This is here After, and I'm your host, Megan Divine. Each week we tackle big questions from nurses, therapists, and other helpful people that let us explore how to show up after life goes horribly wrong. This week, What Childhood Losses tell us about adult grief with special guest psychotherapist, author and one of the nicest people you would ever hope to meet, Alice and Denin. It's two grieving therapists talking about the ups and downs of being human in a professional world. One note about this episode, everybody, you might notice that the sound quality is a little different than usual. Everybody was at home on their own laptops using zoom to record because we were all following public health guidelines. Still a good one, though, don't miss it. Friends. Will be right back after this first break. Before we get started, one quick note, well, I hope you find a lot of useful information in our time together. This show is not a substitute for skilled support with a licensed mental health provider or for professional supervision related to your work your questions. This week, we're all about what happens when you try to lean on helpers for support and the result is not exactly what you were hoping for. We've also got a great question about helping others when you're not even sure you can help yourself. So therapists, good friends, helpers of all kinds. This episode is definitely for you. I still have one of Alison de Need's Instagram posts saved in my phone from way back years ago when I first discovered her work. You might know her by her Instagram handle Notes from Your Therapist. Alison has this way of absolutely skewing the connection between childhood experience and adult behavior patterns in her short handwritten notes. Now, I haven't gone back to look in my phone because I have way too many photos in there, but I think the one that I have saved in my phone is something about it being okay to have needs. I somebody who was raised to have no needs whatsoever. That one definitely got to me. And that's the essence of Allison for me. In very few words, her simple statements are full of permission you didn't know you needed. Alison Denin is a marriage and family therapist and author, and the creator of the immensely popular Instagram account Notes from Your Therapist. She specializes in emotions, emotional neglect, and relationships. The messy stuff. Obviously, she's also intimately acquainted with grief. Hey Alison, I'm so glad you're here. Hi Megan, thank you so much. You are so welcome and was so thrilled to have you. I feel like I feel this way with most of my guests, but I feel like you and I have clearly already met before in person or at least spoke a lot. But it's it's really an Instagram. It's an Instagram relationship. Definitely. That is such a new and different thing. So I do feel as if I know you have seen you speak on Instagram before, so it's like you're already a friend. I'm finally getting to me. Yeah, we're really We're forging new relational territories all the time. And this is actually something that I really love about your Instagram feed your book too. I mean, you you focus on relationships, but the grief that sort of runs through relationships. On your website, you say that you grew up on a dairy farm with and I quote from your website here, a lot of catastrophe and grief all around me. And I did not know that about you until I started doing some research for our time here together. But you and I share the whole like New England childhood saying I grew up as well. Yeah, and we're you and I were around the same age and not spoiler alert, I guess. But we have even have dairy farm culture together because I grew up summers on my relatives dairy farms. So fantastic. You grew up on a dairy farm, so like you have a lot of that. I have a little bit of that, and I feel like and we could spend an entire episode just unpacking the emotional culture and the conditioning embedded in all of that sort of New England farm culture, stoicism and self reliance. You know, when you were speaking a minute ago, you talked about so much of your work is about the route experiences of childhood and how those spiral out into the rest of life. So if you think back to the roots of your own childhood, what do you wish the adults in your life would have known about grief? Well, I think what we're talking about is generational trauma. So they would have had to have been adults who were supported when they were children to you know, feel their own emotions of loss and grief. But they grew up exactly the same way, which was like repressing anything that felt painful, that shouldn't hurt It shouldn't be hurting you after all these years, and so they just literally didn't have the skills too. There's just a sense inside of them that it's wrong to be feeling bad, that life is about feeling strong or good and with few needs. So it's like having to envision different parents, which is really hard to do. Like, what do I wish my parents had known about grief? Boy, I wish that they had conveyed that that we can live with it. It's safe to grieve, it's safe to miss people we loved, and we can actually live with that. And that actually, for me it's been a way to feel more alive living with it. My grief experience started really young. My mom was when she died in a plane crash, and I've been flying with her that day in her small plane, and I was almost four. Anyway, she died in a plane crash and we never spoke about her again ever. Some of my earliest memories are of my grandparents and my mom's parents showing up at the house and you know, in the devastation of the immediate app your math when someone dies and my saying something about my mom and they just collapsed. They just collapsed, And I instantly knew, like I can't do that. Like when you're a child, you need adults to feel stable to you, and so no one has to tell you. We don't talk about that. You just absorb it through every cell in your body by watching how they handle it, and they shut down. So I learned to shut down. And when I think back now on my childhood, I really feel like a part of me was kind of dead inside from not being able to well to feel like clearly these feelings I must have had. Since feelings are part of our nervous system, they're part of our body, so I feel like I must have been deadening this whole part of myself. So I don't know if that answers your question. It does. I think it answers it really beautifully. And thank you for sharing that with me and with everybody listening. These aren't easy stories, right, and you and I do this kind of work for a living, and still when we share our own stories, there is like you get the sense of the weight behind that, right, there's a reason why we do what we do. What you just share there with like, we don't have to be verbally told not to talk about things we learn. One of my old colleagues used to say that children watched the adults for a living, right, It's sort of the role of the child to get their cues, learn about the world, learn what's okay and what's not okay, to do, say and feel by watching the grown ups around them. And your story just really describes that mechanisms so beautifully. Like I learned very quickly that no matter what was real for me, that truth and that reality was not safe in the world. And so I did what I needed to do to survive, which was to make that part of me dead. And said, I think what you describe there is something really common and really normal and really and it doesn't belong to just that New England stoic, self reliant culture. I love that you brought up generational trauma in there too, because there's um, you know. I think over the last maybe five or ten years or so, there started to be some conversations and discussion about intergenerational trauma and what that looks like, and how we carry family stories with us, how we carry cultural and racial stories with us. So this this whole topic of how do we learn what is okay to feel and okay to say it's not new. I love that about children being professional watchers. That's how we learn how to cope with things in life is by watching what the adults do, so you have to relearn it. Then as an adult, you don't even know that you need to relearn things. The way that I unexpectedly came to relearn all of this was when my husband, that greatest love of my life, was old in an accident, also like my mom, doing the very thing that he loved most in life, and we just had had a baby. I had a three month old baby, and it hit me like a ton of bricks that I could not do to my daughter what had done to me. I could not pretend that he had never existed. I just couldn't. Like I had that feeling inside of me of how much it had killed me to pretend I didn't have a mom. I didn't love my mom, didn't want to know more my mom. I didn't want to like love and celebrate my mom. In fact, in a weird way, I felt like what I lost, like the monumental thing that I lost and not being able to grieve her was how much of the ordinary things that I wanted to know about her? Like I wanted to know things and I didn't know any of them, Like what color did she like? You know, what did she look like when she woke up in the morning, Like what put her in a bad mood? Like little expressions that she had, And I had been so hungry for that as a kid that I just knew, like I just I didn't know how it was going to go forward, but I knew I couldn't do what had happened to me to my own daughter. And it makes me think of what you were saying, asked me before I think megan about like what do I wish that my parents would have taught me in the science? So I figured this out on my own now, but I wish that they had taught me that, yes, those things might hurt to remember those details, but we can actually live with that. And I think what happens when you struggle with emotional neglect, because that's the parents that I'm talking about, the generation that I'm talking about, and it's so pervasive even now, is that when you're so cut off from painful feelings and difficult feelings you literally think you can't live through that. You literally have this physical feeling of it's dangerous to feel sad or to feel lost, or to feel hopeless, like because you haven't had the experience, you have nothing to draw on except escaping painful feelings. So I think that comes back to when we don't get a chance to get to the point where it might be like over time it turns from being like so excruciatingly painful to remember them to something of like, I'm happy now when I can remember things about my husband. But if I've never started down that path, I wouldn't even be doing that. Welcome back everybody, Okay, Alison. One of the things that I love about you and your work is that you're honest about the whole work in progress thing. I mean, we've actually been talking about this the whole time. So even though you do this for a living, having emotionally vulnerable conversations is still hard sometimes. And it's the same thing for me. Being human is hard. We've all got prior experiences that tell us it's not cool to tell the truth about who we are and how we feel, or that it's somehow even unhealthy. What you described with your own childhood experience. It's unhealthy or unsafe to be sad or confused or overwhelmed. And there's this fine line. Honestly more of a big gray market area, but there's this fine line when you work in a profession where you're supposed to be this open, accepting, wise person and you've got your own stuff going on. So I want to use that idea as a way to get into this next listener question that helps us sort of talk about how we navigate to human and prose at the same time. You're ready, yes, Okay, So here's this listener's question. I'm a marriage and family therapist and I been in private practice for six years. I recently experienced a stillbirth, and I'm preparing to return to work in a few weeks. I am so anxious to meet with a few of my clients when I get back. Though they were working on pregnancy losses and fertility issues before I went out on maternity leave. I left as one kind of therapist, a person who expected a live baby at the end of this, and I'm afraid I'm coming back as not the same therapist they knew. Do you have any advice on how to handle this? So this listener question, honestly, like we had to pick from probably fifty similar questions of therapists or social workers, a whole lot of nurses sending in very similar questions. I've experienced a devastating personal experience, and I have to go back to work and navigate and work with people having their own devastating personal experiences. And this is a really human thing that all of the helpers are human. How do you navigate that intersection for yourself, Alison, knowing what you carry in to the office, to the therapy space. I was working as a therapist in a clinic before, right before my husband was killed an accident. I was actually on my maternity leave and was supposed to go back the week after his accident. And after that, I of course quit my job because I was numb and destroyed and could barely survive, and I had an infant to take care of. So I spent the next year or two years literally just trying to survive, and like so much of my life fell over, Like I just thought I would never even feel joy in my life again. I didn't think it would be possible for me to be a therapist again. It just act. It seemed like there's no way that I would ever be able to be a therapist again. How could I support anybody else when I could barely support myself. So it took me a while. It just took me a lot. There was so much healing to do. And when I finally got back to realizing, I want to be a therapist again, and I wanted to work in private practice so I could just be more particular about hours and time and flexibility and clients that I see as well, there's no easy answer to something like this. Yeah, there's no easy answer, because I think I had to get to a point where I felt recovered enough to be able to talk about it, to be strong enough to talk about it, and that meant just having like incredible like my own therapy and my own resources and friends to support me. The kind of therapist that I am is I'm pretty open, you know, boundaries, but open with my clients in terms of I think what I'm talking about is I'm an emotionally available person, because that is how I see therapy as working. As we need therapists to be emotionally available in ways that our parents weren't available to us. So I can't just be a blank slate. I can't because that's what people grew up with, is unavailable caregivers. So balancing that thing about being available and being myself and also tending to my own boundaries around it. I don't know if I can say much more about this one make And it's so hard to um. It's because she, this, this letter writer, is in a different place than me, Like I would not have been able to do it. I don't know if I would have been able to continue with the same clients. Yeah, this is another thing that you and I have in common. I mean, I was in private practice and also had a side gig in an agency when my partner died in an accident. And I also quit for very many of the same reasons that you just shared with us. That like, there was no way I had the capacity or the interest just to be blunt about it, for sitting with other people's pain. There was no way I could do that. And I also had the ability to take some time off and come back and recreate things that suited me. And there is a privilege in being able to do that. There's so many things about what you just said that I want to dive into. And I know that we're sort of rounding the corner to the end of the episode, but there's so many good things in here, and one thing that I want to pick up on. There's something you said after you shared your personal experience, and that um, the turbulence of trying to come back into this practice. You said, I'm in such a different place than this letter writer, and it's almost like you and I have a number of years between the accident and now and trying to look back at the intensity of the fresh moment for this listener. In a way, I think this is where a lot of grief support and our ideas about grief and how we show up for each other, whether personally professionally, I feel like this is where we fail is those of us who have been through these life altering events often forget what it's like to be that ripped open. Like I think, sometimes we can say, well, you just compartmentalized and you do the job ahead of you, forgetting that compartmentalizing is very often impossible in those early days, right, it may be the task ahead of you if you don't have the ability to step back from this work, and certainly for healthcare workers right now, there's such increased demand. We don't often have that the ability or the space or the support to step back from it. But there's just like, this is such a complex This is actually issue with so many different guys. When you're saying that, I'm thinking about, like how it's such sort of like a statement about the culture we live in that people aren't supported to be off of work and have to worry about things like going back to work. Because I kind of think it's inhumane to ask someone who's in the midst of the very very beginning of such terrible grief to have to then support other people because it's just And then imagine being that client, Like it's very easy for me to put myself in the shoes of a client, and there's I would not want to need much from my therapist if I knew that she had just been through that. So yeah, like there's one more complex layer in there, right that, Like if you come in as a as a client, and your therapist is like, you know, I was out on maternity to leave, but my baby died and I'm here and I'm here for you, And as a client, very often people are going to be thinking oh crap, like I don't. I don't want to bother her, I don't you know. So then so then this, like the therapeutic containers, starts to fall apart. Right that. Here's the therapist or the professional trying to compartmentalize their personal devastation so that they can do their job, keep the paycheck coming in and keep serving the people that they care about. And here are the clients or the patients coming in and saying, oh, I don't want to have any needs in this space because I'm human and I have compassion and empathy, and I don't want to need too much. So, you know, we we share this, this listener question, and I bring it to you so that you and I can have a conversation about it, not so that we have a solution, but so that we enter the conversation about how hard this is. I mean, there's there's quite a number of things that somebody in this listener's position might do to help them through it. But really, right now, just to name how impossible this all is and how complicated this all is. And there is something that happens with the passage of time. It is not true that time heals all wounds, but it as you so beautifully described, Alison, and it echoes my own experience that there is a a film that forms in a way with the passage of time and with enough support around us, where we can come in and sit with other people in pain and feel it but not be consumed by it. And knowing your capacity, I just I wish there were an easier answer to that. But you know, knowing your capacity, this is perhaps it's not a client you can see at this time. I think of it as my main job to primarily be in charge of my own needs so that they aren't kind of spilling out for clients to have to deal with it requires so much personal work to be able to recognize, like I just again reiterating, because it can't be set enough. There are no easy answers to this. I wish I knew there was a script or a protocol to follow, but you have to just be feeling into yourself, like can I do this for this person? I can't be here for this person, and then it's not a kind thing anymore. It's not a helping thing anymore if you can't, But it is not a showing up. I love that we think that it's a kindness to show up and keep serving. And honestly, that's not always a kindness. If you're showing up to serve somebody and you're really not there and you're really not doing good work, and you have the option to say no, given your practice or or or the agency where you work, um, it's not a kindness to to give from that place. And and actually that was last week's episode. We had that the therapist ghost story, right, So if you don't know what I'm talking about, everybody, go back and listen to the episode that came out on January three about the ghosting therapist. It's okay as a professional to have a boundary right to be able to say, I'm so glad that you worked at the courage to come and look for help and support you so much deserve it. For personal reasons, I can't work with you. I'm happy to help you find somebody else if that would feel useful for you, But otherwise, you know, I wish you well and hope you get the support you deserve. It's okay to say I can't do this. And again, like having what I started, we started this episode with having hard conversations is part of being a therapist having hard conversations that don't have easy answers, and that we can show up and have this conversation even though I don't know what the solution is. You know, it's just like staying in the conversation and yeah, that that conversation with clients that are ongoing, that is treating them with respect and care, yourself with respect and care to know, you're sort of showing them your role modeling the example that I'm not a savior. I don't have savior complex that I'm supposed to save everyone. I'm hurting. It's beyond my capacity to cope right now. And let me help you find one that might be more helpful for you right now. Yeah, that might be able to hold the pain in the room that deserves to be heard. Yeah, I love this. This is actually a really beautiful sort of full circle place to come back to because I have in my notes here a quote again from your book where you say, I plan to keep my conversation going with grief my whole life. And that's really what you just said, isn't it. You know that that as therapists, as professionals, our conversation with ourselves goes on our whole life. It's it's how we do our own life, and that's how we continue to show up in our professional lives. And really all of these conversations are conversations about I'm so glad that you have said that, because that makes me see that that was even a conversation about grief, my grief. That I can't help someone right now that I care about that I may have to step away from this relationship because I can't. There's grief in that. That's right. Grief is every where, and that's not a bad thing. Right, Grief is part of love. And I've said this many times before that that really everything that we talk about here together everybody, this is relationship work. It's relationship with yourself, relationship with the people around you, relationship with the wider world. This is a conversation about grief that we have through our whole lives, whether we know we're talking about grief or not. So thank you so much, Allison for being here with me today. It has been fabulous and complicated, which is exactly what I was hoping form. Can you let everybody know where they can find you and whatever else you want people to know Megan, it's been such a pleasure. I just adore your work and it's been life saving for me too, So thank you for having me. And mainly on Instagram it Notes from your Therapist, that's primarily the way people can reach me. It connects to my website. That kind of thing so excellent. Be sure to check out your book and your book is you want to give everybody that from your therapist, just to make things easy, which I love. I love, love love like you don't have to remember multiple things, everybody. If you google Notes from your Therapist, you're going to find Allison on Instagram, You're going to find her book, You're going to find her website and and check her out because she's amazing and she's awesome and we love her. So stay tuned after this break for things you can do to start playing around with the things we talked about today, because you know that I love to give you all homework. I'm also going to tell you how you can submit your questions for me to answer in a future show, So don't miss that part. Friends, We will be right back each week. I leave you with some questions to carry with you until we meet again. It's part of this whole. This stuff gets easier with practice. Thing this week another set of reflection questions. Telling the truth is hard for most people, especially if you aren't from a culture or a family we're telling the truth was accepted or is acceptable? What do you risk if you tell the truth? What does it cost you to lie? Even a lie of self protection costs something. There's no one right answer to these things, but asking yourself these questions can really yield some useful information, information that can help you decide where to lean into that vulnerable human connection where you most need your truth to be told. And as Alison and I were discussing how to use what you learn about yourself to help you get better at relationships, I was going to say better at your job, but we don't just value you for your capitalistic production. But really, these questions can help you understand who you are and what you need in the world. So give him a go. I want to submit your question for me to possibly address on the air. This show is nothing without your questions. It is literally a Q and a show. You can ask me anything you'd like. Bring me your clinical questions, your frustrations about a relationship, the things that scare you ask me how to handle that one interaction that always leaves you feeling like a deer in the headlights and you really wish you knew what to say. Let's talk it out. Call us at three to three six four three three seven six eight and leave a voicemail. If you missed it. You can find that number in the show notes or visit Megan Divine dot c O. If you'd rather send an email, you can do that too. Write on the website Megan Divine dot CEO. Friends, we want to hear from you this show. The whole world needs to hear your questions. Together, we can make things better even when we can't make them right. You know how most people when they're looking for a new podcast to listen to, they sort of scan through things and look at the show description. Well, for this show, I think most people would think, I don't want to talk about that stuff. So here's where you come. In your reviews. Let people know that it really isn't all that bad. In her we talk about heavy stuff, yeah, but it's in the service of making things better for everyone. So everyone needs to listen. Spread the word about hereafter in your workplace, in your social world. On social media and click through to leave a review, Subscribe to the show, download episodes, and send in your questions. I want more Hereafter. Grief education doesn't just belong to end of life issues. Life is full of blossoms, from everyday disappointments to events that clearly divide life into before and after. Learning how to talk about all that without cliches or platitudes or think positive workplace posters. That's an important skill for everybody. Find trainings, workshops, books and resources for every human trying to make their way in the world after something goes horribly wrong at Meg Divine dot c. O Hereafter with Megan Divine is produced and written by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown. Co produced by Kimberly Cowen, Tanya Jujas and Elizabeth Classio, edited by Houston Tilly and studio support from Chris Urine. Our music is provided by Wave Crush

This is here After, and I'm your host, Megan Divine. Each week we tackle big questions from nurses, therapists, and other helpful people that let us explore how to show up after life goes horribly wrong. This week, What Childhood Losses tell us about adult grief with special guest psychotherapist, author and one of the nicest people you would ever hope to meet, Alice and Denin. It's two grieving therapists talking about the ups and downs of being human in a professional world. One note about this episode, everybody, you might notice that the sound quality is a little different than usual. Everybody was at home on their own laptops using zoom to record because we were all following public health guidelines. Still a good one, though, don't miss it. Friends. Will be right back after this first break. Before we get started, one quick note, well, I hope you find a lot of useful information in our time together. This show is not a substitute for skilled support with a licensed mental health provider or for professional supervision related to your work your questions. This week, we're all about what happens when you try to lean on helpers for support and the result is not exactly what you were hoping for. We've also got a great question about helping others when you're not even sure you can help yourself. So therapists, good friends, helpers of all kinds. This episode is definitely for you. I still have one of Alison de Need's Instagram posts saved in my phone from way back years ago when I first discovered her work. You might know her by her Instagram handle Notes from Your Therapist. Alison has this way of absolutely skewing the connection between childhood experience and adult behavior patterns in her short handwritten notes. Now, I haven't gone back to look in my phone because I have way too many photos in there, but I think the one that I have saved in my phone is something about it being okay to have needs. I somebody who was raised to have no needs whatsoever. That one definitely got to me. And that's the essence of Allison for me. In very few words, her simple statements are full of permission you didn't know you needed. Alison Denin is a marriage and family therapist and author, and the creator of the immensely popular Instagram account Notes from Your Therapist. She specializes in emotions, emotional neglect, and relationships. The messy stuff. Obviously, she's also intimately acquainted with grief. Hey Alison, I'm so glad you're here. Hi Megan, thank you so much. You are so welcome and was so thrilled to have you. I feel like I feel this way with most of my guests, but I feel like you and I have clearly already met before in person or at least spoke a lot. But it's it's really an Instagram. It's an Instagram relationship. Definitely. That is such a new and different thing. So I do feel as if I know you have seen you speak on Instagram before, so it's like you're already a friend. I'm finally getting to me. Yeah, we're really We're forging new relational territories all the time. And this is actually something that I really love about your Instagram feed your book too. I mean, you you focus on relationships, but the grief that sort of runs through relationships. On your website, you say that you grew up on a dairy farm with and I quote from your website here, a lot of catastrophe and grief all around me. And I did not know that about you until I started doing some research for our time here together. But you and I share the whole like New England childhood saying I grew up as well. Yeah, and we're you and I were around the same age and not spoiler alert, I guess. But we have even have dairy farm culture together because I grew up summers on my relatives dairy farms. So fantastic. You grew up on a dairy farm, so like you have a lot of that. I have a little bit of that, and I feel like and we could spend an entire episode just unpacking the emotional culture and the conditioning embedded in all of that sort of New England farm culture, stoicism and self reliance. You know, when you were speaking a minute ago, you talked about so much of your work is about the route experiences of childhood and how those spiral out into the rest of life. So if you think back to the roots of your own childhood, what do you wish the adults in your life would have known about grief? Well, I think what we're talking about is generational trauma. So they would have had to have been adults who were supported when they were children to you know, feel their own emotions of loss and grief. But they grew up exactly the same way, which was like repressing anything that felt painful, that shouldn't hurt It shouldn't be hurting you after all these years, and so they just literally didn't have the skills too. There's just a sense inside of them that it's wrong to be feeling bad, that life is about feeling strong or good and with few needs. So it's like having to envision different parents, which is really hard to do. Like, what do I wish my parents had known about grief? Boy, I wish that they had conveyed that that we can live with it. It's safe to grieve, it's safe to miss people we loved, and we can actually live with that. And that actually, for me it's been a way to feel more alive living with it. My grief experience started really young. My mom was when she died in a plane crash, and I've been flying with her that day in her small plane, and I was almost four. Anyway, she died in a plane crash and we never spoke about her again ever. Some of my earliest memories are of my grandparents and my mom's parents showing up at the house and you know, in the devastation of the immediate app your math when someone dies and my saying something about my mom and they just collapsed. They just collapsed, And I instantly knew, like I can't do that. Like when you're a child, you need adults to feel stable to you, and so no one has to tell you. We don't talk about that. You just absorb it through every cell in your body by watching how they handle it, and they shut down. So I learned to shut down. And when I think back now on my childhood, I really feel like a part of me was kind of dead inside from not being able to well to feel like clearly these feelings I must have had. Since feelings are part of our nervous system, they're part of our body, so I feel like I must have been deadening this whole part of myself. So I don't know if that answers your question. It does. I think it answers it really beautifully. And thank you for sharing that with me and with everybody listening. These aren't easy stories, right, and you and I do this kind of work for a living, and still when we share our own stories, there is like you get the sense of the weight behind that, right, there's a reason why we do what we do. What you just share there with like, we don't have to be verbally told not to talk about things we learn. One of my old colleagues used to say that children watched the adults for a living, right, It's sort of the role of the child to get their cues, learn about the world, learn what's okay and what's not okay, to do, say and feel by watching the grown ups around them. And your story just really describes that mechanisms so beautifully. Like I learned very quickly that no matter what was real for me, that truth and that reality was not safe in the world. And so I did what I needed to do to survive, which was to make that part of me dead. And said, I think what you describe there is something really common and really normal and really and it doesn't belong to just that New England stoic, self reliant culture. I love that you brought up generational trauma in there too, because there's um, you know. I think over the last maybe five or ten years or so, there started to be some conversations and discussion about intergenerational trauma and what that looks like, and how we carry family stories with us, how we carry cultural and racial stories with us. So this this whole topic of how do we learn what is okay to feel and okay to say it's not new. I love that about children being professional watchers. That's how we learn how to cope with things in life is by watching what the adults do, so you have to relearn it. Then as an adult, you don't even know that you need to relearn things. The way that I unexpectedly came to relearn all of this was when my husband, that greatest love of my life, was old in an accident, also like my mom, doing the very thing that he loved most in life, and we just had had a baby. I had a three month old baby, and it hit me like a ton of bricks that I could not do to my daughter what had done to me. I could not pretend that he had never existed. I just couldn't. Like I had that feeling inside of me of how much it had killed me to pretend I didn't have a mom. I didn't love my mom, didn't want to know more my mom. I didn't want to like love and celebrate my mom. In fact, in a weird way, I felt like what I lost, like the monumental thing that I lost and not being able to grieve her was how much of the ordinary things that I wanted to know about her? Like I wanted to know things and I didn't know any of them, Like what color did she like? You know, what did she look like when she woke up in the morning, Like what put her in a bad mood? Like little expressions that she had, And I had been so hungry for that as a kid that I just knew, like I just I didn't know how it was going to go forward, but I knew I couldn't do what had happened to me to my own daughter. And it makes me think of what you were saying, asked me before I think megan about like what do I wish that my parents would have taught me in the science? So I figured this out on my own now, but I wish that they had taught me that, yes, those things might hurt to remember those details, but we can actually live with that. And I think what happens when you struggle with emotional neglect, because that's the parents that I'm talking about, the generation that I'm talking about, and it's so pervasive even now, is that when you're so cut off from painful feelings and difficult feelings you literally think you can't live through that. You literally have this physical feeling of it's dangerous to feel sad or to feel lost, or to feel hopeless, like because you haven't had the experience, you have nothing to draw on except escaping painful feelings. So I think that comes back to when we don't get a chance to get to the point where it might be like over time it turns from being like so excruciatingly painful to remember them to something of like, I'm happy now when I can remember things about my husband. But if I've never started down that path, I wouldn't even be doing that. Welcome back everybody, Okay, Alison. One of the things that I love about you and your work is that you're honest about the whole work in progress thing. I mean, we've actually been talking about this the whole time. So even though you do this for a living, having emotionally vulnerable conversations is still hard sometimes. And it's the same thing for me. Being human is hard. We've all got prior experiences that tell us it's not cool to tell the truth about who we are and how we feel, or that it's somehow even unhealthy. What you described with your own childhood experience. It's unhealthy or unsafe to be sad or confused or overwhelmed. And there's this fine line. Honestly more of a big gray market area, but there's this fine line when you work in a profession where you're supposed to be this open, accepting, wise person and you've got your own stuff going on. So I want to use that idea as a way to get into this next listener question that helps us sort of talk about how we navigate to human and prose at the same time. You're ready, yes, Okay, So here's this listener's question. I'm a marriage and family therapist and I been in private practice for six years. I recently experienced a stillbirth, and I'm preparing to return to work in a few weeks. I am so anxious to meet with a few of my clients when I get back. Though they were working on pregnancy losses and fertility issues before I went out on maternity leave. I left as one kind of therapist, a person who expected a live baby at the end of this, and I'm afraid I'm coming back as not the same therapist they knew. Do you have any advice on how to handle this? So this listener question, honestly, like we had to pick from probably fifty similar questions of therapists or social workers, a whole lot of nurses sending in very similar questions. I've experienced a devastating personal experience, and I have to go back to work and navigate and work with people having their own devastating personal experiences. And this is a really human thing that all of the helpers are human. How do you navigate that intersection for yourself, Alison, knowing what you carry in to the office, to the therapy space. I was working as a therapist in a clinic before, right before my husband was killed an accident. I was actually on my maternity leave and was supposed to go back the week after his accident. And after that, I of course quit my job because I was numb and destroyed and could barely survive, and I had an infant to take care of. So I spent the next year or two years literally just trying to survive, and like so much of my life fell over, Like I just thought I would never even feel joy in my life again. I didn't think it would be possible for me to be a therapist again. It just act. It seemed like there's no way that I would ever be able to be a therapist again. How could I support anybody else when I could barely support myself. So it took me a while. It just took me a lot. There was so much healing to do. And when I finally got back to realizing, I want to be a therapist again, and I wanted to work in private practice so I could just be more particular about hours and time and flexibility and clients that I see as well, there's no easy answer to something like this. Yeah, there's no easy answer, because I think I had to get to a point where I felt recovered enough to be able to talk about it, to be strong enough to talk about it, and that meant just having like incredible like my own therapy and my own resources and friends to support me. The kind of therapist that I am is I'm pretty open, you know, boundaries, but open with my clients in terms of I think what I'm talking about is I'm an emotionally available person, because that is how I see therapy as working. As we need therapists to be emotionally available in ways that our parents weren't available to us. So I can't just be a blank slate. I can't because that's what people grew up with, is unavailable caregivers. So balancing that thing about being available and being myself and also tending to my own boundaries around it. I don't know if I can say much more about this one make And it's so hard to um. It's because she, this, this letter writer, is in a different place than me, Like I would not have been able to do it. I don't know if I would have been able to continue with the same clients. Yeah, this is another thing that you and I have in common. I mean, I was in private practice and also had a side gig in an agency when my partner died in an accident. And I also quit for very many of the same reasons that you just shared with us. That like, there was no way I had the capacity or the interest just to be blunt about it, for sitting with other people's pain. There was no way I could do that. And I also had the ability to take some time off and come back and recreate things that suited me. And there is a privilege in being able to do that. There's so many things about what you just said that I want to dive into. And I know that we're sort of rounding the corner to the end of the episode, but there's so many good things in here, and one thing that I want to pick up on. There's something you said after you shared your personal experience, and that um, the turbulence of trying to come back into this practice. You said, I'm in such a different place than this letter writer, and it's almost like you and I have a number of years between the accident and now and trying to look back at the intensity of the fresh moment for this listener. In a way, I think this is where a lot of grief support and our ideas about grief and how we show up for each other, whether personally professionally, I feel like this is where we fail is those of us who have been through these life altering events often forget what it's like to be that ripped open. Like I think, sometimes we can say, well, you just compartmentalized and you do the job ahead of you, forgetting that compartmentalizing is very often impossible in those early days, right, it may be the task ahead of you if you don't have the ability to step back from this work, and certainly for healthcare workers right now, there's such increased demand. We don't often have that the ability or the space or the support to step back from it. But there's just like, this is such a complex This is actually issue with so many different guys. When you're saying that, I'm thinking about, like how it's such sort of like a statement about the culture we live in that people aren't supported to be off of work and have to worry about things like going back to work. Because I kind of think it's inhumane to ask someone who's in the midst of the very very beginning of such terrible grief to have to then support other people because it's just And then imagine being that client, Like it's very easy for me to put myself in the shoes of a client, and there's I would not want to need much from my therapist if I knew that she had just been through that. So yeah, like there's one more complex layer in there, right that, Like if you come in as a as a client, and your therapist is like, you know, I was out on maternity to leave, but my baby died and I'm here and I'm here for you, And as a client, very often people are going to be thinking oh crap, like I don't. I don't want to bother her, I don't you know. So then so then this, like the therapeutic containers, starts to fall apart. Right that. Here's the therapist or the professional trying to compartmentalize their personal devastation so that they can do their job, keep the paycheck coming in and keep serving the people that they care about. And here are the clients or the patients coming in and saying, oh, I don't want to have any needs in this space because I'm human and I have compassion and empathy, and I don't want to need too much. So, you know, we we share this, this listener question, and I bring it to you so that you and I can have a conversation about it, not so that we have a solution, but so that we enter the conversation about how hard this is. I mean, there's there's quite a number of things that somebody in this listener's position might do to help them through it. But really, right now, just to name how impossible this all is and how complicated this all is. And there is something that happens with the passage of time. It is not true that time heals all wounds, but it as you so beautifully described, Alison, and it echoes my own experience that there is a a film that forms in a way with the passage of time and with enough support around us, where we can come in and sit with other people in pain and feel it but not be consumed by it. And knowing your capacity, I just I wish there were an easier answer to that. But you know, knowing your capacity, this is perhaps it's not a client you can see at this time. I think of it as my main job to primarily be in charge of my own needs so that they aren't kind of spilling out for clients to have to deal with it requires so much personal work to be able to recognize, like I just again reiterating, because it can't be set enough. There are no easy answers to this. I wish I knew there was a script or a protocol to follow, but you have to just be feeling into yourself, like can I do this for this person? I can't be here for this person, and then it's not a kind thing anymore. It's not a helping thing anymore if you can't, But it is not a showing up. I love that we think that it's a kindness to show up and keep serving. And honestly, that's not always a kindness. If you're showing up to serve somebody and you're really not there and you're really not doing good work, and you have the option to say no, given your practice or or or the agency where you work, um, it's not a kindness to to give from that place. And and actually that was last week's episode. We had that the therapist ghost story, right, So if you don't know what I'm talking about, everybody, go back and listen to the episode that came out on January three about the ghosting therapist. It's okay as a professional to have a boundary right to be able to say, I'm so glad that you worked at the courage to come and look for help and support you so much deserve it. For personal reasons, I can't work with you. I'm happy to help you find somebody else if that would feel useful for you, But otherwise, you know, I wish you well and hope you get the support you deserve. It's okay to say I can't do this. And again, like having what I started, we started this episode with having hard conversations is part of being a therapist having hard conversations that don't have easy answers, and that we can show up and have this conversation even though I don't know what the solution is. You know, it's just like staying in the conversation and yeah, that that conversation with clients that are ongoing, that is treating them with respect and care, yourself with respect and care to know, you're sort of showing them your role modeling the example that I'm not a savior. I don't have savior complex that I'm supposed to save everyone. I'm hurting. It's beyond my capacity to cope right now. And let me help you find one that might be more helpful for you right now. Yeah, that might be able to hold the pain in the room that deserves to be heard. Yeah, I love this. This is actually a really beautiful sort of full circle place to come back to because I have in my notes here a quote again from your book where you say, I plan to keep my conversation going with grief my whole life. And that's really what you just said, isn't it. You know that that as therapists, as professionals, our conversation with ourselves goes on our whole life. It's it's how we do our own life, and that's how we continue to show up in our professional lives. And really all of these conversations are conversations about I'm so glad that you have said that, because that makes me see that that was even a conversation about grief, my grief. That I can't help someone right now that I care about that I may have to step away from this relationship because I can't. There's grief in that. That's right. Grief is every where, and that's not a bad thing. Right, Grief is part of love. And I've said this many times before that that really everything that we talk about here together everybody, this is relationship work. It's relationship with yourself, relationship with the people around you, relationship with the wider world. This is a conversation about grief that we have through our whole lives, whether we know we're talking about grief or not. So thank you so much, Allison for being here with me today. It has been fabulous and complicated, which is exactly what I was hoping form. Can you let everybody know where they can find you and whatever else you want people to know Megan, it's been such a pleasure. I just adore your work and it's been life saving for me too, So thank you for having me. And mainly on Instagram it Notes from your Therapist, that's primarily the way people can reach me. It connects to my website. That kind of thing so excellent. Be sure to check out your book and your book is you want to give everybody that from your therapist, just to make things easy, which I love. I love, love love like you don't have to remember multiple things, everybody. If you google Notes from your Therapist, you're going to find Allison on Instagram, You're going to find her book, You're going to find her website and and check her out because she's amazing and she's awesome and we love her. So stay tuned after this break for things you can do to start playing around with the things we talked about today, because you know that I love to give you all homework. I'm also going to tell you how you can submit your questions for me to answer in a future show, So don't miss that part. Friends, We will be right back each week. I leave you with some questions to carry with you until we meet again. It's part of this whole. This stuff gets easier with practice. Thing this week another set of reflection questions. Telling the truth is hard for most people, especially if you aren't from a culture or a family we're telling the truth was accepted or is acceptable? What do you risk if you tell the truth? What does it cost you to lie? Even a lie of self protection costs something. There's no one right answer to these things, but asking yourself these questions can really yield some useful information, information that can help you decide where to lean into that vulnerable human connection where you most need your truth to be told. And as Alison and I were discussing how to use what you learn about yourself to help you get better at relationships, I was going to say better at your job, but we don't just value you for your capitalistic production. But really, these questions can help you understand who you are and what you need in the world. So give him a go. I want to submit your question for me to possibly address on the air. This show is nothing without your questions. It is literally a Q and a show. You can ask me anything you'd like. Bring me your clinical questions, your frustrations about a relationship, the things that scare you ask me how to handle that one interaction that always leaves you feeling like a deer in the headlights and you really wish you knew what to say. Let's talk it out. Call us at three to three six four three three seven six eight and leave a voicemail. If you missed it. You can find that number in the show notes or visit Megan Divine dot c O. If you'd rather send an email, you can do that too. Write on the website Megan Divine dot CEO. Friends, we want to hear from you this show. The whole world needs to hear your questions. Together, we can make things better even when we can't make them right. You know how most people when they're looking for a new podcast to listen to, they sort of scan through things and look at the show description. Well, for this show, I think most people would think, I don't want to talk about that stuff. So here's where you come. In your reviews. Let people know that it really isn't all that bad. In her we talk about heavy stuff, yeah, but it's in the service of making things better for everyone. So everyone needs to listen. Spread the word about hereafter in your workplace, in your social world. On social media and click through to leave a review, Subscribe to the show, download episodes, and send in your questions. I want more Hereafter. Grief education doesn't just belong to end of life issues. Life is full of blossoms, from everyday disappointments to events that clearly divide life into before and after. Learning how to talk about all that without cliches or platitudes or think positive workplace posters. That's an important skill for everybody. Find trainings, workshops, books and resources for every human trying to make their way in the world after something goes horribly wrong at Meg Divine dot c. O Hereafter with Megan Divine is produced and written by me Megan Divine. Executive producer is Amy Brown. Co produced by Kimberly Cowen, Tanya Jujas and Elizabeth Classio, edited by Houston Tilly and studio support from Chris Urine. Our music is provided by Wave Crush