Transcript
Annalisa Holcombe (00:07): Hi everyone! Welcome to 92,000 Hours. This is a special episode – on something we all have or will experience - grief.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:18): This podcast was launched as we entered a pandemic and we had three amazing seasons full of incredible guests. We launched our 4th season - with a workshop focus – in 2022. And halfway through it, we just . . . stopped. We basically disappeared. In fact, it’s been over a year since we’ve produced a podcast.

Annalisa Holcombe (00:51): So . . why were we gone and why are we coming back? Well, right in the middle of season 4 – the summer of 2022 - was personally very hard for me, and it didn’t get any easier in the fall. My sister got really sick, and then she died. And while I was deeply grieving my sister, my brother died. It was a lot. I didn’t even have it in me to think about anything like a podcast or developing and recording workshops to help others. I was moving mountains by simply meeting the requirements of my day job and my home life. Anything else was TOO MUCH.

Annalisa Holcombe (01:40): And you know what? That is okay. Because we need to pause and give ourselves time to grieve. Our culture often doesn’t really honor grief. At work, most of us get just 3 paid days off. Three days to plan and engage in all of the ceremonies of death. Honestly, 3 days doesn’t really provide enough time to get everything done that is literally extra physical labor surrounding a death. Certainly, three days doesn’t account for the time needed for the emotional labor surrounding death. Three days doesn’t consider grief.

Annalisa Holcombe (02:22): As we were preparing this episode we encountered the most incredible quote that I really want to emphasize here: It is from John Koenig – and he says: The word sadness originally meant ‘fullness’, from the same Latin root, satis, that also gave us sated and satisfaction. Not so long ago, to be sad meant you were filled to the brim with some intensity of experience. It wasn’t just a malfunction in the joy machine. It was a state of awareness—setting the focus to infinity and taking it all in, joy and grief all at once.”

Annalisa Holcombe (03:10): THAT sums up my experience with grief this last year. And I’m experiencing it all over again – particularly the grief of the world. We’re recording this while being bombarded with images of such tragedy in the middle east and Ukraine – it feels like it’s almost impossible to face.

Annalisa Holcombe (03:33): I read an opinion from David Brooks in the New York Times recently – titled: How to Stay Sane in Brutalizing Times. He says a lot of things – it’s worth a read – but in particular he says that tragedies thrust the harsh realities of individual suffering in our faces, and in them we find our common humanity. 

Annalisa Holcombe (03:59): Tragedy. Common humanity. I’ve told this story in this podcast before – but it bears it repeating now: Kansas State Professor Michael Wesch, a cultural anthropologist – tells this beautiful story of his time living in a community in Papua New Guinea. One day, while on a hike, deep into his time there, he was feeling very sad and missing the people back home that he loved. He became so emotional that his knees buckled, and he cried. He allowed himself to really feel his loneliness and weep. But then he saw a few of the men he knew in the community approaching him, also hiking along the ridge. Michael tried to pull himself together, But as the men grew closer, Michael could see that they, too, were weeping. Quietly, without words, they sat down beside him and continued to cry. Michael was amazed and confused. He asked them what they were doing, and they told him that they could see that he was sad and they, too, knew sadness. So, they came up to sit with him in his sadness.

Annalisa Holcombe (05:18): So, as I have processed grief over this past year, and as I currently feel the weight of societal grief – heavy as a blanket – I’m so grateful for the connections and the community I have. I’m so grateful to those who are willing to sit with me in my sadness. This is our common humanity. This what it means to be human.

Annalisa Holcombe (05:50): And I’ve been so lucky to have my dear friend, my colleague, Lexie Banks right here. In addition to being smart and intuitive, she literally has been studying death lately. And her insights are incredible. She joins us in this podcast to give us tangible processes and activities to help us process our grief. What a gift. Here’s what she has to say:

Lexie Banks (06:20): “I have heard how fearful people are of dropping into the well of grief. The most frequent comment is ‘If I go there, I’ll never return.’ What I found myself saying one day was rather surprising. ‘If you don’t go there, you’ll never return.”

Lexie Banks (06:39): This is a quote from Francis Weller in The Wild Edge of Sorrow which is one of my guiding lights in griefwork. He said there are five pillars of grief – or in other words, five things we can grieve. First, and most talked-about, there is the sorrow of losing someone or something we love. Second, the places in us that have not known love. Third, the sorrows of the world. Fourth, what we expected and did not receive. And finally, ancestral grief – the sorrows our ancestors held but were unable to share or process, a grief that lives deep in our bones.

Lexie Banks (07:23): We’ve created a worksheet, which is available on the Connection Collaborative blog and on Substack, to help you begin working through the grief you are carrying and may not even be aware of. Today, I’m going to explore one of those questions with you: how do you honor your grief and the people and things you’ve lost? Have you created a ritual around your grief? If you did, how did it serve you? If not, what might one look like?

Lexie Banks (07:55): I just spent October and November celebrating Dia de Los Muertos (the Day of the Dead) and Hanal Pixan (or Food for the Souls) in Merida, Mexico. For this holiday, people come together to make altars, or ofrendas, to honor their loved ones who have died. The altars are brimming with marigold flowers, photos, and the favorites foods of the deceased. They place a bowl of water and a towel so their ancestors’ spirits can wash up before their meal, they light candles, and may even put pillows and blankets out so the ancestors can have a rest after their long journey from the underworld. They cook meals underground for days wrapped in banana leaves, a symbol of rebirth.

Lexie Banks (08:40): I loved seeing this traditional ritual in action and see how meaningful it was to the local people. Some took the entire week off work to welcome in their ancestors’ spirits and spend time with their loved ones who are still here. It really cemented for me how much we shy away from the conversation of death in Western cultures; how the myriad of deaths that will happen in our lives – of pets, of relationship, of potential futures, of the state of the world – are often grieved in solitude.

Lexie Banks (09:15): How will you honor your grief? How will you call in your community around you to hold you as you grieve everything you need to let go of? I hope to explore that with you today.

Lexie Banks (09:27): I’ve spent the past year deep-diving into death, loss, and ritual-making. I ran into an excellent tool called Be Ceremonial that recommends using the 1-2-3-4-5 method for creating a ritual that is meaningful to you.

Lexie Banks (09:43): First, choose 1 intention for your ceremony. What do you want to feel during the ceremonial experience? Why is this ceremony important or needed? Second, consider 2 polarities or seemingly opposing emotions you’re holding as you navigate this journey – it may be grief & gratitude or light & dark. As you plan your ritual, do your best to create space for both of these emotions. Third, acknowledge and incorporate 3 time periods (like the past, present and future or separation, transition and return). Fourth, weave in the four elements – Earth, Water, Fire, and Air. For air, you might open your ritual with a minute of deep breathing; you could light incense or use essential oils to fill the air with a smell that reminds you of the person or thing you are releasing. For fire, you might light a candle or a fire; incense works well here too. For water, you might wash your hands face or body, sit by the ocean or a stream, or boil herbs to cleanse your space. For earth, you might plant something, bring dirt into your ritual, or simply stand barefoot outside. This is just a guideline – if you can’t use all four, don’t worry. Your intention is what matters.

Lexie Banks (11:13): Fifth, tap into your five senses. Think through how you are engaging your sense of smell, sight, sound, taste, and touch throughout the ritual. Creating rituals is like flexing a new muscle. The more you use your ritual-building skill, the more you will find rituals naturally coming together in your life. You may even recognize some of your current habits as rituals.

Lexie Banks (11:39): I’d love to give you a few examples now of rituals that have resonated with me. I already talked about altar-building, which is a fantastic way to honor your loved ones – both human and animal – who have died.

Lexie Banks (11:52): Another simple ritual I love, which I got from the Grief Deck which is a collaboration between many artists, writers, and griefworkers, is called the Gathering of Stones. For this ritual, take a quiet walk in nature – at a park, in the forest, or on the beach – and pick up any stones, flowers, feathers, or other items that catch your eye. Stop long enough to examine each and give it a name based on the grief you are carrying right now. This could be a feeling or belief you hold about yourself and your ability to get through this grief; it could be a quality of the people, pets, or things whose loss you are grieving; it could be a memory of the past or hope for the future. Carry these items with you. When you arrive at your destination, organize them into a design to create something new and beautiful from your grief. You could write a note about what you’re letting go of and leaving behind, and what you’re hoping for the future to leave with your creation knowing that someone else may find it and find meaning and strength in your words.

Lexie Banks (13:05): Another ritual that resonated with me is The Bundle Ritual. You’ll need a biodegradable piece of cloth, a shovel or trowel, string, a pitcher of water, and ten items: One to symbolize your journey with the person or thing you are grieving. The second to symbolize the feeling that person or thing brought you. The third to symbolize what they or it meant to you. The fourth to symbolize what their loss meant to you. The fifth to symbolize all your unanswered questions or desires around them. The sixth to symbolize what you have learned or discovered through their presence in your life or the grieving process. The seventh to symbolize courage in the face of suffering. The eighth to symbolize how you have changed. The ninth to symbolize your relationship with uncertainty. The tenth and last to symbolize your ability to recover and be resilient.

Lexie Banks (14:15): You should always begin your ritual with intention. If you have others around you – which I encourage you to do – speak your intention for the ceremony out loud to the group. Then intentionally shift into ceremony through a song, a moment of silence, deep breathing, or the lighting of a candle.

Lexie Banks (14:36): Place each item into your cloth, telling aloud the story of why you chose them and the meaning of each item as you go. When you’re done, fold the fabric. Wrap it tightly enough to be secure and small enough to be buried. Wrap the bundle with string, with each rotation, say goodbye to the thing you are grieving.

Lexie Banks (14:59): Dig a hole large enough for the bundle. Don’t rush to put your bundle in –observe the emptiness, the gap left in your life through the loss you are mourning. When it feels right, drop the bundle in and fill the hole with dirt. Clean your hands with water, removing the detritus of your grief.

Lexie Banks (15:32): Take a few breaths. That was a lot. Working with and through your grief is hard, but it is so, so important. This process is messy. It’s never linear, you will go back and forth from bargaining to acceptance to depression and back again. It doesn’t need to be Instagrammable. There may be tears, there may be avoidance. When my dog went missing for three days and I was sure she was dead, I threw myself into my work and avoided thinking about it for the first two days. On the third day, I couldn’t eat. I couldn’t work. My body was screaming at me to pause. And when I paused, I just sat alone in the corner of my room and cried. And as I pulled myself out from the well of grief, I shook my body; jumped and screamed; I brought out my drum, which I call Tanda - an indigenous name for The Seer of Life and Death - and began chanting while drumming, calling her soul home and allowing myself to let go. I made myself a mug of Cacao, which was admittedly the only thing that I had thought all day “I could stomach that”, to open my heart and open my appetite. She was actually found the next day, but those hours taught me a lot. About the messy process of grief, about using the tools you have available to process it, and the importance of creating a ritual that feels right instead of looks right.

Lexie Banks (17:17): Don’t forget to take care of yourself in this process. You can’t lose yourself in your grief, as easy as it would be to do. Drink water. Eat nutritious meals. If cooking is too much and overwhelming for you – ask a friend or loved one to cook for you, or order out. Move your body. Lean on and connect with other people – don’t isolate yourself, because grief loves isolation, uncertainty, and fear. Meditate. Go for a walk, go for a run, do yoga. Slow. Down. Don’t be afraid to say no and to listen to your body when it is asking – or screaming – for a break. And create something, whether it is a piece of art or a journal or a ritual.

Lexie Banks (18:10): I hope you’ll go to our blog to download the grief worksheet to get your wheels turning and begin processing all those Big Feelings and Big Hurts and Big Losses you are holding on to. And please tell us about your rituals around grief and what comes up for you as you go through this exercise. My email is lexie@connectioncollaborative.com. I’d love to hear from you.

Annalisa Holcombe (18:48): Thank you, Lexie. Please head over to connectioncollaborative.com or find us on Substack. The worksheets on grief are there for you.

Annalisa Holcombe (18:59): And we really did mean we’re back. Our next episode will bring us right back to the second half of Season 4, where we’ll continue our workshops, next time focusing on values and priorities.