Comfortable In The Surreal With Diane Speer

Diane,

Thank you so much for joining us on Coming Back today.

I'm so thrilled to share your story and your involvement with the Bereavement Cruise with everyone listening today,

And we will start where we always start here on Coming Back.

What is your lost story?

Well,

I started at a very young age,

Very unconsciously.

I must have been about nine years old,

And an uncle of mine had lost his 18-year-old son to a very tragic automobile accident and had been decapitated.

And we had the funeral mercy meal,

Is what we called it,

In the town where I grew up in at our home.

And this was a big Lebanese family.

It must have been 30,

40,

Possibly even 50 people there.

And I remember my uncle Tony coming to me and asking me to play piano for him.

I played classical piano.

And so I sat down and started playing for him.

And he proceeded to tell me the whole story of his experience of finding out about the accident being formed,

The sheriffs coming to their homes in the middle of the night,

And them having to go to the morgue and him having to identify his son in this condition.

And he explained it to me in great,

Great detail.

And I would stop playing every so often because it was kind of shocking to a nine-year-old.

And he would say,

No,

No,

No,

You keep playing.

And he just kept telling his story.

And I remember going through that and not really thinking anything of it.

It was almost surreal.

And then over the years,

Aunts and uncles passing away.

And I became terrified of going to wakes and funerals after that incident with my uncle Tony.

So I think even unconsciously as a young child,

I was strongly impacted and honestly didn't have any tools to even begin to process or understand much less integrate and know how to grieve,

Much less how to support a grieving father or the deceased son.

And we were raised by my grandmother.

At the age of 14,

This was the first very close to me loss.

She got diagnosed with a brain tumor and had a surgery that she didn't survive.

And I remember,

That's about ninth grade,

I think it was my freshman year in high school.

And I remember I was afraid to go to the hospital.

Some part of me knew she wasn't going to survive the surgery.

And so one night,

She was in ICU so you could go in those days anytime,

24 hours a day.

It's not quite like that anymore these days.

And so I had been out with some friends and had them bring me over there and I needed to see her.

And she was on a respirator,

Her rosary was over her bed,

She was lying there with her head all wrapped up.

I sat by her bedside talking to her and as far as they told me that she was in kind of an induced coma,

But I kind of understood or had known from whatever resources that people can still hear.

So I was talking to her and I remember her patting my hand.

And it was at that point that I knew,

Oh wow,

She's not coming home.

And sometime later that night,

We got the call that she passed.

And even though we had a loving,

Large family,

It was kind of a philosophy of children didn't speak unless spoken to and were seen but not heard.

So here,

Our primary caretaker had passed.

And of course,

My father was completely devastated.

He had three teenage daughters to finish raising.

I was the oldest at 14.

But I don't recall anybody ever talking to us about it or comforting us or asking us to dialogue on this or have no memory of again,

Going through this loss and awake and the funeral and cemetery with just going through it.

It's surreal,

Unconsciously even,

Without any real support and explanation as to what was going on or comfort and solace.

And so,

From that point on though,

In my life,

I went into the dark night of the soul.

And I didn't realize it at the time,

But I think I was so affected by that loss that it led me into downward spiral mentally and emotionally,

Which manifested as inhibiting dysfunctional behavior patterns.

I got through high school,

Didn't really participate much,

Missed more than I went somehow,

Managed to graduate,

Spent a lot of time indulging in unhealthy habits and partying and staying out late and taking risks with behavior and so on.

But I did manage to eventually graduate and went on to college and continued into my first or second year of university in similar behavior patterns.

It was starting to manifest in health issues.

I had a very severe case of psoriasis to the extent that all my hair almost fell out and had huge patches of it all over my body.

So there was also a whole self-image thing going on.

The next big transitions came when I met my children's father and knew I wanted to have children,

So cleaned up my act.

And it was around that time that I started to explore learning about mindfulness,

Yoga,

And meditation.

And that began my healing journey.

Can you say more on that?

I started to self-reflect and have tools and other teachers and guides to help me with that self-reflection.

It was the first time in my life.

I had never had the opportunity to grieve my grandmother,

Primary caretaker,

To understand that experience with Uncle Tony.

And it was beginning to go into this process of self-reflection and healing about that time in my early 20s.

And I got married and was pregnant with my first daughter at the age of 29.

My mother had a massive heart attack.

It was December of the year I was pregnant with her.

I didn't survive it.

We buried her on Christmas Eve.

And again,

It was another,

Even though I had some tools and I was very excited and in my life fully married,

Had our home,

We're having our first baby,

All these wonderful things were happening.

It happened again with that same sense of surreal that I was in it,

That it was really real to me.

I was eight months pregnant when she died.

Because of all the stress of the three weeks from the heart attack to her death,

I was having preterm labor.

And my doctors wanted to put me in the hospital,

Which I refused.

And of course,

She did pass ultimately.

We went through all the funeral rites and graveyard rites.

And I feel like I didn't really participate because I felt like I had to take care of my baby.

And so again,

Had no opportunity to really breathe and understand it and connect with it,

Be with it and process on it.

Just had to keep rolling with the circumstances.

And then of course,

I had my baby and I was in nirvana.

Yeah,

My mother's death kind of went into the back burner and not really worked on.

I say that I didn't really grieve her until two decades later,

Have to be honest.

And I still do work on her as my mom and our life together and her death.

And so later on in that year,

Linda,

My sister,

Had become pregnant.

We were so excited.

We were going to have our children.

They were going to be around the same age.

It was our first babies.

And her first daughter,

Aubrey,

Was born in early September.

My daughter was born in early February of the same year,

1989.

And Aubrey did not survive.

And it was completely unexpected.

So that was within a year that we lost our mother and our sister lost her first born,

Our first niece.

And of course,

I had my daughter who was just six months old.

And I wanted to support my sister as much as possible.

So right away,

I went running up there and spent time with her,

With my daughter with me.

And of course,

She was just,

They were devastated,

Not understanding how this could have happened and trying to process.

I remember always feeling comfortable to talk to her about Aubrey.

And I would say,

Oh,

You know,

I know it's hard that Rachel's here,

But Aubrey would be a month old and Rachel would be seven months old.

I would talk to her about it.

And she seemed it was sad and hard to find some comfort.

And I think that was one of the,

I would say,

Initiations into turning around and actually facing grief,

Head on,

Face on,

Face to face for the first time in my life at 29 years old at the death of my sister's first born baby.

So that's a lot of loss.

I'm just acknowledging that's a lot to have happen in the first 30 years of your life.

I guess my next question is,

What came next?

What came next for you in life and in grief?

So over the years,

I developed more and more involvement with mindfulness and yoga meditation,

Holistic lifestyle healing practices and came into contact with many,

Many clients that I walked with through terminal illnesses and circumstances.

Some survived,

Some didn't.

And I became more and more awake and did more and more of my own personal work in healing.

And of course I did some programs with Linda over the years.

She developed into a grief support counselor.

You know her story.

And a lot of the work that I found myself and still find myself doing is assisting people in an energetic,

Spiritual way with transition,

Either bedside or distance through specific mindfulness prayer ritual and ceremony practices and techniques and methods.

And I became aware of this as part of,

I came to know it as part of my service here on the planet.

And so that of course threw me into studying death and all of these different traditions,

The Tibetan book of the dead,

The Egyptian book of the dead,

Indigenous cultures.

And I started to educate myself because I was being called to people's bedsides or by clients and now family and friends at this point to be someone who was a support person and even assisted in this kind of transition and post-transition grief recovery and beyond.

And so from all that,

I've developed programs based in mindfulness and Earthwise Medicine,

Holistic healing,

Energy healing,

Intuitive shamanic type healing for the care of the dying and in grief care post-death.

And it's some of the most rewarding work I do.

I work with many other populations,

Chronic disease management,

Pre-post-surgery,

Depression and anxiety.

But I have to say that the end of life and the grief care is some of the most profound work that I've been called to do.

And I feel very honored to be a part of a community that provides that kind of support to people.

And so I make the joke,

I don't know if you're going to want to bleep that one out,

But I'm kind of like a death angel.

And in some of the traditional cultures,

Let's say for instance Celtic,

The goddess Morrigan was the archetypical angel or goddess of transitioning warriors off the battlefield and crossing to the other side.

And I did a lot of study in the Buddhist traditions about their philosophy and techniques and methodology about getting through what they called the bardo,

That period of time,

Four days from when the soul has separated from the body where it's important what happens and what goes on around the person for them to be able to get through that confusing time and beyond into the Creator's final destination,

I don't know what the right terms would be for it,

Or nirvana heaven,

Or to merge completely with the universal mother-father God or God or the great tree,

Whatever the religious or social context doesn't matter,

It's universal.

And so I found myself working with people that way physically and in the subtle spiritual realm.

I had a very dear friend who was also for a while a life partner and we did a lot of work together in the natural human arts and spirituality and deeply discussed many of these topics and he suddenly,

Very suddenly,

Passed.

And I found out about it at the last minute that there was something going on and I sensed it but didn't reach out and I received word the night of his transition from the mutual friend.

And of course was upset and wondered,

Oh gosh,

You know,

I hadn't reconnected so I could have helped and was upset,

I have to say,

Even with all the experience that I feel like at this point I've had and being very close to a lot of transitioning.

And I actually became sick and for three days after the initial day of receiving word of his passing got worse and worse and went to a point where I couldn't even barely get out of bed.

And so I just stayed there and the symptoms were like a headache,

A heaviness,

Kind of flu-y but not really kind of thing and I've had other experiences like that that were more spiritually oriented than physical.

And so on the fourth day,

And remember in Buddhist tradition the bardo is four days to get through it,

To enter into nirvana or the soul will reincarnate,

It's based on this particular philosophy's belief system.

And on the fourth day,

The night before the fourth day,

I had a vision and he was there with me.

And in the vision we were in this place that looked like a huge multi-era design architecture with rooms and huge lecture halls and people in these lecture halls giving talks and there were people playing music and doing art and there were these huge like auditorium-like spaces and then smaller spaces and even small office spaces.

And I was in one of the small rooms with my friend Brian,

Who was his name,

And he was sitting up on almost like an examination table and I was standing next to him and he kept collapsing and I would catch him in my arms.

It was so powerful and I kept giving him water.

And in the vision this kept happening and I remember thinking in the vision,

Oh my God,

You know,

I've got to find some place to lay him down,

He's such a big guy,

I'm not going to be able to hold him much longer if this keeps happening.

And he would like faint and I would kind of catch him in my arms and giving him water.

And then I came out of the vision the next morning,

Completely alleviated of all my symptoms and realized that I had indeed been with him in the spirit realm in his transition through the bardo.

So,

These are the kinds of things that I've had as experiences and I feel very blessed and even recounting some of it,

I become very moved and teary-eyed in experiencing those sensations and feelings and great gifts,

Great gifts.

I think this whole introductory story is very powerful because I see this long-term shift between the shock and this fear and this hesitancy towards grief and loss and being a container for other people's stories and their pain all the way to finding the tools and finding the resources that help you,

For lack of better phrasing,

Like speak the same language as them and to be able to be receptive to it instead of afraid and fearful of it.

The entire time you're telling your stories,

I wrote down terrified of going to wakes and funerals,

No tools to support and now it seems like it's been a long-term 180,

A flip to the other side of look at these tools,

Look at these stories,

Even these ancient myths that you have to use as a framework to be like,

Oh,

I can place this here and sickness makes sense to me and grief makes sense to me and death makes sense and not even making sense but there's this familiarity that I sense and you have,

Oh,

I've been here before,

Oh,

I kind of know what to expect,

Oh,

This is what this means to me instead of,

Oh my gosh,

I am afraid,

I want nothing to do with this,

This is all hyper surreal.

It sounds like you've become very comfortable in the world of the surreal.

Yes,

And I think that was part of the journey that I was given in Steps and Stages to help open me up to be able to stand in presence and hold space for the end of life and transition journey and I am actually very comfortable with it.

I even had clients ask me to give their funerals and in fact I have two coming up as a chance would have it next month that I've been called to come and do a ceremony for two very close soul family people who have passed and I've been told by the other people that I have been at those events that it's such a calm feeling,

Energy,

Comforting.

I have been given a gift of clarity of knowing that this is one of the gifts that I've been given to be able to walk on the planet with in service to others and my whole life has been that.

Life work became more prevalent in the last 10 years maybe but before that I'd also been working in natural healing hearts and in healing and all those other ways as I mentioned before,

Energy healing,

Yoga meditation,

Mindfulness,

Holistic lifestyle.

So I feel honored and it keeps informing me.

I myself had three near death experiences throughout my life.

The first one I don't remember,

I was a child about two years old.

My dad tells me we were at the beach in Gasbury Park in New Jersey and he had me by the hand in the waves and one of the waves took me away and he had to swim out and find me and call me out.

I don't remember any of that but he said I was sputtering and he had to help me get breathing again and things like that.

The second time I was about 13,

14,

My parents were divorced and my mom lived in New Jersey so as chance would have it,

Shelby,

I once again was at Gasbury Park in New Jersey and I went in the water and I remember it was really rough and I remember a wave came and took me and I remember it took me out and I must have gotten caught in the waves and were under toed so the last thing I remember is being slammed into the bottom in the sand,

Rushing roughly against my face and shoulders and arms and then the next thing I remember is I apparently had been pulled out by a lifeguard lying on the beach with a crowd of people standing around me and my mother screaming and yelling,

Hysterical,

Upset,

Obviously.

My first impression was that I was so embarrassed.

I wasn't even conscious of what really happened or anything like that.

Again,

It was one of those surreal experiences but I remember I got up and I went running into the bathhouse and went into the shower because I was so embarrassed.

The first feeling,

I recall having come back from that experience and all the sand was in every waterfist to an extent that it was unbelievable and then the third time,

It was actually an illness that came on me very suddenly that ended up getting brought to an emergency with what appeared to be a cardiac incident.

So I was in a hospital for 36 hours and they were doing all these tests and whatnot and somehow that got me stabilized and whatnot and none of the tests showed anything physical that could have been the cause except that I was so dehydrated from being sick,

Poojing,

That my organs were starting to shut down.

I remember going through that before going to the emergency room,

Lying in my bed and thinking,

Well,

I'm going to die.

I'm just going to say my prayers and help myself to smoothly transition because I'd already been doing some work in transition and had done a lot of the study.

It was very painful.

I remember the pain and that's the cells kind of dying is what I was told long afterwards.

Anyway,

After the hospital room visits,

I couldn't even eat for about three or four weeks.

That's how severe the whole thing had been.

I don't even think I started working until the following spring.

This happened on All Souls Night,

Halloween Eve,

Which is another interesting,

Quote unquote,

Coincidence.

So I have a lot of conscious memory of that experience and I felt comfortable and at ease that if it was my time and I was saying certain prayers and mantras in the Eastern traditions that are known to help with transition.

I remember my cat sitting there with me the whole time and I did come back from that eventually.

It was another one of those epiphanic moments in life that I think opened me up to even further work and catalyzed me further in my own healing journey and physical,

Mental,

Emotional,

Spiritual development and abilities,

Let's put it that way.

So I have a lot of intuitive,

Empathic capacity since then that got very much enhanced and major life change decisions that came about after that.

And so those three experiences I think also have something to do with it,

Like having,

I guess I don't know,

Crossed over in our head that near death experience that you can understand that there's still a lot of work to do here.

But they were also kind of initiations in a sense.

So I'm better physical healing arts,

It's kind of how an event like that is categorized as.

I'm curious,

This question is just now coming to me because I've recorded several podcast interviews today,

They're going to be published at different times during this season,

But it seems like maybe it's just something in the water today,

But it seems like there's a connection between grief as an unlocking to spirituality and becoming more in tune with a life's purpose or a higher force that's present for us on the planet.

I know that was something that was true for me,

I'm doing a lot of writing at the moment as to my mom's death being a gateway to my getting in touch with my own intuition.

And I'm wondering what your take on that is and maybe why you think that is.

I wholeheartedly agree.

And I feel that way and know that way from having gone through it and being able to reflect back over from when I was nine years old until now,

How all these incidences were incidences that I can clearly understand were catalytic in expanding me in my growth and healing and spiritual journey.

There's not a doubt in any part of me on that.

And I've also witnessed it in other people's journeys as well,

Friends,

Family and clients that I've worked with,

That significant loss becomes this cathartic event that cracks us open in every way possible,

As you know,

And is painful and difficult.

And all those things are a part of it,

A necessary part of it.

And at the same time,

A seed of growth and healing and expansion,

That's an incredible gift.

I feel so blessed,

Even though it is sad and hard and watching people suffer,

And everybody has their own way of grieving and their own vocabulary,

Their own tools that have to be brought to fore or learned if they have none.

So I feel through direct experience and witnessing that to be a very,

Very true circumstance,

Pretty much 100%.

I love that.

And it seemed to be resonating through a theme of today.

So I've just enjoyed bringing that up.

I sense that in your voice and your story,

That that's been really powerful for you.

I want to switch now to the workshop that you're going to be leading on the bereavement cruise,

Kind of what it's called and what you'll be guiding people through on board as well.

Yes.

We've titled it Self-Care.

I think one of the things that we are not taught in life in any way through family,

Friends,

Formal education,

Professional education,

Unless we go into caretaker type,

You know,

In the fields,

How to self-care and much less how to self-care for the grief journey,

The end of life and grief journey is such a sacred,

Beautiful,

Beautiful part of life.

It's as beautiful and sacred as birth,

As giving birth,

As getting married.

And I love the idea of bringing that sacredness back to it and sharing tools to people who that can use,

They can use to help support them in this journey.

So we'll be doing some discussion,

Some sharing,

Be giving mindfulness,

Gentle,

Easy yoga-tation practices,

Be giving some energy medicine practices that are wonderful,

Energy healing.

And it's in a format that can be brought into daily life in a very,

Very easy way.

The body-mind spirit and the Eastern philosophies of this kind of work,

There is no,

It's all one,

There's no separation.

And so working with the body,

Working with the breath,

Working with mindfulness can bring healing and change and soothing to the body-mind spirit system and help people to hold and walk with their grief in ways that can make it a little more comfortable for them hopefully to give them some sense of self-efficacy and self-empowerment,

Of self-control,

Of dignity,

And be able to hold those two things simultaneously with ease and maintain internal health and balance and harmony and integration.

So I'm really looking forward to that.

Foundationally,

A lot of what I do is energetic or shamanic healing.

And so because that is a task and duty that I walk with,

There will also be a very powerful,

Energetic,

Subtle healing going on in addition to the obvious physical,

Mental,

Intellectual processing and tools and methods and techniques.

So it'll be a very,

Very powerful,

Powerful circle that we'll come into.

And it might include doing some aromatherapy or reiki or energy healing.

Reiki is a word that people connect to and understand and feel comfortable with.

So it'll be a combination of all that.

And I think one of the nights,

And I'll be doing a Circle of Hope as well,

And Linda and I were discussing what we would like for that,

It would be just a more intimate circle exploring kind of organically,

Intuitively how to apply this kind of mindfulness,

Holistic,

Natural,

Earth-wise,

Intuitive self-care types of activities and processes into daily life.

That sounds like a sweet package.

And I think that everything that's coming together,

That's being knit together for the bereavement cruise is going to be really powerful.

We're kind of,

We're going to be hitting grief from a lot of different angles.

And maybe hitting is not the right word.

Maybe coding it or examining it or holding it through a lot of different lenses.

Yeah,

That's really exciting.