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Hello, everybody. Welcome to Health Chatter. Today's show with Jess Clarence and I today, aren't you all lucky, is on the subject of grief and health, which is kind of sad, but hopefully there'll be a positive component to it at the very end. So stay tuned for all the insight on grief. Thanks to our illustrious staff,
Maddie Levine-Wolf, Aaron Collins, Deandra Howard, Matthew Campbell, Sheridan Nygaard are really all second to none. They cover all the aspects for us on our background research and marketing and production. And Clarence and I certainly could not do it without them. Then, of course, Clarence Jones is my great colleague. We're having a good time doing this.
We have great shows coming up, which we'll talk about. at the end of this show. The sponsor for Health Chatter is Human Partnership, great community health organization. I recommend that you check out their website and all the different activities that they're involved with at humanpartnership.org. And also you could check out our website at Health Chatter. So take a look at that.
Basically, everybody should know that we put our research, background research to all our shows on our website. So you can connect in with all the different things that we use as reference points for our discussion. So check us out. And if you like us, Give us a nice review. That would be nice too. All right. So today we're going to be talking about grief. So Clarence, I'll let you start it out.
All right. So, you know, I'll tell you, we're living in a time where, unfortunately, there's a lot of grief that's going on at various different levels. But what's your sense of it, Clarence?
Well, I think, Sandy, you're absolutely right. According to our researchers, grief is the anguish experienced after significant loss, usually the death of a beloved person. And I think right now we're in a period of time where there's a lot of grieving. And I believe that we're seeing it at different levels. People are... People are at a loss for a lot of different things.
I think COVID, the pandemic, some of the civic unrest, all those kinds of things have caused us to look at our anguish a little bit different. And so I think this is a great conversation to have, to talk about, and then to give people a chance to process. So I'm glad that we have this conversation.
Yeah. keep in mind what we're trying to do here, what Clarence and I are trying to do is connect the concept of grief with health, okay, and how it affects our health. And Sheridan put together the background for this show, and I gave her kind of, you know, a little bit of an outline, and this is the outline. There's personal grief, there's
community grief we're going to talk about all these there's national grief what's going on nationally in in our country there's international grief that's that's going on and then as we deal with grief there are acute aspects to it and there are also chronic aspects to it But I think the bottom line is one way or the other, grief elicits for all of us a level of stress and anxiety.
And so hopefully we'll be able to get to all of these. So let's talk about personal grief first. So Clarence, let me ask you, I'm sure that there's been grief in your family or you've experienced grief. Do you want to share some of that and how you kind of dealt with it?
Yeah, I think, Sam, we talked in the past, what we talked about is that people grieve differently. And unfortunately, many times when people hear the term grief, they usually think about it as a bunch of wailing and, you know, loud exclamation, those kinds of things. And that's not all the time the way that grief is experienced or that grief is displayed. And so we have...
with this particular thing, especially in light of all the things that we're going to talk about, we have to allow people the opportunity to be able to healthily get through their anguish. Because I believe that many times when it comes to certain expectations from others about how we do whatever we do, the fact that you might do it differently sometimes create additional grief
a person under difficult anguish because it's not what other people expect. And so I've seen grief and I'm trying to be really clear about it is that it is something that's experiencing. And I think it's more prevalent now than ever.
I was just talking to a guy recently, actually this morning, and I was talking about the fact that after COVID, I had to go back out and I had to reestablish my relationships with my other colleagues because they were grieving going through this period where they had... They had so many changes in their life.
And so you have to give people the opportunity to be able to express themselves and then to understand that is exactly what they're doing. They're grieving. They're grieving a loss. A loss of what? Loss of, you know, loss of position, a loss of time, whatever.
Yeah. You know, it's interesting connecting to the last show that we did on, or one of the last shows that we did on long COVID. And you've alluded to this. It's kind of like grieving that personal interaction, even though, you know, we've all had, you know, access to Zoom or what have you, to be able to see each other. But touch is also a major component here.
And there might be, you know, the jury is out on how it is that we might grieve that or lack of it going forward. So what we'll see how that goes. Alright, so let's talk a little bit more about personal grief. So I went to last three weeks, I've gone to two funerals. The, the first one was I went on to because a colleague of mine that I used to work with his mother passed away at 93.
I did not know her, but I went for him because we were good colleagues. And it's really interesting as I reflect on it. His mother was a wonderful woman, really. And the funeral was very, very nice. But obviously, I sensed with people around me different levels of grieving. For me, I wasn't grieving. I was there as, I guess, a support mechanism more than anything. anything else.
But I sense the different levels, you know, some people were very, very close to this woman. Others, not like, for instance, me, but I grieved for them. Okay. You know, we lost a dear person. And, and that could be hard. And you know, when I left the, the church, after Afterwards, you know, I still had that sense of sadness for him, my colleague. Then let me fast forward a little bit.
I went to another funeral. A friend of mine's mother passed away. She was 94, I believe, 93, 94. And I think I might have mentioned in a previous show the difference between being devastated as far as grief is concerned. OK, like, you know, for instance, I was devastated when my father passed away when I was 24 versus my mother who passed away when she was 94. I was sad. I was really saddened.
It was a close chapter had closed.
Mm hmm.
And I grieved and I had different levels of grief, as did my friend whose mother passed away. So, Clarence, I know you've gone to funerals or have seen sad things. What's your sense of it? Do you feel that different kind of level of grief as well?
I do, and I think that part of what is important to understand is to be able to articulate it, to be able to share it. to be able to express yourself in a way in which people don't feel like they don't feel taken aback by it. You know what I mean? That they understand that I'm, I'm grieving and I might not be responding the same kind of way that you normally expect me to respond.
And it's only because of this level of loss that I'm feeling. And I think that that's, that's really important to think about is that, um, when people are going through this process, there's so many different levels to it.
And you express yourself in so many different kinds of ways and you can't be hard on yourself or, you know, at least, at least for me, I think that, that, that when people are, um, when people are going through, uh, an experience that I know is tough for them, I give them a little bit more grace, you know, because they'll, they'll say some things that might seem inappropriate or whatever.
But I understand that that is because of the level of, uh, that they might be feeling at that time, or it might be the fact that they can't fully express how they're feeling. Because I think a lot of times when people are in that space, people want you to tell them exactly what you're feeling, so they push you. you know, to say like, well, so how are you really, really feeling?
You know what I mean? It's like, I really don't know how I'm feeling. I'm just at this place of transition and I'm just trying to figure it out for myself.
And so I think that the whole idea about grief is that you have to really be able to, not only to articulate for yourself how you're feeling, but you also have to give people the opportunity to be able to share how they're really feeling or not share how they're really feeling because they really don't know how they're feeling.
Yeah. Yeah. You know, I, I try to reflect, you know, personally, and maybe, you know, Sheridan, DeAndre, you can chime in on this too. When the first time was that you really had a sense of grief, was it because somebody had passed away that was near and dear to you or something that was happening in our community or environment that was sad or upsetting to you.
Do you, could any of you, any of it, Clarence too, can you reflect on any of that kind of thing? When was like the first time you had a real strong sense of grief?
I'm going to say something real quick, Stan, because it's kind of funny. But the first time I can remember having real grief was when my goldfish Goldie died. Interesting. Yeah. Yeah. I mean, I like that little goldfish. I remember I set him up in a little special place on top of the cabinet and everything like that. I kept feeding him because I liked him so much.
And then one day I got up and Goldie was floating upside down. Yeah. That wrecked my little life, you know, because I thought like, you know, Goldie, you know, I gave you everything that I could. Unfortunately, I gave him too much. And so for me, you know, it sounds funny. But at that but at the same time, it was a it was a first feeling of expression of of loss.
Yeah.
So I but I do remember that very, very clearly.
Yeah. You know, which is another, another thing too. Um, loss of a pet is, um, is, is frankly, to be honest with you, I find that really difficult.
Yeah.
Um, you know, because they, you know, their whole lives, you've tried to, you know, communicate with them as best you, you could. And, um, Man, it's hard to say goodbye to when you have to put a dog or a cat to sleep. That's hard because they've shared a lot with you as a family. And I remember doing it and it's not easy. Sheridan, do you have a thought on grief?
Yeah, I went through a lot. I had a very hard year for grief in general because I lost my aunt in a very sudden and traumatic way. And she was one of the few people that was eligible to donate her organs. So that was a whole extra layer of grief there.
You're grieving someone that's still alive technically, but the doctors are telling you, oh, she's brain dead or she won't ever get that functioning back. So you're grieving someone that's alive. So that's already a complex loss. And I think that is a lesson that I learned is that we can grieve any kind of loss. It doesn't have to be a death. Loss happens when you lose a spouse to divorce.
Loss happens when your kid moves on from high school and goes to college and you're an empty nester. You can grieve periods of time that you miss, like when your baby was little or when you were pregnant. A lot of women report after having a baby that they feel grief. And it's because they're losing some part of them that they had for nine months.
It's really, I think a lesson for me is that loss can cause grief in so many different ways. And we have to be respectful of people. We never know what kind of loss they're going through. And I think that just ties in Clarence's point that if they're not showing grief the way that you would, that doesn't mean that they aren't grieving. They might just be experiencing a loss a different way.
Yeah. You know, you bring up a really good point. Grief does not necessarily have to come from, like, for instance, a death or an injury or an illness, per se. It can come from other things, such as retiring. You know, people have asked me when I retired, are you grieving? Okay. And the answer for me quite honestly was no, because, um, you know, I had kind of set it up ahead of time.
I got my, my head around it. Um, and, you know, and doing some fun, interesting things going forward. Do I, um, I miss some of the things that I was involved with? Yeah, of course, you know, but, um, There are other things that can cause grief, and it just doesn't necessarily have to circle around illness. One thing, though, is how we respond to it individually.
And Clarence, you noted that for some people, they just can't get out of it. Yeah. OK. And and they need sometimes they need, you know, therapy or assistance or guidance or things to help them move on. You know, whether that's exercising more or socializing differently or taking on some new activities or. just going for a walk with someone. Those types of things are different for each individual.
Clarence, have you sensed that at all?
Yeah, yeah. And I was going to say that, Sam. I mean, I think you bring up a good point is that when people are going through this particular phase of their life, there has to be or there could be some conversations about how do you get through it. You just mentioned the whole idea about taking a walk. I just believe that when you identify that you are in that particular phase,
And I don't think anybody is happy about being that phase. I think you're looking for ways in which to be able to address it. And I think that's why these kinds of conversations are so important and so helpful is that we're trying to acknowledge the fact that this is a real part of life, that all of us go through it, whether we recognize it or not in some kind of way.
But when we are at this place that we could take some actions in order to be able to get through it, in a more healthy manner. And I think that's what health chat is about. We're just trying to figure out how do we get through these things in a much more healthier manner.
And so, you know, like you said, taking a walk, you know, uh, being able to talk to your friends, because a lot of times when people are, uh, grieving, they don't really feel like they can talk to anybody that could really understand or could really empathize with them. And so it's it's important. I believe I believe that it's important in our lives that we have.
We have friends that we could talk to, you know. And many times in our in our in our life, we we become so siloed that when these tough times come, we don't have anybody that we could relate to.
Yeah. You know, here's an interesting thing that I've experienced. when our when we had our first grandchild i i was i don't know if i was grieving but i was certainly sad i mean i was happy that you know we had a you know grandchild but i was also sad that my dad wasn't around yeah okay because he would have just gone nuts for for you know OK, and he wasn't able to experience it.
So it caused me to reflect on not on grieving, but a little bit of the sadness that he couldn't. But, you know, how you cope with it is differently. Like I know, you know, you say in your head. you know, he's looking down and smiling. Okay. That type of thing. Okay. And that's how you, how you cope with it as, as human beings.
But let me share this thing with you, though. I think part of what we know, though, is that there are some people that that they grieve for like 20, 30 years, man. Yeah. You know, I mean, that's that that chronic grieving. I mean, and every time you talk to him, I had somebody in my life that every time I talked to them.
it always got back to how they were brought up and how they felt like they were mistreated. And I'm saying them people are dead. I mean, them people are dead. They've been dead 20, 30 years and you still mad at them? You know what I mean? But I think that there are some things about us as human beings that sometimes,
We get caught like that, where we are grieving over things, first of all, that we have no control over, but secondly, over conditions that are long gone, and yet somehow we hold on to those things as though they are ever-present and it's just a continuous sore for people.
And so I think that we need to recognize that there are some people who are grieving, and then the question is, how do you help them to overcome that, or if they choose to overcome it?
Correct, correct. You know, one thing too is remembering is not necessarily grief. You know, for some people, you know, keeping, you know, constantly remembering can exacerbate grief. But on the other hand, remembering can be a really positive thing, um, as, as you go forward, uh, after you've, you've lost somebody. So everybody deals with it differently.
So I want to, I want to change focus just a little bit here and talk about community. All right. So our listening audience, you know, we're all housed here in, in, um, pretty much in, in Minnesota. So we went through a major community, um, event when, um, with George Floyd and that whole very unfortunate situation.
And it really was hard, I think for this community to embrace the sadness of all of that. So Clarence, you're in the African-American community Just give me a sense of how you think the population grieved during that period of time.
And I can talk about it from my perspective. I don't live that far from the site where it happened. I think my granddaughter, she was driving past it while it was occurring. Wow. But I think that what it does was sometimes...
The lifelong experiences that you have gone through or those experiences that you have heard other people discuss or what you've read about can set it up for how you're going to respond when a trigger occurs. triggering event happens. And I think for a lot of folks, that was very much a triggering event that you could visually see.
And a lot of times people with grief, they hear about it and that's how they respond. But when you can both hear about it and you can see about it, it does create a different kind of emotion. I think that's what happened with the George Floyd thing. And interesting enough, this is the thing.
I just had this conversation this morning with this guy that was talking about this, is that when that event happened, it was a more universal community-wide expression. It wasn't just one group of people that were expressing grief and upsetness with this issue.
It was a whole bunch of folks, which is, and again, this is my own personal opinion, which is one of the reasons why we didn't see higher rates of deaths with the events because it was so universal. If it would have been one group of folk, I thought it would have been a whole lot of deaths.
But I think that part of what we experience as human beings, sometimes there are triggering events that cause us to have grief or how to express our grief in a different kind of way. And so for a lot of folks, their grief was expressed through tearing up stuff, which I don't necessarily agree with, but it's how some people responded. Right. And I think
you know correct me if i'm wrong i think part of the um response that we all felt perhaps was this how in the heck could something like this happen in the state of minnesota you know where we're all kind of you know we we don't see it or you know whatever like you would necessarily in uh like you know like in a city like new york for instance where there's maybe a higher crime rate but
How can this happen here? So my wife and I, we went to the site, you know, the memorial site to see it because it's like, you know, perhaps grieving is you can't realize it or maybe accept it unless you sense it or are there physically. And I'll tell you, it really hit us when we went to that, to the site where it happened. And it's just like, oh my God, you know, it's like,
Anyway, to me, it's still sticking with me.
Okay.
Yes, time helps, but it still sticks.
Yeah. So let me share this with you. And I think that health chatter is really meant to be politically open. You know, we we don't we don't do things. But I think a lot of people right now, you know, you talk about Minnesota, but I think a lot of people in this country right now are grieving the loss of the perception about who this country is. Exactly right about now.
I mean, when you talk to people, there is a sense of. Like, I mean, for me, you know, I'm I'm a baby boomer. I never expected to see the country in the in the condition that it's in. Right. I mean, I honestly do grieve. I do grieve when I see when I see the you know, as you say, I see the various things that are happening, the way that people are responding to. news events, those kinds of things.
And I know that other people who don't necessarily hold my view are also responding with grief with what's happening in this country. And I think that part of a conversation like this really is how then do you how then do you continue to move ahead in a way that would be most healthiest for you in spite of the fact that the things that you once held dearly, you find out they really never existed.
Or they're compromised. Yeah, yeah. And I think for a lot of us, you know, growing, I mean, a lot of people that I know no longer are as idealistic as they once were because there's a loss of what they thought and what they perceived. So grief is why. Yeah, no kidding. Sheridan.
Yeah, just a note on the community level in regards to the George Floyd situation and how you said, a lot of people were thinking, how could this happen here? I remember Philando Castile was another victim of police violence. That was when I was younger, but it was one of the first things that really brought my attention to police brutality, police violence, and how it does, people do die.
And the collective grief that Black Americans feel when they continue to see Black people murdered at the hands of people that should be protecting us. I think that that is such a complex feeling that is specific to certain populations. And it just keeps happening. Like there are just more and more people in the news.
And I think that that makes it harder to fully grieve when you see your kid or your grandson or your niece or nephew potentially being in these situations. I think it's just a more complex grief and it's hard for people that aren't like as a white person, it's just, it's harder for me to maybe understand that community's grief, but I still show up. I still try to do my piece for that.
And I think that that helps me with those feelings of grief is literally just acting and doing something. And it's interesting that different communities will feel different types of grief, like coming from the medical community. A lot of us experience like loss of patients, loss of participants, and the grief that we feel repeatedly being exposed to these kinds of losses can, really accumulate.
And honestly, I think different communities are experiencing different types of grief, and it's important to be respectful of those different types of grief. And Deandra, it sounds like you might have something to say too.
Yeah, I was just thinking about that, the Philando Castile situation, because I felt like a lot of the reaction, at least from my perspective and how I felt, was that with that situation, a lot of people were very upset and there wasn't a lot of consequence that came out of that. There wasn't a lot of real resolution that came out of that.
And then, so when the George Floyd thing happened, you know, you have people, this is, During the day, there's tons of people there. People are trying to do their part and they're filming and they're speaking up. And, you know, with the Philando Castile situation, that was a situation where people were not there.
There might not have been anyone who could intervene, obviously, other than the police, other police officers, you know, who maybe should have did their part in that aspect. But the community for George Floyd, it was like they were there. They were present. You know, want to try and make sure you're doing things or feel like you're doing something.
So we don't have a situation like Philando Castile where we feel helpless. And then with George Floyd, it was like, the outcome was the same. You know, we're doing different things. We're there, we're active, but it's the same outcome. And I felt like that was the biggest difference in what changed where it's like, you know, we are told to,
be proactive, do certain things, speak up for people, advocate. And then you're doing that and we're still resulting in the same kind of outcomes. And I think that frustrated the community as a whole. And that's really where a lot of the, you know, like the anger and everything came from. I think it really came from where it's like, okay, we're kind of damned if we do and damned if we don't.
So we might as well, just kind of go about it in a way that is really going to get people's attention?
You know, we've talked in previous shows about gun violence, gun safety, racism, anti-Semitism, which really all these things are hitting at our core. How often is it that we need to keep hearing about and how often do we have to keep hearing and grieving? Even though these might not be people that you are close to, but you still grieve nonetheless.
And, um, and everybody deals with it differently. It's just like some people say, well, geez, you know, it's out of my control. I can't do much about it. So it's like, I just keep going on with life where there are other people that become, um,
adamant that some things need to be done or changed clarence yeah i you know just thinking about a lot of different things and i thank you um uh deandre and sharon for for you sharing those things i think it's it gets to a point where um you you You know, sometimes in this type of environment, and I'm using the universal grief, you have to check your humanness.
You know, because there's so many things that are going on that, you know, at one time we were able to ignore. We can't ignore them anymore because there's all this information out here that really challenges our worldview, you know, about, you know, we think everybody is nice and kumbaya kind of stuff. And then all of a sudden you find out it ain't kumbaya at all, you know.
It's a knock you out kind of thing. And so I think that part of that, these kind of conversations are really designed to get us to, first of all, to recognize it, but then to take a look and see how we might, or to talk about some of the things that we might be able to do in order to take care of ourselves in spite of all of the challenges that we face living in this world.
You know, I mean, you know, like I said, you get back to that point of when you were talking about staying, you know, how do you take care of yourself when you know that, you know, things are not the way that they should be, you know, do you take, you eat better, You become more conscious of exercise.
You become more conscious of the people that you have around you because in this kind of society, you can increase your grief by who you hang around with. Exactly. So we're challenged now around this topic of taking a look at our grief at how then do we address it because we know that we have it.
And then what is it that we're going to do in order to take care of ourselves to make it better for ourselves and for our community?
You know, and there are different ways of responding, too. You can respond at the personal level and you can respond at the community level. So think about this, for instance. It's like when people are up in arms about something, they'll march. They'll go to gatherings, big, huge gatherings.
gatherings or meet at different, they become more spiritual where they have a sense that they need to connect spiritually. So they go to their churches or synagogues to connect with one another. Or be with everybody who is together sharing the grief. So these are hard things.
You know, we're dealing with wars right now, which, you know, I can respond to as a Jew, the angst that, and I really have angst. There's There's part of me that, you know, the history behind it all, and I grieve for the loss of life on the Israeli side. Then, you know, I grieve for, on the other side, you know, people's civilian lives that are taken in order for us to...
come to some kind of semblance of order and some kind of semblance of peace. The humanity comes out in us. For some people, the humanity is lacking, okay? And they don't grieve. They don't grieve in that way. So it's... You know, when you have family, for instance, like we do in Israel, I greatly, you know, my wife and family greatly appreciate just people checking in on us.
You know, how are you doing? How are you handling the situation? I might've mentioned, I can't remember on a previous show, a charge nurse at Methodist Hospital here in St. Louis Park, who is Ukrainian. And I check in with her every time I see her, how she's doing. And then when the war broke out in Israel, she didn't say a word to me except coming up to me and she said,
she put her arms around me and she said, now it's your turn for a hug. That's what she said. So she understood the grief on one end and I understood the grief on the other. So that helps. And so from a health standpoint, being there for other people when they need it is important, is really, really important.
I think the thing that that that that, you know, we're talking about is the fact that, you know, when people grieve, it does affect them. It affects their their health. It impacts the way that they respond to to questions of. It throws you off balance. I mean, I think we're talking about, you know, the physiological response to grief.
You know, it changes the hormones in your heart rate, all those kinds of things. Yeah, absolutely. It's really important for people to understand that it's just more than just, you know, feeling sad. There are some other physiological things that are occurring at the same time.
And we all, one way or the other, carry what I would dub as historical grief. Okay, whether that's your own family, immediate family, or your own culture, you carry that. Okay, you learn to cope with it, but nonetheless, you carry it. And then there are incidences that crop up that bring that forward, that grief forward more. And you realize, oh my God, you know, now we have to deal with this.
You know, from a national perspective, the other thing is, you know, that's really affecting a lot of people from a grief standpoint is how divided we are in the nation. I mean, we're, frankly, I, you know, I think the Statue of Liberty in New York is grieving, okay, for us all. There's part of me that wants to say, okay, wake up everybody.
We can figure this out and we should figure this, the big this out. But people get very, very entrenched in their ideas and that can lead to where we're at now and thus grieving. we see a heightened grievance. The historical aspects, believe me, there are a lot of historical things in humankind that affect us all. But support becomes crucial. When you need to connect with somebody, you should.
Yeah. I think saying sometimes too is that when we go through this period around grief, it helps us realize how precious life is. you know, and how we should value each day. I think so many times in this life, we get stuck on automatic pilot. You know, we just do things just to be doing things.
And we don't take advantage of the opportunities that we have to really enjoy those things around us and those people around us. And so sometimes it is in the grief that we have a a deeper appreciation for what we do have. You know what I mean? And so, you know, like you said, you know, you lost your, you know, your, your, your mother and your father.
I mean, but at the same time, it, it, it, it, it teaches you some things about how to appreciate those people that are in your life. You know, one of the things for me personally is that I just said, I don't want to live my life where, where I would ever say I wished I would have. You know, and I don't want to live my life in a way in which I owe somebody something before I die.
You know what I mean? Which is that I want to I want to try to, you know, you know, my personal philosophy is to try to. Can I grieve myself or grieve other folks in the life that I live? And so because I realize I realize how important it is for people to have. a semblance of some kind of sanity and some kind of peace.
And so for me, grief, while it is difficult, at the same time, it is also a teacher of life.
Yeah, it helps us put things in perspective. Correct. Grief, if there's a silver lining to it, it helps us to learn. and to look at the world a little differently or stop and slow down and take in these lessons. One thing I wanted to bring up is as you get older. Okay, so as you get older, certainly Clarence, you and I can reflect on this. You've experienced more.
You've experienced more death, more grief, more incidences. And I can honestly say from my perspective, I don't become numb to them just because I've gone through a bunch of them. And it doesn't become any easier. You know, it's not great losing friends or it's not great seeing what's going on in the world.
But I think what you've what for me, what I've been able to do is reflect on when I have seen these things before. And what have I learned from them that will help me cope going forward?
I agree with that. I think that, I think that, that, that's, that's one of the, again, that's one of the life lessons about, about grief is that grief teaches you how to appreciate. And that's, that to me is important, especially when it just seemed like some days that there's nothing to be happy about. Correct.
Correct. And, you know, I think, you know, part of, part of grieving is learning how to embrace happiness. Right. maybe even more than you might have before. And by embracing happiness, I think really helps you to be healthier.
Yeah. You know, Stan, I think one of the other things too that we want to say to people is that, you know, a lot of times when we look at grief, it seemed like it's just those people. You know, it's just other people. But this is all of us. All of us at some point will go through experiencing grief, you know, whether it's an acute, acute or chronic.
And hopefully by being able to enter into this kind of conversation, we're able to be, again, more sympathetic and empathetic towards people when we see them going through whatever challenges they may face. I mean, you know, like you talked about, it can be a loss of that dog. It could be the loss of that goldfish. It's not suck it up and you'll be okay. It's a very human emotion.
It's one that we all experience and we do in different kinds of ways, but it's something that hopefully in our humanness we would be more aware of and that we would be able to talk about it and we'd be able to help people process it because a lot of times when people are going through grief, all they want to do is listen. Yeah.
You know, one thing I've learned is when someone is grieving, another person shouldn't be judging them. Yeah. really not judging them. They should be supporting them, helping them, doing what they can for them. And I sense that for some of what's going on in the world, there's more judgment that's going on than support for one another.
And if we got to that point where we were supporting one another or realized that that's really what we should be doing, maybe it would be healthier.
I would agree.
Deandra or Sheridan, last comments?
I think I can just comment that grief can be felt mentally, but it also is felt physiologically, physically in our bodies. You're not going crazy if you actually feel pain in your heart because you're that heartbroken. People do experience a whole host of physiological effects. And so it's really important when we have so much stress and negative feelings in our bodies to give...
to get these out and go for a walk talk to someone try to exercise it probably sounds like the last thing that you want to do even just taking a shower do something that will make your physical and mental health feel just a little bit better take it one step at a time and really don't be afraid to feel the low lows and the high highs because that's what makes life life so
just embrace it kind of like what Stan was saying. And you're not going crazy. If you're feeling it physically and mentally, you're doing the best that you can and just keep doing it.
And, and, and do something that you like doing, you know, if you want to eat a chocolate donut, do it. If it makes you feel better, you know, what the heck, you know, don't, or yeah, just don't eat a whole box of them with that. Um, We hope that everybody keeps health chatting away. We hope that everybody supports one another with, frankly, with whatever grief is going on for any of us.
We've got great shows coming up down the pike here. We're going to be looking at spirituality. We're going to be looking at cardiac rehab. We're going to be looking at prostate health. a bunch of really, really great shows. And we hope that you all continue to keep health chatting away.