then she moves forward with that plan, and she complete suicide. I met Charlie about a year into his grieving process, he was in town on business and just got the inspiration to come in for a reading. That's often how it happens with people. Theresa came through from spirit. And in this reading, she shared her story with me making many apologies along the way and expressing how much she deeply truly loves her boys. And while all of this was incredibly meaningful to Charlie, that she was honest about what happened honest about the drinking and the way the relationship went, and that he could understand through the detail she was sharing that, you know, the apologies seemed sincere. Teresa also helped me understand that he was actually there to talk to me because he had been struggling with tough emotions around her passing. He was still grieving, he was still very much in love with her. And that email note had just broken his heart. He also was angry with her furious even, how could she leave the boys like that? Did she even know how much pain he was in? He resented what he felt like were really selfish choices on her part. And even worse, he had to keep all of these feelings a secret from his family, because he felt like no one would understand. He felt terrible on several levels. He was actually really surprised through our conversation to learn that he's not alone in these types of feelings, especially when someone passes from suicide or substance use. There are really a ton of taboo feelings around anger and resentment for the person that have passed. We in our culture in our society, and often in our, you know, family of origin, we're taught that we're supposed to feel a certain way that if someone is struggling with addiction, that it's an illness and we have to let things go and we're not supposed to be mad at them. That's how Charlie felt anyway. And I know that this is not, he's not the only one. I've heard this story from several other people that they feel just anger and resentment and are so mad at this person that passed, but they don't feel like they can talk about it. So my point in sharing Charlie's story, Charlie and Teresa's story, I guess it is is I just want to highlight as one of these groups of really forbidden emotions, anger and resentment towards the person that's passed. Have you ever had a situation or have you ever known someone else that has someone that passed that they you know, secretly or maybe not so secretly feel anger and resentment towards this person for something they did in their life or their behavior for the way they left or for those that they left behind? I'm curious to hear your thoughts about some of these taboo, taboo grief, emotions. The next story that I want to share is about the taboo feelings are feelings of disgust and betrayal towards the person that's crossed over. And I titled this story when your image of them crumbles. A lot of us have people on a pedestal, sometimes in life and sometimes after they passed so I want to share with you the story of Jack and Dana.
Jack was a chef in his family restaurant. They were well known family in town, kind of big fish in a little pond. Jack is charismatic. He's a big personality. He pushes the boundaries in all areas. Besides being a well known chef in town, he's also a musician and an artist. And people. You know, like I said, they're a pretty well known family in this small town and people generally accept him as like an eccentric artists type. In his late 30s, he meets and marries a beautiful young waitress named Dana. She's only 25 But she's a strong personality herself. Within a few years, they have a child, they become active members of their local church community. Dana has gone to culinary school by now and is working at the family restaurant to life is really busy for them, but it's more or less happy, seemingly out of nowhere, one Friday afternoon at the restaurant, right before dinner service Jack is meeting with the staff they do a family dinner and they discuss you know, menu options and strategy for that evening they talk about reservations, it's pretty common in in some restaurants and while they're going through this process, and you know, talking about the the meals that are going to be prepared the specials that night, out of nowhere, Jack has a sudden seizure right in the dining room. And as he collapses to the floor, he's instinctively grabbing on to the nearby tables, tablecloths, gratia glasses are crashing all around him as he fell, the staff really scrambles into action they call 911. They're able to keep Jack safe. And they call Dana and of course, she rushed to the hospital to meet the ambulance there. At the hospital, Dana and Jack learn that this isn't just a seizure, Jack actually has a brain tumor that has caused the seizure. And things move very quickly. From there, there are so many appointments and scans and tests. And at this time, their daughter has now started school. Plus Dana was trying to pick up all of these extra shifts at the restaurant since Jack wasn't able to work during this period. And at some point during the testing, Dana notices, because they're doing all types of scans, all types of blood work, just all types of testing. Dana notices this egg sized shadow on one of the brain scans. And she recognizes that this egg sized shadow has grown that on some of the earlier scans just a few weeks before that this was only the size of I think she told me like a ping pong ball a little smaller than a golf ball. And on this scan, she noticed it was like size of an egg. So she was like hold on. This is clear difference. This is growth, she really pushes the doctors to look at those previous scans to do additional testing, no more wait and see. Because sometimes between the scans, they were saying, Oh, we just have to wait and see. We're not sure. She's saying this is a marked difference. No more wait and see additional testing. She really pushed hard for this. And she was right. The tests lead to a diagnosis of aggressive brain cancer. And as they're sitting in this high level specialist office talking with them, Dana also found out that Jack had previously had brain cancer when he was much younger. And the family always knew that there was a high likelihood it was it would return this was the first she was hearing of it. But she kind of put that to the back of her mind to focus on his care and treatment and what was going to be next. And it was a long battle. Through the next few years things seem to get darker and darker at every turn. There were surgeries and treatments. And Dana was doing her best to manage all of that plus carrying everything with her work and the household and their daughter with little to no help from any of what she thought was supposed to be this close knit family. And during this time, Jack also began to share more stories from the years that the restaurant his earlier years, his artistic pursuits, his musical pursuits and some of the stories he was starting to lead out were a little bit unsettling. But also as Jack's health declined his quote unquote mean side as Dana would call it came to the surface more and more. Jack was spiteful. He was rude. He would be so verbally mean and abusive. And eventually he also became physically abusive. It was so confusing for Dana and she felt so alone. At the time of his passing. Jack and Dana were actually legally separated and forcing. And through the last few weeks of his life, Dana was able to forgive jack for the abuse. And they had some friendly and kind of healing conversations before he passed actually, after all, he was dying of brain cancer. How could she not forgive him? Right? That's how she felt for the first few years after Jack's passing anyway. But as life went on, Dana remarried, she had one more child more life experience more perspective. If you're kind of over 30, or over 40, you know that as we grow, we look back on our life. And sometimes we get more perspective and kind of see things a little more clearly. And lots of things just were not sitting right with Dana. She started to put two and two together in several areas and realize that Jack's family, and Jack allowed her as a 25 year old woman to marry and have a child with a man knowing she would lose him to cancer and never mentioning any of it. They didn't even think that she was worth telling this information to. She was pretty frustrated, taking all of her options away from her is how she felt like her option to choose. And she also started to question whether that terrible side of Jack's personality was from the cancer or chemotherapy at all, or could it have been part of his personality all along. Some of the stories he shared piece together with the things people would jokingly say about Jack at the restaurant, like quote, unquote, Jack's a bad boy, just like his dad was one of the things that really stuck out to her. Jack's dad, Joseph was infamous for behavior that would now easily qualify as sexual harassment at the workplace. At the best and outright assault in some cases, they actually even called him Joey hands, but he was also the baker. So it was kind of like a double meaning inside joke among, you know, insiders at the restaurant, people who had been patrons for a long time around the family for a long time, Joey hands, Dana pieced together the bits slowly over many years and even began to realize that based on the timeline of many of the stories, Jack was definitely involved with inappropriately young teenage girls during his time as a chef, she figured out that some of his stories of letting quote unquote friends party at the restaurant, after hours and his open bar stories, quote, unquote, where he would encourage drinking contests that everyone who had ever been there or heard of them or kind of grew up with that group of people would say were pretty wild. She started to figure out that those were actually often with high school aged girls and Jack would have been in his late 20s. At the time, she realized bits and pieces of the stories had been told around the restaurant for years, as those kind of like remember back in the day when XYZ happened, and everyone would have a laugh, and the mom would say this phrase that just stuck out to her. Oh, Jackie's a bad boy just like his dad. The more Dana piece things together, the more betrayed she felt by the family that she once felt so close to and loved. And by Jack himself, she realized how he'd even manipulated her in her early 20s. Getting her to come work at the restaurant, flirting with her kind of in inappropriate ways. Just she was young and didn't realize that that was so inappropriate. Dana was more than just angry. It was as if her whole world shattered and she'd been married to a monster all along. That abusive person. He was that mean line crossing aggressive bully had actually been there before. And it was like all of her forgiveness was crumbling away like the crust of an erupting volcano of emotions from inside. And the next thing she said was the thing she knew she was not supposed to be feeling. She said that disgusting, abusive personality wasn't the cancer at all. It was him. I don't forgive him anymore. I'm disgusted and I feel betrayed. And for Dana, there's been power and healing and telling the whole truth to herself about who Jack was, and not keeping him on this fictional pedestal. And I find so often with people struggling in their grieving process with someone who was a tough personality like this. That sometimes in retrospect, we piece things together, especially if this person was older than us or in a position of authority to us. I find this people with their parents that have passed as well where you You know, afterwards they start piecing together these bits and pieces and realizing, oh my gosh, this is an abusive person that has maybe abused them or maybe has abused lots of other people. And that's the case here. And
in our culture, I just just my opinion, I know we do this thing, putting people on this fictional pedestal. And I think it's unhealthy. I think in our society right now, especially with the things going on and coming to light, kind of in all areas of media, you know, times they are changing, and we different things are acceptable than used to be and we don't have to keep people on pedestals. In a way that's dishonest, right? If someone was a great upstanding person, like, Yeah, wonderful, you know, everyone's human and makes mistakes. But there is a point where it crosses a line into being abusive, being inappropriate. And for Dana, it was really like earth shattering because as she pieced these things together, it was like the memories of her life were just tainted. She felt like all of it was a lie. As part of the ship and actually found out there was some infidelity happening kind of the same way that he came onto her when she started at the restaurant. Apparently, he had also been doing that with other people, some who were appropriate age and some who were inappropriate age. So it was, have you ever had that where you like thought one thing about someone and then either you started piecing it together, or you heard information from another source, and you were like, Oh, my gosh, this person that I thought was like, such a great person is really kind of a monster. And that pedestal just falls for them. I mean, I know we're not supposed to have people on pedestals anyway, because we're all human. But I think you know what I mean, someone that we love that we admire, that we look up to. And then we find out these really terrible things. Maybe you've had it in your personal life, maybe someone close to you has had this happen. Or maybe it's just even been with public figures that you look up to. And then things terrible things come out terrible behavior, or abuse comes out. And you're really rocked thinking, oh my gosh, I've been supporting this person's work all these years I've been, you know, their music is the soundtrack to my life, for example, and now, they're this monster. And I don't know how to reconcile that. So that's the reason for this story about understanding feeling betrayed and feeling disgusted even towards people when your image of them crumbles. So a little food for thought on that. Have you ever experienced something like that? Whether with someone in your own life or a public figure, I'm curious for you guys to let me know in the in the comments, or you can even email me, the last story is a tough one. This story is about the taboo grief, emotion of feeling like you wish that that loved one that unwell loved one would pass away. I'm going to tell you the story of Maya and Marla they are 18 months apart in age, both beautiful, confident women equally strong, but kind of like night and day and their personalities, very different people. But super close, they had a very special relationship, not only like open and honest and upfront, but intentional, their relationship wasn't perfect, but they really, they really kept working on it and tried to be really open and honest with each other. And it brought them closer and closer even into their adult years. And when they're both solidly in their 30s The sisters could respect and appreciate their differences. And they even could support each other on their own unique paths while still having real conversations about the hard things. They just weren't having different pursuits in life. But even though they were so different, they they were able to have this beautiful supportive relationship.
I think most people have trouble in their teens and then kind of come together and as they grow, their relationship got tighter and tighter. So when Maya's diagnosis came, they were in one of those periods we've all experienced in life. When life is throwing a lot our way. They hadn't really caught up and several months both were moms have to both working full time in their fields, which were different as they were. Marla was a contract attorney running her own small business like small but successful firm, my ran after, or ran the after school programs for kids at a community center and incorporated things like yoga, meditation, emotional dancing, vision board art, so they're very different people. And when my Just diagnosis came, they just hadn't really caught up in a while just because they were busy. And Marla was at a meeting, actually, with her dream client, as a contract attorney, when she got the call, she told me she remembers being so high up in this big, beautiful glass like skyscraper in this fancy boardroom with glass walls, like the walls were windows, to see the whole skyline. And she had a full view of the entire city in this boardroom. It was a really incredible moment for her. This was like her dream client, they should work so hard to get this meeting. And they're starting the meeting. And she gets this text message from her sister that just says emergency pickup. And when she stepped away from this boardroom table to take the call, she walked over towards the giant glass windows. And she just looked out as she listened to the other end of this call. Marla said she always remembers the contrast of this moment of feeling so elated at this dream meeting looking out at this incredible view of the entire city where everything looked so peaceful and impressive. And at the same time, the nauseating shock of receiving this devastating news in this moment of elation and happiness, so an extreme high and low at the same time. She like really remembers that moment. It's really burned into her mind as the way she says it such an incredible high and low at the same moment. And of course, when she gets the call Marlowe's, like lawyer mind heard things kind of chunked into information. And the way she remembers it is Maya had a rare condition. There's no cure, the condition would behave a lot like cancer, even though it wasn't technically cancer. They had some treatment options which they would begin right away with a surgery later that week, just a couple days away. Maya hasn't told anyone else yet not even her husband. Marla says I'll be there in an hour sit tight. Marla, of course, she's an attorney, but as a personality, she's a fixer. On the drive over she was already mentally planning coordinating childcare, transportation meals and was making a list of questions for Maya. You know, a lot of you can probably identify with that fixer personality. When Marla got to the house. She used her own key to go inside. Like I said, they're very close. They have keys to each other's place. Maya was waiting at the dining room table. She was sitting there. Just quietly, she had already made a pot of tea and had a notebook and her laptop. And Marla came in and bent over and gave her a big hug. And it was clear that Maya had been crying. My took a deep breath and told Marla they have a lot to talk about and motioned for her to sit down. Maya begins to fill her in on what she's missed. Since they hadn't talked for a while they hadn't really gotten to catch up and Maya said there was some things that Marla needed to know. Things hadn't been going well for a while with my ex husband, Rob. He had been drinking a lot. They argued constantly for a while. But now they were barely speaking because whenever they did, they just seem to argue and couldn't get along on anything anymore. This is why she hasn't told him yet about her diagnosis. He knew she was having some tests and had been not feeling well. But he hadn't even bothered to ask her about what the diagnosis was or what the tests showed. One more thing, Maya said casually, as she filled their cups up with some more tea. They said I only have one year at best, but I think that's bullshit is the way she said it just so casually while she's pouring tea. Maya being the strong independent woman she is already had a list of her own. She had alternative therapies listed out that she wanted to incorporate into her treatment strong opinions about wanting to make her own choices every step of the way. She had a list of her friends community which was this amazing, loving, supportive community of women that she knew most of them through yoga or teaching. Or the after school program. There was nothing for Marla to fix. Maya just wanted her to be there and be a part of it all, but Marla had agreed to honor Oh, Marla would have to agree to honor all of her decisions. Even if she didn't agree. Maya was clear that this was her body, her journey, her choices. And Marla Of course, agreed. She was a little surprised that she didn't need to be the fixer. But she definitely agreed that she was wanting to be there and and even though she felt like probably it was going to be hard. She would support my choices, even if she didn't agree. Everything moved. Right Really quickly, Maya wanted everyone to know right away so everything was in place out in the open going into this first surgery a couple days away. Since the post surgery chemotherapy was expected to be pretty challenging for her physically. The surgery went well, but my as conditions seem to be a little worse than expected. When the doctors talked to her afterwards, there was so much treatment, chemotherapy, blood transfusions and less medications. And of course, being Maya. There were also things like acupuncture and green juices and a steady stream of wonderful women to sit with my to love her to support her each in their own ways. It was beautiful for Marla to witness these emotionally connected friendships that her sister had built with all of these women. Despite all of this, her condition progressed, she was very proud to have passed the one year mark, although she was very weak by then. This was when Marlowe was challenged with one of my US firm decisions that she didn't really agree with. Maya put her foot down and said no more medical intervention. She wanted to stop the treatments. The transfusions, she wanted to put in place a DNR Do Not Resuscitate. She would accept just enough medicine to keep her comfortable only. And of course, she would still accept the non traditional therapies. And Marla said when she recounted this that her first response was the way she said it is pissed. I felt like she was giving up and I had been sensing this coming but I was in denial and I quickly realized that and then I just felt a mix of grief and compassion besides my kids. My sister is everything is the way she tells it. Marla said She really tried to be there as much as she possibly could in those final days, but it was so hard to see her sister like that. Once they removed all the treatment. Her decline was very, like palpable. You could almost feel it when you would see her or look at her or be in that room. She was clearly suffering. The medication that she had agreed to was helping but in Marla's opinion, not enough. One night, Marla decided to go home for the night to take a break to take a shower to repack a bag for herself. And Marla recalled it being really late when she left the hospital. And she said while she was driving, it's not a far distance to drive for her from the hospital. She just burst into tears and had to pull over under a streetlight. So it's like pitch black and she's under the streetlight in her car just sobbing. And then she said this is really hard to say but in that moment, I wished my sister would die. She shared that she immediately felt guilty for feeling that but for the rest of the night, she couldn't stop herself from secretly wishing that her sister would just cross over already is the way that she said it.
Leaving she wanted her to like leave behind the suffering in her of her body. Of course, Marla jokingly but seriously said I wished it I talked to God about it. I even asked our grandma and heaven to come and get her, which I thought was funny the way she said it. My dad didn't cross over that night. But within about a week she had gotten to spirit, Marla got the chance to say goodbye and so did her husband and their kids. Maya passed quietly in her sleep shortly after Marla had left one night, Marla shared that these feelings of wishing that her sister would die were the most difficult thing she ever had to come to terms with. By the time I met Marla. She had already been working with a therapist for over a year and she had more insight into these emotions. But she explained that she still often felt guilty for having thought that even for that brief period of time, she was still experiencing deep grief and didn't agree with her sister's final medical decisions. She was still struggling with that part. She says it's been shocking for her to learn through therapy and through grief groups that she's participated in just how many people have these taboo thoughts. She still owns it operates a legal firm and she tells me that she's channeling her grief into working on offering a legal clinic a special legal clinic to assist people making end of life decisions and completing that legal paperwork. But she really is still working through those tough feelings. Have you ever had that in your life? Someone who's really ill really unwell clearly struggling at the end of their life and you just wish that they would A crossover already. It's such a tough emotion. It really is one of those taboo emotions that we are forbidden to feel and forbidden to talk about, certainly. But it's, it's truly not uncommon. Being human is messy. Emotions are messy. When someone passes, the truth is you're allowed to feel whatever you feel. If you want to be real about who the person was, that's okay, too. You're not required to keep people on false pedestals, you're not required to say that you support all their decisions, if you're really pissed and didn't agree about the choices they made at the end of their life. Or if you feel like they left you to make some hard choices that you wanted them to choose for themselves, and they put it on you maybe there are so many emotions that come up as part of our grieving process and stifling our emotions are shoving them down, putting them to the side, keeping them forbidden. It doesn't make them go away, those emotions don't leave they just fester inside of us and come out in different unhealthy ways for each of us. So we're offering this episode as just something to think about. Like I said, maybe you can see yourself in some of these situations, maybe your story is different. But maybe you have felt anger and resentment at someone after their passing for the way they passed. Maybe for the life they lead, if you feel frustrated, because maybe you have someone in your life that other people are keeping on a pedestal that you see some things about that person that you feel like, we can't be celebrating this person in this way, we need to be honest about who they were often, like I said, culturally, after people pass some people, it's their instinct, or their cultural programming, what have you to put that person on a pedestal and only talk about the good sides of them and not remember the challenge sides of them. And I've also found that for some people, it's the exact opposite, where people in the family or in the community only want to remember the bad sides of this person, quote, unquote, or the challenge side of them, they only want to remember, for example, what that person did when they were deep in the struggle of their addiction, and they don't want to talk about the good side of them. But can we remember the person as a whole person and just be honest, at least with ourselves about who they were? Can you give yourself permission to do that in your own life, whether it's privately in your own journal or with your own therapist, or maybe even with a friend who you feel comfortable sharing with? I'm hoping that over time, and through sharing experiences with each other through learning more as we have more access to people sharing their stories, maybe we'll see that these emotions are part of the grieving process for a lot of people and they don't need to be so taboo, they don't need to be forbidden. And keeping them that way, just keeps us in pain and anguish and struggle. We need to be able to share our thoughts or at least to express them in healthy ways and own them and have them and not feel guilty or embarrassed about having the feelings we feel you're allowed to feel what you feel. And in the last story of Marla and Maya, I know. It's it's been a few years since I met Marla and she actually still struggles with some of these emotions. And she through her grief groups, like I was saying she's really learned that a lot of people feel this way. And actually, because she's such a fixer, it's made her even more charged up even more mad because she feels like well, why shouldn't we just be able to be honest about this not just in the secrecy of great grief groups or therapy groups, but publicly why can't we just say this and be accepted and have it be a normal part of the grieving process. And my hope is that one day, we will be able to feel all of our feelings and be able to say the things that are true for us and be able to be honest about people and have these you know, maybe messy but necessary emotions. If an emotion is coming. It's because it's in you and there's something to process there or something for you to hold us truth there. Rather than beating yourself up and saying, oh my gosh, I shouldn't be feeling this way or feeling guilty or thinking it's taboo that you have these feelings. I wish I could share all of the stories that I have about these forbidden emotions and taboo grieving because I can't tell you it's the number is big. I can't tell you how many clients as part of their reading, it comes out that they have some of these forbidden emotions about their loved one on the other side, sometimes it's because of the way they pass. Sometimes it's because of the timing and the way they pass, sometimes it's something they said or did or didn't do. Sometimes, like Marla, it's, it's because they witnessed their loved one in such deep suffering, and they don't agree with their choices that they're making. I've even had it where they're mad that that person, the choice was to, to not go to the doctor to not get any medical care, and for the kind of sometimes the aftermath of what that person leaves behind because of their choices. So whatever of these emotions you identify with, or, you know, maybe in your personal life, maybe you know, someone that's gone through a matching experience, or matching emotion, maybe you've had, like I said, this, these emotions or feelings about someone that's more of a public figure, not someone, you know, personally, I really hope that we can, you know, talk about these things, or at least be honest with ourselves, and realize that this is a normal part of the grieving process. There are no rules about grieving, there's no linear timeline, meaning like, it's, it's not that, okay, I'm going to be sad for two weeks, or four weeks, or one year, or, you know, whatever the standard, quote, unquote grieving time is, that's not a real thing. There is no linear process to grieving it's, it's, I want to say it's circular, but I don't even know if it's that it's it rises involves it's on a spectrum. And it's not a straight line, we move back and forth across that spectrum with our emotions, based on many factors. And wild grief is something that we will all experience in some area of our life at some time in our life. It's also at the same time, so completely unique and personal to us. But we can still see ourselves in other people's stories and other people's experiences, when you know, think about the three stories I just shared. Maybe you've had a character like that in your life, or known someone like one of these people on any side of this story. Maybe you've known someone that's like the mom at the restaurant who just would dismiss things and say, Oh, that's just so and so that's, that's just the we just laugh it off and ignore their behavior. Maybe you've even known that character in the story. Maybe you've known someone like Joey Hans, I definitely have.
So just really starting to think about where you see yourself in these stories where you can continue to process those emotions as part of your personal grieving process. As you know, if you've been here for any length of time, it's your first time I guess, maybe you haven't heard this, but I think it's wonderful if you have the means the ability, the privilege to find a therapist to work with. Remember, every therapist is different and it's about finding the right fit for you. So you might see someone and think goes not working. Try someone else. Try a specialist that you know, a therapist specialist that specializes in grief, maybe try a hypnotherapist, maybe try some different things, but shoving these tough emotions down just because they're difficult just because they're forbidden, just because they're taboo in our culture is not healthy for you. And you're allowed to have whatever emotions you have, even if they're uncomfortable, even if they're messy. Even if you wish you didn't feel that way. You're allowed to feel how you feel as part of your individual personal grieving process, but just know that you're not alone. And no matter what you're feeling that's taboo about that person who's left the physical world, I can almost guarantee you that you're not alone in those feelings that there are other people who have had similar emotions, of course, their story, their situations unique, but those emotions are the thing that we have in common as human beings is this spectrum of emotions. There are different applications and different ways they show up, of course, but you're not alone. You're not bad or need to be guilty for having these emotions. There are other people that have felt this way and it's okay to feel however you feel so please know that I am sending love to you for any of the tough emotions that you experience any of the similarities that you see within yourself with these other stories. And thank you for listening with empathy to the stories that I did share because like I said, these are real people and real situations that have happened. So wherever you are in your grief journey, whether you've experienced grief recently or whether it feels kind of far from you right now. I hope that you found something in this episode and I hope that it gives you just a little bit more permission to feel how you feel to process those feelings. in healthy ways, and most importantly to know that you're not alone, that we're all here in this beautiful, wonderful, messy human experience all together. Ah, I'd love to hear from you and know what of these stories resonated with you where you can see yourself where maybe you've had a similar emotion you can always put in the comments wherever you are listening or watching the other thing is it really help if you would rate the show so if you're listening on a podcast platform any of the platforms if you like and subscribe there's usually some kind of button that you can like and subscribe so you'll receive all the episodes and then there's also a way for you to rate the show. It helps me because it helps the podcast get visibility and it helps people know okay, this is this is a this is one to listen to. And it also helps you because you never miss an episode if you subscribe they'll come to you so if you wouldn't mind doing that and if you feel like this episode or another episode was really meaningful for you or could really highlight something for someone else I would love it if you would share an episode with someone that you care about maybe someone that you know that is going through a tough grieving process and you want to tell them hey, you're not alone. So if you can find it within your heart to share an episode I would love that as well. Thanks as always for being here. I love having you with me inside spirits speakeasy Big hugs. Bye for now from inside Spirit Speakeasy