Lists to Help You Through Any Loss

The What's Your Grief Podcast: grief support for those who like to listen.

In this grief podcast, Eleanor Haley, MS and Litsa Williams, MA, LCSW-C, the mental health professionals behind the website and book 'What's Your Grief', leave no stone unturned in demystifying the complicated and messy world of living life after loss. One digestible topic at a time, Haley and Williams distill topics ranging from grief theory to coping. Grief is sad and confusing, but your grief support doesn't have to be. You can listen here by using the player above or listen and subscribe wherever you get your podcasts.

Below we have provided a transcript of the episode.

Episode Transcript

Welcome everyone to another episode of What's Your Grief Community Podcast. I'm Eleanor.

I'm Litsa.

And how's it going? How's your week been Litsa?

I think it's been the same as the pattern of the last few weeks. It's been really busy. And I've had one of those stretches where it like feels like the universe is conspiring against me. As you know, my car broke down yesterday, during rush hour. And I was that person like blocking traffic. My exhaust fell off my car. And, yeah. So it's been that kind of week, I guess. And so it goes.

Yeah. Those things are always just like Really? Like, Really? Is this happening to me right now? It always seems to happen at the worst possible time. Like, when you're running late, or you have to be somewhere really important, or it's already been a really crappy day or week or month or whatever. It always, it's like Murphy's Law. Something like that has to happen to just make things worse.

It's true. That is exactly what it was. And I said (I said) this on social media too. But I was, I had that feeling where I was like Oh, you know, I, this is like the least feminist thing that I could ever say, but it is very real that like When I was a teenager and I had car stuff, my dad would help me with my car. And then, when I was married, my partner would help me with my car. And so, it is like this, on top of the fact that it is a frustrating thing to have happen, then there's also just this sort of like griefy component to it, where you're just like...

Yeah.

I can't. Oh, the people who used to be there for me in this moment are just like not...

Yeah.

...here for me right now. So, in addition to, right, being under my car on the side of the road during rush hour trying to see if I can deal with my exhaust, I'm also, like, thinking about the absence of people.

No, I totally hear that. And I don't (I don't) think it's (it's) not feminist, because it's just the reality that it's not in your skill set, right. You can do plenty of things. So, yeah. Run the spectrum, but with this particular thing, it's just not in your skill set, and in the past you had certain people who would be of help and they're not here. And that's a very realistic grief thing, right.

Yeah.

I think everybody can relate to that. Like, Oh!

Yes.

If only this person we're here right now, they would tell me what to do. Or they would make me feel better, they would have the answer, they would come rescue me. And it can be kind of a sad and lonely experience to then realize. Like, Shoot I gotta figure this out on my (on my) own.

Oh yeah. And it definitely just this like happens to be a gendered example, right. Why it feels like the wrong thing to say. But of course it's, you know, I can remember so well after my dad died, my mom, the first Easter without him, my family is Greek and has roast lamb for Easter, and my mom completely ruined the lamb. I think I've written about this on with your grief, and had like a complete meltdown. But it's because my dad actually was the one who used to do all the cooking. And he was the one, it was you know, who obviously wasn't there. And my mom attempted to recreate the exact elaborate roast lamb that he would have made and it went so incredibly poorly. So, you know, he was (he was) both cooking and helping with cars. It wasn't always gendered.

Yes. Well this isn't even what we were planning on talking about today, but it's a good griefy segue, right?

Yeah. Absolutely.

So actually, today, what we were going to talk about has to do with something that last night, I got home, after doing all the (all the) stuff I had to do and found on my doorstep two gigantic boxes that I was not expecting, filled with our book! So surprise. We got 50 copies of our book, you know. We had already gotten a copy, but it just, it feels really real. And so, it's really nice to be able to hold it, and open it, and read it, and you know. Sometimes I'm afraid to do that because then I'm gonna like want to edit things and change things because that's just how I always go back to things that I've created or done. But still. So we wanted to talk a little bit about, just a very little bit about the book. But more so just about our experience writing the book. We, I think, we've said this before, we're not like the most comfortable when it comes to talking about our work and self-promotion. Some people who do it with such grace, and I just feel like that's not us. We always have to call ourselves out for doing it because I just feel like it feels, it's just not something we're terribly comfortable with. But, the fact of the matter is, we've been writing for almost 10 years on What's Your Grief now. And we have written so much there. And it's nice to finally have something in print, that is kind of in a way, brings every, not everything but brings a lot of what we talk about on What's Your Grief and in all our other work together. And so, we put a lot of effort, and we put a lot of work in, and we do believe that, hopefully, it can be helpful to some people. So, we did want to take just a little bit of time to talk about it because we have a lot of hopes for it. And so, we (we) don't want to, we don't want to put it in the closet and forget about it just because of our own inspidities, I guess. So, yeah. We wanted to have a combo.

Yeah. And I think, just it, you know, it was a really interesting experience, shifting from writing online, you know. We've written online for so long and I think shifting to writing a book, for me, it did feel, like, a really, it was a learning experience. It was an interesting experience, the process of it felt different for me in a lot of ways than what we have done. And I don't, if that's one of those topics where I have no idea if other people will find that interesting or not. But I've realized that we haven't really talked very much about it. Like, I don't think we've (we've, we've) talked about it some, but I don't think, some of the questions I have or some of the reflections that I've had for myself in the process of writing the book, I realized, like, Oh I haven't asked Eleanor that or if, like, she experienced that, or she thought that around certain things around the process. So, I don't know, I felt like that could be (that could be) an interesting part of the conversation today too.

Yes. So to start, the book is called What's Your Grief: List to Help You Through Any Loss, and it's available for pre-order. It comes out September 27th. You can pre-order it. I can't say that it's necessarily at your local bookstore, I hope it is. But you can pre-order it through the big (the big) places, right. Barnes and Noble, Amazon, bookshop.org is a good place. So, there are a lot of different places and you can find that information on our website, and we'll link to it. But the one thing I wanted to start kind of talking about is the fact that we did write this book in (in) lists. And that was an interesting decision, I think, for us because brevity is not a strong suit. So making things kind of succinct and cutting things down can be really difficult, and I think List kind of implies that. But I wanted to ask you Litsa, like, what do you think about our decision to make lists, like, was it hard for you? Do you have any, like, reasoning behind why you really wanted to do Lists?

So, I, you know, I think that one of the reasons that we (that we) talked about is that, as much as maybe I don't want to admit it, or like to admit it, the the reality is, on the website, some of our most popular posts are our list posts. And I (I) really believe that part of, well I mean, part of that is like, let's be honest, the internet loves a good list like BuzzFeed has made their entire market out of a good list. But I think that in grief, like, when grief feels so overwhelming, when there's just, like, so much that feels so chaotic in so many different directions, there's something about even just the idea of a list that I think feels manageable and comforting, and, like, Okay, this has been distilled down into the bullet points, like that, the things that are going to be useful. And of course, like, as you can imagine, the lists that are in this book are more complex than like a simple bullet pointed list. But I, I do think that for people, when you're grieving, and when reading, for some people can feel really overwhelming, I (I) did feel good about the format of us going with this. I think, probably the thing that I feel the worst about with it is that (I worry) I worry that it makes it sound pithy, or like a little bit like you read it and you're like Oh, can you really seriously learn something about grief in a list? But I, when you put that aside, if you open it up and actually look at the content, I think, you'll quickly find that Yes. You can learn a lot about grief and coping from lists. Yeah. What did you (what did you) think?

I (I) think I have the same fears that you do that people will think it's just like a list of (of), you know, one sentence or sentence fragments essentially, which it definitely definitely is not. And I also would never want anybody to think that these lists are like a list of things that have to be true for you or that you have to do. It's more just us organizing the information in a way that is accessible and manageable because grief is such a big experience. One of the things that we wrote in the book about this is, the truth is, it makes the most sense to approach something as nuanced as grief one step at a time. Whether that step is understanding a new concept, reflecting on an aspect of your loss, or learning about a new coping tool. And so that was kind of my hope for it is to really be able to let people actually make the information a little more accessible to pick and choose. What makes sense for them and what step they want to take. I think in our world of grief support and grief theory, the thing we often bump up against is the myth that grief has like a set of stages or timelines which feels very much listy in a way. So I think, that's one of my worst fears is that people will be like Oh, it's just another one of those things telling me like the pattern of my grief, and that is not at all what it is.

Yeah. And you mentioned something that I think is another benefit of us using this format which is, you indirectly mentioned it, but you know, it's the idea that you can kind of pick and choose. I mean one of the things I love about the website is that, you know, you can go onto the website and you can use the search bar and you can search for the word anger if what you're dealing with today is anger and (and) see what articles come up about anger and go there. And you don't have to have read anything else before or after. And I think, again in grief, sometimes you're just looking for something that is digestible. And you don't, you know, there's so many wonderful grief books out there that are premised around the idea that you're going to read them from start to finish. I really like that what we've done here captures that same thing about the website that is unique which is that you can pull out the stuff that works for you. I, we would love you to read it from cover to cover. We think it's probably, I (I) would say it's probably the the best read that way. But that, I do really like that we chose a format that allows for that bouncing around. As someone with ADHD, that is how my brain often works in general. But in grief especially, I feel like sometimes you just, in a particular moment, you know, you just might not have the bandwidth for a lot. So, to be able to open something up, go through a little bit and hopefully get a lot from it, I think is useful.

Yeah. I agree. And the way we structured it too, with the list, is that at the end of every list we say If this is a topic of interest you, to you, here are three other lists or sections to go to (to) read more about it. So we do try and help people jump around. And it's in a similar way that you would on a website when something is linked from an article. So we tried, we tried, you know. We recognize, that's the tough thing about writing a grief book. And when we get questions about like what grief book do you recommend? We've been around a long time and are aware, and have read a lot of books, and I'm always like Because everybody's experience is so different, and all the books are so different, and so it just reflects the fact that it is so hard to write any one-size-fits all book in any way. So, knowing we could never do that, I think, we, what we wanted to do was cover all the stuff that we think is really important and then allow people to really explore the book in a way that helps them to, like, customize and navigate through whatever they're going through at that (at that) time. So that's the hope, we'll see how it actually works when it's out there in the world.

Yeah. I'm (I'm, I'm) interested to hear what other people's feedback about it is.

Right.

Yeah. I'm curious, for you going through and writing the book, like, what's the hardest part of the process was of just writing the book?

Well, I mean, you could talk just like logistically, right. It's a lot harder than I ever would have thought. Like, part of the reason I (I) went through my master's program, but not the extra year to get the PHD, is because I didn't want to write something really long. I only wanted to write something half long. I (I), my, I just think I, my brain is better for essays, like we write on the website. So I did feel like it was really a big task organizationally. And at the same time, we were just coming out of COVID, I have, I think I say this on the podcast every time because it is like a major part of my life, but I have, I had a baby at home at the time, she's now a toddler. So just logistically, it was (it was) pretty tough to to do. But I think, beyond the logistics of it, I think, just knowing what to (what to) include, what's going to be helpful to people, something we've gotten good at, but still, can be a struggle is knowing like what's my experience and what's actually helpful to other people. And in (in) many ways, you know, you read memoirs, you read people's essays, and so their experience is helpful to you. But sometimes it's like I don't (I don't) relate to that, so I think, just picking and choosing what to include was really difficult. And we write a lot on the website from a very personal perspective. I, in particular write a lot of overly emotional essays about my mom. And I will not apologize or stop doing it. But that wasn't the voice that we wrote this book in. So it was a bit of a shift, I think, in terms of, like, tone, and being able to include, you know, just everything, we would include. I think, the other thing that's hard for me now that it's (it's) concrete and done is not being able to change it. Like I said at the beginning, every time I, like, go back and reread an article, for whatever reason, I see something I want to change. And so, it's really, there's something really hard for me about having it be permanent. And it's not always, like, a fact that was wrong, it usually isn't, it's just like how something was worded, or a better metaphor, or something like that. So it is hard to have something so concretely done, and finished, and unchangeable. I don't know if that is something you struggle with but it's definitely something I struggle with.

Oh yeah. I think it is. And it's interesting, I think (I, I think) I struggle with it less in terms of going back and rereading it and thinking like Oh I want to tweak this or change that, like, small thing. I think for me, it's in a little bit of a, when I pull back and think of it in a broader way, I know that ideas change, and evolve, and shift, and like you said, it's not necessarily about a factual change of something but just, I think the way we conceptualize things, the way we've talked about things over the, you know, 10 years with What's Your Grief, and then even before that, in working in grief in general and grieving ourselves, things have evolved in the way I think about things and the way I talk about things. So, I think one of the things that's hard for me is I know that this book reflects a moment in time, right. It reflects the (the) place we were right now when thinking about, and writing about grief. And I know that in 10 years from now, just like when I look back at the writing from 10 years ago on What's Your Grief and see how things have changed, I know that things will have changed. And like you said it's like, it's a fixed permanent thing. I guess that's why it's nice that textbooks get editions where they get, like, the second edition and the third edition, they get to go back and change stuff. And so I think, it is a little bit hard for me to theoretically know that Yeah. Like in 10 years from now, I'll probably look at stuff and be like Oh, that is not how I would explain that now, or there's something that now feels a lot more relevant that we left on the cutting room floor or something that I wish we had include. And I (I) don't like that idea.

Yeah. I agree. And you know one of the major choices that we made for the book is 100% a reflection of where we were at the time and that we specifically wrote the book to apply to all losses. So it's not just for people who've experienced the death of a loved one, but we really wanted it to be a book that could be utilized by somebody experienced, experiencing any type of non-death loss as well. And we, like I said at the time, we're just coming out of the COVID quarantine time period, I think we were maybe even still in it in many ways. And so for us at the time, and this is something I think will stay on the test of time for me. We just knew how important it was to be able to address all losses. We really wanted someone to be able to come to it whether or not they were experiencing, maybe the loss of a job, or the maybe a divorce, or some other type of non-death loss, and still find it useful and helpful for them.

Yeah. And I, that is one, it's interesting when I think about that decision. One of the things that makes me hopeful that that decision is not one that we'll look back on and regret is that, I think, from the beginning of What's Your Grief, we've always talked about non-death loss. And we've always talked about how significant that is, and what does it mean to, you know, grieve someone who is still alive when they have Alzheimer's or dementia or an addiction or, you know. We've talked about when you have a physical illness or a disability and your identity changes, you know, those things have always been there. I think that before COVID, I had more of a fear that other people wouldn't be able to recognize and acknowledge the significance of those losses. And I think, this amazing thing happened with COVID where suddenly the world, like, woke up to the reality that grief is more than just death related losses. It is all sorts of losses. And yes often death related losses are the ones that kind of have that (that) devastating and earth-shattering impact, but other losses are still incredibly significant as well. And so I think, it felt exciting to be at a moment of thinking Wow, I think we could actually write a book about this that where people wouldn't look at us like we had two heads when we suggested that. I (I) do wonder Will our cultural memory of that still be around in 10 years, you know? Well, people still remember that, I (I) hope so. Because I think, it's such a valuable and important social and cultural touch point to understand loss and grief in that way. But only time will tell.

Yeah. Is there anything else that you found particularly hard about writing the book that we haven't already talked about?

No. I (I) think that we covered it. I think that narrowing down, I think was just also tough. Like, there were (there were) a few things that, I think, we had to leave out. That were where it was hard to make some of those decisions. But I, where I also found, like, that was valuable, like, I did find that valuable. I think probably the other thing that was hard was not being able, I mean, the nature of writing something when you're (you're) writing an article, you do have this very clear on the website. I mean very clear, sort of Okay here's where I'm going with this, and where the book, you know, we had that art as well but it takes you so much longer to write a book, right. Like, so as you're going, you're like Is this going to come together the way I'm imagining? Like, Oh, I'm not gonna know for months whether it's, right, going to do that versus I'm gonna get to the end of this article, and I'm gonna be able to re-read it and make sure that it's all kind of coming together. And I think, that feeling for me, as we were going, was really hard. Was, it was hard to go, does, is this small piece gonna fit intothe big puzzle the way that I think it is? It made me a little bit nervous as we went. But luckily by the end, I (I) feel good that it did.

I think so. I think it has an arc. As much of an arc.

As much of an arc, right, we're going to have, it's like grief. It's like, there's no magic arc to it, and that was probably one of the things that was tough too. And you know, it's interesting, at the very beginning the publisher sort of suggested like, Why don't you write the book, it...

Yeah.

...the stages of grief. And we were like, Okay. Well let's back up first. Because the stages of grief, that's not, no, that's, like, not a thing. And I know it's tempting to think that we're gonna be able to fit this book into a nice neat tidy little package, but that's not how grief works. And so I think, it was pulling back and getting comfortable with the idea that brief's not a tidy package and (and) the book wasn't gonna magically fit into some perfect arc

Right. Because grief is really a circle in many ways. And I think that's what makes, have, like, we were expressing, it's hard to have anything concretely finished because when we look back on it, it will look different. And I think that's just the reality of grief, is that you're constantly revisiting your experience of it and your loved one, and your life before and after, and who you are in your life after, and who you were back then in your memory. And I think that's what's diff, that's what's difficult is, is you're constantly rewriting the story of grief. It's never, it's a story that has no end really. It's, I, there's this lullaby, this is so such a tangent but I sing this song to my kids before bed and it's blah blah lyric lyric, and it's the story of I love you it has no end. And the story of grief has no end because grief is, in many ways, an attachment. And especially if you're grieving someone who died, an expression of love. So.

Yeah. Yeah I think that's so, that's so so true. Oh, and I think that it's part of the reason that, you know, each new moment in life, it just brings up connections to our loss all over again. And each new loss brings up old loss and it is, you're right, is that that constant circle that we go through.

Yeah. Deep thoughts. Deep thoughts. So we might have already touched on it, but I'm wondering, like, is there any topic, or subject, or anything that was especially important for you to have included? Or if not, were there any, like, big influences that you wanted to bring into this book? Maybe other books that you've read in your work, anything like that?

Yeah, that's a good question. I think, you know for me, it's really funny because my answer to the first question is something that I actually think we've (we've) not written about directly on What's Your Grief on the website. And so, it's interesting that at the end of it all, this became important to me, for the book. But we did end up doing a list that I didn't think of until the very end, it was sort of a pretty last minute addition that we added, that was around having thoughts of suicide. And I think something that has become more and more important to me for (for) various reasons is just being able to normalize the huge range of thoughts of suicide that exist for people, from really extreme and risky and (and) tangible direct thoughts of suicide to just sort of that passive like Wow, sometimes I just wish I wouldn't wake up tomorrow morning. And I think, sometimes, as mental health professionals, there we have created a space that makes it harder for people to acknowledge their thoughts of suicide, because there's some fear that they're going to be like institutionalized or someone's gonna send the police to their house. And in grief, I think it is so common for people in early grief to sometimes have those passive thoughts of suicide. And those like Gosh, I just don't feel like I have a reason to get up out of bed anymore, in the morning anymore. And (that) that's not a far leap to I just don't know that I have a reason to be here anymore. And so, I just, you know, for me, I thought that was something that I wanted us to acknowledge in the book. And yeah, it was kind of a last minute edition that felt important to me.

Just (just) in case our listeners are wondering, can you clarify what passive means in this context?

Sure. Sure. So I think when we talk about this with thoughts of suicide there is that thought of I am wanting to or actively considering ending my own life and kind of thinking about what that would (would) mean versus I'm sort of passively not, I don't have an active plan or thought that I would do something to myself or that I would harm myself in some way but I find some sort of appeal or relief in the idea of not being alive anymore. And so, you know, it's that (that, that) nuance difference. And I think it's important to talk about all of it if you are somebody who is in that place of I have had that active thought, or I'm having that active thought of harming myself or of taking my own life, like that is not anything to mess around with and it is something to absolutely reach out for support, you know. If you have a therapist or, call them. To call now, you can call 988 to reach a crisis response team in your area and get connected with resources. But then, also, to (to) know and be able to articulate if you're somebody who has been having some of those passive thoughts, to be able to say like we can talk about this and it can be scary to say it out loud, but it's important to acknowledge those thoughts too and to be able to create time and space...

Yeah

...for them especially to make sure that they don't then turn into some of those more active or, you know, or risky thoughts that could come if it continues.

Yeah. It seems disingenuous to say we want to discuss and acknowledge the range of experiences people go through after a loss, but have one subject that's that we don't discuss, you know. And which (which) only perpetuates more of a problem. And it adds to the stigma.

Definitely.

How about you? Was there, were there things that you felt like, you know, something that you felt like was really important that you wanted to make sure definitely we included, you know. Or any of those influences?

Yeah. I think for me it's more related a little bit to the influences. We (we) pull in so much stuff from outside of the world of grief and bereavement in our work at What's Your Grief from different areas. And I think that we just, over time, have tried to see the overlap and pull in these different concepts from other fields. And so I think, for me, it was nice to be able to get those all down in one place. Not all of them necessarily, but we were able to pull in some stuff from ACT, which is Acceptance and Commitment Therapy for those who don't know, Behavioral Activation, which is a kind of a therapeutic approach for people specifically are experiencing depression most often but we think it has a lot of relevance with people who are grieving at a certain point in their grief, Positive Psychology. And so I liked being able to pull in all these different influences, you know. Give credit to where these things originated from, and maybe hopefully help point the readers in other directions to concepts that are going to be helpful for them. That might not appeal to everybody, but we talk a lot about how there are different types of grievers and some grievers are really the type of griever who like to learn about their grief and learn about concepts related to their grief, and theories, and things like that. And think about how their grief fits analyze. They're a little more hands-on grievers, which I really think the book will appeal to. And so for them, this might especially appeal to them because it is really bringing in a lot of different types of thoughts and approaches.

Yeah. I completely agree. I think that this is, you know, one of the things I'm really excited about (about) this book and love about it is that, I do feel like a lot of books in the grief space have sort of been written a little bit for those more intuitive instrumental, I mean intuitive emotional grievers and really tap into that side which, I think, that this book has plenty of space to do. We spend a lot of time with emotions, but I think, it really does have an appeal for people who are who like that kind of active cognitive part of coping with grief. So, I'm excited about that because I do think that has been a gap in the library of grief books that exist. And I think that this, hopefully, starts to fill that gap a little bit.

Is there anything else that you feel you want to say? I guess, okay, here's my last question. Is, like, what are your hopes? What are your hopes for (for) the book going forward?

That's a good question. That helps for the book. So, I think probably, my biggest hope for the book is that it reaches an audience who we wouldn't be able to reach otherwise. I think, like, it's exciting to think that the book, that somebody might just stumble on it in a bookstore, or that somebody who really doesn't resonate with the idea of getting grief support on a website or online, you know. That this gives them a way to connect with this some of the things that we really have found so helpful for so many people over so many years. That (that) they might not have otherwise been able to connect with. And I think that that's really exciting. I hope that the book is able to do that. And, yeah. I think that's probably the the biggest thing for me. Like, I (I) know that it won't be a book that's for everyone, but I hope that it finds the people who it's really a great fit for, because, I think, it will be a really great fit for a lot of people. Yeah. How about you? What it hopes (hopes) for the book?

Well, I certainly echo what you say. And, I don't know, it seems so simplistic just to say, like, I hope it does serve its purpose. I hope that it is helpful to people. I hope that it is the type of book that if it's given to you or you open it at the wrong time in your grief, that you feel like putting on a shelf, versus throwing in the trash, or gifting to the local library, or wherever. So is my hope, that I hope people don't throw the book away.

Yeah. I was just gonna say it, does distill down to that. I hope people don't throw the book away

Which, yeah. That is yeah, my fundamental fear. That people will throw it away.

Well, I hope that too. I hope people don't throw it away. I think, you know, I guess last thing for hope for this present moment, if you're (if you've cared) enough to listen this far into the podcast about the book, is to go to the link and pre-order. Because pre-order is actually really do make a big, I mean, we're happy if you buy the book at any point. If you buy the book, if you're hearing this after the book is long out, we would love for you to buy the book. Now, but pre-orders, we have learned through this publishing process, we had no idea that pre-orders are such a big deal. Pre-orders, essentially, give both booksellers and then the people whose job it is to, like, create a buzz around books, how pre-sales are doing and pre-orders are doing really informs what they decide to give time and attention to. So, this is the time in terms of our (our) goal of hoping that the book has good reach to people who might be outside of the usual What's Your Grief Community. Pre-ordering the book is the best time to be able to kind of impact that. So we'll have all the links down below about how you can pre-order the book.