Everything Is Spiritual (Including Grief!) With Rob Bell

What if death is not a thing we’re all waiting for, but instead is an integral part of every second of every day? This week, Rob Bell and I are discussing grief through the lens of his new book Everything Is Spiritual. We’re talking about how two total opposites can be true at the same time, why some losses feel like graduations and others feel like divorces, and how to reframe the phrase, “Now what?” from a question of despair to a call for curiosity.

Transcript

Grief Growers,

I'm really delighted to introduce for some of you,

Reintroduce you to Rob Bell and his work.

We're here talking today about his new book,

Everything is Spiritual,

But on a larger scale,

We are talking about all that is grief.

So Rob,

Welcome to the show.

And I think I want to start off,

Usually I ask people to share their grief story,

Which is like a who,

What,

When,

Where sort of situation,

But I get the sense from your book,

Everything is Spiritual,

That grief is more like a force or an energy.

So I wonder if you can answer a different kind of question.

Who is grief to you?

Yeah,

Well,

First off,

Thanks for having me.

And to all your people,

What an honor.

I swear in the first question,

You've helped me understand my life better.

And that was your question.

When this happens,

I wonder at some level,

If you think about the definition of death as letting go,

As opposed to this horrible,

Horrible thing that's coming that everybody has to face that isn't.

And if you reframe it as a letting go of whatever this is,

And then you think about the seasons in the fall,

Leave trees literally let go of their leaves.

So everything can die in winter,

So that then there can be a spring,

Like death,

And rebirth are built into creation.

So letting go is one of the engines of creation.

So grief,

Which is the felt sensory experience of letting go,

Becomes heartbreaking and tragic and filled with tears.

And also central to our experience here.

Because right,

The new book is a whole series of having to let go of things.

It's just a whole series of falling down a flight of stairs,

Awkward,

Embarrassing,

This wasn't supposed to go this way.

And what I want to do,

Because the book is a feeling as much as anything,

Tobbly,

Dodgy,

Upheaval and experience.

What I wanted people to feel in the book is also this like pulsing goodness and energetic invitation just below the surface to be on the lookout for the new thing that wants to come about.

You know what I mean?

It's like right there all the time,

Even in the midst of the tears,

The new.

Yeah.

Yes,

Well,

And I was,

I had an experience last week and I was like,

Oh,

This is going to come up in conversation with Rob Bell.

I just had the experience and I was like,

I know that I have to share this strand coming back.

And I know that he needs to hear it because I,

I was sitting in a line of cars at a rapid COVID testing line.

This was my very first time being tested for COVID after potentially being exposed in a grocery store and petrified because this virus has taken the lives of over 200,

000 people.

I might soon be one of them as a result.

It's so surreal to be living in a world where a school parking lot has been converted into a medical testing zone,

Masks,

Shields,

The whole shebang.

I was so anxious.

I had one of these adhesive dashboard mounts and my car was literally picking it away as I was in this line.

And I looked through my windshield and like in a split second,

I saw this kid fly up on a skateboard and then land.

And I realized that this COVID testing site was directly across the street from a local state park.

And I,

And I had this recognition of,

Ah,

Even as this is happening,

This is also happening.

And they're not,

They're happening in the same time and space they're happening at the same latitude and longitude.

Like they're,

They're occurring simultaneously.

And I think this is one of the great illusions of grief is that,

Um,

And you talk about this in Everything is Spiritual is that despair is all there is.

And there's this great illusion that ending is all there is.

And something that,

That you speak about and that helps me understand my grief more is thinking that despair is all there is,

Is part of recognizing that despair is not all there is.

So it's like you have to tell yourself that story first before you can observe yourself.

Yes.

Before you can observe yourself telling that story and realize that's just a story that I'm telling or I,

Oh,

What a wonderful story.

I'm,

I'm thrilled that you thought of me COVID testing next door to a skate park and two things,

Prevention and play next to prevention,

Threat assessment,

Pandemic,

And they both sit side by side.

And so in living,

Breathing flesh and blood,

You make space for those two things to be happening at the same time.

So all expanded consciousness,

Enlightenment,

Awakening,

Whatever language people want to use in different traditions and name it different ways,

Involves some expansion in which things that were previously contradictory can now sit side by side and you have no need to reconcile them or pick one over the other.

Both are true.

Yeah.

Or even as you speak of to prove one more right than the other.

Yes.

And actually central to it is the right to reserve judgment if needed or not judgment and just let them be what they are.

Or if somebody went through,

Let's say some sort of horrific abuse and they have great joy in their life,

You can say that was horrific abuse and I have great joy and it all sits within the center of who I am.

Well,

And I think about,

Um,

Marked a few pages in here.

The first,

The first story that you tell in everything is spiritual,

By the way,

The opening line of my grandmother kept cash in her bra.

I was like immediately cackling.

I was like,

This is the best opening line to any book I've ever read.

Oh,

I'm so happy you said that.

But it's like,

I was like,

This is where we're going.

Yes.

Yes.

Yes.

Um,

The,

The story that you open with is this very deep awareness of there's been a lot of grief in my family and everyone's talking about it up to about an inch,

But there's like a miles more worth of information that nobody's speaking of.

And so you,

You address the unspoken grief with laughter and there's like this levity that exists at the same time as,

Wow,

That huge giant thing that nobody's talking about.

And so it's almost as if grief is informing the,

The desire or the drive to create joy.

Absolutely.

Absolutely.

So yeah,

It's the presence and absence.

I,

Um,

And for me,

Learning that it's okay to be sad,

To slow down and feel it has been the great invitation of my life.

Cause I,

I come honestly by a lineage that whatever you do,

Keep moving,

Just keep moving,

Keep working,

Keep accomplishing.

Cause if you slow down,

Well,

There's a whole world just below the surface.

And if you feel that,

Who knows where that,

If you pull on that string,

We don't know what will come undone that could go any,

We don't know.

And learning that it's okay.

So yeah,

That was like the great,

It's been one of the great lessons of my life.

I can remember literally 10 years ago,

Discovering the,

The insane things that my wife,

Kristen,

Like,

I don't feel like changing the world today.

And her saying,

Welcome to how most of us feel most of the time.

I have this too.

This nuclear engine of,

Of doing,

Creating ambition and um,

Just learning that you can feel it all and it's okay.

And actually there's vast creative energy in that sadness and grief.

That's all part of it.

It's all part of the bandwidth of being human.

It's okay.

You can just be with it.

Well,

And I laugh at this.

I don't feel like saving the world today because I feel as if especially in Westernized society,

We have this missive or this calling of to be human alone is not enough.

So we are called to some kind of ascension of you must be more than human all the time.

And so an admission of the slowing down and stopping or observation,

I wrote,

Uh,

Staying still equals obliteration.

So to,

To pause,

Observe,

Reflect,

Allow emotions in instead of maintaining motion is to suddenly become human in a world that wants you to be more than human.

And I'm laughing,

But Oh my God,

The pain of that.

Oh,

Well said.

And not to be spoiler alert on the book,

But in my late twenties,

Kristen and I started a church and honestly,

Shelby,

Like at 30 years of age,

I'm pastor of like a 10,

000 person church.

And on Sundays I have to give the sermon three times to over 3000 people each time.

And I say those numbers realizing I sound how that sounds,

But I say that on purpose just to say,

I,

All that energy and,

And I'm legitimate joy and inspiration built this thing.

But then I,

How do I be sad?

Sunday's coming and I have a job to do inspire people,

Fill them with hope,

Give them a vision for the future.

Let's start a microfinance bank in sub Saharan Africa.

Let's make sure every third grader in the public schools is learning.

Read,

You know what I mean?

Like,

Like fire everybody up,

Do your thing,

Rob Bell.

God,

Well,

I'm actually grieving some things.

Wait,

What?

That doesn't,

That doesn't keep the crowd.

That doesn't draw the crowd.

So I,

So I mean,

I remember driving in on an Easter Sunday morning and that's like,

And in church world,

That's big.

This feels like another lifetime I'm talking about.

And I remember thinking,

I don't know if I like seriously,

Like a guy rising from the dead,

Like an open tomb.

That's all kind of kind of really,

That's kind of ridiculous.

I mean,

Just like eat doubt.

I'm questioning all of it.

But it's like,

You're driving in to give three Easter sermons.

You know what I mean?

Yes.

Can you make how do you make room for that Rob Bell?

Because you seem to create a large empire here.

That's not about that.

Oh,

Yeah,

This is all stuff that took me to some places I never would have expected.

Well,

And I think you're speaking to this pressure to,

To always know what we're doing and why.

Oh,

Oh my goodness.

Yeah.

Oh my goodness.

I do these sessions with people now and the past whatever,

Eight months of COVID the number of people who just need a moment,

Like I'm working on this book,

But I just feel like I'm stuck.

Yeah.

Totally normal.

There's a global pandemic.

I just haven't had the same mojo lately.

Yeah.

Tens of millions of people filed for unemployment over the past month.

It would be normal that your aunt and I would be picking up that grief.

Might not be you might be what your antennas picking up might be the collective that might be,

But just this is all part of it.

It's okay.

Of course.

And then the line,

Of course,

It's become my favorite line.

Of course,

You're feeling that way.

Right?

Actually,

If you weren't feeling that way,

Something probably be wrong with you.

You know what I mean?

Yes.

Well,

Of course.

What's so funny is I heard this chunk of your book and like my jaw hit the floor because the next book that I'm working on is all about phrases that change the way you grieve and one of them is of course.

And I'm like,

Oh my god,

Like somebody else is on this wavelength also.

To which I say about your book idea,

Of course.

Yes.

Of course you'd write about that.

And of course it's worth writing about too.

And,

And,

You know,

To share a smidgen of that because it's very much an incomplete idea.

But within the context of you and I is like,

Of course is the great validator.

Of course is the thing that sits across from you and says,

I get how you got there.

I may not also be there,

But I get how you got there.

Yeah.

Yeah.

I mean,

You think about our world,

How many people were raised with an understanding of the world as scarcity and lack.

There's only,

There's not enough that what there is,

You have to fight for.

So there's a pie only has so many slices.

I think about in college,

It'll be graded on a curve.

So only a few people are going to get good grades.

Like that's all conditioning people for scarcity and competition.

And there's not enough then no one they're advertising billions of dollars were spent today to keep you and I glued to the inner web,

You know what I mean?

To keep us at the heart of that is the subtle oral verse insisted that there is something that you are lacking and if you had it,

Your life would be better.

And no wonder people are operating from a place of lack and scarcity.

This like system,

It's hardwired into the,

This system.

So of course we would have,

Of course we would have breathed these fumes.

Yes.

Yeah.

And if people can see that,

I don't know why I always,

I do.

It's around you all the time.

You were taught it.

The system actually rewards you for it.

No wonder you have that thing in you.

It's okay.

It's just now you're tasting something else.

So you got to follow it.

Well,

Right.

And,

And one of my favorite pieces of your book,

Because I don't perceive you as an angry person,

At least publicly,

Is this whole section that you wrote about anger.

The first time you visited this therapist of like me angry.

No way.

That was not me.

I was known for joy,

But he was resolute.

No,

You're angry.

And it was so shocking to hear that and true.

I knew it in my bones.

I was angry,

Really angry.

And you speak of,

You know,

We're sold things on billboards and the whole system is built around scarcity and there's this pressure to prove that we're good at grief.

And so of course we would not allow in something as big as anger or as threatening or as unpredictable or whatever word you'd like to use for anger.

But in your own exploration,

Admission,

Allowance,

Permission of anger,

What happened then?

That was life changing.

I remember waking up the day after that meeting with that therapist and realizing I was less angry or realizing what the anger was that I had developed.

Because all of us,

You know,

You're a kid,

You're finding your way in the world.

And there's some situation,

Some person,

Some authority structure that doesn't let you be you.

Which those are always have those wounds have a certain sacred tinge to them.

Something about your core essence was prohibited.

And I developed some I'll show you anger,

Which is incredible energy,

Like,

Oh,

Really,

These are the rules.

Oh,

Really,

I can't do that.

Oh,

Just watch.

I'll leave here.

And I'm gonna go.

I'm gonna build a whole world where I make the rules.

Like,

Fu anger is extraordinary what you can build with that.

If you're trying to prove to somebody,

Or if you're trying to even the score with somebody who has like nuclear power.

But I when I became aware of like that almost was like a layer in the cake,

Or like a thin bandwidth in there.

Because we're all this mix all this stuff set side by side.

But when I saw Oh,

This is,

Is this why you push yourself?

Is this why you have a hard time saying no is this is why is this why it kills you to let people down?

Is this why your worst fear is that somebody would think you're lazy?

Because you're doing so you're building something here because you need something.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Oh,

Yeah.

All that was like,

Oh,

Yeah.

And then obviously,

With that comes the awareness.

How's that working for you?

Well,

I'm exhausted.

Okay,

So maybe we should try some other stories.

How about what an extraordinary thing that I get to do this work.

I probably should take care of myself really well.

So I could do this work for a long time.

Oh,

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Yeah,

This is the beauty of it is you can well obviously,

Like what you're doing with your voice,

You can go into all these places,

You can shine a light in there.

You don't have to live like the whole thing is a giant ambiguous hairball of mystery,

Or reasons why we do something.

There's reasons why certain people get under our skin.

There's reasons why certain habits we seem to fall back into and can actually get clarity.

It's quite astounding really to be a human being.

Well,

Yes,

And I love I think something I've always admired about your work,

But something you're pursuing relentlessly and everything is spiritual is like more questions.

It's like I have I have another question and another thing and another thing and there's kind of this okay,

But what if this and then that and it's so funny because it came through and in this story you tell about working on a sermon and the person you're working decides like,

Oh,

We're done with this.

You're like,

Wait,

Wait,

Wait,

No,

We just skimmed the surface.

We're just getting started.

And this is something I kind of came to a crux to and thinking about its relation to grief because you speak of despair and curiosity.

So becoming curious about our experiences is an antidote to despair.

So despair tells the story of this is all there is and this is all that will ever be.

Curiosity tells the story of what is still here.

What is here beyond this?

What is coming next that I can't even anticipate yet.

But then there's kind of this story too in we're just getting started of oh crap.

There's more so I wonder how you reckon with this energy of we're just getting started.

There is always more to discover and the very human need to sleep,

Exhaustion,

Tiredness,

Because there is always more.

And so we often throw ourselves into these places where we're learning more and doing more and chasing more because the thing is constantly expanding.

Our grief is always asking us more questions.

And where is there room for rest in there?

Oh,

Absolutely.

Yeah.

Well,

Yeah,

Definitely chasing has a certain energetic imprint.

We're not chasing.

We're not rushing.

Someone the other day said,

Thanks for thanks for always pushing it.

No,

I'm not pushing it.

I'm in a black rubber inner tube,

And I'm floating down a river.

Yes.

You see how that sits differently in the body?

That image?

Oh,

Yes.

It's not Tom and Jerry coming around the corner.

No,

You know,

So many people,

Their images and metaphors,

Right?

Right,

Right,

Right.

Exactly.

What you just did with your hands.

I'm narrating for your listeners.

She like did this thing with her hands where she just sort of relaxed.

So oftentimes,

You'll notice the images,

The metaphors,

How the person is naming it.

All of their questions and frustrations about how it isn't how they wish it was are all in how they name it.

Oftentimes in the question,

I can feel the energetic,

The energy of the framing in how they talk about the thing.

Something the other day said,

Well,

You know,

Then I'll have to write the book and we know how that goes.

Well,

I just know your next question is going to be your problems writing your book.

Because you've already framed it as a giant mountain you have to climb with a piano on your back.

You know what I mean?

So going back to there's always more,

There's always more.

Yeah,

You're floating in a tube down a river.

Yeah,

There's always going to be more scenery coming ahead.

But you're floating down a river.

So I sleep lots of hours every night.

I'm not busy.

Calendar is not full.

Because that's no way to live.

I already tried that once in a previous life.

Yes,

And that's something that comes up in your book too.

And I love this imagery of floating in an inner tube,

Because especially with relation to grief,

And again,

The way our society spins it is,

You must get out of this thing,

You must climb out of this hole,

You must get over the mountain,

You must triumph over the story,

Which involves us doing a lot of work to accomplish a thing.

But but an alternative question and one that you seem to be posing in this book is like,

Well,

What if you just let the experience of grief carry you because it already absolutely,

Absolutely,

Absolutely.

So a story works until it doesn't.

So sometimes a story is necessary.

Somebody's in a particular situation,

They're like,

I just have to start digging.

Okay,

Fair enough.

I can see that situation.

You have massive financial debt,

I'm gonna have to really hustle my way out of this.

Okay,

Fine.

How's that work?

Is that that helping you?

Great.

But what often happens is what the person's witnessing to is that story worked for a while until it stopped working.

And now the story's like collapsing in itself.

So yeah,

Sometimes those pushing,

Striving,

I really wanted that thing.

I went all out,

I threw myself into it.

Yeah,

There's a time and a place when perhaps that is the best way to talk about it.

But if we're going to do this for a long time,

In a sustainable way,

And five years from now,

10 years from now,

You're going to have your ninth book,

You're even more happy to be writing.

That will probably not be because you were pushing and striving for nine years,

It will probably be I was following it where it took me.

And I was enjoying every step of the way.

Sure,

There's moments here and there when I was like,

Wow,

That didn't see that coming.

But there's a steady,

Calm,

Even these two sacred,

Feminine,

Sacred masculine,

You listen,

And then you act out of that.

And then you go back to listening.

And then when you get a little direction you act.

But if you act without listening,

You're going to build a bunch of stuff that isn't worth building.

If you listen without acting,

All these sacred energies are going to get stopped up.

So even the fact that each one of us come biologically from these two different contributions,

Which have very different energies,

Should tell us something.

We listen,

We rest,

We're aware,

We pay attention.

Oh,

I had to try that.

We act,

We build,

We create,

We type,

We risk.

All right,

Now what's next?

Well,

Let's go back to listening.

So it's like this endless loop.

Well,

It's permission to fail.

Absolutely.

Permission to be a beginner.

Absolutely.

Which we feel so little love and grief.

It's like you're grieving,

Now you have to be an expert immediately.

At least that was a pressure that I felt in my story was this,

You're grieving,

There's so many resources available to you,

You should know what you're doing.

Oh my goodness.

That's,

Yeah,

Especially with grief.

Holy crap pressure.

Especially with grief,

Which is just notice this experience you're having.

Oh wow,

Today I have not very much energy.

Okay.

Notice it without judgment.

I swear,

If every human being understood that the first thing is to notice it without judgment,

It is what it is.

I would change so many things,

But the editor on the shoulder,

Which is already judging and analyze the experience has already removed the person from the full presence of the experience.

You're grieving.

You lost something.

You had to let go of somebody.

Yeah.

So what's that?

What's it feel like?

What's it taste like?

Other words?

No words?

You want to move around?

Do you want to sit still?

Yeah.

Yeah.

Yeah.

It shifts this narrative from,

Well,

Grief as an experience versus grief as an accomplishment.

Oh my goodness.

Which has a different language to it.

Oh my goodness.

Oh my goodness.

I was just this afternoon,

Talked to a beloved friend of mine.

We surfed together last Wednesday and then he went to see his father who was in,

Had some health issues.

And by Saturday night,

His dad took his last breaths.

And my friend is sitting beside the bed as he says goodbye to his father and they reconciled and draw it up all the past history and had like one of those death bed,

Extraordinary blessing each other and making peace with each other.

And he just called me.

He's driving home,

Not knowing when I saw him last Wednesday that he would not be home till now.

And we were just,

I mean,

Will he go home and fall asleep for three days?

Will he scrub the kitchen floor?

Do you know what I mean?

Will he just walk his dog around the block by the hour?

Who knows?

Who knows?

That one's going to take a while,

What he just went through.

And like any of us thinking about my friend,

The last thing you do is tell him,

Well,

I bet by Thursday you'll be back on your,

No,

That's going to be what it's going to be.

That is,

That will unfold as it wants to.

Well,

I think something that I'm still wrapping my head around in your work is,

Is the last,

Not even chapter,

The last set of pages because grief growers understand this book is not written in any linear form or fashion.

I have to tell you,

Okay,

So we're going to take a segue and then I'm going to get to the thing at the end of the book.

So truthfully,

I appreciate the sound of your voice so much more.

And so I started with the audio book and I literally just picked up a physical copy of the book today so I could make notes in it before our call and the way that this is written,

Like segmented poetry prose style,

Where there are lines left to themselves,

There are returns or enters,

Whatever you want to call them,

Where words are separated on purpose,

Like the whole and bolded sections and italicized section.

I was like,

Okay,

This reads a lot more like world's biggest poem than it does anything that has chapters,

Segments.

You tell the story of somebody who was speaking this very famous religious person who was like outline for segment A.

And this is not that kind of book.

There is no start,

There's no end other than the covers that bind the pages.

So there's this part at the end that you speak about where death exists in everything.

And I think grief growers who are listening to this,

Who at the beginning heard death is letting go,

There's this implication of,

Oh,

It's just that easy,

Huh?

When in fact,

Oh,

Good Lord,

Nothing easy about letting go.

Right,

Well,

The act or the practice of release or surrender or allowing to die or admission of death,

You have this part in the book about literally how we are created.

There is massive amounts of death in the creation of a human being.

You talk about like sex,

Eggs,

Sperm,

Like we're getting real technical here.

And in order for us to exist,

So many other things must also die.

And so to enter into the world with death already woven into our experience,

It's not a thing that happens at the end.

Death is not the thing that happens at the,

It's not a bookend.

It's coming with everything.

And gosh,

If I could teach everybody in the world one thing,

It would so be that.

Because we have this expectation that we're waiting for death to arrive.

When in fact,

It is already here.

And that's not a threat.

It's not bad.

It's not,

It doesn't mean something is amiss.

It's integral to this being this.

So whatever you love about this experience that you're having,

Death is woven into that.

It's an engine of creation.

Which doesn't mean that losing somebody you love doesn't rip your heart out.

We can have that sit side by side,

Skateboards,

COVID tests.

It can all sit side by side.

Yeah,

I wonder,

Um,

And you let me know whether or not you even want to answer this question.

But how does remembering people that you love show up in your day to day life?

Oh,

Well,

The grandma who kept cash in her bra.

Yeah.

I I don't know if a day goes by that I don't think about her and have a sense of her with me.

So the lines all got blurred for me on who's been here before.

Who's here now?

Like my kids.

Oh,

My God,

Like our kids.

They're like my teachers.

They each have like a particular subject they apparently they're teaching me.

They're not aware of.

But what happened?

Professor Violet,

Professor,

Professor Preston,

What happens?

Because there's roles and then there's souls.

So there's roles,

Biological role,

I'm father,

I pay the bills,

Whatever.

There's kid,

The lightless,

Right role.

But then there's soul,

Which is timeless essence.

That is the Shelby beyond all Shelby's behind all Shelby's.

And so as you come to see that there are these roles that you have,

But then they are just souls who happen to be floating down the river at the same time.

Then you begin to move to an eternal now where all of this is happening,

Because the only thing that's ever gone on forever is now.

And now we even have all sorts of like theoretical physicists just saying time past,

Present,

Future is actually an illusion.

It's like the earth being flat.

It's actually round.

So I actually think in the next what,

10 years,

People are going to realize that the way that they think about time is the equivalent of thinking about the earth as flat,

Because we now know that a watch,

If you wear a watch and go on top of the mountain and I wear a watch at the same time and stay down in the valley,

Your watch is going to run faster because you're higher up farther away from the center of gravity.

So what happens is you begin to live in an eternal now in which all of this is present,

Because for you,

Shelby,

All of your past can only ever be here present now.

There's no other place that can be for you.

So what begins to happen is those who have come before,

As opposed to being something way back there,

All of that is present with us.

It's here because there's only here.

And yeah,

So my grandma,

There's a,

In the book I tell about Matthew when I was like 22,

That 16 year old whose parents were getting divorced and he came and lived with me and I like made him breakfast and made sure his homework was done.

I have a deep sense of communion with him.

Just the other day I came across his picture as I was sorting through some stuff and I was like,

Oh man,

Man.

Oh man.

If he was here and we were talking about where it all went.

Oh yeah.

Like I could,

Yeah.

All of it,

All of this close,

Close,

Close Rainer Rilke,

The poet,

The poet.

I just put a line of his on the lips of a character in a play I'm writing.

And I was like,

Oh yeah,

Rilke with me,

With me now here writing this play.

Well,

And I like that I wrote down,

Well then what do we say to the people who are feeling the pain of separation?

And right underneath it,

I wrote,

We invite them to bring everything to the present.

Yeah.

What a gift it was to love somebody like that and look at the ways that they shaped you and look at the ways that they formed you and look at what they meant to you and look how that's with you.

If you aren't same person,

You are who you are.

So of course they're with you.

How would they not be?

There's a presence and absence.

In noticing the pain of separation,

There's also a noticing of being permanently tied.

Yes.

So that's the trick.

The trick is every degree to which you focus on the separation,

The underside of that is the connection.

Yeah.

And I think that leads perfectly into one of my other favorite parts of your book where you talk about what it means to end.

And you made a really interesting,

I've never heard anybody do this before.

You made a really interesting distinction between a graduation and a divorce.

And there's a different energy to both of those.

One feels like willing involuntary ascension.

The other one feels a lot like involuntary disruption,

Separation,

Earthquakey-ness.

Something under that is unwanted.

And so to distinguish between these types of losses,

It's like,

How do we know when it's time to leave?

How do we know when we've overstayed our welcome?

And this is more for the losses that we create.

Breakups,

Major moves,

Career changes,

Things of that nature.

But it can also,

I think,

Exist within the realm of losing someone to death.

So you can treat the death of a loved one as something that graduates you into a next life,

Or you can treat it like a divorce,

Or you can treat it like both,

Because it kind of is both.

It's a separation you never wanted to happen that's simultaneously propelling you into what's next.

And probably your initial experience is divorce,

And later it grows into a graduation.

Yes,

And neither is bad or good.

Right,

Right,

Right.

Dichotomy doesn't exist.

Withholding judgment on this because it's what is,

So let's just let it be what it is.

Yeah,

I mean,

The number of people cannot begin to count over the years,

Who when asked about significant moments in their life that shaped them,

Talk about the loss of someone they loved.

And they talk about how,

I mean,

The people I know who are like,

And she was in a car accident and died,

And then I realized,

What am I doing with my life?

And I went to med school.

Like,

I mean,

I could think of the number of people who are like,

And then they were gone.

And so there was no tomorrow that I had been,

Everything was blown to pieces.

So I had to come up with a new plan.

That's why I'm here today doing this,

Because of that.

And this has been amazing.

So in some counterintuitive way,

Without that loss,

I wouldn't be here.

So I don't even have to call all this.

Yeah,

Yeah.

Very,

Very strange how all this works.

Well,

And something I love that I've been reading recently,

And Hope Edelman's book called The After Grief,

She talks about the difference between acceptance and what is acceptable.

So there's acceptance for what is the truth of what happened,

The facts,

The how,

But then there's the reality that the circumstances of it are the fact,

The pain of it is forever unacceptable.

Like there's something should have never lost my mom at 21.

Yeah,

You know,

It's unfair that people die period.

There's something kind of unjust about the whole thing anyway.

And so there's acceptance,

The truth of what happened,

But will always remain unacceptable.

And balancing those two,

Like you,

There's this illusion that you get to a place of acceptance where everything is fine,

And you're grateful for how it happened and all that happened and where you are in your life now.

And it's like,

Just like 1% of joy always exists,

1% of grief always exists,

And the percentages are always flowing and dynamically changing.

Right,

Right,

Right.

Reconciliation doesn't mean that it was suddenly a good thing.

It just means that you see it has become properly integrated in the larger playing field of your life.

It's almost like it's been swallowed up by some new creation that doesn't say that it wasn't a heartbreaking loss.

It just says it was also some other things.

Yes.

And more than this.

Yes,

Right,

Right.

So there's this interesting distinction between resignation and reconciliation.

Resignation has a slight energetic tone of passivity to it.

I'm resigned to this,

Which is I don't like it,

But I'm,

Yeah,

Sure,

Fine.

I'll go but energetically,

It's still gripping a little.

It's still digging its heels in just a touch.

Oh,

All right.

I'm yes,

I'm resigned as opposed to reconciliation.

I'm reconciled to it,

Which could be the exact same event.

I wish it never would have happened.

And yet,

My heart is open to whatever comes now.

Yeah,

Well,

And I think of I'm going to butcher this a little bit,

But like Latin root words,

To resign in some way to resign,

Is to like,

To remove a signature.

I don't sign off on this.

Oh,

Right.

But then to reconcile is to bring together over and over again.

Right.

And so it's like,

Whoa,

Those are totally different energies.

One is resistance and one is voluntary involvement.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

There are these very subtle energy differences between them that can actually just be a giant difference in the lived experience.

Yes.

And also,

Again,

Something you drive home over and over again,

And everything is spiritual is and it all belongs.

Feeling resigned to your life is part of being alive.

I had to reach despair before I recognized and knew what surrender tasted like.

It was like,

I have to have one experience in order to recognize another,

Especially right now.

We're living in the aftermath of a presidential election in the United States.

And we can totally go down that road.

But the morning of I was coming off,

I do my own workshops,

And we talked about surrender the night before.

And there's this illusion that surrender means you'd no longer give a shit.

When in reality,

Surrender is teaching you or saying,

I have reached the limits of my humanity,

And now something else must take over.

Yeah,

Yeah,

You're more engaged than ever.

You're like more like,

Oh,

Now I really can't wait to see what happens.

Right.

Yes.

And it's almost as if we have to know what the end of our rope looks like to be willing to offer surrender.

Like that's the place where surrender happens.

You don't just surrender off the bat.

Why would you?

Right.

How would you know how?

Right,

Right.

Yeah,

What?

Yeah,

You're not even at the end of the road.

You're just in the middle of the road.

You might get hit,

But you get to the end of the road.

Now we actually need some help.

Oh,

Yeah.

And surrender becomes a very active,

Okay,

I've exhausted all of my capacities.

I now officially opened myself up to the generative,

Wondrous creativity of the universe.

I have applied for every job I can find.

Nothing's happening.

I surrender here.

Someone else take this.

Now you are open to a wild generativity that when it was still firmly within your realm of comprehension.

This is why surrender is where always where new worlds open up.

Just expanded the horizon in a profound way.

Well and for me this,

For me surrender is,

Yeah,

That's above my pay grade.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

That belongs to someone else.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah.

Or some other force because that's above what I am able,

Willing,

Supplied to do.

But I think this also speaks to a great fear that we as humans have is if I surrender,

I'm literally opening up to,

I say these phrases of we live in a world where anything can happen.

You write,

It left me with this chilling,

Sobering feeling that anything could happen to anybody.

And so it's like,

How do I surrender in a world where anything can happen?

And all that that implies?

Yeah,

That's a question.

But that's also an affirmation.

I'm just going to answer it with an affirmation.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Exactly.

Opening your heart to your life is running a great risk.

The only bigger risk is to not open your heart to your unfolding life.

There's risk either way.

Stay on the couch,

Don't do anything,

Batten down the hatches,

Protect yourself from the ache and pains of life.

That's correct.

That will appear to be the less risky option.

But you also a part of you may die there on the couch in your home.

You go out there and try something.

Use your voice,

Make something,

Throw yourself into the game.

Yeah,

You make a little bloody,

Make it hit.

Yeah,

It may break your heart.

Yep,

That's risky.

And for a lot of people,

They see it in terms of well,

That's risky.

Yes,

That is.

So it's not doing anything.

And the greater risk may be so oftentimes,

You can see people struggling because they're suddenly realizing,

Oh,

There's risk in any direction.

The whole thing,

Risk is baked into all of it.

So if you can make peace with that,

Now you can really live.

Yes.

And making peace does not always look peaceful.

No,

No,

No,

No,

No,

No.

Like a perpetual wrestling.

Oh,

My you.

Yeah,

You threw your heart,

You threw yourself into that.

And it didn't go the way you wanted.

Of course,

You're angry.

Of course,

You're heartbroken.

Of course.

Yeah.

Yep,

Yep,

Yep.

Yeah.

Like I say,

You know,

You let go and that all that.

But like,

If anything were to happen to one of my kids,

Like that's an end of the world for me.

And I would get up the next day and have to find my way.

So that's the that's the this the drama of this whole thing is yes.

So we're doing here on this ball of rock,

Hurling through space at 67,

000 miles an hour.

You've got a podcast and a workshop and another book coming.

You don't even like this.

The drama of the ups and downs the throw yourself into it,

See what happens.

Render the outcome,

Open up your heart forgive.

That's,

That's what the book I what's imprinted in the book is one of the other options.

Now this is the thing.

Just jump in,

See where it takes you.

You can come to see all that as the thrill of it.

And you're not repressing or denying avoiding all the very real things that come your way.

Spirit will take care of you,

You'll be okay.

And this goes back to something you've spoken out about on your podcast and and everything is spiritual that I see so often with clients is grief.

Demanding a shift in priorities.

And so you speak of,

You know,

We spend our whole lives climbing ladders.

But how do you know that your ladders propped up against a wall that you want to be climbing and right so many of my clients they come in and like,

Or workshop folks are like,

I'm losing so much momentum.

I feel like I'm stuck.

I feel like I'm going nowhere fast.

I feel like I don't have the energy I used to I'm like,

A of course you don't.

But be where are you trying to go?

Right?

Like where is the place that you that you have to be in such a hurry?

And that kind of question is like,

Okay,

Wow.

Because grief demands a retaking of inventory in some way.

Yeah,

Yeah.

What exactly you're trying to do here?

Get in your tube,

Get in the river,

Float down the river.

Tell me what you see.

Yes.

Yeah.

Tell me what smells good.

Tell me what tastes good.

Yeah,

There you go is resonating with you.

Tell me what words you want to hear.

I think as we're wrapping up,

I want to end with something that came very close to the beginning of your book,

Which is this phrase that arrived to you in a hospital bed,

Which is now what?

And now what?

On now what?

Because we are in a time a year,

We're closing out a pandemic,

An uprising and election,

Among so many other things and so many other losses.

I know grief growers on the show have had including myself.

Yeah.

Now what?

Oh,

My goodness.

Yeah,

I had this brain infection in the hospital.

All my plans for post college had fallen apart.

What was I going to do with my life?

Now what?

So there's like an anger,

There's a desperate plea.

It's actually a form of prayer to name your insides to give expression to everything going on within you.

Now what?

It was like an anger.

It was like a futile sort of impotent cry of all my plans fell apart.

This was the band I was in broke up and it was like that was the one thing that I ever felt like I was able to do and then the,

Well,

I don't have a job.

I don't know what I'm going to do.

And then ever so gradually,

The now what became the question that it always was,

Well,

Now what?

So it's like you have to give proper expression to whatever you're feeling,

Because if you hold it or repress it or deny it,

Then it just goes underground.

Now it'll just go out.

It'll just appear in some other way.

So you have to give expression to it,

Let it all out.

And for many,

The pain,

The first choice is to move is to numb.

And we have a wonderful culture of numbing devices.

But then it's now it's just haunting the house in some other way.

So that which you don't give expression to lurks within the system,

Whether it's a family system,

Whether it's in your body,

The number of people I'm sure you work with who their bodies start talking and telling them the truth.

Your body will start the blackouts back pain,

Unable to sleep cravings.

Let's go down the list of ways in which the body just starts speaking because it's like,

I can't store this any longer.

So what happened to me is I'm 21 I have no idea what I'm gonna do with my life.

I'm in the hospital and this now what starts to become now what starts to become curiosity starts to become an opening.

Like in some traditions is a third eye,

Your forehead above your two eyes like actual scene,

Not just retina,

Cones,

Rods,

Light,

But like actual scene.

Yeah,

That became like,

Now now what?

And then so that's the thing about there's a very ancient pattern at play right here in 2020.

Anytime there's upheaval,

Disruption,

Disequilibrium.

This is how creation works.

Spirit is in the mess.

And this is how new things get made.

So think about an example politically.

Until the political system is in enough pain,

It won't change economically.

Until there's enough pain,

The system will stay exactly as it is.

So for a number of people that are like,

How are we going to ever survive this?

No,

This is how new worlds get created,

Is there's enough disruption.

The knobs get turned up enough.

And our family,

We talk about apocalyptic hope,

Because a lot of people think it feels like an apocalypse.

By that they mean an end.

Apocalypse,

The Greek word means to reveal or disclose.

We're living in an apocalyptic time,

Meaning my son Trace calls it the great unmasking.

The covers have been ripped off things and you're seeing what they really are.

So education,

The healthcare system,

These giant arrangements that were designed to serve us aren't serving us as well as they need to.

So it feels like a meltdown,

But how would you ever get the will,

The collective will to build a new one that actually could work unless there's an apocalypse,

There's a revealing of just how lacking it is.

So yeah,

This this thing right now that everybody's going through,

This is an ancient pattern.

So you keep your eyes open.

And of course,

It's bloody and brutal and difficult and awful.

And what you think about racism in this country,

And our history with slavery,

Until you have an unmasking of just how deep this wound goes,

You can't ever build a new world.

So like all these stories that we're hearing and perspectives that are finally being shared on a large scale.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yeah,

It's some of it's awful to hear.

No,

It can't be that bad.

Ah,

Keep going.

Keep bringing.

Keep telling us.

Because until we all hear it,

And see it,

We can't build a new world.

Yeah.

So it's both terrifying and frustrating and maddening and harrowing.

And incredibly thrilling.

Yes.

Well,

And there's this illusion,

I think sometimes that certain things belong,

And certain other things don't belong.

I was working with a client a few,

Probably a month ago now and her grief was ousting her from a group of friends,

And she was getting ready to join or possibly tilting into join another one.

And the illusion is that in between these two bubbles of the old life and the new life,

You're floating in nothingness.

When in actuality,

There's like this Venn diagram,

You're hovering in a center of some kind on your way to what is next.

Yeah.

And this illusion,

The lie that we tell is that this does not belong.

This is out of order.

This is wrong.

This is broken.

And in reality,

We are in the center of that Venn diagram where a lot of things are true all at the same time,

And we're already on our way to something next.

There you go.

And I've been going immediately back to what you said,

It's a form of prayer to name your insides.

So stay tuned.

We are continuing to name the insides.

Let's see this.

Let's watch this.

Let's see what happens.

Right.

Let's stay out.

Yeah.

Yeah.

Let's watch.

This is very interesting to be us.

Yes.

And that's something I'll share with grief growers too,

Is what a reframe.

Oh,

Isn't that interesting?

Instead of this is bad,

This is good.

Perhaps a mini homework assignment from our conversation today is to observe non-judgmentally.

If you can,

If you can learn,

If you can get that muscle,

You can build that muscle that asks,

Oh,

I wonder,

Oh,

I wonder how this one's going to go.

You've instantly added an element of play and heavy things always need lightness.

Oh,

Oh,

Here comes that relative that has a supernatural ability to get under my skin.

Oh,

Let's see how this one goes.

Oh,

Kristen has this great line.

Oh look,

Points for consistency.

They did it again.

And I do that with grief too.

I'm like,

Oh,

Christmas is coming up.

My mom died the day after Christmas.

I'm like grief is nothing but consistent.

Here comes the misery like a big parade every year.

You spot it.

Oh look.

Yep.

Apparently why is this person able to supernaturally get under my skin?

Why is this holiday have this kind of power?

Now we've just shifted it to curiosity.

What is it?

Teach me.

You've turned your antagonist into your teacher.

That's okay.

Yeah.

Okay.

And reshape everything.

That's beautiful.

So an example,

Oh,

Christmas is coming.

Difficult time.

Oh,

I still have a heart.

I can still feel.

And the other option would be to unplug those particular wires and not feel.

For you,

The holidays will have a,

Your heart will feel it.

Yeah.

It's because you've decided to keep feeling and not shut down.

And that's a beautiful place to end,

I think,

As we're belting into whatever the holidays will be in in 2020,

Whatever grief will be as we round into what's next.

Now what?

Does that even mean anymore?

Sometimes I wake up in the morning,

I feel as if I'm pulling a slot machine.

I'm like,

I don't know.

Oh,

This entire year has been like an altered state.

Yes.

But I'm sure like you,

The number of people I get to work with who all of this is moving them to places they always wanted to be.

The number of people who are like,

Why am I doing,

I was doing that job I don't like because of the stability of the paycheck.

But it's not stable any,

Like all of the trades that people have been making that have now been exposed.

I just I am just constantly like,

Oh,

This is how this works.

Yeah,

This is an ancient pattern.

It's just been all the knobs have been turned up to 11.

Yeah,

Yeah,

Yep.

Even here there is room to breathe.

Even here there's room for play.

Even here there's room for laughter.

I think I have laughed more this year than I have in the past seven years since my mom's death.

If you're not laughing when the President of the United States says I'm winning in those states keep counting the ballots.

I'm losing in those states stop counting.

You're angry.

You're furious.

You're shaking your fist at the TV.

But if you're not like,

Okay,

Somebody somewhere is punking us all because this is so surreal.

We we went all the way here.

The whole thing is a TV show.

What in the world?

Yeah.

Yep.

You have to see it in a different way.

Yes.

And,

And to do so will only give you more freedom.

Absolutely.

Gosh,

Which is something I think we're all so thirsty for right now is to feel less trapped.

Yeah,

By grief by pain by old stories by the feeling or belief that everything is not spiritual.

And in fact,

It all is well said.