Death Is Inevitable; Grief Is Not With Jennifer Mathews

So Jennifer,

I am so excited and enthralled by you and the work that you're doing because it's so unlike anything else I've ever seen in the grief space.

So much so that I laughed when I first saw it because I believe that my first encounter with you was your articles first and then your TED Talk on YouTube.

And it was the very first time in my life that I've ever seen Ted give a disclaimer about what somebody was saying.

And I've watched a lot of TED Talks in my life and I was like,

I have to have you on the show.

So I think a really good place to dive in would be to talk about what it is that you do and why it hits people in such a like a cross-sectional kind of way.

Great.

Thanks,

Shelby.

Well,

When I decided to call the TED Talk,

Death is inevitable,

Grief is not.

I think that was the first step where I was really stepping into unchartered territory and having a willingness to say.

Experience of the death of my life partner a number of years ago and really exploring for myself why I wasn't devastated and rather than looking at how to overcome grief or what grief means for me,

I was looking at it differently and looking at something wrong with me.

Am I in denial?

Am I pushing this down?

Because I felt really good and in a really solid well-being and of joy and of connection.

And that ever changed for me over all these years.

It's been eight years now.

And so that jumping off point,

What I learned was that really we talk about grief in this way that everybody grieves.

And if there's a death,

Then that's the automatic,

Appropriate natural response.

But my experience was different.

My experience was one that started off from a place of gratitude.

And of course,

It was shock.

My partner had been diagnosed with cancer at the age of 41 and died 12 weeks later.

So of course,

We were shocked.

Of course,

There were ups and downs and we embraced life the best we could.

But for me,

It was realizing that there are many ways to respond to death.

And because of my spiritual practice,

I believe,

Because of some circumstances and external factors,

Because of various practices I have,

I feel like I was able to have a different response to death.

And my exploration of that is one that's confusing for people,

I think.

I think typically people might think,

Oh,

She's unemotional.

She hasn't been in touch with her feelings yet.

We don't hear of people who are so solid in that way.

But I will tell you,

Throughout the years of this conversation,

Especially this past few years,

Few months,

There have been so many people that have come forward and said,

Wow,

You know,

I've spent decades feeling guilty about not feeling horrible when my mom died.

And I never felt any kind of sadness when my husband or wife or partner died.

And my have been story after story that really confirm that there are some of us out there.

I'm not saying we're a majority,

But there are some of us out there that genuinely,

Authentically do not experience grief in a way that's expected.

So for me,

The disclaimer of the TED Talk comes from a place,

I think of TED,

This is my best guess of them,

Being worried they invalidate people's pain or people's grief or further repress or suggest to people that they should bypass their grief,

Which is not at all what I'm doing.

But I do understand that concern because I've had this fear for many years of actually speaking this out loud,

Of being able to say,

Hey,

Grief is just one response.

And I don't want that to somehow invalidate or discourage the permission to grieve.

I want it just to open up the conversation and say,

Hey,

Let's look at this.

Let's have real conversations.

Let's not limit ourselves when it comes to response to death.

I love that you phrased it that way,

Because literally what I noticed was happening in myself as I was responding to your work was,

I'm offended by this.

Literally the first thing that flashed in my brain was like,

Oh my God,

She's a serial killer.

Like,

I just had this response of like,

Her partner died and like nothing.

It wasn't that nothing happened.

It was that joy happened,

Peace happened.

This even laughter when you were laughing and you're a TED Talk,

You have so many articles on the connection between grief,

Death and laughter.

And I believe this is a modality for you as well that you used to cope with losing your partner.

But I was like,

Where is the outrage?

Where is the sorrow?

I was offended on your behalf.

But then I love that you phrased it this way through the lens of permission to grieve,

Which you know is a bit of the work that I do,

Because so much of the work that I do is pushing away society's shoulds of grief should look like this.

You should look like this as a parent,

As a child,

As a worker or whoever while you're grieving.

But then for grievers to turn around and come back and say,

Our grief looks like this and anything that's beyond that,

I.

E.

Joy,

Laughter,

Being at peace with it immediately is,

You must be a freak of some kind,

Is doing the exact same thing but in reverse.

And so as I can,

I was like,

What if I stay here and continue absorbing her work?

And it was just,

Really the word I want to use is like a revelation,

Because while I cannot echo your experience,

I don't believe in any way,

Because my mother's death is the number one disaster,

The worst thing that's ever happened to me.

I was so enamored and just enthralled by the way in which,

I don't know that grief did not exist for you necessarily,

But it presented so incredibly differently.

It's true,

And your honesty about the being offended really is very meaningful to me because it opened in the conversation,

Right?

To say,

Oh gosh,

Is there anyone like this?

Like what's wrong with her?

I mean,

That was,

It sounds like that was your response.

And that's what I asked myself.

And in a non-judgmental way,

I was able to work through it.

I mean,

You've spoken of this in your work about loving ourselves and how do we love ourselves through.

The irony of course is to be suspect of myself or to feel like people were suspicious or are suspicious of me,

Because I actually really was okay and really am okay.

And in a culture where one of the top books right now is,

It's okay to not be okay,

And that's fine,

But that's out there,

It needs to be discussed.

I also want the discussion to be,

It's also okay to be okay.

So over time,

I mean,

One of the really important things for me was finding some studies like George Bernano's work,

The Other Side of Sadness,

And learned optimism and different research that had been done that actually backed me up.

It made me feel stronger that I could say,

Wow,

You know,

I'm not alone in this either.

Whereas you don't want to be alone in your grief or your heartache.

I'm also not alone in my joy and that there are certain things that contribute to some of us,

Or maybe could contribute more to others being really emotionally stable and well adjusted when someone dies,

Even when someone dies.

I think that's really the key,

You know,

We have skills and tools,

Right,

That get us through challenges and obstacles and hardships in our lives,

But I do feel we tend to be encouraged to abandon them when it comes to death,

Because there's such a heavy cultural expectation of someone's death,

Especially if we love them deeply,

Means grief and an overwhelming amount of grief,

That to think we could use the tools we use for challenges in our lives,

Even in death,

Instead of just saying,

Well,

There's no other choice.

I have no choice but to dive deeply into this.

I have no choice but to feel the despair that I feel.

It opens a can of worms.

And I'm excited to look at that on a really human,

Emotional,

And especially a spiritual level.

The spiritual pieces is very significant.

Can you talk about the science that you've uncovered in relation to this?

Because I love this mirroring of it's also okay to be okay.

And I think the other side of sadness is on my radar,

But it's not something I've delved into yet.

Well,

George Bernano actually just revised that book a couple months ago.

It was a 2009 version,

Now he has a 2019 version,

So I definitely encourage you to check it out.

It's more academic,

But what he looked at is what are the factors that contribute to death?

What do they contribute to being well adjusted after the death of someone we love?

I mean,

He looks at a lot more than that,

But this is what I pulled out.

And when they did studies,

They found that some typical things we would see for any kind of challenges,

Like the ability to adapt.

He does a lot of work on resilience,

Being optimistic,

Positive world views,

Broader perspectives on life,

Accepting death as a part of life,

How we think about the afterlife.

On and on in those ways.

And in some ways,

It's not,

There aren't any surprises.

I think the surprise is that we can even apply it to death.

That to me is where people might step back and say,

Whoa,

Okay,

Isn't death too big for this?

And my experience is no,

It's not.

It's about really perspective.

I mean,

This is where in some of the work you've done in your book talking about the truths of grief,

I had spent years looking at what are the cultural messages I've been getting and what are my own perspectives?

And in doing that,

What I really realized is,

Oh,

Wow,

The cultural messages,

If I boiled them down to a handful of cultural messages that are either obvious or subtle,

Mine were the opposite.

So if a lot of people or most people experience quite a depth of grief or sadness.

And my perspectives were different than the norm,

Maybe there's some kind of connection there.

Maybe there's a connection between having more life affirming perspectives that are deep world views and beliefs of mine that mattered.

And maybe sharing them can make a difference for other people,

Too.

I don't know whether they can or not.

It's an opportunity to at least open to the possibilities.

So let's delve into those cultural myths and their yin yang opposites.

OK,

Great.

So what I did was I from similar to you from reading books and reflecting and writing and going to workshops and taking classes and paying close attention to social media,

How people respond when someone dies for themselves or for their friends or family.

Looking at all of those pieces,

The research out there,

I started keeping track and trying to synthesize certain messages.

So what I came up with in the end is there are certain cultural world views and I would call these the worldview of absence,

That most of what is out there tends to focus on the body and the sense of someone we love.

So I'm thinking of how to how to share this with you.

I think I'll just go through and tell you what my perspective is of the worldview of absence.

So one would be that the.

The set of life.

So we basically go around thinking whether that's subtle and subconscious or not,

Death is the opposite of life.

Now,

My worldview and perspective is that death is the opposite of birth,

That life actually continues,

Even though the physical body dies.

Very different feeling that another thing very similar would be that death is the end of a relationship.

To me,

This is one of the really key pieces,

Because I realized that was the message out there when my perspective was that you can continue and expand your relationship with someone after death,

That their form changes,

But that the relationship does not end.

So if.

Deeply that the relationship ends when someone dies,

Of course,

We're going to feel absence,

Separation,

Disconnection,

And I believe that separation,

Disconnection is the root of our grief in many ways.

Another one would be that is a sad and horrible thing,

That that's a cultural assumption we make and from death is something that's neutral.

It's not good,

It's not bad,

And we as humans tend to label things good and bad.

And so we label death bad or sad or horrible,

But really it's part of the life cycle and it's something that happens to everyone.

Now,

Of course,

And in your situation,

Too,

With the sudden death of your mother,

There's tragic situations,

Circumstances or.

Conditions that would make the conditions be traumatic,

Horrible,

Really heart wrenching,

But death itself is something that happens to each one of us and is neutral.

So that's another really big one for me,

And then here are two that might spark an interesting conversation.

One would be.

That everywhere I looked,

Any books I read in conversations I had with people,

Most common things you hear is the more you love someone,

The more you grieve.

And to me,

The idea that the more you love someone,

The more you grieve is actually a cultural myth and message that we believe is true.

But the truth to me is how much you love someone does not determine how you respond to their death.

So there wasn't some kind of proportional equation when I lost the love of my life or when my mother died or other people in my life died.

The love actually helped me transcend the feelings of heartache and despair.

The love brought me to this different place.

Now,

I'm not saying that would happen for everyone,

But it's not a ratio.

It's not an equation.

And for people to really get that,

Oh,

If I'm not grieving incredibly deeply,

That doesn't mean I don't love them.

I don't have to show my love that way.

I don't have to hold on to my heartache and grief as a way to illustrate my connection and my love for that person.

So I feel like if we can break through that idea that the more we love someone,

The more we grieve,

We're more able to kind of come alive and have connection with that person and the essence of them and more presence instead of perspective.

And so all of these led me to what I speak about in the TED Talk,

Which is there we believe that there are many ways to grieve,

But really there are many ways to respond to death and grief is only one of them.

And that's the conclusion for me that's come out of these different observations.

I'm going to kind of really dive into this one of the equation of grief and love.

People who are listening to the show know that every single Monday over on my Patreon page,

I release a journaling prompt about different words related to grief.

And I write what I think is true about the word and then other people will respond with theirs as well.

And literally just a few weeks ago,

On December 30th,

2019,

I had the topic of the day,

The word of the day,

Be love.

And I did this whole probably like three paragraph bit on this quote that floats around the grave space of grief is the price that we pay for love.

And it's never sat well with me and I've never been able to put a finger on why.

And I think it's just now you nailed it because you're like this this equation doesn't translate to pain.

It's not like somebody's put love on one side of the scale.

And so you have to balance it with an equal amount of pain.

Like that's not how that happened for me.

I wonder and it's probably true because the quote exists and is floating around in the world.

It's probably true or feels true for other people because limitless love can feel like limitless pain,

Especially if you buy into these other cultural beliefs that death is the end of a relationship.

Death is the opposite of life.

Dead death is bad,

Terrible as opposed to a neutral thing that will happen to all of us.

And so,

Of course,

It's kind of if then if all of those equations are true,

Then the amount I loved will also be the amount I grieved.

It's kind of like they're all feeding.

I'm getting this Webby picture of they're all feeding into each other.

And so no wonder so many of us are in this these dire straits of pain and heartache and really what a lot of my clients have described to me as like whirling or cyclical grief,

Or they just feel like once I'm done with this thought that another one's right behind it and they're all kind of in the same family,

But they're all about different things,

Whether about guilt or shame or the fact that it's over.

They didn't say this or they couldn't communicate that or they're just no longer here.

It's like this marinating stew of.

Everything is bad.

Everything is awful.

And grief has this tendency,

Even culturally and in places where I even talk about it,

Where I even say it,

It impacts everything.

It coats everything because it's such an impactful event.

I wrote down another question that I want to ask you in terms of kind of where.

The roots of this work came from for you,

Like whether or not you stumbled into this feeling of.

I'm remarkably OK with this,

Or if it was something that you'd been developing for a while that manifested once your partner died,

I literally wrote down,

Was this nature or nurture?

So we'll see where this goes.

Well,

It's an excellent question.

I would say both.

I would say that both my partner Kate and I were natural optimists.

We both had various struggles in our lives over time,

You know,

Since we were kids.

And still there was this optimism in me and for me that had spiritual roots,

Even even as a child and even through my teenage years.

So there's a place where I think that our personalities and our temperaments matter.

Like we I kind of popped out this way in some ways.

And at the same time,

I wouldn't say that's definitive,

Because I do believe people can learn various skills.

They can learn optimism.

And there's been a lot of studies on showing that's true.

We can learn different tools that help us practice having the grooves in our brains shift and change with neuroscience studies that we've seen.

And so I think in some ways it's nature and other ways it's nurture and practices and more practices.

So I think that there were these spiritual practices in particular before Kate died that meant kind of in your framework of coming back,

That meant I didn't need to come back.

What I needed to do was kind of like nurture that.

And I already had those tools,

Especially the awareness of my thoughts and the willingness to choose my focus and look at where my energy is.

So it's an excellent question,

But I don't believe it's either or,

Because I do believe that it could be harder for certain people to step in that I'm in.

Or to find the peace and find the joy based on some hardwired stuff that starts,

I think,

With a lot of childhood things and with various ways we have dealt with trauma lives,

Upbringing and messages we get from our families and our society.

So there's a lot to say on that,

I feel like I could go on,

But it's a great question.

And it's just curious to me because I've read books on resilience and there's so many books on what it's like to come back from hard and devastating things,

Even besides death,

Such as childhood trauma or natural disasters or things like that,

And kind of what tees up people to respond in such a way.

And as you were talking,

I literally wrote down,

I didn't need to come back.

I was already there.

And that gives me chills just talking about it because I think with all of these cultural myths we talk about in the worldview of absence,

Which I also love this phrase from you,

I sense that you're a writer at heart,

Like holy moly,

We keep telling ourselves this story over and over again that grief has somehow set us back or loss has somehow hindered us,

Crippled us.

People use the word drowned,

Paralyzed,

Upended to describe grief.

And these are words,

Again,

That I use in my own work.

Absolutely.

Because in those years and in that moment,

That's exactly what it felt like.

But for as long as we tell ourselves that story,

That means there's also something to come back from.

And so it sounded like that whole narrative was just out the window for you,

Which is so incredibly fascinating.

And I think that's where so much of the,

I'm going to use this word again,

The enthrallment with your work comes from for me because I'm like the whole story,

The whole thing was gone.

Like she didn't have a kitchen sink.

Like it was there was nothing that went into the whole thing.

And it was a fascination for me.

And of course,

It's not like there were moments,

But they were so far and few between.

So that's what I really asked myself,

Like,

Why were they so far and few between?

And a lot of that,

Like you were just saying it,

It has to do with the story and the thoughts.

And when that really became clear for me just a few days after Kate died,

Too,

When I felt confused and awkward because I felt good and wondering if what people say that this will come back and bite me in the ass later.

You know,

Is that true and all of that?

And that's when I really started asking myself where my focus is and where is my energy?

Because the significance of my thoughts became so clear and it's so subtle.

And so that's where it's like emotion comes.

But we move through,

It's a visceral response.

Personally,

I don't even I feel like that's even different than grief.

It's like body is adjusting and adapting to the physical loss of someone that we are used to having there and that we wish was still there.

So we need to move it through our bodies to release.

You know,

There have been times when I fall into my knees and cried.

It's been it has not been a common experience for me.

But what I've noticed is if I let that move super fast and if I start feeding it,

If I start thinking like this is so hard,

I'll never see her again.

We didn't do all these things.

I regret this.

This is how my future is going now.

And I wish it was different.

The second I catch myself and have the awareness,

That's when I can ask like,

Oh,

Do I want to focus on this?

And those are all absence thoughts.

They're sometimes super subtle.

I mean,

Some some people even said to me,

Well,

If I ask where my focus is and I'm focused on the absence of this person in my life,

On their presence,

Then I get sad because they're not here.

But that's still focusing on their absence.

So it's like it's very subtle how if we if we look at a picture on the wall or we go to a place that we used to love going to with this person or there's an anniversary that comes up.

If we watch our feelings and we're sad,

We're focused on their physical absence.

It's fine to do that.

Like,

I feel like it's fine to do that.

But if we want to feel differently,

To do it differently,

To have a different kind of.

Awakeness in the world.

The point where we can choose to focus on presence and it's it can be slippery,

Especially if we're very practiced at focusing on the absence.

I'm glad that you said that because that was my first switch flip also,

Because you were talking about the worldview of absence and I was like,

OK,

Well,

What's the opposite of absence to presence?

But presence still points to,

Oh,

And they're still not here because they're not present.

And it really involves.

Honestly,

Like a creative brainstorming of all the other ways that they are present,

But present differently than they used to be.

I think so much of the pain that comes from the worldview of absence comes from looking for them in their former form,

In their human form.

And this grief growers,

I know some of you listening are not boo boo or spiritual in the slightest,

But I know that even if you are not,

There are objects in the world.

There are songs,

There are places,

There are smells,

There are family members who remind you of the person,

Place,

Thing that you lost.

And those even can be used as triggers for presence as opposed to I'm going to go get the Ouija board down from the attic and we're going to have a seance.

Which is a totally different way to have presence,

Which if it worked for you,

Great.

But that's not something I subscribe to anyway.

Yeah,

Me neither.

Yeah.

And that's the place to me where I like to call it that which never dies.

That doesn't have to be spiritual.

But it is like,

What is it that never dies?

So if I have a spiritual perspective,

I can connect to that which never dies in that way.

But if I don't have a spiritual perspective,

What's the essence?

What do I carry forward from someone's legacy?

What are the characteristics I now embody because of knowing and loving this person?

What are the memories that I have?

And we have choices in those moments of here's this memory,

It's this beautiful memory.

And then we,

I'll never have that again.

Oh,

Slippery slope.

We're following this idea of absence.

Or we can say,

Wow,

I have gratitude that I have that.

I have,

I'm so glad that I had got to have that opportunity and to experience that with this person.

And that will never die.

I will always have that inside of me.

So to me,

It really is about connection,

You know.

And to get there requires awareness.

It requires the willingness to shift our thoughts and to shift our perspective.

I really believe if we're connected,

That's the presence to me.

It's being connected,

Whether that's to myself,

To the person,

To that which never dies in me,

That spark that animates me or any other human.

I can't feel lost when I'm connected to that which never dies,

Whatever that means to you.

And in connection,

There's not separation.

And separation or the perception of separation is,

I believe,

What grief is about.

Yeah.

And I was literally going to circle right on back to that because I also wrote down for you separation slash disconnection is the root of grief.

And I think that's very true.

And I'm going to say conventional grief there because speaking to other guests on this podcast,

The one that's coming to mind right now is Elua Arthur.

She's a death doula.

And so she sees dying people and witnesses dying people and provides a lot of grace at the bedside of those who are actively crossing the threshold.

But she also sees the friends,

Family,

Co-workers,

Loved ones of those people and watches them enter into the world of grief.

And she's like,

I've seen people get into fistfights.

I've seen people burst into laughter.

I've seen people start singing.

I've seen people cry in the corner.

And she's like,

There's really no expression of grief that's abnormal.

And that's one of the biggest questions that she get asked as a death doula is what what's normal?

What track should I be on?

What focus should I be on while I'm grieving?

And she's like,

Whatever you're doing,

It's normal.

She's like,

I've yet to see an expression of grief that's that's out of the ordinary.

And so I think so much of the work that you're doing and I think one of the biggest reasons that I sat and watched the whole TED Talk,

I'm like,

Try this.

See what happens is that you're expanding this view of grief to something so much wider and includes these emotions immediately of joy,

Peace,

Connection,

Balance,

Harmony with this neutral stimulus of grief,

But also with just the absence of of pain or suffering like this really dark,

Deep suffering.

And I'm wondering,

I think the next place I want to go with you is I have a sense that you want to share this.

But because of I'm like,

I'm still stuck on this TED disclaimer.

How are you sharing this in a way that can get to people without making them feel like the way I'm grieving is wrong?

That's an excellent question.

I have a couple different responses to that,

And one is that one of my primary motivations,

Honestly,

Was to make space for people who who didn't have a strong grief response.

And I was like,

Oh,

My God.

So I feel like the there's been a lack of attention on those people.

And as I mentioned earlier,

Those who might feel guilty or awkward or confused by actually feeling OK when someone they love died and being and they've been carrying that around for a really long time.

So for me,

It's it's the benefit of not calling the experiences we have when someone dies grief and not having this grief umbrella.

Everyone goes through a,

Quote unquote,

Grieving process by renaming that and relanguaging that it creates expansion for everyone.

It gives space to people who adjust fairly easily and fairly well,

But it also gives space to people who are struggling and are working through different regrets or struggles or unresolved business or those kinds of things that are more painful.

And I think that relanguaging it benefits all of us instead of invalidating people who are really deeply in their pain or deeply in their heartache.

So does that make sense?

It's it's it's my intention is never to to say that someone is responding to death in the wrong way,

But it is to expand it and say that let's not say we all grieve differently.

Let's say we all respond differently to open it up bigger and bigger and bigger and bigger.

And then we can actually dialogue,

Then you and I can have this amazing conversation,

Because even though our experiences have been incredibly different,

We both have a deep sense of curiosity about each other and fascination with each other's process and with our own processes.

And that's what I want for us all.

Yeah,

That makes perfect sense and the language even is different and I love that there's so much work in the world,

So much of the work I do is about unlocking all of the negativity and the stigma and the stereotypes of grief.

But I think the work that you're doing is like one level,

Even above that or inclusive of that like that's just one category of the work that you do because you're like,

What's our response?

So grief is one category of response.

So how can we even just talk about the whole umbrella of this is what happened after somebody we love died and everything that falls under that umbrella is welcome in your space.

And that's such a revolutionary way to frame it.

So I really,

I really admire you for that.

And I think that's at the core and the crux of why your work spoke so strongly to me.

Okay,

I know we're getting close to the end,

But I can't let you escape without talking about the role of laughter because this is something,

A,

That first contributed to the serial killer assumption on my part because I'm like,

She's laughing on stage right now about the fact that her partner died.

She's definitely a serial killer,

But then also so much of the writing that you do,

Especially on your website,

Is contributed to how laughter,

Grief,

Death,

That which never dies are all connected to each other in this very human action of laughing.

Right?

Well,

First of all,

It's the laughing at.

So this is a really important piece that you said,

Oh,

She's laughing at the fact that her partner died.

It's never laughing at.

It's never about laughing at a situation,

Laughing about myself,

Laughing at something that's clearly not funny.

Right?

I mean,

Clearly the death of someone we love isn't quote unquote humorous or funny in that way,

But it's using laughter as a tool to break through and interrupt a cycle.

And so many years ago when Kate and I both became laughter teachers,

The stretch for me was that you're just choosing to laugh.

It's just a body mind or mind body mind response where you're saying,

Do I want to laugh right now?

Okay.

I mean,

We can do it together now.

It's this little,

You start with a chuckle,

You know,

Like just,

It might sound kind of weird,

But if I'm willing to laugh,

It means I'm willing to let go.

I'm willing to be free.

I'm willing to not hold on to whatever I'm holding on to.

Oh,

So laughter has like,

I don't want to say ulterior motives,

But like underlying meaning.

It's a tool.

It's a tool so that we can,

If we can learn to laugh for no reason without humor,

Without intellect,

Without jokes,

And just let our bodies laugh,

Just like smiling.

I mean,

I think for people where laughing,

It's a leap,

You know,

Where laughing would be different,

Right?

If you write off,

Just choosing to smile.

And in those moments where we're,

You know,

You know what I mean,

I know it too,

That we are not willing to smile.

If you're feeling really crappy,

If you're like,

I'm not happy,

I'm not going to smile.

It really points us in a clear way to what that we're holding on to something,

Tight grip or resistance to something and we don't want to move it.

And we don't want to interrupt it because we're not willing to.

If we can make the decision to just smile,

Be willing to smile,

To just laugh and be willing to laugh,

To feel some joy and peace and say,

You know what,

I'm going to pause everything else for 30 seconds.

I can go back to feeling this,

This feeling I'm feeling,

I can go back to feeling the frustration or the pain I'm feeling in 30 seconds and just experiment with allowing ourselves to let go.

And this is where one of the workshops I've been doing is called Laughing Matters,

What laughter teaches us about living and dying.

And there's so many layers of laughter teaching us to be aware,

To respond differently to difficult situations or negative thought patterns in our lives,

To,

As I mentioned,

Be free to be creative and playful and present,

Like focus on what really matters and let everything else fall away for a few moments.

So it's like,

Not want things to fall away.

What is it that holds on?

So even when I've done workshops with people around laughter,

One of the things we always explore is what holds us back from laughing,

What holds us back from joyfulness and playfulness.

And in a world suffering,

You know,

It's not easy to get in touch with that place of joy and playfulness and creativity and imagination.

But we're going to look back and can we have the willingness,

That little tiny bit of willingness to say,

Okay,

I'm going to let this go.

I'm going to reframe this.

I'm going to allow myself the radical act of pausing and smiling and seeing what it feels like to not hold on any longer.

Oh,

I love that image of laughter as rebellion against societal norms,

Against assumptions.

Yeah.

And I also have,

I wrote down this question as well.

I write every single time I do an interview,

But laughing equals,

Am I willing to feel something different right now?

And if the answer is no,

That's fine.

Like,

We'll try again later.

But if the answer is yes,

Then laughter might be a good dive into what feeling something different would be.

Even if you don't continue laughing,

Laughter leads into happiness,

Laughter leads into tears,

Laughter leads into nostalgia,

Whatever it is.

And I have a sense that this is something that the world is craving right now because things like,

I mean,

You see all over the internet,

Like the feel good videos or like the cat videos or the lady in the Chewbacca mask or like all these these viral mini videos that pop up everywhere and the popularity of things like Vine and TikTok and YouTube.

And these small clips where people can show funny or clever moments of their days.

Like,

I don't know about you,

But I'm addicted to these things.

And this is what I absorb when I'm feeling kind of cruddy.

And I'm like,

This is a key for me to tap into feeling something different.

Yes.

And the reset that it provides.

So I mean,

Laughter is just one tool,

Right?

And it's it for me,

It's a very immediate interrupt or smiling again,

Smiling is a gentler form of that.

But it could be,

It could be taking a walk outside,

It could be playing music,

It could be singing,

It could be drawing or painting,

It could be yoga,

It could be all sorts of tools that we use to get in touch and come back to center and connect in various ways.

But the thing about to me,

The difference between I love that you go and find things that are more lighthearted and playful and the cat videos or the funny videos.

The thing about laughter is that it's a physical body visceral experience.

And so then we get to embody the lessons of smiling or laughing firsthand when we when we do it just on our own.

When we just decide like,

Oh,

What's it going to be like right now?

And we see the temporary nature of emotions and reactions and sensations.

And it reminds us,

I think that,

Okay,

These emotions I'm feeling if they're difficult,

Temporary.

Or how can I let go of the story I have right now?

How can I forgive myself right now?

How can I be less judgmental about the situation or myself right now?

I mean,

There's just so many layers of it and a really deep level.

And it is a spiritual practice to me,

Honestly,

Because it brings about the unknown.

Like,

It's helped me let go of judgments and love unconditionally in a way that I had not experienced prior to having a laughter practice,

Which might sound strange.

But yeah,

Experiment with it.

Set your timer for a certain time of day and laugh for literally 10 seconds,

Even if it's quiet,

Super gentle,

Sweet laughter.

It doesn't have to be any kind of like big display,

You know?

Yeah,

And I oftentimes when I work with clients,

I'm getting this sense as you're talking about what laughter unlocks.

One of the biggest messages that I think a lot of grieving people want to receive is that,

Oh,

I have more choice in the matter than I think I do.

Because grief oftentimes,

Especially after losing somebody we really,

Really love,

We feel at the mercy of what has just happened because we didn't choose for the person to die.

So why,

You know,

Why would we feel anything but forced upon after that?

And so to know that we can select another activity when we choose,

Such as laughter,

Is,

Oh,

I have a little bit more choice here,

Which converts to I have a little bit more power here than I thought I did,

Or autonomy or ability than I thought grief was,

Quote,

Unquote,

Allowing me in this space.

And again,

Just like all the work you do,

I'm moving my hands far away from my body,

But it expands this picture of the response to death into a far more holistic experience.

Yeah,

Totally.

And people often don't love to hear that they have choices.

It's a tough place when you're in pain and when you're suffering to think,

I have a choice.

And again,

It's that the willing emotions move,

There are choice points.

And it's a tough one for some people to really accept and grapple with.

But as I say in my talk to,

I mean,

Death,

If anything,

To be able to find an inner experience that is of peace or calm or contentment doesn't even have to be joy.

No matter what the external circumstances are that are going on,

It's death.

Like death is the thing,

I think,

That is the number one challenge to be like,

Oh,

Wow,

This is in my external world.

It's out of my control.

How can I come into my own center again?

How can I find some little bit of connection and life,

You know,

Aliveness in me,

No matter what's going on around me?

And if we can learn to do that with death,

We honestly can learn to do that no matter what is happening in our existence and around us.

Well,

And I think the key word you use just now is a little bit because there's this perception of like you're either all sad and all grieving or all happy and all laughing.

And that's when the illusion of choice is presented.

It's like you can have either or if you're not this,

You must choose to be that.

And there's this illusion of you can choose to be really happy and forget all about the pain or you can choose to totally be in pain and forget all about the happy.

And I think so much of this conversation,

Especially is attributed to this,

Is this notion of I can kind of have a little bit of both together.

And the choice is mine of whether or not I want to invite in more of the more of the other,

The thing that I'm not feeling at this moment.

Am I willing to feel this?

Yes.

Then invite it in.

Am I willing to feel it?

No.

Then don't invite it in.

We'll come back and revisit it.

Yeah,

Especially as it pertains to feeling things as intense or maybe as offensive as I would probably say as as joy or laughter or peace or a yes-ness in that space.

I just this has been so mind-blowingly cool.