Grieving in Color Episode #8:

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[00:00:05] Welcome to Grieving in Color, a podcast that explores the various ways we navigate our experiences with grief and loss and a place where we find courage to intentionally heal in our daily lives. I'm your host, Dr. Chinasa Elue, a professor, speaker, and grief coach. And I'm inviting you to join me on this journey, embracing our grief and the full spectrum of our emotions, a palette of feelings that colors our lives even in the face of loss. Each episode, we dive into real stories of healing and growth, as we also feature guests who have found strength in sorrow, love in loss and joy even in their darkest times. Grieving in color is about acknowledging the pain, the loss, and the grief. But it is also about finding hope, love and joy again. Whether you are currently on your grief journey or supporting someone who is, this is a space for you. We are here to remind you that you are not alone, and it's okay to grieve in your own color.

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All right. Hello, dear listeners. Welcome to the final episode of Grieving in Color. Y'all, I cannot believe season one is actually done. This is our final episode, and I'm so honored that you all have taken the journey with us as we've been talking about the various ways that we embrace grief in the midst of our daily lives. And so, as we wrap up this first season, you all, I want to take a few minutes of this final episode to reflect on all of the incredible stories and insights and moments that we've shared together throughout this entire season. When I first started this podcast, Grieving in Color, it was honestly a vision of mine to create a space where we could explore the various ways that grief unfolds. There's various dimensions, and one thing I've recognized over time is that grief is not one dimensional.

There is not a script to how you grieve. In fact, there is no template here because we're all unique in the various ways that we show grief and how it exhibits in our individual lives is different. So, I just want to say, as I am jumping into this recap, you all, it has truly been a journey, and I'm so excited to just do some highlights of this season as we kick today's episode off. All right. So I want to take us back to the very first episode. I had the opportunity to share my own grief story, and I talked about how I lost my mother to cancer almost four and a half years ago. And to be honest with you all sharing that story was one that really required a lot of courage and bravery because my mother was someone who was so near and dear to me.

And to be able to share just a snapshot of her essence and how much she meant to me was really, really important for me as I kicked off this new podcast. And really helped to situate why I've chosen to go down this pathway, right? I think when it comes to grief work in general, that you don't just decide so well, maybe you do, but for me, I didn't just wake up in the morning and say, hey, I want to have my work and my research center around grief. When I lost her, that I knew that there was a much more deeper purpose and meaning to this loss that I was yet to uncover. And I'm not saying that I've uncovered the full meaning of why she's gone, to be honest with you. But what I will share is that through losing my mom, and through walking through my own grief journey, that I've recognized that it is an absolute privilege to receive support and love when you experience grief and loss.

And I recognized that in a lot of ways, I did not afford that same love and care that I thought would be helpful to others when they lost people prior to losing my mom. And so it was after I lost her that I recognized there was so much more I could do to really help facilitate dialogue and discussion on how we're able to become more grief literate, right? We don't like to talk about things that are uncomfortable. We don't like to talk about things that give us pause at times. And when it comes to death and dying, this is a natural part of our human experience, but it's often one that we typically shy away from because this is the other end of the spectrum of happiness and joy at times, right? So I wanted to share that. But you know, one thing that I really found helpful in this particular season was after I shared my story, I had an opportunity in episode two to speak with Ekene Onu, and talked about grieving as an Ada.

And if you haven't listened to episode two, I want to encourage you to pause this episode right now and go ahead and slide on back to episode two, because we really delved in deeper to what it means to grieve as an Ada. And if you're not familiar, an Ada is the first born daughter, typically in a family or a household. And as you all may know, I'm Nigerian American. And so Ada means firstborn daughter, literally. And so Ekene, who is also an Ada and also recently [00:05:00] lost her father, she shares in the episode, talked about the importance of relationships. And one of the quotes that she shares, and it's kind of been my mantra since the episode, is that when you experience grief and loss,it's one thing to go through the grieving process alone, but it's another thing to know that you have family, friends chosen loved ones that are willing and able to surround you.

And so it's an opportunity for you to tap into those relationships. She said this phrase, I'm going to repeat it here again. She said, you can put some weight on your relationships. You can put some weight on your relationships when times are hard, especially if they have capacity to receive it. And I think in a lot of ways, because there's been so much going on in life, we may shy away from doing that when we know we need that extra support. But I loved her encouragement there and just really just saying, Hey, you have the relationship capital. You've built these relationships over time. Put some weight on those relationships. They're there to stand and support you in your most dire times, especially as you're navigating your own personal loss.

So episode two, we concluded, and it was interesting as I was thinking about the next episode I was excited to talk to, KB Newton because her specialty is on friendships, and we had a chance to delve in deeper and talk about the grief we experience in friendships.

And for those of you who may be in this circumstance where maybe perhaps you've been ghosted by a friend, or you've had to release a friend and you miss them for any number of reasons, there's some grief if we can be honest here, that exists when we lose friends, there's grief when we don't have closure to relationships that may have been near to us, honestly. And so I love the fact that KB gave us a framework to think about how we navigate grief. And honestly, just thinking about the ways that we can be intentional about revisiting those friendships that maybe, perhaps didn't give us the closure, but having those key conversations that are helpful for us to really think about and assess the relationship as it stands and perhaps see where you might go from there. And so, I think talking about grief and friendships is something that I think we need to talk about more, to be honest with you, because it is a common phenomenon.

It's so weird as an adult, I don't know if it's just this day and age as we're navigating the ins and outs of coming back in person from the pandemic, but it seems like in a lot of ways, it's very difficult in sometimes to be in community with others. And because we've been in isolation these past couple of years, coming back in person and trying to rekindle a social life, we may have found that some of the friendships that we were close to before the pandemic may have waned a little bit. And just because time has passed does not mean we can't come back and rewarm some things up, right? So if there's a friend out there that you missed or you haven't been able to connect with for a variety of different reasons feel free to just slide in those DMs, pick up the phone, send a quick text message and see what you can do to really revitalize that relationship, especially if it was one that you cherished or one that you would like to rekindle again.

All right. So thinking through this season, one of the things I wanted to make it a point to do was talk about grief in all aspects of our lives. And one of the biggest things that I have talking about for several months now, is the grief that we've experienced in the midst of our career transitions. And so in episode four, I had the opportunity to share how grief manifests in our careers. We may not think of it in this capacity, but oftentimes when we are leaving a job, whether we've gotten something better or we're moving on if we don't take the time to process the grief that exists, right? We're going to miss some of those colleagues, or not. Maybe you might not, but for those of you who've spent years pouring into an organization, building these relationships, establishing rapport with people in your extended networks, when you make the choice to leave, you might be grieving a little bit, you might be missing them.

Maybe you're field morphed into something unrecognizable and you thought you were going to be there for a lifetime, and you're grieving the fact that this thing, this job, this career path that you carved out for yourself, where you thought it was your dream job when you initially took the role on, but it's kind of morphed in something somewhat of a nightmare or some kind of Frankenstein context here. It really is painful when we have spent time in a place in our organizations and we spent time building up our resources and our certifications and our degrees, and all the things that come into preparing you to be a good steward in the workplace. And then when it's time to move on, there's pain, there's grief. If we can be honest with that. And I want to acknowledge here as well as we've kind of been reemerging from the pandemic.

We've seen a lot of involuntary layoffs in this regard, right? And so perhaps, you've been in a space where you've been with your [00:10:00] organization for years, but due to the financial crisis and other things that are going on right now, you lost your job and you were laid off. I think the important thing here to acknowledge is that, that is extremely painful. And we grieve the fact that we were not given the opportunity to even say goodbye, especially if you get the notice and you haven't returned back in person to connect with colleagues again or revisit your trusted networks in a variety of different ways. There's grief. There's grief in not understanding what the unknown looks like. As you put yourself back on the job market, there's grief in acknowledging the fact that you don't know if you're going to be able to replace that income that was lost, right?

Perhaps there's even grief and just recognizing that the organizations that you may have been a part of also were complicit in some ways and contributing to some harm. And so there's a grief that exists when we're thinking about all the different experiences that we have to navigate as we begin to move to other roles or positions that are better equipped to serve us. And so, episode four took some time to unpack that, and I want to encourage you to check it out, because when I transitioned to episode five, I talked to AdeOla Fadumiye, who is actually in the midst of her own career transition. And we talked about the career transitions we experienced, and as an entrepreneur, right? And oftentimes we don't think that there's associated grief with entrepreneurship, but you can imagine having an idea, having a dream or a vision for a business and birthing it, and actually seeing that thing to fruition.

And for AdeOla, she shared how she birthed many businesses, but her final business that she birthed was a podcast production company where she had the chance to see others' visions of their podcasts and their content come to life. And so it was really phenomenal to hear, AdeOla really take the time to unpack how she's been experiencing grief as she is sunsetting her business and closing its doors. And so, if you're an entrepreneur in this space, and you know that perhaps you're in a season where you think it may be time for you to close your business, or maybe you're looking at, perhaps going back to a nine to five context because of financial stability or a number of other reasons, it may be helpful for you to begin to process any associated emotions, and most especially the grief that is present when we are making these very difficult and challenging choices and decisions that really dictate how the future may unfold.

And so, AdeOla did a phenomenal job unpacking that. I want to encourage you to zoom up to episode five to check that out. Now, in this season, it was really interesting because again, in thinking about the various ways we grieve in color, right? We know that grief shows up in a variety of different ways in life. And in episode six, I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Kamesha Spates, and we talked about anticipatory grief. And in that episode itself, it really touched me in a number of different ways, to be honest with you all, because we talked about some of the grief that is associated with caretaking. And if you are in a season right now where you're caretaking for a loved one, perhaps, who has a terminal illness you'll definitely, perhaps resonate with this a little bit further in the sense that if you've been in a context where someone in your family has been given a terminal diagnosis, there is a level of anticipatory grief that is present because you know that the end is imminent, it's near, and there's nothing, absolutely nothing you can do about that, right?

I think about some of the conversations that we talked about during that episode. And one thing I mentioned with Dr. Spates was the fact that my mom was diagnosed with cancer stage four cancer at that, and the doctors gave her six months to live. And when they gave her that prognosis I honestly did not know what to do with myself. My mom in my eyes had been perfectly healthy and normal up until that point, and up until that diagnosis, there are a couple of things that kind of let us know something might be off, but never in my wildest imagination would I have thought it was cancer.

And I remember hearing the diagnosis being an utter disbelief, and then thinking to myself, how is this even possible? Is this a dream? Or honestly, is it the nightmare that I prayed I would never have to experience? And to be honest with you, it was, it was unfolding in real time. And one thing that we talked about in regards to anticipatory grief is that it's the anticipation of the magnitude of the loss that is looming ahead, that really grabs you in the midst of navigating all of the different responsibilities that comes with caretaking.

So I know when we talked about navigating doctor's appointments and still maintaining hope and being prayerful, there was still this thought in the back of our minds that, you know, this really might be it. And [00:15:00] unfortunately that case that was, but I think we shared some great strategies for those who may be in this season where they need a little bit of support, they're experiencing some anticipatory grief, and they want to know some ways to navigate that. So, please tune in to episode six if you haven't done so already, to hear some of those conversational points and get some strategies that may be helpful.

Episode seven, I had the opportunity to speak with Dr. Pamela Larde, love her to pieces. We talked about the dualities of joy and grief. Yes, both can coexist. Yes, it seems like an anomaly because these are two separate emotions, two separate experiences on different sides of the spectrum. But the thing with this thing called life is that we can have multiple feelings occur at the exact same time. There can be joy and grief, right? And I love that episode because we had an opportunity to really tease out the nuances of this conversation. How do you experience joy when you've lost a job, a loved one, a pet, a career, whatever the case may be, right?

How do you still experience joy in that? And when Joy does show up in these various experiences that we have in life, do we give ourselves the permission to experience it? Or do we find ourselves battling with guilt at the same time? Especially if it's the loss of a loved one where you're like, why am I joyful when this person is longer with me? Right? So we talked about the ins and outs of that, and also some helpful strategies. And so I want to encourage you to definitely check out episode seven if you haven't done so already, because Dr. Larde, was phenomenal in providing some insights there. As I recap this, this first season, one thing that I've realized is that, when we think about life in all its fullness, right? That oftentimes we may find ourselves waiting for various mile markers or experiences to happen before we find ourselves truly giving ourselves permission to live, to be honest with you.

And one thing that I've realized over time, and one thing I've talked with about with several friends, is that, this is not a dress rehearsal, right? Life is happening right now. And so if there are people in your life that you cherish, if there are things that you desire to do professionally or personally you owe it to yourself to slow things down, to make sure you can find a way to get yourself in alignment and do the things, take the time to do the things. There is no dress rehearsal. This is life. And when it comes to navigating grief and loss the thing is, we all want to be happy. We all want to see the sunshine and the rainbows and feel the warmth in our skin, and we have those experiences, right? But I also want to just really remind us here that no one leaves this life unscathed, right?

We will all experience death, we will all experience grief in a myriad of different forms, right? This is honestly, a natural part of our human experience. And the more that we open up ourselves to having these conversations around how we navigate grief, how do we talk about it in various spaces and communities, the more we give ourselves permission to live much fuller and richer lives, because we're not pandering to one side of the emotional spectrum, we are leaving ourselves open and exploratory to seeing, okay, I know the other side is not as pleasant, but what can I do to really embrace sorrow when it's there? What can I do to really stay connected even when I'm in the midst of deep, deep pain? And when we give ourselves the permission and the opportunities to really delve in deeper to our grief, and are in the ways that we experience loss, we open up ourselves to much healing and how we're dealing with all the aspects and all the ways that grief manifest in our lives.

And so, we've talked about many things this season, and as I wrap up this episode, I want to just quickly share with you all some of my closing points to carry with you as you are perhaps anticipating season two. And so, as I'm closing out today, I have a couple of points, and I want to first just mention that it's important to embrace your grief, right? I've said this over and over again, probably in every episode at this point, that grief is a natural part of life, right? It's important to acknowledge your grief journey. It's important to recognize that we will feel a wide range of emotions. Some days I felt like I was losing my mind because it was multiple emotions happening at the same time, right? But I think one thing that led to me being able to heal and continuously heal, to be honest with you, because I still miss my mom, is the fact that I don't shy away from my emotions, right?

If I'm having a rough day and I'm working with a colleague, or if I'm speaking with my husband, I'll just mention, Hey, today is just not a good day. I'm really missing mom. Or today I had a trigger of some sort that really reminded me of her. And so I embrace it and I make space for it, and I find ways to hold myself accountable [00:20:00] and to make space for emotion so that I don't unpack some of that emotional residue on others. I think it's really important in this context to just embrace your full humanity in this context. Next I would just want to highlight here that grief is unique, although grief is definitely a shared experience, everyone's journey is unique. I think about the state of the world today, and there's just so much going on, right?

And the ways that grief is manifesting in all areas of society is definitely unique. And the ways that we're able to express ourselves will vary from person to person. Some people might find themselves reclusive and staying away from social media. Some people may want to share stories of their loved ones or whatever experiences they're having around grief for the world to see. And also chime in to provide some additional support. No matter what your experience is, just know that it's unique, it's your own, and you are able to dictate what that looks like as you are moving forward in your healing. I want to hit home with this, that there's strength in vulnerability. Oftentimes we see weeping and sharing our vulnerabilities and our sadness as a sign of weakness. But to be honest with you, when you are vulnerable, you leave yourself open to showing your greatest strength, because tears in the midst of grief, tears in the midst of pain, being vulnerable when you are hurting is not a sign of weakness.

It is a sign of strength. It is a sign that you're able to share your story. It is a sign that you are in tune with your lived experience. And the fact that you are able to share that experience with others showcases how you are able to still stand strong and share and connect with others so that you can further your healing. So I want to encourage you in this context, find spaces and pockets where you feel safe enough to share. I know it's not all spaces that we feel comfortable being vulnerable in. I know it's not all people that we feel comfortable being vulnerable with, but find your people and find ways to share in ways that are authentic and meaningful to you. I think here, I would be remiss if I did not mention that self-compassion matters in your grief journey.

You have to be absolutely kind to yourself. One thing I always tell friends whenever they have lost someone, or if I'm working with a client and they're walking me through their grief journey and they give me the honor to walk alongside of them, I mention that you literally have to be kind to yourself in this journey. There are certain things that you will not be able to do in the ways that you were prior to your respective loss. Your executive functioning may be a little bit lower because you just can't focus or think clearly because you're grieving. And I think it's important to understand that that's absolutely okay. You may not have the desire to hang out with friends as much and you might be beating yourself up yourself up over missing key events and things like that. Now, I'm not encouraging you to go into isolation, but what I am encouraging you to do is take stock of what's on your calendar.

And if you find that at times it's too overcrowded and you need more time to just be with yourself and be reflective, give yourself grace in this season and exercise self-compassion. You need it. Nobody is looking for A plus grade here on this grief journey. This is you, this is your own life. And self-compassion is such a critical tool for us as we're healing and growing.

Last but not least, I want to encourage everyone to stay connected and find your community. This podcast has been an opportunity to create a community of listeners who are here to gain insights on how to understand grief, and then ways that they can support each other and others in their lives who are walking through grief. The thing is, when it comes to navigating all aspects of grief and loss, we don't have to do this journey alone, right?

I know at times it's very easy to feel isolated or to want to recluse again, but we have an option. We have a choice here. And some of the best advice that I've gotten has been in times where I have leaned into a community when I have said, Hey, I'm really struggling. I need some help right now. And when I have leaned and put some weight on those relationships and have seen them show up for me in ways that I really cannot even put into words. And so, build connection and community. If you don't have it in your purview, there are a host of different platforms where that can happen and other communities in person that are waiting and longing for you. I definitely will include some resources below in the show notes for this episode.

And so good people, we are at the end of the episode. Remember that you are not alone in your grief journey. It's okay to grieve in your own color. Thank you for being a part of this incredible community. I cannot wait to connect with you again. In the meantime, please stay connected with me on all social media [00:25:00] platforms. You can find me on LinkedIn, Instagram, and Facebook. Please be kind to yourself and keep grieving in color. See you in season two.

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Thank you for choosing to spend time with me on this episode of Grieving in Color. If today's episode has resonated with you, or if you know someone who might benefit from our conversation, please share this episode with them. Also, I would love to hear your thoughts, your stories, and the ways I can support you as you navigate your own grief. You can reach out to me on my website at www.drchinasaelue.com or connect with me on LinkedIn or Instagram @drchinasaelue. Your participation, your feedback, and your story helps us keep this conversation going and reaches those who need it the most. Remember, there's no right way to grieve. There's only your way, and every shade of your grief is valid.

This episode of Grieving in Color is produced by Crys & Tiana.

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