The UnScripted Mind
Join your host Professional Counselor, Jim Cunningham, as he dives into the complex world of mental wellness. From anxiety and depression to resilience and recovery, "The Unscripted Mind" offers candid conversations and expert insights, encouraging listeners to confront their own journeys while gaining tools and perspectives that promote healing and understanding—one unscripted conversation at a time.
The UnScripted Mind
Grief into Growth: Embracing Lessons of Loss
How do you rebuild your life after an unimaginable loss? Join us for a deeply moving episode of the Unscripted Mind Podcast, where we sit down with Monica Mead, a licensed professional counselor whose journey into grief counseling was tragically inspired by the loss of her daughter in 2013. Monica challenges conventional grief models, offering profound insights into the complex and varied forms of grief that can stem from losing a loved one, a job, a pet, or even physical abilities. Through her story, Monica provides a raw and powerful narrative that will resonate with anyone who has faced loss.
We venture into the concept of "collateral beauty"—the unexpected grace and growth that can emerge from grief. Monica and I discuss the importance of keeping the memory of lost loved ones alive and finding hope amidst the pain. We break down societal misconceptions about grief, address its permanence, and highlight the essential role that community support plays in the healing process. This conversation is a reminder that grief doesn't follow a set timeline and that it's okay to experience it in your own unique way.
Relationships, especially marriages, often face significant challenges in the aftermath of profound loss. Monica shares startling statistics about the impact of losing a child on marital stability and offers wisdom on how couples can navigate this tumultuous journey. We explore the transformative power of grief, likening it to a forest regrowing after a fire, and discuss practical ways to honor loved ones through meaningful actions. Whether you're looking for ways to support a grieving friend or seeking solace in your own journey, this episode provides heartfelt guidance and hope.
The goal of The UnScripted Mind Podcast is to give you fresh perspectives, practical insights and tools you can use to give you more choices, self-awareness and control of your feelings, reactions and behaviors.
Welcome to the Unscripted Mind Podcast, where our goal is to give you fresh perspectives, practical insights and tools you can use to give you more choices, increase your awareness and have better control of your feelings, reactions and behaviors. My name is Jim Cunningham, I'm a licensed professional counselor and today we're going to discuss grief and loss. This is something that none of us is immune to. We will all lose someone or something we love at some point. When that happens, it changes our lives and often forces us to change ourselves. Grief is a powerful and complex emotion that can leave us feeling lost, overwhelmed and unsure of how to move forward. But with the right guidance and support, it's possible to navigate this challenging journey and find a path to healing. Grief is like the ocean it comes on waves, ebbing and flowing. Sometimes the water is calm, sometimes it's overwhelming, and all we can do is learn to swim, says Vicki Harrison.
Jim Cunningham:Recently, I sat down with Monica Mead, a colleague of mine and a licensed professional counselor, for a frank and open discussion on how to handle losses in our lives. Monica has extensive experience in grief and loss therapy. That began with the loss of her own daughter over a decade ago. Monica has since dedicated her career to helping others process their grief, finding meaning after loss and rebuilding their lives. She has an empathetic approach and profound understanding of grief and may challenge the ways you think about grief and how to handle that. We'll discuss what grief is and what it isn't, how to process that grief and some practical tools you can use to help yourself or someone you care about. Whether you're navigating your own grief or supporting a loved one, this conversation is one you won't want to miss. On this episode of the Unscripted Mind. Lots of places to start with grief and loss. So how did you even begin to get into dealing with that with clients?
Monica Meade:Sure For me, jim. It was born out of necessity.
Monica Meade:I experienced my own grief journey in 2013 when, I lost my daughter unexpectedly in a very traumatic way, and searching out a therapist that understood what I was going through and was able to help me was more difficult than I could have imagined. I sought people out specifically that claimed to specialize in grief, and there was plenty of times that I felt dismissed, that I felt like I should be in a different place than I was. I should be further along in a different place than I was. I should be further along. Now, mind you, this was months after the death, so I don't think that that was appropriate, and I realized there was just a need for somebody who understood the depths of grief and also the journey in which you walk and how it's lifelong and how complex it is.
Jim Cunningham:So in your experience, not a lot of people were doing what you do.
Monica Meade:Oh, absolutely not, and what I found actually was more the textbook journey through grief. They wanted to talk about the five stages and they thought they were very linear. Once you go through denial, then there's anger, but that's not what I was experiencing at all. So, instead of feeling the relief from therapy, I felt bad about where I was and I didn't feel that I was on a healing journey.
Jim Cunningham:Okay.
Monica Meade:And I didn't feel understood.
Jim Cunningham:Sure, where do you think most people get it wrong? And I didn't feel understood.
Monica Meade:Sure, where do you think most people get it wrong. I think most people get it wrong with expectations. I think there's expectations societal, cultural, all kinds of expectations about where you should be on the grief journey and what you should be feeling, and I think that's where I was failed. And you know, these people that I saw were absolutely wonderful in other areas of therapy, but this just wasn't where I think that they should have specialized in.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, for sure. How would you define grief? Ah, just go back to the basics.
Monica Meade:Sure, so a loss. Obviously it's the symptomology, I think, of a large loss you experience. So it could be grief can also exist in losing a job, losing a pet, losing a relationship.
Jim Cunningham:It doesn't just mean death, yeah. So, for example, I see clients who have had physical injuries and they're not able to compete anymore. They aren't able to do what they used to, and you would categorize that as grief and loss also.
Monica Meade:Yes, if they are experiencing the symptoms of grief that are accompanying also this loss of being able to do what they had thought they could do, sure.
Jim Cunningham:What would you say? Those symptoms are when somebody walks in.
Monica Meade:You're like oh, that's grief right there, okay. So generally when I get people in for grief, they know that they're coming in to see me for grief. But there has been times that I say to them I think you're experiencing grief with this, and what that has been is not generally with a death, but with the loss of a job, the loss of a limb, the loss of a future they had planned that didn't come to fruition, and so what? Those symptoms that I look for, that I notice would be very similar to depression in the sense of sadness, in the sense of asking the questions why the woulda, shoulda, couldas, all of those things, reliving it over and over in a circular fashion without an exit point.
Jim Cunningham:Okay, so kind of getting stuck.
Monica Meade:Exactly.
Jim Cunningham:This would include, I just think of all the other things like retirement, yes, and things that people wouldn't normally associate as grief.
Monica Meade:Sure, and I don't think we talk about that enough how a big change in your life is, can be, can affect you in the way that grief would.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, so you mentioned the stages of grief.
Monica Meade:Sure.
Jim Cunningham:What are those and how do you apply those, or do they even have any relevance whatsoever anymore?
Monica Meade:Sure, you know, jim, I'm probably the worst counselor therapist to ask this to that specializes in grief, because I don't buy into them. Okay, because. So in 1979, it was Elizabeth Kubler-Ross that came out with these five stages of grief and what they were, where she gathered the information to come up with it from was hospice patients. So she was working with these patients in hospice end of life care and had developed, had recognized OK, there's five different stages that these people are going through. Recognized okay, there's five different stages that these people are going through. She didn't study their loved ones after the loss but only them at the end of their life.
Monica Meade:So it's end of the life loss. And so then at that point it's easy to see why it's linear, why you start at one point and you end at another point, and while that's still very related to grief, it's not linear. When you experience grief, it's not a linear moving comfortably from one stage to the next. Instead, it's very chaotic, and you may stay in denial much longer than even your counterpart. You may stay in one stage for a very short time. You may never even visit that stage. So, I don't buy into that.
Jim Cunningham:So there are. I assume by the time most people come to see you they're not using healthy coping strategies.
Monica Meade:Yes, that is correct. Not often right. Sometimes they've come from previous therapy and just need a continuation of care, but oftentimes I do get them in the heightened state of I have no idea what's happening. I don't know what to do next, I don't know where I'm at, like this just happened.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, if there was a stage kind of going back to the stages, if there was a stage that people get stuck in. Was there a stage you got stuck in and does?
Monica Meade:it tend to be the same stage, whether that's denial or anger or I don't think there's a stage, that is a specific one, that people get stuck in. I will say, though, I do see more probably gender related than across the board. So I see men tend to get more stuck in anger and women tend to get more stuck in denial or the woulda, shoulda, couldas, the guilt.
Jim Cunningham:Does it matter what stage they're in in terms of what they need for coping? No, okay.
Monica Meade:Not at all. Nope, milestones, markers, I guess. But they fluctuate so quickly and you go through them in and out of them very rapidly, thought by thought, oftentimes, I mean yes, there is plenty of times that it's over a period of time, but for the most part it's very rapid.
Jim Cunningham:Okay, so what do you? I guess the big question is is somebody comes in they're demonstrating these symptoms.
Monica Meade:Where do you start to address this? Start with tell me about your person, tell me everything about them, because first of all, that isn't asked. A lot People just address the symptomology, but not tell me your story, tell me why you miss them, tell me all the good things, tell me all the bad things. I want to know them through you and that's often where I start is like share your person with me, tell me what I need to know so I know who they are, and that just that alone breaks the initial barrier of like I could talk about this person and I haven't been asked to talk about this person ever, probably, or in a long time and they need a place where they can open up, share their feelings, be very vulnerable and not be told that's enough, or someone get uncomfortable with it, and I think that's the number one thing that I hear is I have no one else to talk to about this because they're uncomfortable or because they don't want to talk about this.
Jim Cunningham:Do you find that that question I mean, that's a big question. To start with, tell me about your person that you don't have, I would think. Is that like where you lead with on the first session? Oh no, because it's wrong right, I mean to ask them to kind of. I would just think that would be very hard for someone.
Monica Meade:Sure. So obviously we do intake and get to know the client first what do I need to know about you to treat you?
Monica Meade:And as soon as there's loss, that's when I always say, okay, just tell me about your person, tell me about who they were, what they like. And the reason I start that, jim, is because the very end, the goal that I get to with my clients, is what I call the collateral beauty, and so that's where I do therapy. A little bit different with grief counseling is that we don't just work through the symptoms and we don't just try to fix or band-aid the symptoms. There's an outcome on the other end of growth. It's also been. I think David Kessler is the one. He's also a grief guru, really. He came up with post-traumatic growth and so mine's very similar, but I just call it collateral beauty.
Monica Meade:And what collateral beauty is is you didn't choose to have this happen to you. You didn't choose this loss. This was without your permission. It was unexpected a lot of times, and yet you're stuck here and you're thrust into this. So what can you take from your person that you lost, that you loved, and carry that on into your life, so they live on with you. That's the collateral beauty of it. You didn't choose to be here, but you can find something in it that's beautiful and move on with it, and I found that that creates so much hope within my clients, especially when they know that they can carry their loved one on with them, that it doesn't end when they leave my room, it doesn't end when they bury their loved one, but there's a part of them that lives on forever.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, it's still hard to talk about even the process.
Monica Meade:It'll always be hard to talk about.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah.
Monica Meade:And it should be.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, you know. So I guess when people think of I fixed the problem, sure, which means maybe that means I don't feel like I need to get emotional anymore and I'm just good with it, but that's, that's not the goal.
Monica Meade:Oh no, not at all.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, what? How would you describe the goal?
Monica Meade:Um, I think the goal is you're able to express your love for the person, you're able to continue on with your life not move on, but move forward with them, right, still carrying them, but in a different way and when you can understand that and you can acknowledge it and really live that way. That's the goal, okay.
Jim Cunningham:I've heard some people say that the first step is for them to acknowledge the person is gone.
Monica Meade:I'm not an expert in this area, oh, absolutely.
Jim Cunningham:Would you agree with that Accept?
Monica Meade:it Like accept that they're gone, accept they're not coming back? Sure, but I think when they come into my office they've already reached that point Right. When they come in for grief therapy or grief counseling, they've already accepted they need the therapy because of the law room stays pristine the way it was, you know, for years.
Jim Cunningham:Would you consider that a good strategy to remember them, or does that keep you stuck?
Monica Meade:You know, I think everybody's different. I think that that's your own timeline. I think, like anything, it's a fine line. Right After my daughter died it took me a very long time to. We moved several houses and every time she had a room set up and it wasn't until 2021 that she no longer had a room set up and it was out of necessity that I had to not set up her room. So, you know, I didn't think of it as, but I also thought of it and I didn't consider it a museum for her. It was just a place that I could go to and feel her, feel her energy be with her in that moment, and I didn't feel like that was a negative thing. It was just my last connection to her, physical connection, sure connection, sure, sure.
Jim Cunningham:So if there was, um, getting away from the stages of grief but the stages of healing, what would you say is kind of a process that people kind of that, you kind of guide people through, to get through that first normalizing it.
Monica Meade:I think that grief needs to be normalized in the sense of all of people come in and the first thing they say is my mom died last year and I already know I should be over it. And that always shocks me. I'm like it's been a year, only been a year. You don't have to put a timeline around it. This is your mother, this is your brother, this is you know. They played a large role in your life. You're not supposed to be over it. So I think normalizing it first is the most important step, that what you're feeling is okay, because when there's shame, there too, in that space, there's no healing can get done.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, what comes after that?
Monica Meade:So normalizing it and getting comfortable with talking about it, probably. Second, I always hear and I said this before that people will say, like my friends are uncomfortable, they stopped calling me, they stopped coming by, and I hear this most with child loss. It's almost as if it's contagious. But I don't think that that's what people are thinking. I think people are unsure of what to do. They're unsure of how to support you, and I also think that a lot of times our friends or our loved ones, our family members, think if I bring this up, I'm going to make them sad.
Monica Meade:They forget that we're always thinking about it. You bringing it up is only going to show me I'm not alone in my thoughts. Someone else is also there, and so also you know, as human beings we need that connection. Yeah, and so when you can normalize it and create a social network for these people, for, you know, for when you you're grieving, that also helps in the healing of stages of grief okay, so, um, I think I think this is true of a lot of other mental health issues, right, and the people tend to isolate.
Jim Cunningham:Yes, and so I would. I would think that you know, if you've lost your spouse of you know, 30 years, sure the first thing you want to do is just hole up, circle the wagons and just sit. I don't know, you don't lose motivation. I think there's a lot of things that could probably go along with that.
Monica Meade:Oh, absolutely yes, the isolation is a big part, and I think it's. I don't think it's always detrimental, because I think you'll I'll speak for myself only that when I isolated, I was trying to survive, right. So I didn't have the capacity to even talk, even have words to say. I just didn't, and so the best thing for me at that point was just stay home, think about these things, cry when I wanted to. I just didn't, and so the best thing for me at that point was just stay home, think about these things, cry when I wanted to. I don't want people to see me break down all the time, you know. So isolation was kind of a natural part of it, but it's not for everybody. Some people find comfort being around, others being distracted.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, and I guess all those are good tools. We just have to be careful not to overuse.
Monica Meade:Exactly, especially distraction, right Burying it, pushing it down. It doesn't go away, it just waits for it, and I think that's the part of grief that has been unknown for so long is that grief waits for us. It doesn't go away on its own. On its own, and we also know this because of the ACE study the adverse childhood experience study that was done that shows that unprocessed grief can lead to heart disease, autoimmune disease and cancer, and so that's why it's important to heal from those things, heal from it, address it appropriately and rid our body of it. As we know, emotions are stored in our body as energy, and negative energy is negative.
Jim Cunningham:In terms of, like you said, everybody's a little bit different. Do you notice a difference between adults, children, older folks? You said men and women? There's some distinctions there. Try to have a deal with it.
Monica Meade:Sure, yes, you know the saying of children are resilient. While I think that's true, I think children are also better at distracting themselves, are better at escaping in their mind. When you think about it, it makes sense. They don't have the tools to drive to get away, so they have to learn to escape things in their mind. Grief is no different. You learn to escape things in their mind. Grief is no different. You learn to escape it in your mind.
Monica Meade:So a lot of times if I see children who have either lost a parent, a sibling and I don't see children under the age of 13, but if I do see a 13-year-old or see children that are younger, that is often they can be distracted in it. So it seems as though they're resilient, it seems as though they've recovered. It seems as very they can be distracted in it. So it seems as though they're resilient, it seems as though they've recovered. It seems as though they can move on. But an interesting thing that I've noticed, jim, is that if a child experiences the trauma, the death, the loss prior to puberty, at puberty and after is where we see the more expression of that grief come out. So it's almost as if they don't have control over the distraction of it, the pushing it down, the running from it, and it does present itself at that time. So that's another way I'll get clients in is if they've lost somebody close to them.
Monica Meade:Prepubescent and then, after puberty, these emotions are emerging, and then the parents bring them in.
Jim Cunningham:They're depressed, they're anxious, they're angry, they're this but they don't acknowledge that it could be from the death prior. Sure, how much is the? You know I have a lot of clients that beat themselves up.
Monica Meade:Oh, the guilt.
Jim Cunningham:The guilt, whether that's I guess there's various kinds right, Survivor guilt, or the woulda, shoulda, coulda. I should have done something, I should have seen it, I should have been able to help. Yes, yeah.
Monica Meade:Oh my gosh, I hear that all the time.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah.
Monica Meade:And, you know, one of the things I try to bring to the awareness is that when you're healing from grief, that's the only time you think you have more power than you do when you look back, like 2020, um called retrospect.
Jim Cunningham:Retrospect yeah.
Monica Meade:When you look back at it is when there's, all of a sudden, you have this like sense of like I could have done something. But the fact of the matter is, if we could have, we would have, and so we couldn't have known. We didn't know.
Jim Cunningham:So trying to give ourselves some grace.
Monica Meade:Absolutely.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, not an easy thing to do.
Monica Meade:Especially when you've told yourself that story for so long.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, and somebody once said you know, when you practice something for 20 years, you get pretty good at it.
Monica Meade:Very good.
Jim Cunningham:Even if it's bad thinking.
Monica Meade:Oh, absolutely.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, Even if it's bad thinking. Oh, absolutely yeah. And so I guess the other part you know, because I had mentioned, or I kind of led into the what are the stages for doing that, and I heard you speak one time talking about not forgetting these folks, but you know, in a lot of ways, how do we remember them, honor them? Sure, and that means not like just hiding it, Exactly. So what were some of the examples that you give to people and like here's some things you can do to kind of work through this trauma?
Monica Meade:Yes. So that's why I always ask them tell me about your person, because I want to know what their qualities were that my client found endearing or admirable. And then we work with those qualities, not just to instill them in my client but to continue that on with someone else. So some of those examples would be, for example, my daughter was very forgiving, she was the most forgiving person. She would be the first person to say I'm sorry. She'd be the first person to, you know, offer the olive branch. She was just that way.
Monica Meade:That was her personality always, and um, so in her honor, every year we ask people to perform an act of forgiveness on her behalf, something that's been difficult for okay. So so for my daughteriana, it was an act of forgiveness. I also lost my niece two years after my daughter died, and the way that we carry on her memory is we have a slogan called Live Every Day. Her name is Olivia, and so we embrace that by saying you know, take advantage of the day, take advantage that you're given this day, live every day to its fullest and show up in places with happiness, with love, with joy.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, which gives a lot of meaning to the person's life.
Monica Meade:Exactly, oh, absolutely.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah.
Monica Meade:Some other things that I think are beneficial. In that way, the collateral beauty or the carrying on their memory, is doing something in their honor. It sounds very counterintuitive, but when you're in the depths of your grief, in the depths of your sadness, and it's the most difficult day to get out of bed, what has helped me is doing something for somebody else anonymously, thing for somebody else anonymously. So I'll go to Starbucks and I'll buy my daughter's favorite drink was the caramel frappuccino and I'll just give him a gift card and be like whoever orders the caramel frappuccino. Until this runs out, please use this to pay for it and then just say like it's from Kiana.
Monica Meade:Another thing we've done is gone to memory care facility. My daughter's birthday was February 15th, the day after Valentine's Day. So on her birthday it's the day after Valentine's Day, so the Valentine's candy is 50% off. So I'll go to Walmart and buy the entire case that they have left of the candy hearts the little small ones that maybe have like eight candy chocolates in there and I'll take them to the memory care facility with Valentine's Day cards and we hand them out to people who haven't gotten visitors. Yeah, and that keeps her alive as well.
Jim Cunningham:Okay, yeah, and that's I mean. So that's kind of in a lot of ways, almost a year round, oh yes, just coming to various points, it's not just the anniversary date of when you lost them or Correct so yeah.
Monica Meade:And it's always, if I so yeah lessened. It's still just as deep and as big of a hole as it will always be, but over time I'm able to address it differently. And so if I have a very, very hard day, I know that I'm inside of myself, and to heal that I have to get outside of myself, and that's where I go and do something for somebody else and for whatever reason, it works.
Jim Cunningham:What would you say if there was one bit of advice to give somebody who has lost someone? What is like that key thing. That's like man.
Monica Meade:I wish somebody would have told me that that when you start feeling better, it's okay, it's okay, it's okay to laugh again. That was hard for me to not feel guilty when I started feeling happiness again, and I think if that would have been normalized for me, I would have accepted it instead of rejecting it and trying to be thinking that I wouldn't remember my daughter if I wasn't sad.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, do you still struggle with that?
Monica Meade:Oh, absolutely. I think there'll always be a part of me. That's sad.
Jim Cunningham:Sure.
Monica Meade:Even in my happiest moments, no matter what they are, I could be laughing so hard in there. I'll remember in the gut of who I am that I'll never be that happy again.
Jim Cunningham:Sure, that's good If someone is looking for help and they're looking for a therapist. What's the red flag that they should find another therapist? What's the red flag that they should find another?
Monica Meade:thing. Well for grief, I would say if they dismiss your feelings, first of all right away. If they dismiss what you are feeling or they want you to move on from it, or they want you to let it go. Okay.
Jim Cunningham:Because you can feel it and not stay in it.
Monica Meade:Sure Okay, so just acknowledging it.
Jim Cunningham:This is an interesting question, but what have, what have clients taught you? Oh my gosh so much.
Monica Meade:So if we're just sticking to grief, what have they taught me? Yeah, like I said, the thing that was difficult for me was the happiness piece, that it's okay to be happy again. So while when I see that in my clients and I see the way that they experience joy in their life and experience the hope and move forward, that has taught me a different way to do it. I've also think that learning from them, learning that grief is so different amongst everybody in the way that it's expressed, but not in the way that it's felt. It's always felt fully, in the sense of not just a physical, emotional pain, but all over body. And that was something I think my own grief taught me. But then, seeing it in other people, I realized, oh, this is universal, this is a universal pain.
Jim Cunningham:What tends to keep people stuck. You know they can't move on.
Monica Meade:I think people stay stuck when they identify with their pain, identify with their grief, and don't know who they are without it. Identify with their grief and don't know who they are without it. So I think they cling to that more so than somebody who is not identifying, and not I don't mean as a victim necessarily. I think that's part of it, but I don't think that's all of it. I think when you're expected to be a certain way and people see you differently, they treat you differently, and so some people have difficulty letting go of that because they don't want to be treated any differently.
Jim Cunningham:So in a lot of ways and I think this is probably true of, again, anxiety, depression, other things when people come in, what they're really looking for is a change of identity in a lot of ways, instead of just trying to play whack-a-mole with the symptoms.
Jim Cunningham:it's like I want to become kind of a new person and redefining myself. If I lose a spouse, whether that's through death, divorce, whatever there's a period where you're going to have to do some soul searching and find out who the new person is without this person. Oh, absolutely, you know who the new person is without this person.
Monica Meade:Oh, absolutely.
Jim Cunningham:Historically, over human, like, um, human history, there haven't been counselors. No, so people have had to, and I think this, you know this. I say this because back then they had to rely on other people, community and families. And families live close to each other and now we are so isolated from who lives in their, their family of origin.
Monica Meade:Exactly.
Jim Cunningham:And so where do people? I mean? I guess this, I say, let's say it probably just compounds this grieving process, because there's that saying it takes a village to raise a child right.
Monica Meade:It takes a village for a reason. We need other people to show up. We're built for connection as human beings. We know that because we have mirror neurons. We know that because that's how we were created. Us came in counselors right, and there's plenty of villages of communities of cultures that don't have counselors.
Jim Cunningham:They're not needed. Yeah, much more traditional? Yeah, yeah, so you're suggesting tiktok isn't probably the answer to find? Connection, tiktok's always the answer well, so what are the statistics when you think about um the different, different types of grief people go through. What are some of those statistics?
Monica Meade:So one of the ones that stands out the most to me and it is true for my own story as well is that losing a child so the loss of a child, 73% of the time will end will also result in the loss of a marriage, and 95% if one of the parents is responsible. So we are, when you think about that and you think about divorce rates, anywhere about 50%. Adding on the loss of a child increases that to 73%, 95% if one parent is responsible. And you know, I think it comes down to more than just we grieve differently. We don't understand each other. What I think it comes down to, jim, is that you are stripped of everything you were and you become someone new. Now you have to learn to fall in love with someone new. Right, the person that you married, the person that you have fallen in love with, they're gone.
Jim Cunningham:There's maybe glimpses of them in there, but that's not who they are. So 73% of people who lose a child end up getting a divorce.
Monica Meade:Within five years.
Jim Cunningham:Within five years, and that's without either parent being directly responsible. So the kid dies in a car wreck or something.
Monica Meade:Yes, exactly, and then 95% if one of the parents is responsible, even by accident.
Jim Cunningham:Certainly Is that because and like you said, going back to the identity is that because that loss makes people change that drastically that they don't connect anymore? Or because you would think in a marriage that we lost a child, the spouses would be. That would be their biggest source of strength.
Monica Meade:Sure.
Jim Cunningham:And maybe it doesn't.
Monica Meade:I want you to think about a forest fire. And if you look at the mountain, if you look at Pike's Peak, if you look at or we had the Waldo Canyon fire you can still see the scars of the burn. Right, the burn scars are still there. So if you compare grief to a forest fire, a person to the mountain this is always how I describe it for my clients you look at that mountain prior to the forest fire. It's beautiful. You see the trees growing, flowers are blooming.
Monica Meade:The forest fire comes in and takes everything. All vegetation is lost, it's destroyed, it's nothing. The shell of it looks similar. Right, the landscape is a bit different, but the shell looks similar. Everything has to regrow and it doesn't regrow the same way, because that burn created space for new growth, different growth, things that didn't see the sun before now do, and so those parts grow. First. It looks beautiful again, but it's not the same. And that's exactly what grief does to you. It strips you down to the bare nothing, nothing. And you have to pick and choose what you want to shine, where you want the growth to be.
Jim Cunningham:Okay, so in a lot of ways it's opportunity. Absolutely yeah, if you can see it that way.
Monica Meade:That's where the collateral beauty comes in, right Of, I didn't choose this forest fire. What am I?
Jim Cunningham:going to grow now? Yeah, yeah, it's interesting, I guess, just to explore that just a slight bit more. How do you go from that point of reinventing that and figuring out what I want to? We don't need to be together anymore like a divorce.
Monica Meade:Sure, yeah, I think you recognize what matters and what doesn't. And if the other person your spouse doesn't see it the same way, you're very different. I think I am a very different person than I was 10 years ago. Very different the things that mattered to me 10 years ago I don't even think about now, 10 years ago. Very different the things that matter to me 10 years ago I don't even think about now. Not just because of age and maturity, but because I know now the importance of love, of connection, of family and the knowledge that in an instant you can lose everything, everything that's important to you gone. So you value what is important to you and you don't worry about the small stuff anymore. But if your partner is not on that same um belief or they still value some of the things you don't anymore, you're very different.
Jim Cunningham:You're not going to connect on the same things yeah, I guess you know to think through a little bit further too. If there's any chinks in the marriage, this is going to highlight that oh, absolutely right this is going to if we aren't solid. It's kind of like a couple that's having problems and they decide to have a child bring them together to fix it. Yeah, doesn't work have a baby.
Jim Cunningham:That's a lot, but I mean it goes both ways right. If we lose somebody, they could bring out the same, they could expose the same weaknesses.
Monica Meade:The magnification of it. Absolutely. I think yes, that is a big part of it. I you know, jim I keep going back to that same thing that you just are changed so drastically that you have to learn to love the other person as they are at that point, and sometimes love isn't enough in that.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah.
Monica Meade:That's the other part is healing is scary. Like you start unraveling it and you realize it's not one inch deep. It is through the core of you like an onion, right like you pull out the first layer, second layer we've been taught that since day one of school. But yeah, that's absolutely right and the thought of the unknown can keep you stuck. What is going to happen outside of this? How do I heal from this? What am I going to be like after? How is this going to affect me? What if this uncovers something else?
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, yeah.
Monica Meade:And where they can contain what they know right, the familiar.
Jim Cunningham:Well, and this is a scary thing too right when you ask people to start unpacking emotions. It's kind of like Pandora's box. I scary thing too right when, when you ask people to start unpacking emotions right, it's like. It's kind of like Pandora's box. You know, I opened that box. I may not be able to get it back in the box once it gets out, which is a scary thing. Scary thing for people and feeling out of control.
Monica Meade:Oh yeah.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah. So if you're going to wrap this up and say, okay, here's three big takeaways you would like people to take away, what would that be? To kind of summarize?
Monica Meade:takeaways you would like people to take away. What would that be? To kind of summarize, I would say if you're grieving and you don't have a support system, you don't have people that'll show up, that'll listen, that'll hear it and aren't uncomfortable with it. Find somebody who will, whether that be a therapist, a priest, a pastor, whoever it is. Find someone who will, because we're not meant to walk through this alone. We're just not. Number two I would say that it's okay to be happy again, it's okay to love, it's okay to laugh, it's okay. And then it's also okay to still be sad in those moments. Don't beat yourself up about that. Number three, I think the last thing I would say is that just normalizing that you're always going to feel that loss and that's okay. You're always going to feel it at some, to some extent, and just being okay with that, I think, is important too, and to always choose love.
Monica Meade:We don't have a choice in a lot of things, but love keeps us close to our loved ones. It keeps us there's less regret there when we make the choice with love.
Jim Cunningham:Well, I appreciate you taking the time and sitting down.
Monica Meade:Oh my gosh, thank you for asking me.
Jim Cunningham:Yeah, I think this could be very helpful for a lot of people.
Monica Meade:Thanks, Jim.
Jim Cunningham:Thanks for checking us out today on the Unscripted Mind. If you found this episode helpful, please subscribe, follow us to get notified when new episodes are released, and also leave a review. If you have any questions or topics you'd like us to cover, please include those also. Until next time, remember life doesn't come with a script, so embrace the unexpected, cherish the unplanned, always stay curious and have an amazing day. We'll see you next time on the Unscripted Mind.
