The Art of Manliness - Bonus： How the Stages of Grief Explain What You're Feeling During This Pandemic

00:00:00.000 Brett McKay here, and welcome to another edition of the Art of Manliness podcast.

00:00:11.280 During the COVID-19 pandemic, a lot of people have been feeling out of sorts, angry, sad,

00:00:16.040 frustrated, and just plain bummed out. Part of the reason for these feelings is obvious,

00:00:19.740 and part has been hard to articulate and understand. That's probably why a recent

00:00:23.160 interview the Harvard Business Review did with David Kessler went viral when it named the issue

00:00:27.160 point blank. Kessler said, what we're all experiencing is grief. He's an expert on the

00:00:31.020 subject who worked with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, creator of the famous five stages of grief,

00:00:35.240 and also added his own sixth stage, The Roadmap to Loss. That interview resonated so much with me

00:00:39.760 and others that I thought it'd be useful to bring Kessler on the show to talk through his perspective

00:00:43.200 in a short, special episode of the AOM podcast. Kessler walks us through how the five stages of

00:00:47.540 grief explain how we're often feeling these days during the pandemic, and how we can also work

00:00:51.280 through the sixth stage of grief in order to find meaning in a dark time. After the show's over,

00:00:55.160 check out our show notes at awim.is slash grief.

00:01:05.300 David Kessler, welcome to the show.

00:01:07.440 Glad to be with you.

00:01:08.820 So you are a grief counselor. You're an expert in grief. In fact, you've worked with a lot of

00:01:14.840 organizations, first responder agencies during disasters to help there with counseling. How did

00:01:20.300 you get involved with grief counseling? Well, you know, it's one of those careers that

00:01:26.540 you don't choose it, it kind of chooses you. I grew up with a mother who was in and out of hospitals,

00:01:33.900 and when I was 13 years old, she was dying in an ICU. At the same time, the hotel where we were at,

00:01:41.580 one of the first mass shootings in the U.S. happened. So I was literally at 13,

00:01:46.880 having a mother die and a mass shooting. So it really gave me a glimpse, more than a glimpse,

00:01:54.640 it gave me a, you know, a overwhelming view of how we die poorly in this world, you know,

00:02:02.200 being isolated in an ICU, as she was back then, as well as tragedies that happened, such as that

00:02:09.100 shooting. So that's really what got me onto this career.

00:02:12.440 And in your career, you had the opportunity to work with Elizabeth Kubler-Ross, which she was

00:02:18.380 the individual who really kick-started the hospice movement in America, and she also came up with that

00:02:22.800 idea of the five stages of grief. How did you start working with her?

00:02:26.980 So Elizabeth had done On Death and Dying in 1969, which was a groundbreaking book.

00:02:33.560 I, like many people, I was in community college and thought I would take a death and dying class and

00:02:39.420 studied her work. Then, obviously, later on, it became my career. And I was fortunate to end up

00:02:46.420 writing two books with her, Life Lessons and then On Grief and Grieving. And we, in On Grief and Grieving,

00:02:53.140 adapted her stages of dying to stages of grief. I always point out to people, literally on page one,

00:03:00.480 we said to everyone, they're not a map for grief. They don't have to be sequential or linear.

00:03:05.360 Your grief is as unique as your fingerprint, just so people understood that. And the stages,

00:03:12.080 for anyone who might not know them, are denial, anger, bargaining, depression, and acceptance.

00:03:19.820 So we often think of grief exclusively in terms of someone dying. But you make the case that while

00:03:25.500 the grief we experience of the loss of a loved one is the worst, we also experience a grief with

00:03:30.360 any kind of loss, whether it's a divorce, a job loss, and this pandemic we're going through as well.

00:03:36.160 So how do the five phases of grief apply to our current crisis?

00:03:40.740 Denial. I can't believe this is happening. This cannot be happening. I just can't believe it.

00:03:48.140 That's what denial feels like. I can't believe in our modern world there's a pandemic of a virus

00:03:54.700 and I have to stay home. Anger. Anger is, I'm furious this is happening. I'm really angry this

00:04:02.260 is happening. And why wasn't more done? Or why aren't we doing more? Why aren't people participating

00:04:07.800 more? I'm angry about that. Bargaining is the deal making. Okay, let me get this straight.

00:04:15.680 If I have two weeks at home, then we can go back to a normal life, right? Right? That's the deal.

00:04:20.000 And then depression, sadness. My gosh, I think that world we knew is gone. I think our normal world

00:04:30.740 has just evaporated in front of our own eyes. And then acceptance. All right, the reality is this is

00:04:38.940 happening. How can I get this together? What can I do? Where can I find some control? And acceptance

00:04:46.740 is really where our power lies. That's where we can take action.

00:04:51.320 What I think is so helpful about thinking about what we're experiencing in terms of grief

00:04:55.340 is that it puts a name to things that people are feeling but maybe haven't been able to articulate

00:05:00.540 for what it is. So many people during this pandemic are like going, I don't know why I burst into tears.

00:05:07.060 I don't know why I have such a heaviness. I don't know why I'm so angry with an edge.

00:05:12.040 And I'm like, it's grief. You're feeling grief. The world we know and loved has now disappeared.

00:05:20.440 The other thing that I think we experience in our modern world, and we're one of the first

00:05:24.460 generations, it's a bit of a byproduct of the self-help movement, is we're the first generation

00:05:30.840 that has feelings on feelings. We get angry, but we shouldn't be angry. We're sad, but there's people

00:05:36.880 who have it worse. We shouldn't be sad. And I always tell people, stay in your first generation 1.00

00:05:42.260 feelings. You know, allow yourself to organically feel whatever you feel without judgment.

00:05:51.060 You know, because the truth is, if you just feel your feelings, they'll pass through you in a few

00:05:54.980 minutes. But we're suppressing all our feelings, and we end up with a world of half-felt feelings.

00:06:01.700 You also make the point that you can experience a particular kind of grief, which comes not

00:06:06.260 after a loss, but in anticipation of a loss. Tell us about how this anticipatory grief manifests in

00:06:12.680 general, and how it applies to this pandemic, too.

00:06:16.460 Sure. We all have healthy anticipatory grief. We know that someday when we get older, our parents

00:06:23.300 will be getting older, too, and someday we'll have to deal with the loss of our parents. That's

00:06:28.880 sort of our healthy anticipatory grief, that we're getting ready for that someday psychologically.

00:06:35.380 And then, you know, the other time it happens is a loved one gets a diagnosis. And of course,

00:06:39.560 you go, oh my goodness, I could lose my loved one. They could die from this.

00:06:44.460 And what happens in our new modern world with the pandemic is we have anticipatory grief that our

00:06:51.820 mind starts showing us images of, oh my goodness, my parents could die. My grandparents could die.

00:06:57.460 I could die. And we have this unhealthy anticipatory grief where our mind is showing us all the worst

00:07:04.440 scenarios.

00:07:06.260 And yeah, in this, I mean, particularly when you experience anticipatory grief, at least in my own

00:07:10.460 experience, I've noticed that you do a lot of bargaining. It's like, well, if I do this, if I do

00:07:15.320 this thing, then maybe this won't happen. So, you start making deals with God or just the universe.

00:07:21.360 Right. And some of those deals can sometimes come true. If I physically distance myself,

00:07:30.320 if I wash my hands all the time, if I, you know, take appropriate measures recommended,

00:07:37.380 there is a higher chance that I will be okay. So, you know, it's important we find some reality in the

00:07:45.860 dealmaking. And there are some, you know, and this is a world that, you know, unlike appliances does

00:07:52.860 not come with a guarantee.

00:07:54.760 And the other thing with anticipatory grief that you write about is that oftentimes that

00:07:58.580 anticipatory grief comes from the idea or maybe a dream we had. We know that's not going to happen

00:08:04.700 because that loved one lost. I think you give an example in your book of you had a person you were

00:08:10.460 working with where they moved their mother in next door. And she had this dream of, you know,

00:08:15.420 her daughter going over to her mother's house and just this close connection. And then a few months

00:08:19.720 later, she gets a terminal diagnosis and she started grieving at that moment.

00:08:24.820 Yes. We all have what we call the assumptive world. The assumptive world is our parents are going

00:08:30.780 to live to 95 years old and they're going to die in their sleep holding each other's hands.

00:08:35.300 And we're going to have a wonderful life with kids who don't have problems. And, you know,

00:08:41.380 our marriages will be great. And we're all going to live to 80, 90 ourselves. And then we'll die

00:08:47.860 peacefully. And what happens is death ends up interfering with those assumptions. We don't live in a perfect

00:08:58.920 world anymore. We don't live, you know, death does ruin our illusions, our dreams.

00:09:06.300 And with the pandemic, I'm sure there's a lot of that going on. People had these plans, like, you

00:09:10.700 know, college students, they graduated college. I'm going to get a job. I'm going to get married or

00:09:15.320 someone, they just, they started a business and now this has happened. And now they're, there's just,

00:09:20.800 they don't know if it's going to happen, if they're going to be able to make it. And so they're

00:09:23.060 experiencing that anticipatory grief of that, that assumptions or those dreams they had

00:09:27.620 disappearing. Correct. Well, you know, so, so for tamping down this anticipatory grief,

00:09:32.060 you recommend concentrating on things you can control and trying to stay in the present.

00:09:37.100 Anything else people can do to get a handle on their anticipatory grief?

00:09:40.940 Well, I think it's so important as we begin to witness our mind picture, the worst scenarios. Oh my

00:09:48.660 gosh, my parents could die. My grandparents could die. I could die. To also notice the best scenarios

00:09:55.620 that can happen. You know, my parents actually might not get this. My grandparents might get this

00:10:03.200 and it might be mild. I mean, I just saw on the news, a hundred and four year old is recovering

00:10:09.660 from the virus. So it's important as fear takes root to say, you know, the worst scenarios can happen,

00:10:19.200 but so can the best ones. So in your book, Finding Meaning, you make this case that there's

00:10:24.460 another phase that we go through and it's meaning making. When did you start formulating this idea

00:10:29.880 that meaning making was part of the grieving process? And what do you mean by meaning making?

00:10:36.020 Well, Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and I had often talked about, you know, what's after acceptance? And one of

00:10:40.920 the things that, you know, bothered me and her in her lifetime was that these were becoming,

00:10:46.660 you know, five easy steps for grieving. And anyone who's had a loved one die knows there's no five

00:10:52.100 easy steps for grieving. And grief is a very organic, messy process. But acceptance was taking

00:10:58.880 on a finality that Elizabeth and I never intended. And then I had written a few chapters on meaning and

00:11:06.660 how meaning might work in grief. And three years ago, my younger son, David, died suddenly,

00:11:15.240 accidentally. And it was just brutal as you could imagine and or not imagine for that matter. And

00:11:25.720 I just knew after his death, as I began to toy with the idea in the months following that I have to find

00:11:33.840 some acceptance, I realized acceptance wasn't enough. I wanted more. I wanted meaning. And I started

00:11:42.580 interviewing people who had had a spouse die and a parent die and a sibling die and began to learn

00:11:47.480 how they were all finding meaning. And so one of the things that I realized is that meaning doesn't

00:11:54.840 take away the pain, but it becomes a cushion for us. So I ended up writing a book called Finding

00:12:01.400 Meaning, The Sixth Stage of Grief. I'm so honored the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross Foundation and family

00:12:07.120 gave me permission to add a stage to her iconic stages. And the meaning that we find is not in

00:12:14.860 the death. Someone dying a horrible death of cancer or death by suicide or death by addiction or

00:12:21.300 death by the coronavirus. I mean, those, there's not meaning in the death, but there's meaning that

00:12:27.440 we can do afterwards to honor them.

00:12:30.600 Yeah, that idea that people are trying to find meaning in the death. I mean, I think a lot of times

00:12:35.640 when people see someone grieving, you know, in an effort to comfort, they'll just say, well,

00:12:40.740 you know, everything happens for a reason. But I think a lot of people...

00:12:43.980 Yeah, and my response to that is, yeah, what's your reason? I could use a good reason, what you got?

00:12:49.580 Yeah. So that's not what meaning making means. It means trying to fit this loss into a larger

00:12:55.920 narrative of your life story.

00:12:58.720 Well, meaning is the light within the darkness. I mean, I did a lot of studying of Viktor Frankl,

00:13:04.380 and I was just so fascinated by, you know, how he saw in concentration camps, light in the

00:13:11.920 darkness. How could they still appreciate a sunset or a loaf of bread when people around

00:13:17.140 them were dying? And so when I looked at that, I thought about what does meaning look like in grief?

00:13:24.140 And what I found is meaning can be what we do after to honor their life, what we do to make sure

00:13:32.960 they're not forgotten. It's the meaningful moments we create with one another. It is so many

00:13:40.560 different senses of meaning that helps us in that. And I think, you know, one of the things that I was

00:13:47.320 really writing about was post-traumatic growth. We all talk about post-traumatic stress, but I wanted to

00:13:54.500 know about post-traumatic growth. And that's what really interests me.

00:13:59.380 And how do you think people can apply the meaning-making stage of grief to this pandemic?

00:14:04.280 It's by recognizing meaningful moments. You know, for us to end up after this with post-traumatic

00:14:10.420 growth instead of post-traumatic stress is those meaningful moments. You and I are having a meaningful

00:14:16.940 moment right now. I hope people who are listening will find this meaningful. I live on a street where

00:14:23.400 I've seen something I've never seen before in 20 years of living here. The front yards are full of

00:14:33.400 parents playing with their children because their children can't have playdates with other children.

00:14:39.960 Those are meaningful moments. FaceTiming with people, those are meaningful moments. So many of these

00:14:47.540 moments can be so meaningful.

00:14:49.660 Yeah. I love that idea of trying to find opportunities. To me, it's kind of defiant

00:14:53.740 in a way. You know, like I'm still getting together with friends on Zoom so we can just talk and

00:15:00.020 chat. Absolutely. Someone I know had like Sunday night dinner with their family and like they had

00:15:04.620 a picture of all of them on Zoom. I thought that was great.

00:15:07.700 Yeah. There does seem to be plenty of silver linings if you look for them. I mean, I'm seeing people

00:15:11.380 walk around in my neighborhood, people I've never seen outside their homes before. As you said,

00:15:15.620 parents are outside interacting with their kids. And it does seem to be this inflection point in

00:15:20.680 our culture where people have slowed down, they're stepped outside, their normal go, go, go routines,

00:15:25.740 and they're finally thinking about what's important and whether the way they normally do things is the

00:15:30.600 way they want to continue to do things. Well, David, this has been a great conversation. Where can

00:15:35.240 people go to learn more about your work?

00:15:36.800 Grief.com. They can find the book Finding Meaning on Amazon and Barnes & Noble and their local indie

00:15:44.340 bookstore website. It's available. And they just reduced the price of the hardcover, which is out

00:15:50.700 now. So I'm glad they did that so everyone can access it. And I also put up a special page at

00:15:57.060 sixstage.com so people can get a free online course about how to find meaning. So lots of resources and

00:16:04.980 people can find me on Facebook and Instagram and Twitter and all those things. My handle is usually

00:16:11.140 IamDavidKessler. So I look forward to connecting with people on all those virtual ways and hopefully

00:16:17.980 someday in person again when I can do lectures and retreats again.

00:16:21.860 Fantastic. Well, David Kessler, thanks for your time. It's been a pleasure.

00:16:24.740 Thank you so much.

00:16:26.640 My guest today was David Kessler. He's the author of the book Finding Meaning, The Sixth Stage of Grief.

00:16:31.080 It's available on Amazon.com and bookstores everywhere. You can find out more information about his work.

00:16:34.980 Check out his website, grief.com. Also check out our show notes at aom.is slash grief.

00:16:46.680 Well, that wraps up another edition of the AOM podcast. Check out our website at

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00:17:21.320 Until next time, this is Brett McKay, reminding you not only to listen to the AOM podcast,

00:17:24.100 but put what you've heard into action.

The Art of Manliness - April 07, 2020

Bonus： How the Stages of Grief Explain What You're Feeling During This Pandemic

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