Grieving with Grace: Dr. Mekel Harris' Grief-Informed Approach to Relaxing into the Pain

How does grief impact our mental health, and what strategies can we employ to nurture our well-being through times of loss and transition?

Join us as we explore the intersection of grief and mental health with the amazing Dr. Mekel Harris, Memphis-based licensed psychologist helping other perfectly imperfect folks navigate life's challenges in order to grow in lifestyle, love, leadership, and loyalties to God, self, and others. She also shares insights into her own grief experience and the ripple effect it had on her career after the loss of her beloved mother to pancreatic cancer.

            GIFT: 5 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Grief-Informed Clinician

She holds a B.A. in Psychology from Baylor University, an M.A. in Psychology from Houston Baptist University, and a Ph.D. in Clinical/School Psychology from the University of Houston, and further honed her skills through a pre-doctoral internship and post-doctoral fellowship at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles.

She serves diverse communities through hospital-based programs, higher education, and her private practice, Harris Psychological Services, LLC.

Dr. Harris' is co-founder of Bloomwell Partners, LLC, empowering organizations with the tools to support those navigating grief in the workplace.

She is also an author and speaker, having presented at over 30 conferences worldwide, and a TEDx Talk.

Her memoir, "Relaxing Into the Pain: My Journey Into Grief & Beyond," offers profound insights into the human experience of loss.

A sought-after expert, Dr. Harris has shared her wisdom through various media platforms, including Equanimity Magazine and The Washington Post. Her advocacy for mental health extends to her role as VP of the Board of AIMHITN, and as a recurring guest on FOX13 Memphis.

Let's delve into the heart of grief and the transformative power of relaxing into our grief.

Dr. Mekel Harris Social & Website:

• Instagram: @drmekel
• Website: mekelharrisphd.com
• Bloomwell: growwithbloomwell.com
• 5 Questions to Ask When Choosing a Grief-Informed Clinician
• The Grief Anatomy Toolkit

Nina Rodriguez Social & Website:

• @griefandlight
• griefandlight.com
• Work with Me
• Subscribe to my newsletter

Disclaimer: griefandlight.com/safetyanddisclaimers

Interested in sponsoring an episode? Contact us at info@griefandlight.com.

Chapters

• 0:00 Preview and Introduction
• 0:46 Meet Dr. Mekel S Harris
• 9:57 My mother lived and died on her own terms
• 17:49 How my mother's death rippled into my work
• 22:13 My faith grew in the void of her loss
• 26:28 Grief, Spirituality and Faith
• 30:03 The stages of grief are not prescriptive to loss
• 33:57 Grief vs. Mourning
• 37:32 Acute grief?
• 39:00 What does it mean to be grief-informed?
• 43:40 Functional Impairment
• 46:54 Three Questions to Ask Yourself
• 48:01 Programs and Offerings
• 48:43 Bloomwell.
• 49:19 Reimagining Life After Loss Community
• 50:07 Cortisol, Coping & Conversation
• 52:48 Mind, Body and Spirit are ONE
• 53:29 Get in touch with Dr. Mekel Harris
• 54:27 Words of wisdom for Grievers

Transcript

Super important, especially for clinicians and even supporters, to not just focus on what you can see and to ask those harder questions about what the person's internal experience is. Because if you don't, you may not be supporting in the ways that the person needs. And then it's also important for the grieving person to be okay. And I know this is hard, but to be okay with helping sort of erupt in unearth what's happening on the inside, in letting people know on the outside so that they can get the support that they need. You just lost your loved one. Now what? Welcome to the Grief in Life podcast, where we explore this new reality through grief colored lenses openly, authentically. I'm your host, Nina Rodriguez. Let's get started. How does grief impact our mental health and what strategies can we employ to nurture our wellbeing through times of loss and transition? Today, we'll be exploring the intersection of grief and mental health with the amazing Dr. Michelle Harris, who is a luminary in the field of psychology, bringing a wealth of experience and expertise to our conversation. Her impressive academic journey includes a bachelor's in psychology from Baylor University, a master's in psychology from Houston Baptist University, and a Ph.D. in clinical psychology from the University of Houston with a foundation grounded in academia. Dr. Harris furthered honed in her skills through a pre doctoral internship and a two year postdoctoral fellowship at the Children's Hospital in Los Angeles. And beyond academia, Dr. Harris has dedicated herself to serving diverse communities through hospital based programs, higher education, and her private practice as the CEO of Harris Psychological Services LLC. She's also a trailblazer in grief informed leadership co-founding BLOOM Well Partners LLC to equip organizations with the tools to support individuals navigating grief in the workplace. We will deep dove into that later in the podcast. Dr. Harris's impact extends far beyond her clinical practice. She's an author, a speaker and educator, having presented at over 30 conferences worldwide, including a TED Talk. Her memoir, Relaxing into the Pain My Journey into Grief and Beyond, offers profound insights into the human experience of loss. Her innovative work, including the grief anatomy, toolkit and mindful grieving curriculum, empower individuals on their healing journeys. She's a sought after expert and has shared her wisdom through various media platforms, from podcasts to publications like Equanimity Magazine and The Washington Post. And her advocacy for mental health extends to her role as vice president of the Board of the Association of Infant Mental Health in Tennessee. And she's a recurring guest on the Fox 13 in Memphis. Beyond her professional endeavors, she finds solace and family traveling, traveling, writing and community service. You are in for a treat today, my listeners. So with us today, delving into the heart of grief, resilience and the transformative power of relaxing into our grief. Welcome, Dr. Michelle Harris. Oh, Nita, thank you so, so much. I was tickled a little bit as you were talking because I thought, man, I love all those things and I am old to them and done so much. So thank you so much for allowing me to be on the podcast and truly on bold, truly honored. I've been really looking forward to our conversation. I have been looking forward to as well. Thank you for your time and for I wouldn't call it old. I would say you have a wealth of knowledge and experience professionally in person, and I cannot wait to delve into that and share with the listeners your your beautiful story, a beautiful and painful story as well, because, you know, grief. And actually, I'd like to mention before we get started that your Instagram account, I found your information through Instagram way back when I first started my account. Okay. One of the first accounts that I really felt saw me and my grief for what it was and it gave it words and that's extremely helpful. So thank you for your work. Thank you for everything that you put out there into the world. All the beautiful energy, wisdom and knowledge. And before we get started, I would like to honor your parents who are with us in spirit. Please save their name and we will dedicate this episode to them. Yes, my beautiful mom, Patricia Ann Harris, who died in December 2012, and my dad, Darnell Lars Harris, who died in March 23rd, 2020. Thank you for allowing me to speak their names. Absolutely. And thank you for mentioning them. I always like to say that one of the way that we carry our loved ones with us is always saying their name. And that's why that's very important. So tell us about how Dr. Michelle Harris started her journey in this space. So it was mental health and then grief and how your early work prepared you for. You are today. Yeah. So I started my career way back in the day in the late 1990s, and when I finished my bachelor's degree at Baylor, I thought, okay, I want to work with children. I've always known that I wanted to work with children and families. And so I started off doing home based care with children, with developmental differences. And what I didn't know and for anyone listening who's on a journey of education, sometimes you have these thoughts of how is this going to connect to what I really want to do And I want to encourage you to know that every single seed is a thread to what it is that you're a vet you'll eventually be doing, even if in the moment it doesn't feel like it. So I started off working with these kiddos in their homes and loved that. One of the most compelling things at that point was really diving into the experiences of parents who were navigating a journey that they had not anticipated because of their child's diagnosis. Again, I didn't know that was grief at the time, but that was the beginning of it. So what I'd done, my education, worked with children, diagnosed with cancer, and that was really my first entree into physical death. The first year that I was working at a university hospital in Houston, I had about six patients die and it was something that was a really beautiful one particular instance really stands on my mind. So I was working with a little boy whose mom happened to be incarcerated. He was actively dying. So there was a phone call me to the prison for his hers, his mom to be released. And unfortunately she did not make it prior to his death. So there I was in this room with this child. And as he's sort of going between being oriented and disoriented in his mind, I was his mom. And it was really a powerful reminder, number one, of how important presence is in the space of death, how sacred it is, and how we really have to show up fully at in that, in my opinion, is a lot of divinity. I literally felt God in that space. Thankfully, when his mom arrived, of course, I was a little mortified thinking there was she going to think that I was there and she wasn't? But what? I recounted the stories to her and was able to share that the first and the last thought on this child's mind was her. It was a beautiful connection point. And so that started to shift me into thinking, well, maybe since I was able to handle that, maybe I will sort of go into the death and dying space. But I put it to the side, decided to get into more student loan debt and go back to school, and ultimately ended up in Los Angeles for my pre and post-doc there, I had the chance to work in palliative care and that was really the moment that I thought, okay, I can do this in the long run. But the one thing that absolutely solidified it was my mom's death. She was diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer in November 2012 and 30 days after her diagnosis, she died. And so I knew and was able to reflect back and think, okay, that's why all of these things that happened to prepare me for what I was going to face later on down the line. I knew in that moment that I wanted to be exactly what I wish I had had at the time of her death. And that's the that was the beginning of my grief and loss expertize and our work. So that's where it started. Well, thank you for that. What a touching story. I was not expecting that. I'm really trying to hold that view of my tears back here. But, you know, it's interesting to hear the evolution of that journey, because at first you said you were working so intimately with grief and at first that you didn't necessarily recognize it as grief. It's time that you realize that a person does not have to pass in order for somebody to feel grief. There's anticipatory grief. There's different types of grief. Yes. And you were I can honestly say you were definitely being prepared for this work. So many people have benefited. Thank you for for choosing to walk the path. It's not easy. This sounds so counterintuitive, but those of us who know grief intimately and will understand the statement. But what a gift for you to be there with that little boy in that it's such an important moment. And for you to for him to have somebody on his way out because life is not we would like it to be long. And, you know, you die peacefully while sleeping, surrounded by friends and family. And that what a blessing that would be. That would be amazing. But gosh, not everybody gets that and not everybody has the opportunity to to make it to old age. So I consider even turning older a privilege. And the work that you do is very much a privilege. So you said that unfortunately when your mother passed, that was. What solidified it for you? She passed within 30 days. I know about also. She worked and she understood what was happening. Could you talk a little bit more about her background and how their vision as to how she would pass? Yeah, thank you. I would love to talk about my mom. So my mom was a nurse and she was a nursing professor and so she knew her body. I feel like I actually grew up talking about death my whole life and because of her profession. And so we were the kids who, you know, if we had a headache or whatever it was, my mom was like, no, get up, you're going. Here's some water, get hydrated. You can get it. You can make it through it. But yeah. So when she got her diagnosis, which by the way, happened because she over the over the course of the months prior to the diagnosis, my mom kept noticing different things. Number one, she kept stumbling, but not falling. She would lose things. And she just thought, well, I'm retired. I don't really need to use my brain in the same way. No big deal. But the one thing that made my brothers and I most concerned was that she didn't want to talk on the phone. So my mom was a marathon talker. No joke, Nina. We were on the phone one time for 48 hours. Know like we would talk, laugh, cry, fall asleep, wake back up, get right back into the conversation, fall asleep. And this was like a two day thing. So when I talk to her, this is around September 2012 when I talked to her and she was like, Babe, I just I just really don't feel like talking today. I was like, well, when on that's not that's not like her. But again, pancreatic cancer is very interesting in that by the time people are diagnosed, they have had symptoms along the way, sometimes in the years prior to the diagnosis, but they're all very, quote, random. So there may be some weight loss. And it's sort of one thing. They may have a change in their taste or smell. That's another thing they may, you know, have energy loss. And so no one really put all these pieces together. So my mom one day woke up and realized she was jaundiced. She had yellowing in her eyes, drove herself to an emergency room. They admitted her, and a couple of days later they did a procedure at e e r, c, p or SRP and diagnosed with stage four pancreatic cancer, which means that had already metastasized to various parts of her body. So on the phone and then Los Angeles, my mom is telling me about the diagnosis. She literally said, Michael, I have stage four pancreatic cancer. I'm on the phone freaking out immediately crying our. How was that? I was placed in my car. I was listening to her in the car, pull the car over. And I'm just stunned. My mom very stoically says the diagnosis and she's like, and the only thing that I want to do is when I'm discharge is to go home and spend time with you and Staley, my brother and my dog, and that was it. Now, of course, I was like, Oh, no, no, we're calling specialist. We're doing this. I'm already in my mind calculating, you know, the drive and all of these things. But my mom was really out of it because she knew cancer and she knew herself that this was coming to an end. And I had to think she intuitively knew, even though she didn't say that it was going to be sooner rather than later as well. To a certain degree, I appreciate that she had a say as to how it was going to go. She said, Nope, this is what I'm going to do. I'm just going to live out whatever time I have left with you, your brother and and the dog, and just go out her way. That was Patricia. And yet it was sort of a running joke in our family. Like me and my mom lived according to her own beat and drum, and she died the way she wanted. And so my brother and I had to just resign arts intention to be fixers and doers and all of these things and literally just be president. And so that was really a gift that my mom sort of thrust us into, which was just be here now and don't spend this time trying to fix and make this something that it's not. She knew she was going to die. I received a dream that she was going to die in December, which was comforting to me. And so that was also preparatory. It helped me be present all the way up until literally the very end of her life. Such as got health in the moment. Maybe it doesn't seem like it, but in hindsight, when we piece the story together and we see the elements coming together from to a certain degree, you know, her experience, the diagnosis, her decision, your dream. Ah, so much of learning that in grief it's not about fixing the unfixable, it's about letting go, it's about surrendering to what is. And like you said, being with showing up for the person fully in that present moment, how all of that comes together to create such a powerful moment of transition and eventually acceptance. And how about when she passed? I know that you and your brother were with your mother. Yeah. So my brother is a nurse practitioner and at the time he was a nurse. And I thank God for that top to bottom because what he was able to do to help me stay anchored, I was starting to feel agency I was starting to notice my mom's deterioration. And I wanted to do I wanted to fix even to the very end. He was really skillful. I think that he sort of got into his nurse mode and really educated me like, Michael, here's what's happening. This is what we can anticipate next. Here's what we can anticipate next. So he had gone out of the room for a little bit and I remember thinking, I got to do something. I got to do something. He comes back into the room and we decide, okay, no, we're not going to go anywhere. We're not going to leave the room. We sort of connected on the truth that my mom had been there when we were born, obviously, and we were going to be there with her when she died. So my brother and I made this commitment. We were both in the bed with her, she's in the middle. And we said, You know what? We're going to be here until the very end. We made a promise to each other that we would not fall asleep, and we did it for hours and hours and hours. But, you know, sleep kicked in and we dozed off to sleep. And my mom being who she was and decided, okay, my babies are sleeping, she did not like to be the center of attention ever, even though what she walked into the room, the whole room changed, but she never wanted to be spotlighted for anything. So she saw her baby sleeping. And we sort of say now that she exited stage left, she died and we woke up in the wee hours of the morning and she had already passed, which was beautiful in so many ways that we were literally with her. And if I'm honest and, you know, that was a trauma that I had to work for a year and even now, because that impacts my sleep, just sort of thinking about the fact that my mom died next to me. But I'm so happy for her that she was able to feel comforted that we were there, we were safe, and we were said she didn't have anything to worry about. She didn't. And there's a perspective to this that it is very beautiful to have, surrounded by the love of your children and the intention that you wanted to be with her. And you know that that moment I could also see because grief at the end, I could also see how that's there's trauma there and that impacts your your sleep, like you said. And I want to hear more about that. I also want to hear how professionally, having gone through the experience personally, how maybe that impacted your work as a professional and the advice you gave to other greeters. Oh, gosh. Okay. So after my mom died, I was already in private practice. And so I had been working on clients one on one and serving in a hospital setting as well hand in academia. So working with clients in different environments and I looking back, realized all the things that I had said that were absolutely idiotic, all the cliches, all the platitudes. I wasn't saying the stages in grief like I already knew then that that wasn't a thing, but I definitely wasn't fully present and aware of the depth of pain that people experienced. So after my mom died, of course, I took a little bit of time off to regroup it for working with clients. But when I returned, probably the most valuable thing that I gained in that my clients game was the fact that I was literally present. I was it in my head thinking, okay, I know the theory. Here's what we need to say. It wasn't methodical or prescriptive. It literally was 1,000% present. And it was really interesting as I would sit with clients and they would, after the session say, you know, Dr. Harris, when you said X, Y and Z, I felt and they were, you know, describing these positive experiences. I had never said those things. I had never said any of that stuff. But when you're present with someone and when you feel the warmth of someone's genuine presence, it's divine and you receive what you need, even if the person's not speaking. So that shifted my entire practice. And, you know, I was able to actually bring a lot more in. Michael Really, in the sense of bringing my emotional self to the space, which as a doctoral and master's level therapist, you're trained not to do that. You're outside in your professional hats on. You don't bring that in the room. But the truth is, we bring it into the room. And what my mom's death afforded me the chance to do was to bring my full self. And my clients have benefited from that from from that point forward. Thank you for that. I agree with that. I'll give the example when my when my brother passed the therapist that my parents went to go see. She said, I'm so sorry. I have no words. And she started crying. And you're technically not supposed to do that, quote unquote, you know, professionally. She apologized for it, but she just said, I'm so sorry. I just don't know what to say. Yeah, I she hugged my parents. And my parents remember that being the most powerful and meaningful and comforting moments in their grief, like the first milestone to feeling like this really is this bad. And, you know, there are no words. And sometimes all you have to do is bring in your humanity like there's no time, there's no education that can replace the fact that, like you said, this is really a divine experience. I'd like to see that grief collapses, the space between the divine and the human heart. And this ends. And I get for a second to just touch being able to touch that space, the in-between. And it sounds like that's the shift maybe that you were able to bring into the room with you. Yeah. Because of your experience. Yeah. I think as people and I experience that too from the therapies that I had at the time, I remember sitting with my mom's physician after the fact and just wanting to better understand about her diagnosis and just just hear from him as a touchpoint. And I remember he said something that at the time I didn't want to hear, which was, you know, Michael, your mom didn't survive. And there's going to be a tendency for you to maybe not continue her legacy or not bring her up, but it's important that you do. And at the time, I thought, well, who was he to sort of speak into this? Like, I felt like it was out of bounds. But I really appreciate the fact that he was honest and didn't sugarcoat, like your mom is not here. And he offered me a way to still remain tethered to her in love by talking about her, by sharing about her legacy, by continuing to do good works and to bring inspiration in the world, which is absolutely how she lived her life up until the very end. He sounded like a remarkable woman. I know she played many roles in your life as well, so losing her was like losing multiple aspects of multiple people in one person, it sounds like. And may you talk a little bit about that and then we can also talk about your father. Yeah, she so my mom, like I say, that she was so good that I didn't know I was single, but she was my boyfriend, friend and shopping partner, confidant, mom, all that combined beautiful thing at the same time. Looking back, she filled up so much and I'll be honest and transparent here that from a spiritual perspective, there wasn't a lot of space for God. And so one of the outgrowths of her death was that I grew spiritually in my own death and with an understanding of God and my relationship with her when she was alive She really was the person that if I had a problem, she was the first call. And again, not bad. But at the same time, her not being here really forced me to go deeper in my faith and that has really changed my life and helped me continue down this road. Yeah. Yeah. I know that your faith plays a really big role. And actually, I think it was yesterday you posted one of the scriptures that I absolutely love, which is Matthew 634. I know it. As for do not worry about tomorrow because tomorrow will worry about itself or have been on the. Tell us how your faith has influenced your work as well and your own grief process. There's no way on God's green earth that I would be sitting here with you if it were not for my relationship with God. I'm a Christian. And, you know, prior to my mom's death, professionally, I sort of separated that. I've definitely integrated that much more. And I'm fully transparent about my Christian faith and how that can play a role for people who want that. Of course, I work with all types of clients who don't believe in some voodoo, but I know that I wouldn't be here at all if it were not for God. Quick story. Probably about nine, ten months after my mom died, I had a chance to travel to Hawaii. And, you know, sometimes you have these moments as a person of faith where, you know, you're trained to believe certain things, but you have not had the personal touch point to say, okay, I know that to be true. And I went to Hawaii. I was in what I call my first rock bottom and was crying out to God like, look. If this is real. You know, I was in the sort of confused questioning space, even though I loved God. Like, if you're real, I need you to show up because I am devastated. I'm heartbroken. I feel lonely. My everything is gone, right? I don't have anything left. And when I tell you that not only were there literally no rainbows, which I know, you might say, well, why that's a thing which it is, but very specifically timed rainbows for me, interactions and conversations that happened that were so spot on in the form of like literally a stranger coming up and telling me exactly how I was feeling. It was like God held up a mirror to say, Look, I see you and here's this person there to let you know that you can touch that he's just a mouthpiece, but I'm real. And so things like that have absolutely anchored. And I have no doubt that, you know, this is real and it's important. So, yeah, faith has been a huge part of my journey and I'm grateful to be able to share about it. Thank you for allowing me to talk about that. Absolutely. I mean, grief has the power to shake up somebody's faith sometimes, you know, people going in a completely different direction and sometimes grow closer to their faith. So it sums up what I also love the synchronicity there. So I got Marvel, it's not the Rainbow, it's when it showed up, how it showed up, the point in the day when you were exactly thinking about this one thing. And yeah, and I do believe that when you ask, you will receive the answers. You do have to provide that space of quiet and calm to receive the message out of the litany who receive the answers. I want to I want to say something really quickly is around spirituality of faith. So as you mentioned, grief is completely dismantling. And when you experience that, it can call a call. A lot of questions in your mind about who you are, why you're here, your purpose in life. And I just want to encourage a listener who may be thinking, well, I didn't have the rainbows and I haven't been able to see. I want to honor that and just normalize that. Like, that's okay too, that you are upset and angry with God. Now there's a book that's out, I love this, what a play on words. But it's so profound. We can be angry with God or we can be angry with God. And there's a difference in. So if that's you, that's okay. Continue to ask the questions. Continue to to knock on those doors and just see what that may look like and know that it's available to you if you choose to embrace that part of your life. Thank you for that. We can be angry with God. I love that when we actually show you here I have this cross. What the best advice I ever got was from a girlfriend who said, Oh, honey, you just show yourself Grace every step of the way. This is hard, right? Grace became like a guiding force. And for those of you who cannot see, this is like, Oh, my God, I was writhing on it. Yeah. You're literally carrying Grace with you. I love that. Oh, quite literally. And I do find it that it shook my faith. It actually opened me up to being curious about other faiths and just to see what message other people are relying on to stand on their ground. And like you said, I do believe in walking with a belief in something greater than yourself and that there's something bigger that we don't maybe understand fully. But that part of this journey is learning to understand it. And it does, in my opinion, help with grief. It does help the process. It does help us move forward just a little bit lighter, sometimes a lot lighter. But yeah, it does helps. Someone told me early on that I think he said grief will crack you wide open to who you really are. Yeah. And at the moment, again, I didn't receive that at the time. I was like, I don't want to be cracked open already know who I am, but I can truly say that almost 12 years into this, it does. It cracks you open and it is brutal the cracking open. And there are discoveries yet to be made that can only happen when you are cracked open your vulnerabilities, your flaws, the resistances that you may have, and even opportunities to go deeper in your relationships. So before my mom died, I was very much on a career academic track. My entire identity was sort of, for lack of a better phrase, wrapped up in my successes and accolades and all of these things. Her death cracked me open to that reality, and it's shifted me in a beautiful direction to say, You know what? It's not about that. It's about planting seeds and helping people water their own seeds along the way so that there's a legacy in you are shifting things in a forward direction. It's not about me and it in the past it was about me. And so, yeah, grief does crack you open. It really does seem like your analogy about planting seeds, because I know you like gardening and that's part of. Yeah. What you like. Beautiful analogy. It does. It changes everything. It cracks those wide open. And what we do thereafter as part of the work that really, really helps. I like that. You also mentioned the stages of grief. And let's just briefly touch on that because it is important. It's it became viral before going viral was like you deserve grief. And yeah, whatever reason is still stuck. I guess it's because about one, people kind of can make some sense of it. But tell us why Dr. Elizabeth Kubler Ross's work is not prescriptive to grief after the loss of a loved one. Thank you for this great question. Dr. Elisabeth Kubler-Ross was a psychiatrist who was working with folks who were actively dying. And what she saw as she sat with patients over many, many years at time is that they started off their journey once they were diagnosed with a terminal illness, that they were in complete shock. I mean, let's let's face it. Yes, all of us, I think, would be rattled with a diagnosis. They sort of shifted from that into more of like, okay, if I can survive, I promise I'll do this. So the bargaining sort of came in, the anger about I cannot believe this is actually happening. Sort of red rose, followed by a sheer depression. And then finally into the space of what we think of as acceptance. And we have to sort of pay for her stages again that were intended for the person dying within the context of psychology and mental health. At the time, there were no real clear frameworks about what grief was. Grief really wasn't discussed. It was sort of anchored in other psychological diagnoses, and there really wasn't a clear sort of understanding about its manifestations. Once she sort of documented this, the community at large, it spread like wildfire and it was sort of like, okay, oh this is applicable to people who survive. They're going to be in denial. They're going to go through all these things. And then finally they're going to get to this place where they're accepting of it and then they're going to move on. Very linear progression. Mike We're going to start in the Valley and end up on this mountaintop. Well, any person whose grief for two days, 1/2, half a day knows that that is absolutely not true. So what I think the stages of grief offers are what I like to call potential emotional reactions in the face of loss. Their potential reactions. You may experience anger at the fact that someone you love died or an unmet expectation. You may start off in a place of acceptance, you know, I'll sort of circle back to my mom. I had had this dream in late November 2012. I think that it was God, you know, letting me know that this was going to happen in December. And the date that he put in my mind was the 7th of December. So I knew that my mom was going to die in December. I didn't know what the seven was. I thought maybe, maybe that'll be the day she dies. Or maybe it'll be something else. It turns out that was the last day that she spoke. And so I started off my journey. Not mad and not from a place of denial and anger and depression. I was like, okay, I was prepared for that. And I started off an acceptance. It took me years, like years later to realize how angry I was that this person who I adored was gone. And there was this gaping hole in my life there just emotional reactions, potential emotional reactions. And those aren't the only ones that people can experience as they grieve. Yeah, but we all support Dr. Elizabeth Kubler-Ross and the beautiful work that she's done to help really further the education and understanding about grief in general. This was in the 1960s, so she was a pioneer at the time. What has been a little bit skewed since then is that a lot of people use it as a almost like a prescription, like, oh, this is what you need to do to get over your grief and I'll talk to you when you get to the other side. And that causes a lot of harm to grieve. GRIEVOUS It does in especially and I would say early grief talk through the difference between early grief or mourning and the life experience grief. So what makes this grief really tricky and distinct from mourning is that grief is an internal response to loss. So as I sit with clients, we'll talk a lot about the fact that grief is invisible. And what makes that so challenging is that from the outside looking in, other people care. They don't necessarily know on face value that you are grieving. Mourning, on the contrary, is the outward expression of that grief. Right? So sometimes what we're experiencing internally, the grief and the morning align, right? We feel sad, we feel dejected, we feel rejected. And on the outside we're manifesting that. I would say just in my own clinical experience, that typically does not happen as often as we might think. So you may be interacting with people who are smiling on the outside and dying on the inside emotionally. And so it's super important, especially for clinicians and even supporters, is to not just focus on what you can see and to ask those harder questions about what the person's internal experience is. Because if you don't, you may not be supporting in the ways that the person needs. And then it's also important for the grieving person to be okay. And I know this is hard, but to be okay with helping sort of be in on Earth, what's happening on the inside, in letting people know on the outside so that they can get the support that they need. Thank you for that. One big shock to a lot of graeber's, especially Graeber. First time Graeber's. We don't know what we're experiencing. So when this especially if it was a sudden thing like in my case, I had no idea I felt feelings that I didn't even know existed. It's almost like if somebody told you about a whole color spectrum of not visible to the naked eye, but suddenly you're able to see it. It's terrifying. It's very disorienting. It's very isolating. You don't have words at the time, and it's very scary and it's a very scary thought. But this is why I believe it's so important to educate, to be grief informed, to help people. Because what I realize, I don't know if this is good or bad, but sometimes I see life through the lens of grief or not. Sometimes I see life through the lens of grief now. And people, whenever I see road rage or somebody being very upset in public or somebody anything along the line instead of judging them, I'm like, I wonder what's going on? Grieving, you know, like I wonder if something if they're going through something very painful because Lord knows when we're going through that is I know that I had my little outburst. Then if somebody judged me based on Mad Right without asking me what's wrong, they would have not known that my brother just died. And I'm very confused and scared. Yeah. So I think I love this boy. Yeah, I love this point in that we've got to shift the language and I can't take credit for this. The language for what's wrong with a person to what's happening in and around the birth center. Because a lot of times, as you mentioned, like, you have these external manifestations of rage or anger, irritability, but really what's going on is that you're suffering and you're in extreme pain. And so, again, I think that grief can open us up to compassion because now we're not looking at the person who may be having a postal moment as a bad person or thinking something's wrong with him. We're asking the harder question, which is what's going on, what's going on in their world? You know, what's contributed to the behavior. I want to go back to a question you asked about acute grief. I am very sensitive about describing this inside won't give timeframes in the research literature. With grief and loss, you will see time frames and also acute meaning. What is happening with that person shortly after, individuals have experienced a loss. And in the literature that's deemed at a particular time frame, which I won't speak of, because I don't want to perpetuate the idea that, okay, this is the short term thing and in the long run you're going to be feeling this way, which sometimes can be communicated. But I do think that it's important to realize in that acute phase, whatever that is for you, right? There's going to be a lot of internal turmoil, a lot of discombobulation, physically, emotionally, spiritually, financially, relationally, lots of different things happening all at the same time, which is why it is so important to seek community as soon as you possibly can to help you feel anchored and grounded while you're sort of standing on sinking, saying, I do know what those timelines are. And I remember reading them and I said, Who wrote this like they clearly have not before? Yeah, though. And then I've spoken to other griever in grief groups. We all feel like that is completely unrelatable to the actual experience of what we're going through. Also the sense of community so, so, so important. And can you please speak to what it means to be grief and form the way? Is the importance of that in therapy and in groups like what is the power of that? Why is that important? How do you find somebody who grief informed? How do you identify a provider, let's say? Mm hmm. Grief informed simply means that the individual, whether a clinician or supporter of a grieving heart, has sufficient tools to understand what grief is. We would be. Well, maybe the audience wouldn't be shocked at how uninformed we are. We are sort of trying to retrofit a mental health model in a biomedical framework. Right. Which is you stub your knee, you get the medication or that ointment, it's fine. You have the scar and then you never see it again. Well, that doesn't work in mental health and grief. And so grief informed means having that education. It also means implementing practices with support from other people who are grief informed to provide psychological safety for those who are grieving. Okay. So it's not just knowing about it, it's practicing it and having mentors and other supporters to help you sort of maintain the communication down the line. And it's super important to get that. So how would you know that a clinician is grief informed? I would say that personally, and I'm a licensed psychologist. I get calls all the time from people who are grieving, and I love that. They call me and say, Tell me what makes you an expert in grief and loss? That's the question that I would challenge someone to ask a provider. If you're seeking support, don't just go on the fact that someone is a mental health professional. And this is why I can I can speak this because I used to work in academia across the academic curriculum for master's level and doctoral level psychologist grief and loss training. Is this much unless a person takes an elective course, then because of their own personal interest, it's not embedded in the standard curriculum. And that's very frustrating. And when that's why when I was in academia, I made it a point to sort of embed courses, however they were elective. So you need to be asking, you know, what makes you qualified? Do you have a certification as a certified advanced degree of counseling specialist? Have you taken specific courses? What is your clinical experience working with those who are grieving? And I might even ask, what are your thoughts about what grief and loss is? And listen really carefully if the person is talking about the stages of grief, run, run. They're not the one. They're not the one for you. Because what they will do, sort of back to your point, Nina, is inadvertently set you up with an expectation that if you do not chart your course in a linear way and get to acceptance, something's wrong with you. And you don't need that because you're already dealing with enough. So definitely ask the questions. As a matter of fact, Nina, I will after the podcast and send you five questions. Maybe I'll do a little. You know what? I might do a little freebie on this. I like the five questions you should ask a clinician to inquire about them being whether or not they're grief informed. So I will give thanks to look at the show notes will include those in the show notes. That would be amazing. Yeah, so, so important. And I think a lot of people, you know, when you're grieving, you're exhausted and you don't know the questions to ask for who's the right fit. And so sometimes you just pick up the phone and call the first person, get in there only to realize there may be a mental health professional, but the grief is not their specialty. And you really need someone who understands from a specialty perspective. I want to highlight that so much because the more I learn about grief, the more I realize not everybody's cut from the same cloth. Yeah. If you hear about the five stages, please run. If the way that they deal with it is through medication, be very careful with that because it's not a pathology. You're not afraid, you're not depressed necessarily. There's the nuance to it, right? That's right. And I actually want to speak to that part because I think where people get a bit frightened, I'll give you the example when when I was grieving, I said, oh, I'll give myself around six weeks. I should be more than enough to deal with this pain. Right? It's come around and it's a joke, like I'm feeling worse than ever. And I got very hurt. I said, Oh, no, something's wrong with me now. I have to do something. I'm broken, right? Right. And I started doing research. And you find this very conflicting information, and this is where my explorations began. But the concern for somebody who's grieving and more often than not, the people from the outside looking in are the three work life is. Where is the line in the sand between this is okay and this is not okay, whatever that means, right? So when it's so nuanced and it's so thin and it's so tricky sometimes, where would you draw the line in the sand between something that's okay versus something that needs a little bit more support? Yeah. The thing that pops in my mind is this idea of functional impairment. And so each one of us gets up every day. You know, we brush our teeth, wash her face, take a shower, put on clothes, were able to engage the world through work and go into the grocery store, you know, picking up our clothes at the cleaners and so forth. And when you are when you are grieving, there's an energy loss. Right? So just imagine that hair being sucked out of a balloon. It takes a lot of the energy to even get up out of bed and put your feet on the floor. Right. And that's okay. That's okay. I think the thing that you have to sort of evaluate and this is for the grieving person themselves, is evaluate how functionally impaired you are and how long. So if I'm working with someone and, you know, they've just experienced a significant loss, the fact that they got in the car and drove to my office is a miracle. And I hope we celebrate that. However, if the person is sort of continuing to experience significant functional impairment in whatever ways that are important for them, then I may start asking some questions. And I mean sort of blanketed functional impairment, like not where, you know, you have spikes, which we all do. Yesterday, if I was completely honest, I was extremely down. Right. And that's okay. Doesn't mean that you're not going to sort of eather flow. But if it's a straight downward experience and you are functionally impaired across the board for an extended period of time, that's when I think you've got to have some different conversations. And I also want to challenge the people who are supporting drivers to anticipate down this and anticipate ebbs and flows. Right. It's okay that you saw the person at a birthday party on Saturday and Wednesday. They didn't answer their phone. We anticipate that that's not a sign necessarily that a person sinking into a depression. At the same time, if that is a lingering sort of flatline experience coupled with some other significant clue suicidal ideation, complete rejection of social support over a long period of time. Then again, we may want to start having some different conversations, but it is very tricky, Nina. Absolutely. Thank you for that. And generally speaking. Grief can be very isolating as a griever. It does take a lot of effort to put yourself out there and we have to do our part as well. It's not going to be 100% of the time. There are days when the best we could do is literally just lay in bed and sit with whatever it is that's happening. That's all good. But also learn where we might be trying to exclude ourselves more often than not, and maybe, maybe pay a lot more attention to that really quickly. A little practical tool that you can use in the morning and you can literally write this on your mirror because then when you grieve, sometimes it's hard to conjure up thoughts. So to avoid that, you know, a sticky note or get a Sharpie or not a Sharpie because that's permanent dry erase or don't do a Sharpie on your mirror. Three questions. Where are my thoughts taking me? Number one, do what is my body telling me in three. What do I need in this moment? Running in this moment is over time. Now you're noticing my thoughts are taking me towards negativity, death, suicide ride, dark thoughts. My body is telling me that I am exhausted, fatigued, no energy, you know, just plummeting. And I don't need anything. Start paying attention to these clues right over time that that may mean that you actually do need some additional support beyond what you may be thinking. That's very powerful, very to the point. And we can gauge those questions over time to see how I mean, if so, that's that's very powerful. Oh, yes. And then the show notes. So thank you. I do want to talk about Bloom. Well, and some projects that you have. I want to tell readers about your book and to programs that you have coming up. I believe it's now in the spring, cortisol, coping and conversation and the other one's reimagining life after lost community. So tell me. Yeah, these wonderful offering that you have, if you've listened so far, you know that Dr. Harris is a wealth of knowledge and and a wonderful educator, more than well equipped through her profession and personal experience, to speak on grief, very informed. So tell us about these offerings where you can find information and what they're all about. All right. So I'll start with Bloom. Well, so last year, my dear friend and business partner Janet William Wright and I partner together to create Bloom Well, Partners LLC. And our entire mission is to train leaders and managers and organizations to provide grief informed support to their employees. So this is workplace culture and workplace wellness and the union. Visit our website on Grow with Bloom. Welcome to learn all about it our training sequence and to refer. If you are working in an organization or think that you know an organization that could benefit from that resource, the other two are super. They're all near and dear to my heart. The Reimagining Life After Loss Community is a eight week offering and a gathering of people to go through, really sort of a simulated experience of grief It's helping to sort of reframe what grief can be as we quite literally reimagine our lives. Nobody wakes up thinking, I'm going to be a griever today and nobody wants that. However, we re sort of thrust us into this space where we have to start reimagining. And so the course is designed to sort of give you some tools to actually do that in practice so that you can approach your life that is new to you in ways that are soothing, comforting, welcomed and necessary for you to carry out this journey. And then, last cortisol coping in conversation. This is my most recent gathering. It's a four week course, and this is designed for the person who sort of understands what grief is. Their main concern is that they're wondering what the heck is going on with my body. So cortisol is a hormone that will thrust us into inflammation. And in the course, I share a lot about my own personal journey with physical health challenges over the past 12 years, all rooted in inflammation and how we can actually access tools to help our bodies to well, as we grieve. So those are wow. Me. Yeah, it's really powerful that those are all tackling different aspects of grief. Returning to work after a major loss is probably one of the most difficult, you know, culturally traumatizing experiences anybody can ever experience. Yes. So, yeah, you and your business partner for this amazing work, it's let me repeat it. It's bloom. Well, and if you're a manager at a company and this is something that you're looking to explore, they have created a very powerful platform with modules that you can teach your teams, and it's very guided. So you could deal with a very complex and nuanced topic in a very palatable way. Yeah, I absolutely love that. Reimagining Life After Loss Community. That's the one where you try to put the person in the mindframe of loss and understanding what it is. Part of grief is not understanding exactly what it is. It is like demystifying it. So you're tackling that aspect as well. And then the physical aspect, its mind, body, spirit, it relies on the fact mind, body spirit. So I love that you're offering. Yeah. Different resources for all of these areas. And actually, please tell us about the mind, body, spirit, connection with grief before we we close out. Yeah, I mean, you nailed it. I think that we tend to think about grief as an emotional response because we envision people crying and people cry. That's fine. However, we know and this is nothing new, that as we are emotionally impacted, there are consequences in our body a.k.a for a lot of people inflammation. And if you look at the rates of heart disease and how. Ah sorts of gut related issues. Some of that is anchored in emotion, not all, but some of that is sort of overlapping with that. And then the spiritual, the spiritual mind, body and spirit are one. And so as someone dies, we can start to lose ourselves emotionally, physically deteriorate and experience spiritual disconnection. So it's super important that we address all three of those domains for their one thing. I mean, we don't have to compartmentalize. One thing I'll think really quickly, if you're grieving and you're like, I need to pray, I need to rest, I need to spend time with friends, remember? And then sort of have all these checklist of things you can do. Remember, mind, body and spirit are one. If you go for a walk that's helping your body, it's helping your spirit and it's helping your emotion. If you pray, that's helping your spirit. It's helping your body and it's helping your emotions. If you cry, you're doing all of those things. So go easy on yourself. Focus on one thing at a time and they're all going to affect the whole person that you are. Gosh, that's so powerful. I want to leave it right there, but I also want to let people know where they can find you and follow your work. Yeah. Best way to follow me is on Instagram. My handle is at Dr. Michael d r m e l. I'm also on Facebook, but I love Instagram, so you'll see me doing crazy reels, inspirational content, educational information. Bloom Wells also asked Bloom Well, partners, if you'd like to follow our company. And I also have a website. Michael here is HD dot.com, so I highly encourage you to follow her. She has so many goodies, information, if you just want to start your journey and start getting familiarized with all of these topics. What I love is that you take something so nuanced and complex and really make it bite sized for for a broad audience. And I feel like that's important because that's how we start understanding this world and that's how we start making this something that we can bear and withstand and maybe even thrive through. What wisdom would you offer to somebody in navigating grief who perhaps cannot see hope, who right now is maybe in the very murky part of it and doesn't feel like they will ever feel hopeful? Whoo! That's good. I've been there. One of the things in this is in that I'll start with sort of a broad cliché and probably get the tomatoes thrown at the screen and then I'll share something more specific is to really embrace the fact that so much self-compassion in Greece is needed. If you feel hopeless. As strange as it may sound, it's okay that you acknowledge that. Give yourself grace. Experiencing a significant loss can be one of the most sinking and hopeless feelings in life. And it's okay that you feel that. Okay. Secondly, I want to challenge you to focus on what you can actually touch. Right. Hope is sort of out there in woo woo. It is very visible and sometimes it's hard to concretize what that is. However, as you make contact in the morning with the water from your shower, that's a touch buoy and a reminder that there are things out there that can bless you as you touch clothes. Right. And are able to experience the warmth of the clothing on your skin. That's a touch point that there are things designed to keep you held and safe and warm. That is hope in tangible form. And I encourage you to find those touchpoints as often as you can throughout the day. Perfect. Dr. Harris, it has been an honor. Thank you for your time. Thank you to all that you do. Thank you for being here. Thank you. So blessed. Thank you. Thank you. Thank you. God bless everybody. That's it for today's episode. Be sure to subscribe to the Grief and Light podcast and also love to connect with you and hear your thoughts and your stories. Feel free to share them with me at my Instagram page at Grief and Light. Or you can also visit Grief and Light dot com for more information and updates. Thank you so much for being here, for being you. And always remember, you are not alone.