Grief

But man, that grief completely changed my relationship with God, my relationship with myself, my relationship with other people.

And it really is true.

Grief is not linear.

There's not a right or wrong way to grieve.

There's not a timeline.

And I think that's why even in the church, I think finding healthy community that can walk alongside with you can be so hard.

And yet it is a necessity.

Grief is a mountain that we can't tackle alone.

Forgiveness alone does not heal the injury.

This is why there is still pain, and this is why there is still grief, because there is still an injury there.

So Grief is what should happen when we are processing a loss.

Grief is what should happen when we're processing injury, when we're processing pain, when we're processing betrayal and transgression.

Grief is what actually should happen.

And so if you are feeling grieved, especially in a scenario where a person has hurt you and they're not sorry for hurting you, if you're feeling grieved, that's simply human.

That's simply human.

So how is it possible to not die from the grief of what has ended? Or imagine that feeling that grief, like I was trying to do there in that afternoon.

wouldn't be a very bad idea because grief is praise.

Grief is a form of love.

I learned this idea from two mentors.

The first, Martin Prechtel, whose quote is from a book called, or a chapter called Grief is Praise in his book.

The quote is, grief is praise.

because it is the natural way love honors what it misses.

I'm going to say that again.

Which feelings may be shown, to whom, on what occasion, and how strongly.

Grief gets a window and a dress code.

Anger gets an entry fee most people can't pay.

Joy has to be calibrated, or it reads as too much.

Anger that pushes through.

Lust that gets.

Grief that holds on.

Neuroscientist Antonio Damasio draws that line for a living.

Yeah.

You know, grief moves you.

Grief is useful.

I think Christ said something roughly like suffering is grace.

If you look deeply enough, you see why that's probably true.

Free, effective, weird, do it anyway.

Grief lives in the body too.

Here's what nobody tells you about starting somatic work after narcissistic abuse.

When your body begins to release the bracing, grief comes with it, not always, but often.

Okay, so welcome back.

This is part two of a conversation on Grief with my friend Kathy Escobar.

The first part of this conversation was about looking back, a very messy and incomplete look at the past seven years since our beautiful boys died.

And this part of the conversation, I want us to focus on living forward.

My next question is, where did that come from? Was there a specific morning, a moment when you realized that you had to say to yourself, and obviously now you've written the book and saying it to other people, where did it come from?

Well, the book titled First Brush Your Teeth, Grief and Hope in Real Time is It was a book that was written every single day from the time that my youngest son Chandler was hit by a car and was in pretty much a coma in the hospital for 18 days and passed on January 1st, 2019.

So the book is the daily, daily, daily, daily, step by step by step.

of that first year and even before he passed.

Jason is going to be presenting his story at Myra's Kids Professional Development Seminar.

It's called Beyond the Silence, Understanding and Supporting Individuals Experiencing Stigmatized Grief.

It will be taking place on Friday, November 13th.

in Montreal, but you can also join it online.